Hikari Sentai Maskman 12 – A Ninja's Pride

Ninja Yellow, Haruka! Wait a minute.

Fuumin and Oyobu wants to kill the Shinobi Dogler, a creature once you beat it can give someone the ability to become a Super Shinobi! Because the fight is affecting civilians who are not supposed to be involved, Haruka fights them. Can Haruka stop these underground ninjas?

This is probably, one of my favorite episodes in the series thus far. The opening scene has this feeling of danger; it makes me wonder what she is looking until we saw the Shinobi Dogler. What bothered me the most is that why the heck two underground ninjas are fighting in public? I mean for starters, they are ninjas and to top it off, they are underground ninjas! Why fight in public if they can fight somewhere hidden? As for their fight, it is seriously intense. It's just two ninjas showing off their best ninja tactics to outsmart each other.

But because their fight is affecting innocent lives, the Maskmen entered the scene and Haruka, the only ninja in the team, fights the Shinobi Dogler, Fuumin and surprise, Oyobu! This is around the time we learned what's special with the Shinobi Dogler and why the heck Fuumin is fighting it. The Shinobi Dogler has the Shinobi Ball that grants someone the ability to become a Super Shinobi once you got it on your hands!

Haruka in the first half of the episode is seriously fantastic, though her first fight in this episode is quite brief; it properly highlights her principle as a ninja. To fight her opponents in the shadows, and not to harm any civilians, the reason why her first fight in this episode is quite brief because she was thrown out in the window, injuring her arm. Back in the base, we learn more about her ninja training, which is quite impressive. What surprised me is that she started her ninja training at an early age. What's amazing is that she was able to defeat a group of full grown men in an early age!

Her ninja upbringing also showed us that she has this sense of ninja pride that she doesn't want other people to ruin this pride. And thus, even with an injured arm, she disappeared and showed us her epic ninja skills, and boy, it was epic. For starters, she single-handedly defeated Fuumin without breaking a sweat. Second is that after this scene, we saw Fuumin's arm but for some reason, we saw Fuumin's feet chasing the Shinobi Dogler. This can only mean one thing; it's Haruka in disguise as Fuumin.

What made the scene really cool is that the viewers who haven't figure it out will wonder if Fuumin is still dead or it's just Haruka in disguise. What's more is that after she chained the Shinobi Dogler in a freakin' truck loaded with sand, she drives the truck to the traditional abandoned quarry, ignoring the ones on her way. I just love that she wants to keep her cover not being discovered but based on Takeru's face, I guess he already figured it out.

While Haruka is busy driving the truck, Oyobu arrives to look for the Shinobi Dogler, only to learn that it is gone in the truck after he shoot it. Igam appears and finally, the viewers now know that it's Haruka wearing Fuumin's costume. Her mastery of the art of deception is quite impressive and witness probably, one of the best out of suit fights in this series. Haruka showing off her ninja skills and having the upper hand on a couple of foot soldiers carrying guns is seriously impressive.

After she is done with these foot soldiers, she transforms into Yellow Mask and fights the Shinobi Dogler who is done with Oyobu. We also learned Yellow Mask's special weapon, the Masky Rotor, which is basically a yo-yo. Well this is a fighting weapon for ninja. Speaking of which, with the help of Aura Power, she showed us one of her moves, the Shadow Clone Technique. The first thing I noticed with Yellow Mask's Shadow Clones is that they are not in the same height, and second is that their posing is not identical. Even if that is the case, the Shadow Clones did an impressive job in battle and gave us this illusion that there are an army of Yellow Fours fighting the Shinobi Dogler.

After finishing the Shinobi Dogler with a Shot Bomber, the Shinobi Ball fell out and Fuumin grabbed it before the Maskmen can have it! But nope, out of nowhere, Oyobu, who is supposed to be trapped inside Shinobi Dogler's plan steals the Shinobi Ball! What made this scene really fantastic is that out of nowhere, Anagmas grabs the Shinobi Ball and learned its true purpose, with it, he can become Super Anagmas and have the ability to defeat Great Five in one swoop!

To be honest, I wasn't expecting a giant fight in this episode because of the intensity of the ninja fights in this episode but thanks to Anagmas revealing the Shinobi Ball's true purpose, guess we have no choice but to have a giant fight. Compared to the previous giant fights, which bored me after a few minutes, this episode's giant fight is seriously fun. While this is happening, Anagmas is busy with his ceremony in calling forth the true power of the Shinobi Ball. At the end, the Great Five defeated the Shinobi Dogler. Speaking of the Shinobi Ball, it's actually a bomb! Guess it only means one thing, someone switched the real one to a fake Shinobi Ball!

As expected, Haruka is the one responsible for the switch! Before we can see how can this stone can turn someone into a Super Shinobi, the stone turned into sand because it was exposed to sunlight while Akira is holding it. At the end, we learned one important lesson that Akira and us viewers should remember, there are no shortcuts to become strong. The best way to become strong is by training or working hard for it to become strong. At the end, this episode made me want more Haruka focused episodes because of how awesome she is in this episode that she even has the guts to defy her superior officer! I wanna see more of that!