Aaaand more chickens.
Enter is back and they are not aware how he did it. The only thing they know is that he has a backup located somewhere that is why he is still alive. But the biggest surprise is that he is aware of Hiromu's weakness... you know, that bird we like to eat! Can Hiromu find a way to overcome this weakness? Also, what is J's decision about his old pet stag beetle now that he is a Metaroid?
Even though this episode is like one of the last few episodes of the series before the final episode, they were able to insert some "light" stuff, like how Enter now knows Hiromu's weakness and J's story with his pet stag beetle. Even if that is the case, the episode featured a lot of plot twists and a couple of heavy plot elements in the series. Speaking of which, this episode showed us Enter and Red Buster's fight during the middle part of the series that for some reason, it didn't make sense when Enter brought it up until the episode ended. I will talk about it once we get into that part of the episode.
This is when we learned Enter's new goal after concluding that he won in their "game". He wants to become a perfect human. So from fabulous French dude, to some guy who thinks of everything as some game into... Pinocchio?! I am not sure what is running on the producer and the writer's mind when they decided to turn Enter into Pinocchio but I find this is an interesting character progression considering that he is interested with human data for quite some time now. But I guess his fascination on humans made him want to become one. It also showed us that the deleted Messiah Card data were actually backed up by Enter in some point of the series, which makes sense. I mean, if he can back up his own avatar data, then he can back up those destroyed data.
This scene also showed us that Enter has the ability to mass produce Escape. Just like every freshly made mass produced item, to be more specific, a computer, it has no data about the previous encounters of the original Escape. It is during this time we saw its major difference from the original Escape, she is more obedient and second, she doesn't have this look of bloodlust like the original Escape. The only time you will see her bloodlust is during battle. To put it simply, the new Escape has no personality, much to Enter's annoyance later in the episode. What's funny is that he is the one who programmed the new Escape!
The StagBeetleroid, just like every creature or machine based on stag beetles in fiction, it can shoot electricity in its head. Thankfully, they were able to escape thanks to J who until now, still can't believe that his pet stag beetle is now fighting him. In the base, they are trying to figure out a way on how Hiromu can overcome his weakness. Their attempts are entertaining to watch and are reaction image and meme worthy for internet forums and websites just for the heck of it. To sum up their attempts, it all failed thanks to Hiromu fainting at the end.
While Hiromu is recuperating, the staff and the Go-Busters are thinking how the heck Enter backed himself up. The only clear conclusion is that it has something to do with the 13th Messiah Card that until now, they still can't find it. Considering that they didn't brought up the reports of a Messiah Card sighting in previous episodes, the only clear answer is that Enter still has the 13th Messiah Card and he hid it in his body. But because he is still alive and that only the #4 and #7 cards are flashing in his eyes, it is likely that #13 is somewhere where we can't see, which is likely to be in Hyperspace.
Back to Hiromu, because he can't overcome his weakness, he thought of a plan that might help them in battle once the enemy uses his weakness in their combat. The next day, the StagBeetleroid is calling the Go-Busters to come out and yes, J finally makes his resolve to fight his friend, only to be ordered by Jin to fight the incoming enemy Megazord, which is obviously based on a stag beetle. As for the other Go-Busters, they are ready to face Enter and friends.
Before talking about the battle, much to my surprise, Enter killed Escape in front of them. I guess Enter is seriously annoyed with the new Escape them that for some reason, he ended up killing her only to create a new Escape at the end for battle. Meanwhile, we witness probably, the only aerial battle in the series as far as I can remember. SJ-05 and the Beta Megazord aerial battle is seriously well done even though I am very disappointed that the fight scene featured a CGI SJ-05. I mean, if they can show us a giant robot with horns flying around that is not CGI, why can't they show us model SJ-05 fighting the Megazord?
Meanwhile, we finally learned what Hiromu’s plan is. Since the enemy will just flash images of a chicken, Hiromu's plan has something to do with how they can quickly make Hiromu snap out of his freezing state... by hitting him. If I will base it on a real world example in computers, most of us like to hit our computers once it crashed or freeze for some reason. Thankfully, unlike computers, Hiromu didn't receive this "fatal error" message or a blue screen of death like most computers once you keep on hitting it.
This plan also showed us his confidence with his teammates, something that he didn't have earlier in episodes. This made me realize one thing, Hiromu is becoming more of a team player as time goes by. Speaking of team play, Red Buster in Powered Custom in his Volcanick Attack mode let Beet Buster ride him, creating this really epic move that shut down the enemy Metaroid. Back to J, he is now fighting the enemy Megazord in SJ-05's Animal Mode. To be honest, the scene kinda look like I am watching two beetles fight instead of two machines with missiles and all that hi-tech stuff duking it out.
Because J is having a hard time with this one, Hiromu and Jin decided to help him in this one. Before they can finish the Megazord, Hiromu and Nick talked about how his weakness might have something to do with Hiromu showing weakness on other people by asking their help. So yeah, now that he knows how to trust other people, Nick concluded that his weakness might disappear any time soon. As for the robot fight, I can't help but notice the amount of stock footage used but hey, it's understandable, they might use up the budget for the robot fight in this episode on the aerial battle scene! They defeated the Megazord and now, we are now back to what's happening on the ground.
For some reason, I can't help but notice Ryuji's concern over Escape not being the Escape they fought in the previous episodes. Is it me, or Ryuji is falling in love with Escape? But considering the amount of episodes left, I guess they will not expand this love angle. As expected, they defeated the mass produced Escape and yes, its durability is similar to all mass produced objects in fiction, they are not as durable like the prototype or the original model.
As for Enter, he is basically the new Messiah, what's more, he challenged Hiromu to defeat him right now without fighting back! They were able to defeat Enter... wow that was fast. Now that Enter is gone and that J's stag beetle is actually hibernating outside his body the whole time (!), the Go-Busters plan to celebrate that is until Enter revived himself at the end. And now, for the twist about the whereabouts of the 13th Messiah Card, turns out that it is inside Hiromu's body all along. So now, from Pinocchio, Enter is now Voldemort and Hiromu is now Harry Potter! This is getting weirder but I can deal with it.
I can deal with it because they actually showed us how the heck the 13th Messiah Card ended up inside Hiromu's body. As it turns out that simple push by Enter is actually him installing the 13th Messiah Card inside Hiromu's body! Well played, Yasuko Kobayashi, well played. If I will base this situation on what happened to Harry, I guess Hiromu must die at some point in the series then he gets miraculously revived after it. To be honest, I will be pissed if they will pull this thing at the series finale because it losses the realism that the series tries to show us for the past 40+ episodes. But the bigger question is, will Hiromu sacrifice himself to save everyone?
