Hikari Sentai Maskman 13 – Idol Trouble

This episode in a nutshell.

Kenta became a fan of an idol named Marina, but he meets a photographer who thinks that there is something suspicious with Marina. As for Tube's plan in this episode, they are creating new Angler soldiers from humans! How is this related to the idol in this episode?

The first thing that I learned in this episode is that the Maskman boys likes little idol girls. This made me realize that lolicons already exist back in the 80's, and it didn't help that Takeru still hasn't get over with the loss of Mio! Oh well, I guess he needs to wind up a bit by watching and listening to idols. As for the idol itself, she doesn't look that attractive, the episode is just exaggerating that she is so darn cute. It didn't help that she has a lot of fans who wants her autograph! One of those guys is Kenta, who finally has her autograph after minutes of trying to get in line just to have her autograph!

This is when Kenta met the female photographer who thinks that there is something suspicious with Marina. For starters, she is quite persistent in cracking the case, and second, she is willing to trespass areas she should not enter, in this case, Marina's dressing room just for her to get the scoop she needs. This is when we learned that Marina is a Tube agent and she is working with the MOTW to turn humans into Angler soldiers! Thanks to the wonder know as flash photography, the photographer was discovered! As it turns out, Marina is actually Fumin in disguise!

Thankfully, Kenta is still around and saves the photographer and fights the MOTW now that his teammates have arrived just in time! After escaping from them, they were able to develop the photos just in time to find some clues about Marina and her connection with Tube. One thing that bothered me in this scene is that this is the only time Kenta noticed that there is something strange with Marina's pen. I mean, when I first saw her pen, the first thing that comes to my mind is that why the heck an idol will carry such creepy looking pen?

But before they can figure out the connection between the pen, Marina and the blood stain on the roof, the photographer is encapsulated in a cocoon and will slowly turn into an Angler soldier. Finally, the Maskmen were able to make a clear connection as Kenta's autograph disappears out of sight. To put it simply, the idol's autograph is the key to create more Angler soldiers! This plan is seriously great, I mean, if they plan on world domination, using the popularity of an idol will make world domination a cake walk as most people will not see anything suspicious with a girl singing in front of the crowd, but then again, if World War II has thought me something about entertainers and world domination is that they pass military codes via entertainment performances.

Now that the plan is clear, it is time for the Maskmen to spring into action. Instead of seeing the Maskmen fight Marina, we see something that I didn't expect, Kenta fighting his teammates to protect his favorite idol. But hey, at least this scene showed us a lot of amazing out of suit fights and wire work! Though the fights are something, I find it a bit rough, it needs more polishing, same goes with the wire work as I can see the pull of the wires in Akira's shirt.

Now that all of the Maskmen are down because of this misunderstanding, Igam finally appears in front of them, confirming that Marina is indeed an agent of Tube. Now that our dear prince is finally on the scene, we then learned that this is just a plan for Marina to show her true colors! I knew there is something strange with it because we saw Kenta's face when he realized that his favorite idol is part of the bad guys. Even if that is the case, the mutation of the humans into Angler soldiers is almost complete.

Before talking about the fights, I can't help but complain with the bad use of stock footage in this scene. I mean, they used the wrong stock footage when it comes to location because for a few seconds, they are standing on the quarry when all of a sudden; they are back in place filled with warehouses! The fights in this series continue to be impressive in its own right. Black Mask's fight with Fumin in this episode is kinda interesting, but not something noteworthy. But this is not the only thing that is impressive in this episode; the mutation scene is also well done for its time. But before the transformation is complete, Red Mask was able to stab the MOTW before the team finished it with the team finisher!

After defeating the MOTW in the giant battle, all of the human victims are back to normal, and Kenta decides to treat the photographer for lunch! Guess the lesson in this episode is that looks can sometimes be deceiving. The ones who look suspicious are sometimes the ones you can trust, while the ones who don't look suspicious are the ones you cannot trust.