The bald hero, KyoryuGrey!
The Deboth Legion is becoming stronger as Dark Species Deboth is becoming stronger, affecting the Zorima foot soldiers and most especially the MOTW, who is kinda responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. With that in mind, the mysterious KyoryuGrey steps up and trains our heroes!
The show is almost close to the 20th episode mark and if traditional Super Sentai show goes, it is around this time that we are introduced to the Sixth Hero. But in this case, we are introduced to the oldest Kyoryuger in the form of Tessai aka KyoryuGrey, a Chinese hero who fought the Deboth Legion 1,500 years ago. His appearance caused me to be bothered on why the other Spirit Rangers in a really slow pace for veteran warriors. After rewatching this episode for at least 2 times, I realized that these guys are just waiting for the perfect opportunity for them to show up. Grey only appeared because he noticed that the current Kyoryugers can't handle this situation on their own.
This then leads us to the central plot of the episode, about our heroes not stronger than the bad guys. Now that Dark Species Deboth's revival is almost here, it is expected that the monsters are now stronger. Obviously, our heroes are weaker than them... except for Utchy. Because Utchy is capable of defending himself and that we have a hard-headed kung-fu monk, the next obvious step is a training sequence!
Grey's method of training is more on the mind strengthening side of things and less on the physical aspect. The fact that they are trapped inside Grey's illusion and their souls are stuck inside of it, it is kinda obvious that he is not aiming to strengthen their bodies, but to strengthen their minds and discover something that they are capable of doing even though they think they are not capable of doing it at first. As seen in Ian, Nossan, Souji and Amy's training scenes, they discovered that they can do anything if they want to do it.
As for King, he easily passed Grey's test and to top it all off, he is experiencing what the four are experiencing at the same time! Compared to the four, the way King passed the test is rather more on the physical side of things and not on the mental side. He just acted brashly and hit the target and that's about it. In short, he didn't learn any lesson from that test. Because of a new Deboth attack, it is time to put Grey's test into execution. Aside from the really great roll call sequence, the fights in this scene are really amazing. What's more is that for an episode that doesn't look like it is directed by Koichi Sakamoto, the sub director felt like he took some notes from him and showcase the individual fighting styles of each Kyoryuger.
More on the said fights, we also saw the big difference between King and the rest of the team. What's great about it is that the fight scenes showed us how much they improved and why King is currently, the weakest member of the team. You can feel King's amazement just seeing his teammates excelling in battle but while watching it, I can't help myself but to feel pity on King's current situation. But that is just the icing on the cake, the fact that King's Gabutyra Fang move or the Kentrospiker attacks didn't work on the MOTW simply means that he is the weakest link of the team even though he passed Grey's test!
What's more interesting is that Utchy just used Kentrospiker as an ordinary giant sword weapon when the finisher didn't connect. Thanks to that attack, one of the MOTW's shields was destroyed and it is time for the giant battle special thanks to the giant Zorima. This is when Bunpachy comes out and showed us its moves. What is interesting about Bunpachy is his weapon, a Chinese meteor hammer. For a robot that is based on a dinosaur who likes to headbutt his opponents just to get the girl, his weapon is not related to the said activity, but for some reason, it works well in this dinosaur robot.
Another thing I noticed about Bunpachy is the use of model version of the robot and the CGI version of it. They know when to use the CGI and when to use the models, and much to my surprise, they prefer using the models for most scenes. The transition between CGI and model figure is pretty well done. After Bunpachy defeated the giant Zorima, we finally have an explanation on why he is grey. I just love how they included some Chinese philosophy about yin and yang and made it sound so simple to understand.
At the end, Bunpachy recognizes the fact that the five Kyoryugers passed his test and now are worthy to use him... except for King. This scene between King and Grey is pretty well made and it showed us that King will stay in that state if he doesn't discover his weakness. This scene also made me realize that King is shonen anime archetype. An idiot hero, who thinks that he is unstoppable, is kinda dumb on what is happening around him and lastly, he easily trusts people. Even though you say that some of it is his good traits, those kinds of heroes often get proper character story arcs that humanizes them. In King's case, he doesn't have a proper story arc about it. Now that Grey has pointed out how "perfect" he is will the next episode be a proper character development arc for him?
