Hikari Sentai Maskman 28 – The Truth About Ial/Mio

Two guys fighting for a necklace. Weird.

The Maskmen are developing a new weapon to replace the destroyed Shot Bomber but because of a Tube attack, Takeru decided to fight it while his teammates are busy channeling their aura in the new weapon. As it turns out, the one responsible for the attack is Kiros, the man who destroyed the team's finishing weapon. What will happen in this new encounter with Kiros?

The series gets better and better as time went on because finally, Takeru and Kiros are now both aware of Ial's activities as Mio and Princess Ial, officially starting this rivalry for Ial's heart and making things much more complicated. But before talking about that, let's first talk about the development of the new weapon. Considering that it was established in a previous episode that there's an organization backing the Maskmen in their fight against Tube, it's no surprise that we see engineers helping our heroes develop a new weapon.

What's interesting about these engineers is that they are aware about Aura Power and its power. Heck, one engineer keeps on telling the team that the amount of Aura Power is enough to power the new weapon! Another thing that bothered me with the development of the new weapon is how much Aura Power is needed for it to be strong enough to counter Kiros' attack. I mean, they've been releasing a lot of aura for two days so how much is enough to defeat that guy? Sadly, the episode is kinda vague when it comes to describing how much they needed and hopefully, they can explain it in the next episode.

Now back to the interesting part about the Takeru and Kiros rivalry, what's great about it is that unlike Takeru's rivalry with Igam, which is basically a brother pissed that his sister is dating a guy he doesn't like, in Kiros' case, it's a suitor who is pissed that the girl he wants is now with some other guy and wants to get her while she is still well, on a relationship with that guy. To put it simply, Kiros' rivalry with Takeru is just him living up to his title of Thief Knight and I like it. The duel between the two is really fun to watch and it didn't help now that Kiros now has a better motivation in defeating the Maskmen.

As for the rest of the team, they ended up helping Takeru fight the Tube threat while he is busy fighting Kiros. What's great about it is that they care more about everyone's safety than finishing a new weapon. This just shows that they want to save the world now than save it when it is already in ruins. Their fight against the MOTW is really interesting that it made them think of strategies in defeating the guy without the use of the Shot Bomber. The strategy they come up is really amazing, which is basically killing two birds with one stone.

What's next is the giant battle and what's great about it is that it takes place in the city! It's rare for the series to have giant battles that happen in the city. Another thing that I find interesting is that they used Great Five's sword outside of the obligatory finishing move. It's an interesting move and made the fight more entertaining. At the end, Kiros is punished for his failure but he is now more determined to defeat the Maskmen. As for our heroes, they must double their efforts so that they can finish the new weapon in time. We don't know if they are lucky to defeat the MOTW without any finishing weapon.