Ninja Sentai Kakuranger 29 – Master & Student

This is it, the final confrontation between Jiraiya and his master Gali. Who will win at the end of this battle? The student or his master? Aside from that, the truth on why Gali ended up working for the Yokai will be revealed after this!

For at least 12 minutes of the show, it feels like I am not watching an episode of Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, but an episode of some martial arts movie, which features an epic battle between the master who went rogue and the student who will stop him from wrecking havoc. To add up the drama, the master killed his student's father who happens to be his best friend. Heck, the way I described it feels like I am doing a review of some martial arts movie!

Back to the episode, the first six minutes is just one awesome martial arts sequence. Granted, Sasuke pops out from time to time to advance the later portion of the episode, but who cares about the plot! I am seeing two guys fighting with minimal aide from stunt doubles and it's freakin' awesome! It didn't help that it's a fight between master and student and if I will go a bit Meta, it's a fight between father and son! It's hard to find the right words to describe the fight, the only word I can't think of right now that best describes it is "awesome".

More on the fight, another thing that I like about it is the drama that's happening during the fight. Gali is still acting like a master to Jiraiya as he reminds him how he thought him to fight. What's more is the close-up shots they made for this scene, it adds up the intensity of the fight scenes that followed it. It is also the time I noticed that there are tears in Gali's eyes, a clear sign that his reason for fighting Jiraiya is more than just following the orders of Nue. Heck, his reasons might be something much deeper than that.

At the end, Jiraiya kinda followed his master's teachings when it comes to fighting, to let your rage control you, but to have a calm mind in battle. He defeated his master, but decided not to kill him. Weakened, we finally learned how he ended up working under Nue. The flash back scene is seriously weird at first. I mean, why drive in some abandoned quarry? I know it has something to do when it comes to production, but in the previous episode, they kinda transformed Japan into some area in Los Angeles.

Aside from the rather mediocre filming site, I can't help but notice the bad lip dubbing of Gali's daughter. Now that I am done nitpicking, the flash back scene itself is really well done. It's about the story of a father who wants to see her daughter alive that he is willing to "sell his soul to the devil" just to do it. It's a rather sad bargain that it haunted Gali's life after he saw the young Jiraiya mourning over the lost of his father. This is when he decided to train the man who wished no, hoped that will eventually kill him for his crimes. Wow, this is one tragic twist of events.

Gali eventually dies and now, Jiraiya wants to avenge the deaths of his master and his father and calls out the man who is responsible for this tragedy, the Yokai named Nue. Even though this guy only appeared for 3 episodes, he seriously made a lot of impact in Jiraiya's life, making me wish that this guy will stay for another episode. But considering how this episode is presented, it's not the case. After we learned those facts, Nue feels like he is meant to be the finale of Jiraiya's story. You can say that Nue is Jiraiya's own personal final boss.

But before he can face the guy in battle, he finally received his Shinobi Scroll, allowing him to summon the God Ganma. The animation for God Ganma is fantastic, the use of the models and the green screen made the creature's movements seem so life like. As for its moves, I love that it can summon little toads and use them as bombs, it's really cool. Also, seeing it shoot some fire made me wonder what is the connection between fire and the Tale of Gallant Jiraiya. I mean, I saw Naruto's Jiraiya shoot some fire and I still can't figure out why frogs are related to fire even though frogs spend most of their time in water.

Because he can't finish Nue alone, the rest of the team arrived with their respective God mecha to defeat Nue. Seeing the five together again is one great sight to see. It feels like all of their hard work finally pay off now that they got their Shinobi Scrolls and now ready to face Prince Junior before he has the chance to resurrect the Infernal King. After our heroes defeated Nue and payed respects to Jiraiya's master, it is time to finally face the Prince Junior as he attempts to resurrect the Infernal King! Can our heroes stop him before it is too late?