It's been 13 years since that fateful Christmas day that changed the lives of Hiromu, Ryuji, and Yoko and to some extent, Kuroki and Jin. Instead of mopping over the events, Ryuji and Kuroki decided to celebrate Christmas at an orphanage but their Christmas party plans were interrupted by Enter and Escape.
Christmas episodes in Super Sentai often range from goofy to something serious. This episode is one of those rare serious Christmas episodes in the franchise since Christmas played a rather significant role to the lives of our heroes. In this case, this is the day that changed their lives forever. The idea of celebrating Christmas with orphans is something I expect them to do at least once, but annually? That's what you call dedication to bring smiles to the kids! Speaking of which, this is the first time Nakamura and Hiromu visited the kids in the orphanage considering that they are the newest members of the Spec Ops branch.
If there is one thing that surprised me with Hiromu in this one is that he is too enthusiastic in cheering up the kids for some reason. I mean, he wears his Santa costume BEFORE the actual visit for crying out loud! Meanwhile, Escape is still inside the Zeta whose cloaking capabilities gave the Go-Busters a hard time searching for it. As for Enter, he found the signal of two Messiah Cards and plans to do something special with it, which leads us to the Sword&ShieldRoid.
For starters, it's basically what if Mazinger Z's Baron Ashura is a robot with a sword and shield as a primary weapon. Its creation is something that surprised me; Enter just combined two Metaroids into one! This made me wonder if Enter will plan to create more of these Metaroids. I like this new Metaroid but the question is what kind of data this Metaroid is looking for? Much to my surprise, it is looking for the data about anger. Something that the Go-Busters might have thanks to their experience 13 years ago.
The way the Sword&ShieldRoid gathered the anger data is fantastic, it drains out our heroes in a manner that they their attacks becomes weak thanks to the lack of motivation of fighting the Metaroid. Now comes the fun part, what Enter and Escape are wearing in this episode! I mean seriously, it’s been a while since we see Enter dress up and I miss that fabulous Enter! But before they the Sword&ShieldRoid can finish the Go-Busters, they decided to leave because Enter is now bored because of Hiromu.
Later, Escape is starting to wonder what is Enter's plan and as much to her surprise, Enter doesn't want to revive Messiah, but to create a new Messiah. This is something that is foreshadowed after the events that happened in episode 30. By the looks of what we have for the past few months now, it seems that Enter aims to become the second Messiah. That part is something that is not surprising considering that he proved that he is far more competent than his creator. As for Escape, it seems that she has plans to overthrow Enter at some point in the series.
Back to the Go-Busters, they are now more determined to save Christmas for the sake of the kids and for their own sake as well. Here's one thing that really interest me, Yoko is one of those characters I expect that will have this major hatred on Christmas but thanks to Ryuji and Kuroki, she starts to think Christmas in a different manner. As for Hiromu, it's still a mystery on how he stopped hating Christmas but I guess I will get some answers during his encounter with the Metaroid as he volunteered to fight it.
Hiromu's fight with the Sword&ShieldRoid is quite interesting. He just stands there doing nothing, like he lost the drive the fight. As it turns out, he is just listening to the music box that his parents gave him. You can say that he is calming his senses before fighting his opponent. While we are at it, we learn that there is more than a single motivation on why he is fighting Vaglass; it is to prevent people from suffering the same suffering they had, especially during this wonderful time of the year.
Though the mood was then ruined thanks to Nick singing "Jingle Bells", they were able to make up for it by having Hiromu defeat the Metaroid without breaking a sweat! Seriously, after the other Go-Busters are done finishing the Megazords, Hiromu just grabs the Lio Blaster and destroy the Metaroid! Then, Enter snatched the cards and then, the Zeta Megazord snatched the cards. Not surprised that the Zeta absorbed those cards because Messiah wanted more power. What made it more interesting is that Escape crushing Enter before the episode ends!
What I like about this scene is how Enter pointed out that Escape is slowly becoming more "human" when it comes to Messiah's ambitions. That she thinks that she is the only one who can understand her dear papa. With Zeta now having three cards inside its body and past data of previous Messiah Metaroids, what's next for Messiah's continuous evolution? In addition, can the Go-Busters beat Messiah once and for all?
