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Last week's rating: 4.12 / 5 (16 votes)

Alt Title - Sumo Introduction for Kids

3 out of 5. Boring ass episode with little to no surprises and few moments of genuine joy.

Maybe it was my expectations being built up, but you'd think an episode with two of the loudest, trickiest characters in the show teaming up to beat an enemy would be fun and exciting. Nope! It's more by-the-numbers and predictable than your regular bowel evacuation. Shimoyama wrote this? Where's all the jokes and clever moments? Why team up Leo and Amu if they barely interact?

Can we PLEASE stop using Misao as a plot device? How many times have they used "Fights monster. Misao interferes in some way, making the team lose their initial fight. Some stuff happens. Lessons are learned, friendships are tightened. They come back and beat the monster in the second fight.

The episode wasn't bad, per se. It had an amazing fight scene, with the team effort and the JyuohWhale transformation this time. But the writing just seems extremely lazy. Referential humor isn't funny just because it brings up stuff people like. In that sense, this episode relies too much on talking about sumo and showing "sumo things" than telling a good story. At least that's how I feel about it. Heck, even the mecha fight had a nice little twist with the tossing of the enemy in the air and shooting it. But even that was a formulaic "Monster does an ineffectual theme-related attack", the Jyuohgers resist it, and counter with a move that devastates the enemy."

Missed opportunity. Why wasn't this a Sela episode? Mentioning the JyuLand Martial Arts Tournament seems to just dig in the wound. It kind of seems like this would have been a good chance to explore her and Leo's past some more and to get some more of that character arc between them.

Random complaint, I hate the gun as Yamato's controller in Dodekai-Oh. Seeing him use that thing is so inelegant and annoying to watch.

What's with the mixed moral message at the end?

Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to watch current shows with a "This is my first Sentai series" perspective. Like, if this were GaoRanger or something, maybe I'd give a pass for a lot of the things I complain about. Maybe I'd say "It's not a big deal, it's just a fun goofy sumo episode". I mean, I acknowledge that I'm clearly overthinking these kid's shows and criticizing them from a perspective outside their target audience. But I dunno. Something about Ninninger and Jyuohger feels a little rough sometimes.

For an episode about a sport I know and care next to nothing about, it wasn’t terrible. It was essentially a public service announcement on how sumo is still a cool thing, which is about what I expected from the preview.

...Amu basically cheated to win at the end, right? I was expecting her to embrace that aspect of her personality, but I did like that her Beast powers were one of the most effective even with the conditions of the sumo match. Shame Leo didn’t pull out his claws either.

Yamato wiggling the control back and forth in Dodekai-Oh’s cockpit made me wince as well. They managed to make spinning the cubes look decent, but Yamato looked flat-out silly.

So the lesson of today is... it's no use to work hard and train hard, just cheat to win?

It's hard to pair off Leo and Amu this late in the series. I don't think they had an episode together early on and it shows. Leo works better with Sela and it should have been the two of them training, but I feel like the cat pun with the sumo trick.

Other than that, bland filler episode. This is one of the things that separates a good sentai series from a great one, when the filler episodes are fun enough themselves to not realise nothing really is going on.

Also, the gun controller for Dodekai-Oh looks stupid. Especially noticeable when Yamato was swinging the Deathgalin around.

I enjoyed the episode. I had no problems with Amu and Leo having two different takes on what the "right" thing to do was because they are not humans and had never even seen Sumo before (which can be quite smash mouth). Besides, both Leo and Amu were correct. Underhanded tactics can be considered "against the spirit of Sumo" by judges so Leo was right to want to avoid it, but Amu felt that there were no real judges so she could do what she wanted.

And, yeah, depressed Misao was back, but that was quite a bad trauma that was dredged up, so give him a break.

I also enjoyed this episode. Sure, the main plot wasn't furthered, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was filler. Character building is always useful in a show, even late on, and it was nice to see the interaction between the two cats.

I do feel that a working knowledge of the basics of sumo are kinda necessary to really *get* it though. I feel like it's probably too confusing for non-Japanese for the most part, making it less interesting to them.

Hmmm, but wouldn't that make it a failure as an intro to sumo then if you need active knowledge to enjoy the topic of the episode?

takenoko wrote:Hmmm, but wouldn't that make it a failure as an intro to sumo then if you need active knowledge to enjoy the topic of the episode?

For a Westerner, definitely, but probably not for most Japanese kids.

Along with agreeing with Takenoko here, I really could have done without the fat kid in the mawashi. I know it's traditional, but it just doesn't cover enough. *shudder*

Well, Im glad they gave Leo another episode, since he is my favorite Jyuohger but it was not as good as would like,It wasn't a bad episode per se, as it never got boring. but yeah, it was not specially good either.

About Amu cheating, I think it was good to respect her personality, she is the rogue of the team. And also It was kinda fair, the Deathgalien was cheating also. About the cat trick well, Just like they said, it was on the rules so it is not cheating it is strategy.

I hope the next episode helps to make Misao Badass again.


Hehehe, when I saw the mawashi given to Amu, i could not help but remember the scene from Rouroni Kenshin when they imagine Kaworu using it. Pretty funny.

It's not like Lions are super proud animals either, so Leo using the trick is more of a survial animalistic trait as well.

Too bad it didn't work and he got busted.

Catastrophe wrote:It's not like Lions are super proud animals either,

Huh? It's called a Lion Pride for a reason, you know.

Shit. Got me there.

I still have a good laugh seeing Yamato controlling Dodekai-oh.

Silliest thing ever.

Did this episode further the plot? No.
But was it a funny episode? Yes!