7 Thoughts on Uchuu Sentai Kyuuranger Episode 25: "The Planet Tocky! The Boy's Determination!"

We're half-way through the series!  It's been a mostly easy ride for the Kyuuranger, but I have a feeling that's going to change soon!   The battle to bring down the first Vice-Shogun continues~

1.) Coming from the Horologium System, it seems only fitting that Planet Tocky (Tick-Tock) is set up much like a clock, right down to having clockwork innards.

 2.) As part of their quest to obtain the Horologium Kyu Globe, this episode makes the team face off against memories from their past, and invokes Sentai Rule #1: Whenever a team runs into enemy's they've already faced, no matter how much trouble they had winning the fight the first time around, it's an easy fight the second.  See: Scorpio going down in all of three hits, and Lucky finishing off his opponent in a single one.

 3.) Madaako makes a come back for the...fourth (?) time?  I'm losing track, because at this point she's been taken out more times than Team Rocket.   They tried to pass this off as one of the Horologium illusions, but then later they showed the Vice-Shogun tossing out one of Madaako's tentacles so who knows.  I still think she's going to make it until the end of the series.  But I also think they did Madaako dirty this past episode, making her into this gross Kyuuranger obsessed otaku, complete with creepy otaku voice and vocab.  It was only a matter of time before she cycled to something just outright weird, but did it have to be this?

4.) ....This key turning plot got kind of weird.  At the beginning of the episode, Sparda explains how Planet Tocky is set up much like a clock, in that there are twelve keys equidistant from one another, and they all have to be activated within thirty minutes of the first key's activation or they all reset.  So since there are twelve members of the team, it makes sense that you'd send them each to a different key.  Fair enough.

Well, somehow the Vice-Shogun's attack on the planet caused a weird reaction so where each key manifested a remnant memory in each team member's head.  Some of them were just random villains the team faced, some were embarrassing moments, and some were actual figures from the team's past.  There's a really cute moment where Balance just runs into his buddy Naga, because that's obviously the most important person in his life, while Xiao runs into his commander Big Bear because he still has regrets over how the commander died. 

For Kotaro, his memories bring up his mother, who passed away from an illness after having his little brother.  Obviously, it was going to be harder for him to turn the key than anyone else.  But my question is...why can't someone else do it?   The team ran around easily enough to help each other out at different keys anyway, which kind of makes the whole twist of the planet pointless, so why not help Kotaro?   The kid's like...12?  14?  He's old enough to fight, but he shouldn't have had to make such a hard decision.  I could see if each key had to be turned by a different person, but no one pointed that out.   They could've at least gave Kotaro some kind of speech about how he had to face his past, but instead they just acted like he was the only one capable of doing it.  That was...weird.

5.) As if they knew people would poke fun at the sheer unwieldiness of Kyuutamajin, this episode points out how it's far easier to pilot this thing when they've got all twelve members working in harmony. To my knowledge, this has never happened before--usually once the mech is together, just one person can pilot it fine but this monstrosity demands not just one pilot, not even five or six, but fucking twelve.   They're sounding off like they just formed fucking Voltron, and this is one of the rare times I think the bad guy should've just blindsided them before they could coordinate.

6.) Tecchu's down, which leaves only two Vice-Shoguns to go.  Next up is the lady Vice-Shogun of Jark Matter, Akenba.  But since we're only halfway through and we've already weakened Jark Matter this much, it makes me wonder if Akenba won't be much more trouble than Tecchu ever was.

7.) Next Episode: This is actually a pretty dope way to have the all important mid-series episode lead into the next ep, which could've easily been filler.  When each team member was facing down their memories of their past, Naga...wasn't actually confronted with anyone.  Remember, the whole reason he started traveling with Balance was because his planet was one that got rid of emotions as a whole, but he wants his back.   He's teamed up with a robot so human that he forgets he's a robot, all so he can hopefully learn how to feel again.  But after all these adventures, a moment like that has to leave him wondering if he's gained anything at all.

So next episode, it seems like Akenba's promised Naga his lost emotions in exchange for working for Jark Matter!  Will he agree?  Let's find out next episode!