Recap: Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger, Episode 29 – Champion of Champions

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The 2000th episode of Super Sentai picks up where we left off. Yamato and Marvelous continue to battle. Micchan arrives to see his friends sparring with their Gokaiger counterparts and feels left out. That’s when Gai arrives with the chest of Ranger Keys.

Yamato manages to knock the Great King’s Mark out of Marvelous’ hands and then forces Marv to demorph. Instead of taking the Great King’s Mark and running off, Yamato turns back to help Marvelous. But Marvelous points his gun at him and shoots. That forces Yamato to demorph.

Gai tries to get the others to stop fighting and clues them all in to the fact that they’re all Super Sentai. They head back to the treehouse, except Gai and Micchan.

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The Gokaigers tell the Zyuohgers about the 39 other Sentai teams before them while Gai tells Misao that they need the Ranger Keys again. The Zyuman4 tell the Gokaigers about needing the King’s Mark to go home.

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Yamato wraps Marvelous’ bleeding hand and apologizes for being too rough with him even though he was trying to hold back. Yamato had a feeling that maybe Marvelous isn’t what he seems.

Marvelous tries to say he’s a badass, but Yamato thinks he’s just a nice guy and asks again if he could have the Great King’s Mark.

Marvy-chan is amused. But before he can also tell Yamato the story of Super Sentai, Bangurei appears and demands they lead him to Cube Whale.

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The Zyuman4 get the tail feeling. They and the Gokaigers head out.

Bangurei memory scans Marvelous and materializes several recent Sentai Big Bads. Marvelous warns Yamato of this fearsome group as they both get blasted off the side of the cliff and are forced to demorph.

The others arrive and they walk away. Bangurei and his new friends follow.

Marvelous offers to take the Great King’s Mark into space to lure Bangurei away from Earth. But the Zyuohgers say they still want it since it is very important to them and this planet. And they must honor Ketos and all the Sentai teams who have fought before them.

Marvelous hands Yamato the Great King’s Mark. It suddenly glows and Ketos appears to have granted Yamato his power.

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Bangurei arrives and again demands the Mark. But the Zyuohger and Gokaigers are much more emboldened now and are excited to team up and work together.

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Everyone morphs. But Yamato uses the Great King’s Mark to morph into ZyuohWhale.

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After a quick roll call, the big battle begins.

The Zyuman4 + Micchan finish off Deboth before unleashing their beasts and taking care of Bajira. The Gokaigers, meanwhile, do an All Red Change to finish off Zett and Dokoku.

Yamato and Marvelous are fighting against Bangurei, Enter and Escape. When Yamato has Enter and Escape, he realizes he can use the Great King’s Mark. He unleashes a Zyuoh Final which is so powerful it zooms toward the moon and back to Japan just to destroy Enter and Escape.

Yamato thanks Ketos before downmorphing to Eagle. Gai fanboys over the cool finisher. But that distracts him from Bangurei coming up behind him and memory scanning.

Bangurei materializes Gokdos Gill/Gokudosu Giru/ゴクドス・ギル. Doc explains that he is the embodiment of all the Zangyack emperors.

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The Zyuohgers hop into Wild Tousai King with the Gokaigers joining them. The Gokaigers help by infusing Wild Tousai King with the Great Powers of Denjiman and Liveman. They finish Gokdos Gill off with a Zyuoh Forty Anniversary attack using all the logos of the 40 Super Sentai teams before them plus the anniversary 40 and a big 2000.

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The Gokaigers are ready to head off again. Marvelous says they have no business on a planet without a treasure to get. But Yamato suggests they really were going to give them Great King’s Mark all along. While the other Gokaigers smile, Marvelous denies that and repeats that they are just ruthless space pirates.

Yamato prefers to believe his animal instincts.

Doc wonders if they forgot something before raising anchor and flying away.

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Indeed, they did forget something. Navi is still at the treehouse. Uncle Mario arrives home after searching for the parrot Micchan was talking about, only to find it at home.

Uncle Mario wants to probe Navi, but Navi says to anticipate her appearance in the 3000th episode.

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Episode Thoughts

So, that was fun, I guess. I don’t know why I wasn’t more excited about it.

It’s been interesting because this episode reminded me of Gokaiger vs Go-Busters in which the Gokaigers were merely guest stars while the movie was focused more on the Go-Busters. Of course, this is Zyuohger, so the Zyuohgers will get a little more material. But the Gokaigers felt only like passing bystanders. So in that sense, this milestone episode didn’t really feel all that special.

The All Red Change and basically checking off the various Sentai teams for random appearances during the morphed battle as well as the big mecha battle were the only anniversary-type things to happen during the episode. And they felt very forced instead of nostalgic and fun.

The recent villain battle may have been my favorite part of the episode since that felt more traditional in the anniversary sense. Plus, I like how Enter and Escape were the last two villains standing and left for Yamato to use Zyuoh Final on. Bangurei’s special power definitely helped make that villain resurrection battle work.

But it was still fun to see the Gokaigers again, even if it really felt like a fleeting appearance.

From a pure story standpoint, there really wasn’t a legit reason for them to appear though. Not to mention them needing to collect the Ranger Keys all over again (including Gai begging the ToQkids) only to return them immediately. It’s not like there was a brand new threat the Zyuohgers couldn’t handle on their own. Plus, that big villain battle wouldn’t have happened if the Gokaigers didn’t show up anyway.

So I think this was the flimsiest reason for a crossover I’ve seen in recent Sentai memory. Even those Spring Break specials made a little more sense. I think it would’ve been better if Bangurei had been searching for Marvelous and the Gokaigers this whole time with his arc ending with this episode. Much cleaner way to bring the Gokaigers back and tie Bangurei into that part of it.

If it was all to help introduce ZyuohWhale, they could’ve done that a different way too since Ketos’ story took a backseat to whatever Marvelous was doing. The show could’ve used Larry finding Bado to introduce that too.

But anyway, these two episodes were all about fanservice and celebrating the 2000th episode. The episodes themselves weren’t particularly memorable or amazing, but it’s still a nice little way to commemorate what is truly a milestone and accomplishment for the franchise.

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