Conductor and Ticket says the ToQgers may be half right in their theory. Conductor says he thinks their city was indeed engulfed by the Shadow Line and believes that because of their powerful imaginations, they were cast out of the darkness, which is why he had them become ToQgers. Right’s imagination is so powerful, that’s why was thrown all the way onto the Shadow Line.
But their theory that their missing memories are because of their city getting engulfed in darkness isn’t correct. Basically, it’s because they boarded the Rainbow Line, Ticket says, but getting their memories back isn’t as simple as getting off the train. Conductor suggests the memory loss may have been triggered by some trauma; their town being swallowed in darkness or was it the Shadow Line’s doing? (Isn’t that the same thing?)
Of course it’s the Shadow Line, Ticket says, which is why the Shadow Line needs to be eliminated. If they think it is because of the town though, then they are welcome to go search for it. However, the ToQger’s mission is to defeat the Shadow Line so if they wish to looking for towns, they can disembark.
Ticket drags Conductor to do some work.
Right says he’d never disembark.
That night, Kagura walks in on Wagon taking sexy selfies, but she has other thoughts on her mind. Right finds Kagura looking out the window of the train door and gives her his midnight snack.
You want to find our hometown too, right Right? Kagura asks. There’s the secret base, our parents are probably worried about us. And we don’t even know each other’s family names.
If you want to, you can disembark, Right says. Not having any memories also means not having anything to hold her back.
But you want to stay a ToQger? Kagura asks. Yes, Right answers, since only the ToQgers can stop the Shadow Line who spells trouble for world if they aren’t defeated. He wants to do it.
Kagura doesn’t really understand, but it’s okay. Right leaves to go to the bathroom. Right is so strong, as are the others, Kagura thinks to herself, while she on the other hand…
Ticket announces they are pulling into the Heiwadani/Peace Valley Station. Right barges into the conductor’s room hoping to pull Ticket off of Conductor’s hand, but they slip out of his grasp.
Kagura gets off the train for a bit and sees a poster on the wall inviting passengers to return to their hometowns. She traces the “home” on the poster and says not remembering it makes her feel very lonely.
Suddenly, Ticket announces the doors are closing and before Kagura can get back on, they close and the train departs.
Another train is about to pull into the station and Kagura hopes if she can get on, she’ll be able to catch up. But as the train comes to a stop, she sees it is a Shadow Line train.
She goes to hide around the corner and watches a Shadow Kaijin, Chain Shadow, get off, dragging a coffin and singing an eerie song about death. The station’s name changes to “Death Valley.”
Kagura musters up enough courage to chase after Chain Shadow. She stops him before she henshins.
The Kuros pop up and Kagura musters up the strength to easily take care of them before Chain Shadow chains her up and activates an eye on a cross that shrinks her and stuffs her into the coffin.
Baron Nero commends Madame Noa for finding a very interesting Kaijin. He says his underlings are also working to create darkness in secret as well. But Madame Noa believes darkness is all about quality and not quantity. General Schwartz walks in and reminds them of the ToQgers. Baron Nero and Madame Noa want him to act. But Schwartz says it is important to gather information before heading into battle.
Gritta sees Schwartz drop his handkerchief and goes to hand it back to him. Schwartz says thanks, but he has a thing about not wearing something that’s fallen on the ground. Gritta asks if she can have it then and he says sure.
Gritta cherishes it.
It is morning and the ToQgers find Kagura is missing. Right tells them about his convo with her last night, but the others don’t think Kagura would just off and go on her own. Something must have happened. Right hurries to tell Conductor and Ticket and they turn the train around to head back to the last station.
Conductor comes into the car and tells them that Kagura had gotten off at a Shadow-engulfed station. Now they’re really worried about Kagura being in a pinch. But Right says they might have to worry about two pinches.
Children are just arriving at the Peace, now Death Valley school. They head inside and suddenly hear Chain Shadow’s singing. They go to the music room to see and are quickly chained up and thrown into the coffin with Kagura.
Kagura sees the darkness start to emanate from them. Chain Shadow says there’s no better darkness than that from the fear of death.
The ToQgers arrive outside the school and Chain Shadow summons The Kuros.
They notice the coffin and henshin.
Meanwhile, Kagura tries to calm the children down, crying that they want to go home. Kagura starts to understand Right’s words from last night.
The ToQgers fight off The Kuros as Chain Shadow tries to capture just arrived kids. The coffin opens and the ToQgers turn their attention to it and Chain Shadow.
While the others free the three new kids, Right jumps into the coffin which closes behind him. He’s here to save Kagura. But Kagura says no, she’s fine.
In fact, she understands now. That wanting to be a ToQger and to save people comes naturally. She decides to break free on her own.
Kagura goes into her personal strength summoning mode and Right warns her to be careful not to overdo it.
Kagura breaks her chains then punches the cross which releases them all from the coffin.
Right tells the kids to run off as Kagura apologizes for worrying them. She says she will take care of Chain Shadow as she henshins. Right warns the others to be careful of Kagura.
Kagura stays in badass mode as she proceeds to own Chain Shadow. The others are wowed by how strong she is now, but Right says Kagura can overdo it with her imagination.
When they were kids, she nearly drowned pretending to be a mermaid. Right had to try and save her until she dragged him down and they almost drowned together. Kagura risks her life when she forgets her limis.
They see Kagura about to unleash a dangerous move, so Right henshins and they hurry to stop her and Chain Shadow’s own attack.
Right knocks Kagura out of the way and they fall into the pool. They both then flashback to when they were kids almost drowning… in the ocean. That means their town is by the sea.
They get out of the pool and Right says it’s not that he doesn’t want to go home, it’s just he doesn’t want to keeping going back to a town he doesn’t remember. Instead, he wants to stay on track and move forward where he’s sure they will find their hometown.
They rejoin the others and Kagura asks Right if they can switch Lines.
Kagura takes Right’s sword and catches Chain Shadow’s chains which she tosses back at and wraps around him. Right uses Kagura’s weapon to deliver a hit before the ToQgers combine their weapons to deliver a Rainbow Rush final strike.
Chain Shadow embiggens and the ToQgers hop into ToQ-Oh.
Chain Shadow quickly chains them up and traps them inside a coffin to suck up their Imagination Energy.
But Right can see ToQ-Oh breaking through the coffin. Red Ressha punches through and breaks the coffin to pieces in the process before it retracts and stows back into its normal ToQ-Oh positon.
The ToQgers delivers a Fumikiriken Ressha Slash to finish Chain Shadow off for good.
The town’s name reverts back to Peace Valley and Right and Kagura tell the others about remembering their town is by the sea. They are excited and know that as long as they keep going, they’ll reach their hometown someday.
Episode Thoughts
Another great episode, especially for Kagura. It was great to see her get a true focus episode that really enhanced her character. Of course, it was great to see her not be too childlike and cute and instead see her more serious and later badass.
But it was definitely interesting to see that their imaginations actually have limits. They obviously can’t just imagine their home and get there next week. That would defeat the purpose of the season, yes? But that their imaginations can be dangerous and life threatening is an interesting new facet to the whole experience.
So I believe Conductor was maybe 80% sure the ToQger’s town was engulfed by darkness. That still doesn’t explain who or what the ToQgers are and how they found themselves on trains. They could still be dead or in a coma or another world. Who knows.
What I do know is that the idea of them riding on a train and pretty much traveling the country is awesome. We get to have locations like the one in this episode that aren’t the familiar Toei-favorite locations in Tokyo.
The countryside school was an amazing location. And I definitely hope we get to see more non-Tokyo locations for the rest of the season.
The Shadow monster this week was amazing. Again, loving the steampunk designs of the Shadow Line. But Chain Shadow was absolutely terrifying. That coffin with the eye cross and then the singing. *shudder* This is likely an episode the evil Saban Brands will probably not adapt for Power Rangers Express in 2025.
I am liking the Shadow Line scene (no “s”) in each episode, which is why I would love to see more of them each week. The dynamic between Nero, Noa, Schwartz and Gritta is very intriguing. But it’s also a nice change of pace to actually not see them all the time. No scenes of them sending off a monster or them having to embiggen or initiate the second life. It’s a refreshing twist on the formula and helps to keep them mysterious.
There were definitely some ship-worthy moments with Right and Kagura, eh? But I’m not hopping on that ship just yet. If there wasn’t anything else to enjoy about this season so far, maybe I’d bite on hoping for more romance. But since so much is going on and there’s so much to think about we can just wait and see if anything comes of it. Or if it’s really just all platonic and them five are just really best friends for life. Which is just as, if not more awesome.
I don’t even know whether or not to start speculating on Right’s obsession with wanting to prove Ticket is a puppet. But at least he didn’t shove his hand onto Tokatti’s face this week.
I’ve seen some mixed reactions to ToQger so far, but I’m personally loving it.
In this episode to me Hikari sounded a lot more worried about Kagura then the others and his got mad at Right because of what Right said to her also when she was in badass mode Hikari sounded like he was admiring it