The Castle is buzzing with activity as preparations for the wedding ceremony are in full swing. Madame Noire is happy to not only have Gritta back, but that the Emperor himself had gone to fetch her. “This wedding will change everything.”
Gritta flashes back to that moment on the rooftop. Zett again marvels at Gritta’s sparkling glow. That’s why he wants her… bad. Gritta goes to run, but Zett says Schwarz is not coming, just so she knows.
Gritta merely thinks it’s because the Emperor has found out their eloping plan. She now fears what the Emperor may do to Schwarz if she ran away by herself.
That’s why she has decided to just go through with the wedding.
Meanwhile, Baron Nero is trying to convince the Emperor to stop the wedding as Madame Noire is planning something evil. “Is that why you targeted Gritta?” Yes, Nero says and Zett sends him flying across the room.
On the Resshas, Mio tells the guys about what she’s remembered. They might be able to figure out where their hometown is.
She reminds them about their talking about summer and how Hikari’s mention of festivals triggered her blurry memory of one, possibly their town’s festival. And yesterday, Kagura adds, she remembers them running somewhere that festival night.
Mio says she felt excited, but also anxious. Hikari thinks they were going to their secret base.
That’s when Right remembers. They were going to go to their secret base so they could watch the stars by themselves. It was an annual star festival, they all remember.
The ToQgers are excited and Wagon, Conductor and Ticket are happy they may finally have their biggest clue yet.
Meanwhile back at the Castle, the wedding ceremony is about to begin. “The moment has come,” Madame Noire thinks to herself. Baron Nero, on the other hand, puts his trust in the Emperor and is sure he can handle himself against whatever Noire and Gritta are planning.
Gritta and Zett walk to meet each other in the middle of the room. Gritta thinks to herself, she may become a different person after this, but as long as Schwarz-sama is safe, her heart will always be with him.
Schwarz walks to his Kuliner. He is sorry to have used Gritta, but while he is born of darkness, he is more attracted to power. His great ambition is to conquer the world under military control. That is his reason for being as a soldier.
Zett takes Gritta’s hand, but she suddenly grabs his wrist. He recoils, but his wedding cape suddenly traps him. Madame Noire laughs.
“Your time is up Your Majesty! My daughter has my power to devour the power of her betrothed.”
Baron Nero can’t believe it, but Gritta zaps him with her eyes.
She then starts shining, intensely bright. Zett marvels at the beautiful white light, but suddenly, Gritta sprouts huge wings which engulf Zett allowing her to SWALLOW HIM WHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And with that, Gritta has taken the Emperor’s power. She is now the Empress of Darkness and the Shadow Line belongs to them.
Gritta closes her eyes. “Schwarz-sama.”
General Schwarz sets off from Castle Terminal, now free to command his army without Emperor Zett. His target: The Rainbow Line.
Madame Noire tells Gritta her Majesty to rest so she can get acclimated to her new powers. They close the curtains to the throne and the Kuros start cleaning up. Baron Nero picks up Zett’s necklace and vows to avenge his death.
At the next station, Right and Tokacchi have collected a stack of pamphlets about festivals around the country. They divide the stack and each search through.
Hikari asks Mio if she remembers why she said she felt anxious that night. She only remembers that not everything that night was fun. But it’s okay. Right says there’s no point in worrying about it before they even remember.’
Suddenly, Ticket announces a Kuliner approaching. The ToQgers hurry outside where they run into Schwarz.
Akira joins them and they all henshin.
Back at the caste, Gritta awakens. Her eyes are now red.
The ToQgers fight off Kuros while Akira takes on Schwarz. But Schwarz looks up at the train station. The Resshas!
Conductor and Ticket watch the fighting. Conductor thinks it’s strange there’s no Shadow kaijin. Ticket says he has a bad feeling about it.
And sure enough, Kuros blast the turnstile away and force their way onto the trains, taking Conductor, Ticket and Wagon hostage. Conductor calls the ToQgers. Akira holds off Schwarz while they try to make their way back to the Resshas, but suddenly, a Shadow Line train approaches.
It’s Madame Noire and she introduces the new Empress of Darkness. She tells them Zett is gone.
Mio steps forward saying she thought Gritta had run away. The Empress also steps forward, but instead of the usual childlike voice, now speaks a confident matured voice.
“Why would I run away?”
Empress Gritta zaps the ToQgers away with her eyes, then turns to Schwarz. What’s he doing lollygagging about. Finish the ToQgers already!
No problem, Schwarz says. He tells the ToQgers they will battle with trains. And Schwarz will be using their trains. He boards the Resshas and orders Conductor to transfer control to him. He holds his sword to their necks and Conductor and Ticket have no choice.
Schwarz initiates ToQ-Oh as Akira summons Build Dai-Oh and the others summon Diesel Ressha-tachi.
Schwarz uses ToQ-Oh to absolutely pummel the ToQgers. But they continue to push forward even as Schwarz deflects all their attacks.
On the ground, Empress Gritta says she would like to go too. She asks for a train and the Emperor’s white Kuliner transforms into a robo.
Gritta tells Schwarz that she merely wants to fight. Right tells Akira for a full attack, but Gritta’s Kuliner suffers not even a scratch. She walks towards them and Right summons Police Ressha. But still nothing. Gritta presses forward and Akira tries attacking.
Gritta merely knocks Build Dai-Oh down. Right pushes Diesel-Oh toward Gritta’s Kuliner robo as she readies a huge attack. Schwarz has Akira and Build Dai-Oh at sword-point while Gritta can deliver a punishing point-black shot at the others.
Gritta delivers a Darkness Fall and Diesel-Oh goes flying. The ToQgers themselves also get thrown from their cockpits and into a cloud of darkness.
But in that moment, they flashback to that night of the festival. In front of their secret base. They remember everything; the moment darkness suddenly engulfs their town around them.
Diesel-Oh falls onto a building as Gritta preps another Darkness Fall. The ToQgers muster up power to get both Diesel-Oh and Build Dai-Oh to stand, but they only end up absorbing Gritta’s HUGE attack.
Episode Thoughts
OMG yes. Amazing episode.
Okay. First of all Gritta swallowing Zett whole. I guess we got foreshadowing of that when she ate up the headSchwarz in the episode a few weeks ago. But seeing her, in a wedding dress, with huge angel wings absolutely engulf Zett and eat him up was so uncomfortable and shocking and awesome. Damn. Really.
We all knew Madame Noire’s set her sights on the throne and that Gritta marrying the Emperor would be a way for her to get into power, but I definitely did not see this coming. Like Baron Nero said, it was a tragic and sudden end for the Emperor. And while Zett was all creepy fun, I hope we don’t ever see him alive again. It’s better, storywise to have Gritta really in charge and have everything (Noire vs Schwarz vs Nero vs Whoever) just build off of this big event. At least for me.
The hyped up wedding definitely delivered though.
Seeing the ToQgers finally get their biggest clue yet to not only their hometown, but what could have possibly happened to them was awesome. Again with all that emotional stuff that just gets me. Whenever those kids appear and run to each other and smile; I feel that. Kobayashi, you!!!
So the Darkness likely engulfed their town, but I definitely hope there’s more to it than that. And I definitely hope we are still building up to a big Kobayashi midseason climax.
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3 thoughts on “Recap: Ressha Sentai ToQger, Station (Episode) 22 – Birth of the Empress”
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One word. AMAZING!!!!!! Gritta is now vampire. And the ToQger’s are coming home. I hate Shartwz. I love the relationships between the ToQger Hikari and Kagura are shipped together. Hikari and Mio are like brother and sister. While Mio might be in a love triangle with Right and Tottaki. Oh well
Things are definitely heating up! Can’t wait for this week’s episode!
I can’t wait either. This was an epic episode. I also can’t wait for the movie “ToQger The movie Galaxy Line SOS”