The cousins beg their grandfather to take on Kinji as a student, but he repeats that he doesn’t want another Kyuuemon. Takaharu says Kinji isn’t like Kyuuemon at all.
Grandpa says how dare they argue with him. If they want to argue with the Last Ninja, they must surpass him, even a little, first. He poofs away.
Kasumi says they’ll just have to find some way to surpass Grandpa. But Yakumo questions if there’s even one aspect they’re close to surpassing him with.
Kinji has been listening to everything and he leaves to meet Kyuuemon. Kyuuemon is expecting him to join her, but instead Kinji henges and fights her. He says he was a fool for even considering to work with her. Even if he will not be taken in as a student, he will never work with the enemies of the Igasaki clan.
Kyuuemon says that’s disappointing. She says Kinji thinks too highly of the Last Ninja. She wasn’t the only one who betrayed the Last Ninja. One of the OtomoNin he himself created abandoned him as well, the Sky OtomoNin.
Kyuuemon returns to their dark lair where Masakage asks puddleKibaoni for help to bring a Youkai to life. But it isn’t just any Yokai. Youkai Nue is a Joukyuu Yokai, created with two Sealing Shurikens.
The Ninningers hurry downtown where Nue is rampaging. They henge and try attacking together. But Nue blocks all their attacks. He turns to Yakumo and Kasumi, destroys their Shurikens and forces them to dehenge.
Takaharu tries his hand, but Nue chops his Ichibantou in half and slams him into the wall, forcing him to dehenge as well.
Nue then moves on to Nagi to bend his sword and destroy his Nin Shuriken. Nue sends a blast toward Nagi, Fuuka and Kinji. Kasumi quickly summons Byunmaru to whisk them away for now.
The Ninningers look at the two broken Ichibantou and three Shurikens. They ask Kasumi if she can fix them, but she says this is more than she is capable of. Kinji suggests they ask engineer Saika Tetsunosuke to do the repairs.
Kinji explains that it was Saika Tetsunosuke who planned and built the OtomoNin with Grandpa. He’s the finest engineer around. Kinji had asked him to put Rodeomaru together.
Maybe he knows about the Sky OtomoNin too? The Sky OtomoNin is the one the Last Ninja failed to tame. Yakumo remembers when Grandpa asked them to find and tame it.
Fuuka wonders if that info is in the book, but Kinji says he just heard it somewhere.
The Ninningers decide to go find Tetsunosuke at Shishi Shrine. They wonder what kind of a person he could be, but Kinji says he only made his request by e-mail.
On the way up the mountain, they run into a strange, drunk old man. Takaharu asks if he can point them to Shishi Shrine. But the old man is standoffish. Except when he sees the two pretty ladies. He says he’ll tell them where the shrine is if the ladies pour a drink for him.
“Don’t say that!” Yakumo exclaims, this old man is being rude.
Nagi offers an onigiri instead and the old man points them past the ridge.
The Ninningers arrive and are greeted by a young boy who is sweeping the area. They ask for the engineer, but suddenly the old man from earlier appears.
“Drinking in the middle of the day again? Real mature.”
The old man tells the boy to go do busywork elsewhere while he deals with these guys.
The Ninningers say they would like to ask the engineer to repair their things. The things which the old man suddenly has in his hands! He runs off and they follow.
Kinji points to a sign taped onto Takaharu’s back telling him to Look up. As Takaharu looks up, the old man jumps down on top of him. He tumbles away, but Kasumi tries stopping him with Cloning Technique.
Yakumo tries to use his magic to freeze the old man in his place, but instead, he hits Kasumi. Oops.
The old man says Yakumo and Kasumi are smart, but they got beat because they didn’t study how he moved first. Takaharu gives it a shot, but the old man farts in his face. He says Takaharu is strong and talented, but that’s it.
The old man moves on to the other three. He trips up Kinji and tells him his basics are good, but he’s not used to fighting in a team. And that he’s too wishy-washy.
As for Nagi and Fuuka, they are clever and skilled, but they rely on their elders too much.
None of them are real ninjas. They rely too much on their Ichibantou and OtomoNin. He tosses the swords and Shurikens aside.
They wonder if he is also a ninja or if he’s Saika Tetsunosuke. But the old man says instead of trying to figure that out, they should deal with their guest.
Nue appears, complete with an introduction from Kibaoni. He embiggens on his own and brings two Gashadokuro with him.
With Takaharu and Nagi’s Ichibantou and Dumpmaru Shuriken still out of commission, the others must make do with what they have, which means no gattai.
The four henge and hop into their OtomoNin.
Takaharu and Nagi try to find their Ichibantou, but they are surprised when the young boy from earlier has them.
Good as new!
The old man asks why the kid would do such a thing. “It’s none of your business though, isn’t it?”
Nagi realizes who the boy really is.
He introduces himself as Saika Tetsunosuke the 22nd.
Takaharu and Nagi quickly henge and join the others into King ShurikenJin.
Takaharu wants them to do a roll call in the cockpit before starting.
They unleash an Unprecedented King Slash Strike at the two Gashadokuros and turn their attention to Nue.
But Nue forces them to separate and attacks each one of them. Takaharu and Kinki get tossed off Shinobimaru and Rodeomaru.
Back at the Shrine, Tetsunosuke says he’s done what he can. Now it’s up to the old man.
“Oh well, I have to repay them for the onigiri at least”
The old man turns into a ball of light and hops onto something at the top of a mountain. It’s a lion! Could this be the Sky OtomoNin?!
The Sky OtomoNin freezes Nue in his place and starts firing. But Nue manages to disappear. The Sky OtomoNin returns to where it came from.
The Ninningers follow it back to the Shrine and are surprised to see the old man appear.
He introduces himself as Shishio. He is what they call the Sky OtomoNin, the Lion Ha-Oh. And he is its spirit.
Shishio asks what they would do if they were able to tame him. Takaharu confidently answers that he would become the Last Ninja and protect the world from Kibaoni.
Takaharu asks him to join them, but Shishio remembers Grandpa saying the same exact things. Like he did before, he must refuse again. He poofs away.
Episode Thoughts
So I didn’t really know where this episode was going in the beginning. The crazy drunk creeper hitting on young girls and farting in people’s faces. Umm… okay.
But I think it did work well to pull the two “twists” with regards to Tetsunosuke and Shishio’s true identities. It’s always interesting when we have young people on the shows who are sometimes more skilled or smarter than the older and even main heroes. So I’m looking forward to seeing more of Tetsunosuke and hope it’s not just for this mini-arc.
With Shishio, it should be interesting to see where he goes from here and if he has to pop up every time they summon the Lion Ha-Oh.
But with regards to Shishio, it reminded me of how Grandpa’s story is basically just one blank slate and they continue to just add random revelations to fill out his backstory. Usually, I enjoy unraveling the pieces like that. Or peeling the layers off piece by piece. But with Grandpa and the whole Last Ninja’s stuff, it just feels so tacked on. I’m much more interested in almost everything else with this season. I don’t even care about who the Last Ninja will be (especially since it’ll likely be Takaharu anyway).
But thankfully there are other things that I can enjoy and love about this season.