Recap: Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger, Episode 46 – The Immortal Destroyer

Zyuohger 46

After Azarudo totally wrecks them, the Zyuohgers head back home bloodied and bruised. And they’ve lost Bado.

Azarudo storms back onto the Sagitariark, knocks Naria to the floor and demands to know what Ginis did to him. Ginis says Azarudo owes him his life. Ginis had found Azarudo drifting in space after being sealed. And while Ginis tried removing the seal, Azarudo woke up still partially sealed in the cubes.

Ginis says he isn’t asking anything other than for Azarudo to amuse him like he’s never been amused before.

Zyuohger 46

The Zyuohgers try grasping the fact that they’re fighting the same monster that Ketos failed to defeat.

Azarudo opens his mouth and spits hot fire across the city. The tails go hard. Tusk suggests the only way is if one of them uses the Great King’s Mark to seal Azarudo. They hurry out and on the way, Yamato and Amu see the firewall is at the hospital where Yamato’s father is.

The others are shocked by the revelation, but Amu tells Yamato to go to his father while the rest of them handle the rest.

Zyuohger 46

Yamato says they must focus on Azarudo first, but Amu yells at him to not use this as an excuse.

“What if you never see him again?! How can you say that when we’re in this situation?!”

Zyuohger 46 Zyuohger 46

It hits Yamato hard. He agrees and runs to the hospital.

The others, now with the Great King’s Mark, continue on to find Azarudo.

“This is the last time we’ll play,” Azarudo says. They henshin.

Zyuohger 46

Yamato’s father has just finished evacuating the hospital when a section of the building is about to bury him dead. Yamato swoops in to shield him, but Bado flies in to knock the debris away.

Yamato asks if Bado is okay. But Yamato’s father knows Bado as well. “Long time no see,” Bado says to the doctor, much to Yamato’s shock.

A nurse comes calling for Dr. Kazikiri and he tells Yamato and Bado that they will talk later.

Yamato asks Bado how he knows Father. Bado says Dr. Kazikiri saved his life,

Speaking of life, the other Zyuohgers are fighting for theirs as Azarudo completely manhandles them. They can’t find an opening to use the Great King’s Mark, even when unleashing their beasts.

Zyuohger 46

Bado tells Yamato the story. Humans had attacked him and he had given up on life. But that’s when Dr. Kazikiri found him and saved his life. He took him to an animal hospital and fixed him up. “All life is connected in some way,” Dr. Kazikiri told Bado.

Turns out this was the night Yamato’s mother died and Dr. Kazikiri was on his way to the hospital.

Yamato realizes how their lives have been connected all this time, including why Bado has been Yamato’s savior. As the others are in serious trouble, Yamato runs. “I’m only alive now because Dad saved Bado-san,” he thinks to himself. He remembers his mother’s words about life on this planet being connected.

Zyuohger 46

Yamato morphs and hurries to his friends. The Zyuman4 have been forced to demorph. While Misao does his best to keep fighting, Tusk tells the others that he noticed Azarudo had some kind of core which his body would re-form around. They must now target that core if they want a chance.

The Zyuman4 take over and fight Azarudo as Yamato arrives.

Yamato unleashes all his anger and frustration at Azarudo. The others back him up, including Misao. And together they are able to force Azarudo down to his core. Yamato aims at the core, but Naria delivers three Continues to force Azarudo to embiggen against his will.

Azarudo curses Ginis who merely does not want a player on the same level as him in the Blood Game. He’s got no use for that.

The Zyuohgers hop into Wild Tousai Dodeka King. And just as they are getting their butts handed to them by Cubaru, the new Cubes Bado collected come to life to help them.

Zyuohger 46

The Zyuohgers deliver a Zyuoh Dodeka Dynamite Stream at Azarudo, breaking him down to his core one more time. The Zyuman4 take the Great King’s Mark and together deliver a Zyuoh Final at the core to seal it and all the fragments. They then unleash their beasts to destroy every piece of Azarudo.

Zyuohger 46

Misao cheers from the cockpit, but Yamato pounds his console in frustration.

Ginis says Azarudo could’ve continued to play the Blood Game with him if he hadn’t regained his memory. Naria says since there are no more team leaders left, they should consider the Earth Blood Game a draw. Ginis says no and that they should set up a big game to end it all for good.

Zyuohger 46

Episode Thoughts

This was an interesting episode. I think it was a solid climax of Yamato’s personal story. But at the same time, I feel like it was a little disjointed getting here. I immediately think of Shinkenger and *spoiler alert!* Takeru keeping the truth about the Shiba clan from the others. Aside from the few episodes where Takeru overtly implies that he has a secret, his entire personality throughout the series helped to foreshadow the eventual big reveal.

With Yamato, I think his past being an issue only really took up a few episodes here and there. Otherwise, his personality had him merely be a friendly, energetic animal lover. I think this could’ve been an incredibly powerful episode had his familial backstory been fleshed out a little more. I mentioned in a recap a few episodes ago how the show should’ve used the Zyuman4’s missing of their families to highlight Yamato’s family life story. But they really didn’t, no matter how many times Amu insinuates concern for Yamato’s family life.

This episode really would be so much more epic and fulfilling had they laid the groundwork more fully.

That said, I did very much enjoy seeing Yamato’s emotions just play out and collapse over the course of 23 minutes. Masaki Nakao did a great job.

The idea of Yamato now hurt, confused and angry after hating his father for 15 years is fascinating. And now finding out that not only were things not as they seemed, his life has been saved several times because of his father not being at the hospital when his mother died. That’s pretty crazy. And it would’ve made for an amazing story.

The use of the “All life is connected” theme to really illustrate how Yamato’s family situation was and to highlight the connection between Yamato, Bado and Dr. Kazikiri was one of the better things to have been executed the last couple of weeks.

The scene of Yamato running to help his friends and then the black background scenes of him fighting Azarudo. Very strong.

Thinking about it, there was some great foundation and good potential for both Cubaru and Azarudo’s own stories too. Which is why their somewhat simple ends (moreso Cuabru’s underwhelming finale) are a little disappointing. Ginis better deliver with his endgame.

I also enjoyed the all-Zyuohger fight since and the sequence of the Zyuman4 finishing off Azarudo was pretty cool. Fresh camera angles and cinematography for Sentai.

Overall, a solid, good episode that dropped the ball.

0 thoughts on “Recap: Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger, Episode 46 – The Immortal Destroyer

  1. I kinda feel, one of Zyuohger’s biggest Problems is terrible timing combined with wasted opportunities . The villains didn’t really do anything until Bangrey showed up, whose only purpose it was to introduce CubeWhale and Cubal’s story. After this was done, they just killed him off and heavily focused on Cubal. They built up his climax for more than 10 episodes just to easily kill him off as well, with his whole story not going anywhere. Then they suddenly pulled Azard’s Story out of thin air (who didn’t really do anything the last 40 episodes), but only focused on it for about 3 episodes before killing him off as well.
    I think it would’ve been better to either make Cubal’s Story actually matter or make his Arc way shorter and focus on Azard instead, but this way they wasted both characters.

    1. I absolutely agree. So many wasted opportunities for both the villains and the Zyuohgers themselves as well. And they definitely dropped the ball with both Cubaru and Azarudo’s deaths. Even Bangurei. They set up big arcs for them only to have them die as easily as a regular monster of the week.

Share your thoughts!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top