Recap: Mashin Sentai Kiramager, Episode 5 –Shovellow Breaks Through!

Juru and Sena attend one of Tametomo’s gaming tournaments. Sena teases Tametomo about bossing around his team as if he’s a leader. Juru thinks Tame is an amazing and awesome gamer. But Tametomo comments again how annoying Juru’s positivity can be.

Over at the coconut tree, Shovellow expresses how he thinks Juru being chosen as leader is a mistake. The other Mashin point out it was Juru that was able to Hirameking their Stone-selves into Mashin in the first place.

But even though he thinks Juru is a nice kid with some good points, Shovellow thinks Tametomo is always the one who is able to strategize the best plans for them and he won’t be able to accept Juru as leader either.

Muryou and Mabushina show Dr. Sayo and Shiguru three Earth-buried Kiramai Stones. But they can’t dig them up and turn them into Mashin yet as they are still unstable.

Just then, the Kiramagers hurry out to meet Joystick Jamen who is able to control people using his joystick face. Joystick Jamen controls Shiguru into attacking his teammates.

Tametomo comes up with a plan for them all that gets them to successfully lock up Joystick Jamen’s joystick, releasing Shiguru from control. Joystick Jamen runs off.

Tametomo asks Sena to accompany him back to gaming work. Shovellow calls to compliment Tame on his great leader-ing earlier and promises he will bring about a revolution soon.

Back at the coconut tower, Shovellow calls Juru with a secret mission from (according to him) Mabushina. He asks Juru to come and transform the new Kiramai Stones into Mashins, but not let even Shiguru or Dr. Sayo know.

Juru excuses himself, but Shiguru and Dr. Sayo feel very suspicious of him.

After Tametomo’s work, Sena asks about his interesting partnership with Shovellow. They have completely different personalities. Tametomo says Shovellow can be annoying, but he reminds him of his late grandfather.

Tametomo talks about how his grandfather taught him so much. He even played video games with him and taught him how to focus on winning. One day, his grandfather bought him the wrong video game and Tametomo yelled at him for it. Tame pushed his grandfather to go out and buy the right game, but he had to attend a gathering so he wasn’t able to. Tametomo screamed that his grandfather was an idiot and that he hated him.

That night, Tametomo’s grandfather died from a heart attack.

Tametomo says he can’t bring himself to be upset with Shovellow.

Meanwhile, Shovellow has unearthed the Kiramai Stones and Juru gets to Hiramekinging. Dr. Sayo and Shiguru, having followed Juru, realize what is going on and they try to stop him. But it’s too late.

Juru comes up with Mashin forms for the three new Stones: Mashin Rolland, Mashin Carry and Mashin Lifton. Dr. Sayo tells Juru that they weren’t supposed to Mashin the Stones yet since it’s too risky.

Back at the coconut tower, Shovellow explains to Tametomo that he can now be the leader with this new team: Tametomo Sentai Tamesukiger.

Juru points out that Tametomo would be alone in the new team, however. Shovellow hadn’t thought of that yet and tells the new Mashin to find their kirakira partners fast.

Shiguru tells Tametomo to check his Mashin. But the alarm sounds.

Before they leave, Tametomo has a secret plan for them.

They hurry over to face Joystick Jamen. Tametomo calls Shovellow and asks him to rejoin the original team if Juru can prove himself to be a capable leader. Shovellow initially refuses, but goes along with it.

Juru mocks Joystick Jamen who takes him under his control. Juru tells Tametomo that he believes in him.

The others henshin and have to now face Juru as well as Bechats. Shovellow says this is proof Juru doesn’t have what it takes. But Juru seems to be able to fight back against the control.

Turns out, Tametomo’s plan was to trick Shovellow by using Daiyakun to have a clone of himself fighting. At the same time, Tametomo would actually be using Joystick Jamen’s joystick to control Juru’s moves. But Shovellow wouldn’t see it as Muryou controls the camera angles being broadcast to the Mashin.

Muryou is in awe of Tametomo’s excellent gamer skills, being able to control Juru in such a perfect way.

But the plan works. Shovellow apologizes for doubting Juru and asks the others if he can rejoin them. Fire says of course.

Muryou lets Tametomo know that the mission is a success. Juru henshins and together they finish off Joystick Jamen.

Carantula sends over the Jamenju Catcher Ligany. The Kiramagers hop into Kiramaizin. But the Jamenju uses its claws to pick buildings up and hurl them at the Kiramagers.

The Kiramagers are struggling, but the three baby Mashin arrive and are able to knock Ligany on its back.

Shovellow suggests they use the baby Mashin as weapons and leaves it to Juru to Hirameking-it into reality. Juru figures it out and the Mashin are able to transform into weapons that can attach.

They upgattai to Kiramaizin Carry then to Kiramaizin Rolland and finally Kiramaizin Lifton. That allows them to finish off the Jamenju for good with a Kiramai Dynamic.

Back at the coconut tree, Mabushina apologizes to Tametomo for Shovellow causing too much trouble. Tametomo says it’s alright. Shovellow really understands his feelings.

Mabushina is surprised and asks if that means Tametomo really wants to be leader. Tametomo says that’s their little secret.

Episode Thoughts

This was an interesting episode. Definitely not what I expected from a Tametomo focus.

I mean… they insinuated that Tametomo gave his grandfather a heart attack! Omg!

I feel like they could’ve done something big with that idea though. Kind of engrain that moment into Tametomo’s character in a deeper way.
It’s interesting to connect Shovellow to his grandfather. I don’t think we have that kind of connection between the others and their Mashin. This would be a really interesting concept if they had gone with it: Having the Mashin represent a certain fear or worry from the Kiramagers’ past and over the course of the season, they help overcome that pain by helping each other.

Especially since the season involves “darkness” as their enemy. Having a dark cloud of some sort from their past or their life being overcome by their eventual kirakira.

I don’t think that’s at all what they will do. But it would’ve opened some nice possibilities.

I’m not sure if some of it was lost in translation, but I don’t see, however, the connection between Tametomo wanting to be a leader and him yelling at his grandfather before he died. You know? He said because of what happened, he could never be upset with Shovellow (or Grandpa Shove/Shove-jii as he calls him).

Shovellow has so far been like Tame’s cheerleader. Perhaps in a similar way to how his grandfather was. I think Tametomo seeing Shovellow as his grandfather would be a fascinating story to tell. Does he feel a little bit of guilt or regret for having spoken to his grandfather like that before he died? We don’t know since they basically glossed over that section of the episode.

So who knows if we even get more out of Tametomo’s past in terms of story or character development. But if we did, it really would give him a strong foundation as a character.

This episode was also a clever way to incorporate Tametomo’s gamer skills to put on the show for Shovellow and outsmart Joystick Jamen.

How crazy was the Jamenju literally pulling up buildings (filled with people!) and hurling them at Kiramaizin, destroying the buildings and killing everyone inside! Wowow! Lol

They also just dug up a perfectly paved road at the roundabout. Does CARAT pay for all that? lol

The claw game theme was very fun though for the Jamenju.

I just realized, Are they gonna have an unhenshined roll call with this pose? Lol Should be fun!

Overall, an interesting episode that left me wanting a little more to really make it a great episode.