Recap: Mashin Sentai Kiramager, Episode 32 – There’s Something About Sayo

The Kiramagers are at the coconut tree excitedly wondering about how Sayo’s date is going with a famous genetics expert, Kusaka Yujin, who she had gone to medical school with. Helico says they had recently run into each other and have gone on several dates since. Tametomo believes Kusaka is going to propose to her tonight.

Just then, the alarm sounds and the others hurry out to deal with it themselves without bothering Sayo. Nazokake Jamen is terrorizing the peoples by giving them riddles. If they cannot answer, they will get attacked by Bechats.

The Kiramagers arrive and also fail to answer the Jamenshi’s riddle. He puts a question mark on them and that prevents their attacks from hitting him unless they can answer the riddle.

At the restaurant, Kusaka seems to want to say something to Sayo, but can’t muster up the courage. Before he can finally spit it out, he gets an emergency call about his project and has to leave.

Next morning, the Kiramagers are at the coconut tree trying to figure out the riddle. But they turn their attention to Sayo’s date when she arrives. She tells them nothing ended up happening last night, but she still thought he was very cute.

The Kiramagers and Mabushina continue being very giddy about Sayo’s impending engagement. Kusaka calls and asks if Sayo can come over right away. The Kiramagers and Mashins ask Sayo what she will do if he really does propose to her. Will she have to leave the Kiramagers? She turns to the whiteboard with their riddle clues and says it’s a similar situation.

Sayo leaves. But Sayo’s words allow Tametomo to figure the riddle out.

Meanwhile, Garuza heads to the island where Hakobu rests. After greeting his former sensei, Garuza proceeds to put a spell on Hakobu to put him under his control using all he has learned from him. He orders Hakobu to take him to Atamald.

Back in the city, Kusaka brings Sayo to his secret lab and she realizes this might not be the confession they were all expecting. Kusaka has been working on a genetic engineering program that would accelerate the growth of certain flora. But the final phase of cloning repeatedly fails. He was wondering if Sayo would have the final piece of the puzzle he needs.

Sayo draws upon a recent Stanford study she read about. She enters the data and it works!

In the city, the Kiramagers find the Jamenshi and Tametomo gives him the correct answer to the riddle. That releases the Kiramagers from the question marks. They battle Bechats and while doing so, they debate whether Sayo would actually leave the team if she got married.

Suddenly, Kusaka’s machine explodes when the seed grows to a giant size. Kusaka says Earth is truly done for. Sayo does not understand. But Yodonna walks in and explains that this is a Yodon Ivy seed. It will explosively spread across Earth, thanks to Kusaka’s experiment, and quickly spread Yodonium which will consume the land and usher in a new Yodonheim.

Sayo can’t believe Kusaka tricked her. But he says he only did this to keep her safe. He believed that Yodonna would spare them if he helped her. Yodonna laughs and says she never had any intention of sparing them. Once Kusaka has served his purpose, she would obviously get rid of him.

Sayo immediately henshins before Yodonna’s tentacle can kill him. Sayo tries to call the others, but she is unable to get through with no signal. She tries shooting at the vines, but Yodonna says it is useless. The vines are too tough to break.

Sayo asks Kusaka why he would ever listen to Yodonna. He says the more he learned about Yodonheim, the more he realized that there was nothing on Earth that could possibly defeat them. He believed submission to them was the only choice.

Sayo is able to knock Yodonna unconscious and she dehenshins. She tells him that she thought being married to him, continuing being a doctor and staying on the Kiramager team would be near impossible. But if it was for love, she knew she could do anything to make it work.

Sayo hands Kusaka her Changer and tells him to run out to contact CARAT while she stays behind to hold off Yodonna. Kusaka does not want to leave her, but she pleads with him to hurry and go. Yodonna orders Bechats to chase after him.

Kusaka turns to see Sayo taking on the Bechats on her own. He apologizes to her before he runs out.

Juuru has a riddle for the Jamenshi which he ends up not answering. The Kiramagers go Kiraful and finish the Jamenshi off for good.

Kusaka finds them and explains the situation. Before they can go to save Sayo, Muryou calls to tell them that there is very strong Yodon signals popping up across the city.

This is happening just as Garuza has arrived in Atamald. Yodonna calls to update him on the progress of the vines. He orders her to send in the Jamenjus and officially begin his plan.

Three Jamenjus arrive and begin to lay waste to Tokyo.

Episode Thoughts

And I thought Saber escalated things quickly this week! Kiramager was definitely not left behind. It was a big week as Garuza began a huge plan that looks to give the Kiramagers their biggest and most dangerous challenge yet. I wasn’t expecting the episode to leave us with a cliffhanger, but they did. And it was an exciting one.

It was another episode where Kiramager lulls us into a false sense of security with a seemingly fluffy story at the start only to yank the rug from other us with a surprising and dangerous twist. I was legit surprised by the last third of the episode. I thought the others being giddy and excited spazzing over Sayo possibly finding her future husband was a fun, amusing plot. But as the season has done over and over again, they really know how to just turn things upside down in a creative and effective way.

Dr. Sayo was pretty awesome this episode. I’d say this was a much better focus episode than her song debut episode was a few weeks ago. (Though I don’t think that episode was really much of a focus anyway.) We got to see many different sides of Sayo here. But I loved her heroism and badassery at the end telling Kusaka to run while she stays and deals with Yodonna. I would’ve loved to have seen Sayo fighting the Bechats a little more. But even what we got was great.

Garuza’s plan is definitely big. It’s final arc-level big. Heck, it’s basically the plot of Kamen Rider Gaim‘s entire season lol (Funny considering the coconut tree is basically the Yggdrasil tree 2.0 lol)

But as we saw in the end, it’s causing major destruction (and death!). So it’s definitely some midseason climax-level stuff.

Kusaka is also a good character. And I hope they do more with him and Sayo. It will be very exciting to see what the results will be next episode.

Overall, a great episode. It really sets the stage for a potential climactic battle. Even though it’s only Episode 32!