The Kikainoids are manning the candy shop. Zyuran drops a glass of water and asks Gaon to hand him a rag. But Gaon ignores him and gets snarky. Mr. Su laughs that when Kaito and Grandma Yacchan aren’t around, Zyuran and Gaon are always arguing. Magine bows and apologizes for the inconvenience. But her butt bumps into Vroom who goes flying, including all the candy he was holding.
Gaon sighs, saying they are hopeless. Zyuran takes offense and says anyone can make a mistake. Secchan agrees. But Gaon says he’s not clumsy like they all are. Grandma Yacchan walks into the room just as Zyuran is about to reply to that insult.
Gaon apologizes to Grandma Yacchan about the others being obnoxious. When Mr. Su gets up to leave after finishing his food, Gaon rushes to help him with his bags and carries him on his back.
Meanwhile, Kaito is visiting with his friend at the Kikai Takoyaki cart when he sees the mysterious Stacey from last episode enjoying some of the delicious treat.
Kaito sits with Stacey and introduces himself. Stacey doesn’t return the courtesy and Kaito thinks he’s an idol or magician. Stacey asks him what’s his deal and while Kaito excitedly describes himself, Stacey gets up and leaves.
Zyuran, Magine and Vroom are talking a walk. Vroom wonders why Gaon is so cold to them while being so nice to humans. Zyuran says Gaon hates Kikainoids. Vroom doesn’t understand when Gaon is a Kikainoid himself. Magine agrees.
Just then, Kudakks arrive and begin attacking the people. The three of them henshin and call Kaito who runs over. Kaito runs past Stacey and says hello. But Stacey begins running in the same direction and follows Kaito up to the rooftop where the others have already dealt with the Kudakks.
Kaito whips out his Geartlinger and to everyone’s surprise, he whips out what looks to be one of his own, complete with its own Gear as well. Stacey locks the Gear in.
Kaito asks if Stacey knows his parents, but he does not. Just then, Stacey shoots and suddenly out pop the five Gorengers. Kaito excitedly greets Akaranger who he is meeting again. But the Gorengers suddenly attack.
Kaito thinks this is a prank since Stacey is a magician. But Stacey says it’s nothing personal. This is just a job Ijirude hired him to do. Turns out Ijirude has created this Geartozinger and Dark Gears also based on Sentai teams.
Kaito asks if he is a Tojitendo, but Stacey says he is just Stacey. He orders the Gorengers to attack and the Zenkaigers henshin once again. Gaon arrives, confused as to what is going on.
Stacey locks in Boukenger and Magiranger Gears to summon those teams as well. The Zenkaigers are now greatly outnumbered. Gaon henshins and protects Kaito from some of the Sentai attacks. But when Zyuran charges toward Stacey, Gaon blocks him and kicks his sword out of his hands. The sword goes flying and strikes both Magine and Vroom.
Gaon hesitates. Kaito sees they are in big trouble and uses a Kakuranger Gear to poof themselves away.
Back at the shop, Vroom and Magine rest their injuries while Zyuran digs into Gaon. Why would he protect Stacey and not his comrades? Is Gaon that obsessed with humans that he doesn’t care about them?
“But you’re Kikainoids, aren’t you?!” Gaon storms out.
Grandma Yacchan says perhaps Gaon trusts them in his own way since he’s a Kikainoid too. She punches Zyuran’s chest.
Kaito finds Gaon sitting in the park and thanks him for protecting him. Gaon says it’s because Kaito isn’t as tough as them Kikainoids are. Kaito asks if that means Gaon considers Zyuran and the others as his friends. Gaon says he kind of considers them as human-protecting comrades.
Kaito asks if by that, Gaon also includes Stacey and the Sentai legends. Gaon says he hated everyone, including Tojitendo, the Kikainoids who let them roam free and himself. That allowed him to fight freely.
Kaito says he understands as he feels the same way. He is not sure how to feel about Stacey. Remembering Stacey is human gives him pause. That’s why he is impressed with the others who are able to fight no matter the opponent. Unlike them who have no idea what to do.
Stacey arrives and is now accompanied by both Gorengers and Gaorangers. Kaito tells Gaon to go ahead and fight these impostors. The real Sentai teams would never fight for the Tojitendo.
As for Stacey, Kaito decides he will try to talk to him instead. Gaon says he’ll take care of the fakes while Kaito does that.
Zyuran, Magine and Vroom arrive and Gaon tells them to stop standing around so they can help Kaito as that is their job. The three of them aren’t too happy to hear Gaon’s snippy words. But they henshin anyway so they can help.
Kaito approaches Stacey and asks him whether he is human or Kikainoid and why he would side with Ijirude. Stacey says he might be partially human. He locks in a Gear and henshins for the first time into Stacaesar.
Barashitara asks Ijirude why he chose Stacey. Ijirude says he wanted to test his new creation on someone as human as possible. Barashitara says that makes sense and feels maybe the boy will finally be of some use.
Stacey shoots at Kaito who finally decides to fight him in order to beat the Tojitendo and protect the world as well as save his parents.
Gaon is happy to see Kaito make up his mind. Kaito tosses Gaon the Gaoranger Gear and the others use wild power to counter the wild power of the Gaoranger fakes.
They destroy the fake Gaorangers and focus on the fake Gorengers while Kaito battles Stacey. Kaito uses a Gorenger Gear to power them up and allow them to use a Gorenger attack to literally erase the fakes.
Stacey suddenly summons mecha from the seasons the Zenkaigers are modeled after: Zyuranger, Gaoranger, Magiranger and Boukenger. Kaito is impressed with Ijirude’s genius. But the pause allows the mecha to attack them.
The Kikainoids transform and combine into ZyuranGaon and VrooMagine to battle the fake mechas. But they struggle against the combined finishers from the fakes. They are forced to split, but they end up reverting back to their non-mecha forms, though still embiggened.
Zyuran asks Kaito toss them another Gear. But he is unable to with Stacey continuing to attack him.
The Kikainoids decide to lock in their Gears again to perhaps embiggen some more. But instead of doing so, they summon a huge Geartlinger Bazooka. Kaito tosses them a huge Flashman Gear and they use it to defeat the fakes for good.
The Kikainoids celebrate. But Stacey summons a dozen more fake legendary mecha.
Episode Thoughts
This was a bit of a weird episode because I actually didn’t really get it? I dunno. Like at the start of the episode, I thought we were going to get an explanation of why Gaon hates his own kind. But I don’t even know what we got.
The way they were setting it up, I was expecting maybe Gaon had some kind of terrible experience. Like, he was bullied or attacked by his own people or something. Or he’s self-hating because he feels guilty about the Tojitendo’s reign of terror? I really don’t know.
And then they pair that with the implication that Kikainoids are merely expendable androids made of metal that exist only to protect humans. Plus Kaito being overly kind in not wanting to fight Stacey even though he just summoned copies of legendary heroes he had just met in the movie. Like, what’s going on there?
This was just a weird episode. I really haven’t understood what they’re trying to do with Gaon since his debut.
Speaking of debut, I don’t know if this was the best debut for Stacey either. He has daddy issues? Is Barashitara even his real father? What would “father” mean in that sense? Biological? He made him? He’s half-human, half-Kikainoid? He’s an idol magician who competed on Produce 101 Japan? Who knows.
But this episode was just all kinds of awkward and confusing for me. I can’t even enjoy seeing the four Kikainoids battling the mecha they were inspired by. Nor them remaining embiggened while in their henshined forms. (That was pretty cool.)
My favorite part of the episode though is seeing the Kikainoid takoyaki vendor again as well as Mr. Su. I hope they continue being recurring characters this season.
Needless to say, this is probably my least favorite episode of the season so far. And weirdly enough, it made this week’s Saber feel positively well-put together. I feel really bad how everything just went over my head this week.
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2 thoughts on “Recap: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger, Episode 7 – The Dark Prince is Short-Tempered”
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Didn’t expect to see Stacey transform with his own henshin item, Geartozinger, that resembles Geartlinger.
He’s basically Basco, where he can also use past Sentai powers; though unlike, Basco, he has his own Dark Sentai Gear, where he did not stole it from Zenkaiger, which was a nice touch, where both Goranger attack were clashing into another.
As for Stacaesar design, I really like it, where resembles Showa Era sentai.
I like the sound effects/voice of Geartozinger, where it has evil vibes.
The battle of past Sentai teams were interesting to watch and I also like that past mecha/robo appear as well; nice touch with mecha toy box background effect.
I like that Toei used past series footage for finishing move, which was nice touch.
It was surprised that Geartlinger become GIANT for finishing move, which I didn’t see it coming.
Since the episode ends with MORE robots summoned, this one is a multi-part episodes.
While it was nice to see new villain, Stacey, being properly introduced, I just wished it happened later, since Kikainoid hasn’t got along completely, especially for Gaon, who seems really isolated and that issue should have solved BEFORE introducing something new.
The episode itself maybe entertaining with aforementioned stuff happened, but it felt very rushed and crammed; it has an opposite issues that I had with Kamen Rider Saber, which I have been critical, where the show drags on no progression to overall story til later, which is way too late at this point.
It’s not really good thing to cram so many stuff early into the series, only to quickly running out of steam mid-way til endgame, which I’ve seen before.
I understand Toei/Bandai are really putting lot of efforts for 45th anniversary AND boosting toy sales, due to the fact franchise is on crisis with declining toysales (and ratings) each year, but it needs to have good balance of pacing and storytelling; which has been problematic for tokusatsu shows in recent years.
I agree that they should have focused more on the Zenkaigers a little more before introducing Stacey. Maybe have him hanging around, but not a full introduction yet like this episode.
It is interesting since it is an anniversary season with actual powers from previous Sentai. It’s hard to balance all of that, but Gokaiger did so well with it. Zenkaiger is fun, but they must be careful the way they develop the story. Good story and exciting moments will sell toys.