Recap: Avataro Sentai Donbrothers, Episode 11 – The Dog Falls Ill

Sononi and Sonoza are taken aback when Sonoi brings them with him to visit the Guardian… who is actually Papa Jin. Sonoi explains that this man was made a Guardian as punishment for his crime. He guards this space which is the border between the human world and the Noto world. And the space also acts as a seal to prevent the Juto from encroaching on either.

Papa Jin says it is not possible for the Juto to have appeared for as long as he’s here. But Sonoi knows what he saw. Papa Jin says if that is true, then both the human and Noto world will soon become hell.

With visiting hours over, Papa Jin leaves them with one warning: They must be cautious of the Juto’s origami regardless if it is a cat, crane or penguin.

Over in the human world, Detective Sayama’s comrades notice how he has become a bit odd since returning from the bus crash of which he has no memory of. Detective Sayama hums as he calmly folds Tsubasa’s Wanted posters into origami.

The detectives suddenly get a tip about Tsubasa and hurry out.

Tsubasa is working at a restaurant washing dishes. But he is distracted by daydreaming about happy times shopping with Natsumi and paying for all the clothes she could ever want. Tsubasa ends up getting fired after repeatedly breaking plates because of daydreams.

But as soon as he leaves the restaurant, the detectives are outside waiting. He manages to hop on his motorcycle to drive off. But the Juto’d Sayama storms into the restaurant and feeds on meat which seems to power him up and allows him to chase after Tsubasa on his own two feet.

Tsubasa tries escaping through a virtual door, but the Juto Sayama is right there to welcome him. The Juto grabs Tsubasa by the neck and force feeds him his origami. Tsubasa manages to kick free from the Juto’s clutches and escapes.

Meanwhile, Tarou makes a delivery to Ohno Monoru who is an aspiring ninja. Monoru tries to challenge Tarou using his new kusarigama. But Tarou easily grabs it and swats it down. After Tarou leaves, a furious Monoru has a Hitotsuki emerge behind him.

On the other side of town, Tsuyoshi finds a very weak Tsubasa outside his apartment. Tsubasa appears ill and Tsuyoshi brings him inside since he can’t bring a fugitive to the hospital. Tsuyoshi runs over to Shirokuma to ask Tarou for help.

Tarou says he is not a doctor and says Tsuyoshi must nurse him back to health. But he will offer some help anyway. That help is in the form of Haruka who Tarou sends over.

As Haruka finds Tsubasa has a very high fever, Tsuyoshi formally introduces himself with his business card since he never got a chance to when they were hostages together. He thanks her for coming over and begins to brag about his Miho-chan by showing Haruka their wedding photo.

Haruka puts a cold wet cloth on Tsubasa and he seems to regain consciousness. But as he awakens, he sees Haruka as Natsumi and he quickly gets up to hug her. Haruka slaps Tsubasa. But Tsuyoshi says maybe she should pretend to be Natsumi just to maybe help Tsubasa feel a little better.

Haruka gives it a try. But Tsubasa comes to his senses and when he realizes that she is not his Natsumi, he kicks Haruka to the wall. Haruka picks up a dumbbell, but Tsuyoshi stops her from smashing Tsubasa’s head in.

The doorbell rings and Tsuyoshi is surprised to see Shinichi has also been sent over by Tarou.

Speaking of, the Hitotsuki of Monoru finds Tarou and challenges him. Tarou henshins and they battle.

Back at the apartment, after assessing Tsubasa’s condition, Shinichi suggests Tsuyoshi go to the hospital and pretend to be sick with Tsubasa’s symptoms in order to get medicine for his ailment. Haruka says that’s a great idea and says he should use that nice big brain when they’re out in battle.

Shinichi excuses himself and Haruka to the kitchen and reminds her that they need to keep their Donbro identities a secret. Haruka realizes her mistake, but she still wonders who the other two Donbros are. She has a faint memory of the pink pheasant Donbro’s identity, but can’t clearly remember his face.

Suddenly, the Donblasters pop up in front of Haruka and Shinichi and they are immediately teleported to the scene of Tarou battling the Hitotsuki and Anonis. Tsuyoshi as well, but he steps on tetsubishis on the ground.

Tarou tells them that he’ll handle this situation on his own. Haruka and Shinichi dehenshin and hurry back to Tsubasa.

Tsuyoshi heads to the doctor to get his feet bandaged after stepping on the spikes as well as ask about something else that’s bothering him. When he returns to the apartment, Haruka assumes the medicine he is holding is for Tsubasa. So she grabs it, gives Tsubasa a few pills and pours water from the basin into his mouth.

Tsubasa suddenly leaps up and runs to the bathroom. Tsuyoshi says the medicine was actually laxatives for him as he has had bowel problems lately.

Shinichi says Tsubasa will need some hearty rice porridge to replenish him so they head to the kitchen and begin to make broth for it. While waiting for the broth to boil, Haruka and Shinichi decide to go check up on Tarou.

Tsuyoshi wonders where the two of them went. But when he sees the unattended boiling broth, he scrambles to get the pot off the stove. Of course with the pot being scalding hot, he drops it and the boiling water spills onto his already injured feet. The Donblaster pops up in front of him again and he is teleported back to the battle.

Tsuyoshi bumps into Haruka and then gets flung like a shuriken by Shinichi which actually defeats a bunch of Anonis in the area.

Haruka and Shinichi head back to the apartment and find Tsuyoshi unconscious on the floor with the broth spilled. Once Tsuyoshi is awake, they head in to check on Tsubasa who seems to only be getting worse.

Shinichi says it is time for their last resort which is a bit superstitious. But Tsuyoshi says he will do anything to help Tsubasa. The superstition involves balancing a basin of salt on one’s head and pray for the fast recovery of the sick without spilling any of the salt.

Tsuyoshi gets started and while he prays, Haruka and Shinichi return to help Tarou who is now battling multiple Hitotsukis. They each take one of the ninja Hitotsukis. But Haruka and Shinichi are shocked when the pink pheasant Donbro is teleported to the scene with a basin of salt on his head. The three of them realize who each other is.

Back at the apartment, Miho arrives home with some obento. But she is shocked to find Tsubasa in the bedroom, wondering who he could be. Suddenly, seeing Tsubasa seems to trigger something in her. She goes to Tsubasa and reaches into his mouth to remove the origami cat. As soon as she scrunches it up in her hand, Tsubasa already seems to feel much better.

Tsubasa regains consciousness and thinks he sees Natsumi next to him. But she immediately disappears. Just then, the Donblaster pops in and Tsubasa is quickly teleported to the battle as well.

One of the Hitotsuki knocks salt out of Tsuyoshi’s basin and it spills into another Hitotsuki’s eyes. Tsubasa arrives and prepares to deliver a flying kick to that Hitotsuki, but it ducks down and he instead kicks Tsuyoshi. That causes the entire basin of salt to go flying in the air.

The salt rains down on them. But since the Donbros all have visors on their helmets, only the Hitotsuki are blinded by the salt. They take this opportunity to finish the Hitotsukis with their Robotaro forms. Minoru is back to normal.

Back at the apartment, Miho spends the evening folding origami cranes as a baby cries in the distance.

Episode Thoughts

I don’t know what it is, but I just really love Donbrothers right now. I know I gotta be careful because I don’t want to have skyscraper-tall expectations only to get burned in the end. (Hello Revice!) But I’m having fun with the Donbros so far.

And I think part of it really is how different it feels. I think it reminds me a lot of Go-Busters when it first started airing with its small tweaks to the Sentai formula. I mean, I don’t know how well the Donbro toys are selling because we’re 11 episodes in and we’ve barely had mecha battles. Now for me who doesn’t really care about the toys and doesn’t really follow that stuff, it’s perfectly fine by me.

Because of the seeming lack of focus on pushing the toys and things like that, I feel like the show has focused on the characters and the story. It’s a very mysterious story and we might not really know what in the world is going on. But I do think the episodes have been much heavier on these little vignette-type stories and the slowburn coming together of the team.

Take this episode for example. They may have cut back and forth to Tarou battling the Hitotsuki, but the episode was all about the others taking care of Tsubasa and the anticipation that they might finally recognize each other.

Of course, the bonus was finally revealing a bit about Miho and the potential connection to the Juto. (Though I was also anticipating the Tsu-bros realizing that their dear Miho and Natsumi might be one in the same. Save that for another day!)

That final scene of Miho folding that origami was definitely eerie and creepy. A perfect ending to the episode. And a great tease for what’s to come. Using Miho/maybe Natsumi as a way to introduce us to the Juto a bit more is great. I look forward to it.

But back to the rest of the episode, it was just sheer madness. And in a good way. I mean, slaps and kicks and laxatives and boiling hot water. WTF is going on? lol But it was a good WTF lolol

Of course it helps that our Donbros are all interesting and likable characters. So watching them do all this crazy stuff is still enjoyable to watch.

Then we got the quick scene of the Noto3 visiting Papa Jin at the start which just adds another mystery and question to the list. But with the way the season has been progressing, all these questions piling up feels natural? I don’t know if that’s the best word to describe it. But it suits with how they’ve slowly peeled back the layers. Whether it’s for the overall story or the characters or even the mere fact that it’s Episode 11 and the Donbros still don’t know each other’s identities yet. (We’re getting closer though and I hope it will be a big moment when they get to henshin together for the first time.)

Overall, this was another great episode. Maybe one of my favorites alongside last week’s and Episode 5.

Non-CGI Donbro of the Week

Awesome to see the physical suit back this week, at least for Tsuyoshi.