This week's TV rambles
Aug. 9th, 2025 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alchemicinkThis week: geeking out over Megaranger references; the SSBC team deals with twins; Whale Store faces competition; more cozy romance from the "10 Things..." guys; and... Ultraman Omega falls into a hole 😅?
Gozyuger (episode 24)
This week the Gozyuger gang visits a school to investigate some suspicious No One activity, and things quickly go off the rails. (As expected 😂)
The main focus was on the universe warriors wearing the LuPat suits, but I haven't seen LuPat yet, so any homages and allusions went over my head. I did like how the two guys were a student and mentor whose friendship had been fractured. But I always find it kinda hard to get too invested in guest characters.
It was fun to watch Hoeru, Ryuugi, and Rikuo enjoy student life under the influence of the No One. They're so good at acting silly.
But actually my favorite thing in this episode were the Megaranger references!! If you haven't seen Megaranger, the team are all high school seniors, so it makes sense to throw in a few little references here. It wasn't a lot, but I enjoyed it! The biggest one, of course, was Sumino using the Megaranger ring, so she got to use the Drill Saber, Mega Sniper, and Cyber Slider. But another little thing was Ryuugi's school uniform being similar to how Kenta wore his in Megaranger. (They both had hoodies on underneath their jackets). And, when I looked up the actor who played the principal/mentor guy, I learned he was a very prolific suit actor for Kamen Rider and Sentai... including being the suit actor for Megablue when Megaranger was airing! I find this detail delightful.
SSBC (episode 5)
It was a classic tale of "which twin committed the crime?" for this episode of SSBC. The dead body of a yakuza guy is uncovered, and the team helps as usual to find the suspect and evidence of the crime.
It was nothing earth-shattering, and yet I still found myself very engaged with the story anyway. Perhaps my feelings would be different if I was watching with subtitles because I suspect I would have figured things out sooner if so. But the fun thing about only understanding about 75 percent of the dialogue is that you really have to pay attention 😅
Also, this is a show with a rather large cast of characters, and I like many of the actors' different performances, so I suspect that's another reason why I enjoy this show so much each week. (Also, also, I like watching Takaki 😂)
My only complaint about this episode would be the very contrived coincidence that they all discovered the First Division Chief has a twin brother at the same time they dealt with a case with twin suspects. Silly!
Whale Store (episode 7)
At this point, I have just gotten used to this show's wonky pacing issues, so putting that aside, I quite enjoyed this episode. The conflict was all about if they can get Wan's grocery store to survive the opening of the competiting big chain store down the road. I find that much more interesting than relationship conflicts. Wan and Maewnam worked hard all throughout the episode, and I just enjoyed seeing that. It was a nice relaxing watch, which is what I wanted this week. (We even got a cute scene of Wan and Maewnam lounging naked in bed together, which is honestly more than I expected we'd get.)
By the way, it turns out that you can simply drum up business if you make tiktok videos about the cute cat who hangs out in your store 😂😂😂
There is, of course, still conflict brewing on the horizon. Maewnam's mom is still being an awful person, so I suspect we'll get some focus on that again soon. And there was one ominous shot of the new professor (still cannot remember her name) watching Wan and Maewnam being happy together. So she'll probably stir up some shit again soon.
But for now, I did enjoy the calm before the storm.
10 Things... (episode 6)
Content note that this week's episode talks frequently about weight gain/weight loss. I have never watched an episode of Japanese television that dealt with weight in a way that wasn't offensive. And this week's episode is unfortunately no exception to that.
So I'm just not gonna talk about those bits at all, and focus on what I enjoyed instead. And that's the slow burn of Tojo and Keishi's relationship. They've come a long way from just brushing fingertips during the takoyaki party. Now they're doing warmup stretches together before their racketball game. And Tojo is taking the initiative to invite Keishi over (just for cake!!) And Keishi is tenderly kissing his forehead and calling him by his first name.
It's very cute and feels like a nice progression of their relationship for someone like Tojo who's still wrestling with insecurities and Keishi who's not always exactly expressing how he feels.
(On the other hand, it does feel like they're stalling the plot a little bit here. But I enjoy how cozy this show is, so I don't mind very much.)
Sidenote but I loved their workout clothes 😂 it's the only time Keishi's bizarre fashion hasn't felt out of place to me 😂
Ultraman Omega (episode 6)
Once again, I really wish I was vibing with Ultraman Omega. But I am not. I think perhaps the disconnect is that Arc and Blazar felt very human-focused and the kaiju were well-established and just kinda always there. But in Omega, the kaiju are just now appearing and everything is very focused on learning more about them. And I feel like this sacrifices a lot of the screentime that could go towards the people's stories instead. It just doesn't resonate with me personally.
Anyway, I will briefly talk about what I enjoyed: that nice shot of Sorato looking up at the sky while laying on Kosei's stomach; Ayumu talking about why she became a biologist; Omega immediately falling into a hole while fighting this week's kaiju (it was good comedic timing)
Perhaps next week will be more entertaining to me!
Gozyuger (episode 24)
This week the Gozyuger gang visits a school to investigate some suspicious No One activity, and things quickly go off the rails. (As expected 😂)
The main focus was on the universe warriors wearing the LuPat suits, but I haven't seen LuPat yet, so any homages and allusions went over my head. I did like how the two guys were a student and mentor whose friendship had been fractured. But I always find it kinda hard to get too invested in guest characters.
It was fun to watch Hoeru, Ryuugi, and Rikuo enjoy student life under the influence of the No One. They're so good at acting silly.
But actually my favorite thing in this episode were the Megaranger references!! If you haven't seen Megaranger, the team are all high school seniors, so it makes sense to throw in a few little references here. It wasn't a lot, but I enjoyed it! The biggest one, of course, was Sumino using the Megaranger ring, so she got to use the Drill Saber, Mega Sniper, and Cyber Slider. But another little thing was Ryuugi's school uniform being similar to how Kenta wore his in Megaranger. (They both had hoodies on underneath their jackets). And, when I looked up the actor who played the principal/mentor guy, I learned he was a very prolific suit actor for Kamen Rider and Sentai... including being the suit actor for Megablue when Megaranger was airing! I find this detail delightful.
SSBC (episode 5)
It was a classic tale of "which twin committed the crime?" for this episode of SSBC. The dead body of a yakuza guy is uncovered, and the team helps as usual to find the suspect and evidence of the crime.
It was nothing earth-shattering, and yet I still found myself very engaged with the story anyway. Perhaps my feelings would be different if I was watching with subtitles because I suspect I would have figured things out sooner if so. But the fun thing about only understanding about 75 percent of the dialogue is that you really have to pay attention 😅
Also, this is a show with a rather large cast of characters, and I like many of the actors' different performances, so I suspect that's another reason why I enjoy this show so much each week. (Also, also, I like watching Takaki 😂)
My only complaint about this episode would be the very contrived coincidence that they all discovered the First Division Chief has a twin brother at the same time they dealt with a case with twin suspects. Silly!
Whale Store (episode 7)
At this point, I have just gotten used to this show's wonky pacing issues, so putting that aside, I quite enjoyed this episode. The conflict was all about if they can get Wan's grocery store to survive the opening of the competiting big chain store down the road. I find that much more interesting than relationship conflicts. Wan and Maewnam worked hard all throughout the episode, and I just enjoyed seeing that. It was a nice relaxing watch, which is what I wanted this week. (We even got a cute scene of Wan and Maewnam lounging naked in bed together, which is honestly more than I expected we'd get.)
By the way, it turns out that you can simply drum up business if you make tiktok videos about the cute cat who hangs out in your store 😂😂😂
There is, of course, still conflict brewing on the horizon. Maewnam's mom is still being an awful person, so I suspect we'll get some focus on that again soon. And there was one ominous shot of the new professor (still cannot remember her name) watching Wan and Maewnam being happy together. So she'll probably stir up some shit again soon.
But for now, I did enjoy the calm before the storm.
10 Things... (episode 6)
Content note that this week's episode talks frequently about weight gain/weight loss. I have never watched an episode of Japanese television that dealt with weight in a way that wasn't offensive. And this week's episode is unfortunately no exception to that.
So I'm just not gonna talk about those bits at all, and focus on what I enjoyed instead. And that's the slow burn of Tojo and Keishi's relationship. They've come a long way from just brushing fingertips during the takoyaki party. Now they're doing warmup stretches together before their racketball game. And Tojo is taking the initiative to invite Keishi over (just for cake!!) And Keishi is tenderly kissing his forehead and calling him by his first name.
It's very cute and feels like a nice progression of their relationship for someone like Tojo who's still wrestling with insecurities and Keishi who's not always exactly expressing how he feels.
(On the other hand, it does feel like they're stalling the plot a little bit here. But I enjoy how cozy this show is, so I don't mind very much.)
Sidenote but I loved their workout clothes 😂 it's the only time Keishi's bizarre fashion hasn't felt out of place to me 😂
Ultraman Omega (episode 6)
Once again, I really wish I was vibing with Ultraman Omega. But I am not. I think perhaps the disconnect is that Arc and Blazar felt very human-focused and the kaiju were well-established and just kinda always there. But in Omega, the kaiju are just now appearing and everything is very focused on learning more about them. And I feel like this sacrifices a lot of the screentime that could go towards the people's stories instead. It just doesn't resonate with me personally.
Anyway, I will briefly talk about what I enjoyed: that nice shot of Sorato looking up at the sky while laying on Kosei's stomach; Ayumu talking about why she became a biologist; Omega immediately falling into a hole while fighting this week's kaiju (it was good comedic timing)
Perhaps next week will be more entertaining to me!
