Tokusatsu Review: Ressha Sentai Toqger Vs Kyoryuger The Movie Part 1: Valiant Vision.

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 This movie is going to be a problem, as you may or may not know I have, well a definitive opinion of Toqger. But I don't want to look like a psychotic lunatic describing my feelings about Toqger, so I will leave my good friend Silky Johnson, a true trained and learned hater to give my feelings about the 38th Super Sentai.

 A true hater; one that I hope and fear will become someday. But I've gone on record long enough about my hatred of these unimaginative morons; time to talk about their predecessors; Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger. They're the strongest braves in history who fought against the Deboss army, an army of monsters that caused the extermination of the Dinosaurs millions of years ago. In the modern day they tried to revive their master Deboss by gathering emotional energy from people. I think Kyoryuger was an okay series, but the complaints I have with it are pretty much the same as everyone else, too much focus on Daigo especially when this team had a roster of TEN RANGERS that the extra development could have gone to but it wasn't because reasons, way too much explosions (thank you Sakamoto) and the show in general was a bit too goofy for my taste.

 I'll get into this more when I decide to talk about the first eight episodes of Kyoryuger's adaptation Power Rangers Dino Charge but I'm definitely liking Dino Charge more then Kyoryuger. So for right now let's see how these two teams mix and if I have to hurl afterwords from digesting the concoction. We open in space where Lady, a character from Toqger's other movie "Galaxy Line SOS" (also I see the Thomas the Tank Engine reference you made by naming her "Lady" nice try) reports to the Rainbow line that a Galaxy Line station has been attacked by a mass of green energy and both are on a collision course with the earth. So our army of Tom Hanks wannabees transform and head to the crash site to see what exactly caused the station to crash, discovering Zorimas and Cambrimas the foot solders and elite foot solders of the Deboss army emerging from the green energy seeping from the crashed station. The team tries to fight them off but their attack do jack all against them. Kagura is about to be killed by a Zorima until a certain duo shows up.

Yep the return of Daigo (Kyoryu Red) and Amy (Kyoryu Pink)

 The two veterans easily take care of the goons while Tokatti and Kagura wonder who they are. Um you two should know at least half of that question since, oh wait that movie never happened never mind. The two then get saved by Nossan (Kyoryu Blue) from the grunt, but not from his puns.

 Yep, Nossan absolutely loves these word puns, at least the guys at Tv Nihon did the translations as best as they could and explained what this highball joke was so it didn't go completely over our heads. But still just because I have to, here's the clip just out of principal.

 Mio then gets saved by Ian (Kyoryu Black) while Souji (Kyoryu Green) one of the least developed characters in Kyoryuger saves Hikari, my favorite Toqger and who I think is the real leader of the group. As the Kyoryugers do their literally explosive introduction they inadvertently pull a Ziggy from RPM and catch the Toqgers in their back explosion sending them flying. HA ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, eh that's just plain old fashioned funny for several reasons, not the least of which showing how incompetent the Toqgers are. Hell the first 15 minutes of this movie seems to be dedicated to doing just that, and I am more then happy with that. Yeah I know the cardinal rule of any team up is to not make one faction look better then the other, but if the one that looks bad is Toqger I soooooooooooooo don't care. So while the train twits lick their burn marks the Kyoryugers clean house with the grunts.

Right, why is it that almost every time you open your mouth you say something stupid?

 The Kyoryugers try to get to the station but are stopped by a green force field. Unfortunately like the Kyoryuger series itself the other members of the team search for a way to break the shield leaving Daigo to get all of the character interaction with the Toqgers. Really? The rest of the team didn't think to ask the Toqgers what they know about the situation and compare notes to hopefully find out what caused this; especially since this is tied into their group and network of allies? Oh wait there goes me and my logic again. Yeah why would we want to see the primary members of this team up bounce off of each other and get interesting character interactions based off of how different and similar they are?

 Who would want to watch that? Heh heh, oy vey. Anyway after Daigo shows off his new haircut the Toqgers start asking Daigo questions which Conductor wants answered immediately and brings them on the trains so Daigo can explain it all. Also, yes Daigo can see and board the trains, because he has imagination.

 Sorry but I have to do that everytime Toqger mentions Imagination, yeah that part still pisses me off and you should too. After more dialogue that causes brain tumors with every period Daigo explains that the station was brought down by Devius, the being responsible for creating Deboss and thus the Deboss army. Speaking of which Devius' henchman; Salamas is meeting with Zett and the rest of the Shadow Line to ask for help keeping the two Sentai teams off his back while Devius gains a physical form.

Wait a minute, this looks familiar. Oh god Devius is a Pillar Man! This might explain what happened to Kars after Joseph sent him into space. He got sent through a worm hole into this universe, was converted into a mass of energy and using his powers as the Ultimate Life form, created Deboss as a means to conquer the universe!

 And in exchange they'll help Zett kill the Toqgers. Zett agrees and decides to loan Salamas a Shadow Kaijin. Salamas thanks Zett by kissing his robe which caused Morc to attack him for stepping out of line. After hearing the situation from Daigo the Toqgers offer their help but Daigo refuses pointing out how their weapons and attacks were useless against the grunts. He also senses something about them, something childish that he doesn't want to put in danger. Daigo then does a dine and dash as he JUMPS OUT OF THE MOVING TRAIN AND LANDS WITHOUT A SCRATCH! Right, not one to listen to reason, sound advice or anything that doesn't come from his own noise hole decides that they're going to fight Devius anyway, even though they know that their weapons and attacks can't hurt him and his creations.

 While everyone tries to keep Right under control we cut to Utchy (Kyoryu Gold) waiting for Daigo at the train station. Our movie exclusive monster shows up with some Kuros; the Shadow Line's foot solders and after a silly little exchange Utchy tries to fight off the forces.

The decorated decorum devoted dunce in the middle is Clock Shadow.

 However just like when the Toqgers couldn't hurt the Deboss grunts with their weapons, Utchy's sword can't cut it with the Shadow Line grunts either. Thankfully the other Toqger that I can stand, Akira shows up to help Utchy fend off the Kuros. After a pointless scene of Right making a right ass out of himself we cut back to the fight where Clock Shadow starts, well pretending he's a clock striking 12, Akira warns Utchy to run and not listen to him sing, Utchy of course refuses to run, the Toqgers then show up and Clock Shadow starts singing again forcing Akira to summon the Build Ressha to get them all to retreat. Clock Shadow orders the Kuros to go after them, when a certain group of gaudy Ninjas show up, and no one of them isn't Pierre Kirby; it's the Ninningers. Yep as is tradition now with these crossover movies we get a preview/showcase of the next seasons Sentai, though they usually come in near the end of the movie.

 So yeah this an odd change of pace but a good one in my opinion. So for the next five minutes we get the Ninningers destroying all the Kuros and chasing Clock Shadow off, but not before he summons a Kurainer to squash them. Instead of summoning their Otomo Nin they instead use a Nin Shuriken that they just pulled out of their ass (so far not sure if this will actually be introduced in the show as of 5/6/15) to shrink the Kurainer to human size so they can finish it off with their finishing attack.

"Dad, the movie's talking to me again" "I'll fire up the electroshock machine."

 After Deadpool found his new targets for stealing his schtick we cut back to the Toqgers who have now been turned into kids, or rather restored to normal. As for Utchy, well.....

BABY!

 Yeah it turns out that Clock Shadow has the ability to age regress a person; the longer they listen to his clock impression the farther back they go. Wait hold on, the longer the victim is exposed to the effects the younger they become. The one who has this power is weird, malicious and works for a guy who is viewed as the embodiment of pure evil.

 OH GOD GET AWAY! The fact that Clock Shadows voice actor Masaya Onosaka is also the voice actor for Alessi does not help matters at all, in fact the little voice in my head is telling me that this casting choice and Clock Shadow's powers was made as an intentional reference. Ugh anyway Akira says that Clock Shadow's powers don't work on other Shadows and that's why he's fine. With the Toqgers occupied with Chibichi the Kyoryugers are trying to get to Devius, with no success, Daigo then summons Gabutyra to take a crack at it, however Kurainers show up to reinforce the barrier with darkness, so even with Gabutyra they can't get in. Akira calls the Kyoryugers to show them what happened to Utchy and the Toqgers.

GET IT?! Yeah I can't honestly believe they went there.

 Ugh this whole review is getting squicky. What makes me feel even more uncomfortable is the fact that RIGHT of all people comes to the realization that the team's respective powers don't work on the other teams enemies. So for Devius to be stopped both teams have to work together. Clock Shadow shows up with an army of Kuros, Zorimas and Cambrimas. The Kyoryugers transform to protect the kids, however Right and the other kids can still transform and do so.

Couldn't we have these Toqgers instead?

 Now time for me to explain something about my hatred for Toqger. Everyone I've seen defending this show says that "they're kids in adult bodies what do you expect of course they're going to be annoying, kids are annoying." Yeah I get that but here's the thing, the show says that the team are kids in adult bodies, but for me, it comes off as the leads being adults that are acting like children, and there is a gigantic difference. We know that kids more often enough do indeed act like the Toqgers, but again the problem is that as far as we can tell Adults are acting like Children! Do you get where I'm coming from?

 But to be perfectly honest, for the rest of the movie where the Toqgers are kids, they are 1000 more tolerable for me. If the team from the start were portrayed by child actors this show would have fared far better in my eyes. I mean say what you will about Kou from Dairanger, Riki from Ohranger or Justin from Power Rangers Turbo at least when they were Rangers they were still kids in their civilian forms, you could have done what those shows or even Beetleborgs did, have the child actors and just have them grow to adult proportions when they transform, or even switch to more grown up voices while they're transformed so there won't be any scheduling conflicts with their schoolwork or whatever. Because from what little I've seen here these kids should have been the main heroes of the show, that change would have removed at least 50% of my rage at this show and make Right far more tolerable as a character, because this behavior is more tolerable from a kid then a grown ass adult. Also it seems that Right is acting more mature as a kid then he was as an adult. Okay, rant over.

YOU LEAVE THOSE CHILDREN ALONE YOU MONSTER!

I have Chris Hanson and I'm not afraid to use him.

 So the two teams on Right's suggestion swaps their power totems with their opposite number, the Toqgers give the Kyoryugers their Resshas and the Kyoryugers give their Zyudenchi batteries, with the totems inserted (somehow) into their respective devices the fight is on. Akira would have joined in on this but, well he still has Chibichi to look after. And the core swap worked, as the combined forces can hurt both groups of foot solders now.

OH GOD NOT THAT THING AGAIN!

 Great, that's just what this movie needed, the return of the unholy love child of Majin Buu and a dumpling. Long story go watch episode 15 to see the context behind this stupid looking abomination. So after, that the grunts are gone and all that's left is the mechanized Don Patch. Meanwhile the Shadow Line chew out Salamas for his plan going pear shaped. Salamas however lives up to his name and sets Castle Terminal on fire, yeah that part of Zetts cape he kissed? Yeah apparently that was him planing the "fuse" as it were for his pyrokinetic abilities. So he torches the place, steals some Kurainers and makes tracks. The two teams combine their powers to destroy Clock Shadow, but before he can grow Salamas steals the darkness and grows, fusing five Kuros with him to make,

THIS UNGODLY STUPID LOOKING THING!

 I mean come on, are you kidding me with this thing? Look I get what they were going for, mixing a train with a dragon. I know that dragons were often grouped together with Salamanders in European mythology and modern depictions of Salamanders often cast them as being associated with fire and I guess the producers wanted to mix the themes of the two villain groups together but come on!  There's mixing and matching and then there's taking two puzzle pieces from completely different sets and slamming them together until they kind of fit. So the teams summon their mechs, fire their lasers at Salamas, and they can't aim for crap. Salamas somehow manages to survive the initial assault so the team summon their strongest mechs ToQ Rainbow and Gigant Kyoryujin to destroy Salamas. With his destruction the Toqgers and Utchy grow to their adult forms again.

 However they're too late, Devius has awakened and just with a single laser blast nearly destroys both mechs forcing the teams to retreat. Next time we conclude this movie and I give my final thoughts.

Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
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Batman: The Animated Series is owned by Dc Comics, Warner Brothers and Paul Dini.
Ultima IX: Ascension is owned by Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, and Richard Garriot AKA Lord British.
Deadfall is owned by Tristar Pictures and Christopher Coppola. 
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