I’m learning to accept that I don’t really like episodes featuring the Fearcats/Questers. Too many villains spoil the, ah, broth and all that. Perhaps it’s simply that, in Boukenger, Quester episodes seem to have replaced Dark Shadow episodes. Operation Overdrive attempts to address this now and again by throwing in an entirely new Will/Kamdor/Miratrix/crazy motorbike fight sequence just to remind us who exactly is who but I can’t help but feel as if this muddies the water too much.
Both shows have been suffering from a lack of balance as of late; Boukenger, which has become very Quester-centric, and Overdrive which is now trying to both cram in as many villain factions per episode and also accommodate in-universe for why Flurious does so little.
The cavalcade of villain segments now present in Overdrive doesn’t help the pacing much either, resulting in episodes that are becoming even more muddled than the early post-pilot material. I would have thought 19 episodes and 15 years experience would have been enough for them to get the format of this show right.
So what can I say that’s nice about these two episodes? Well, Quester Robo looks very much like a Shadow Stormtrooper – that’s nice – and Quester Robo Elite may or may not be a homage to Battle Fever Robo – that’s nice too. Again, it’s good to see a thoughtful episode about a single character, in this case Masumi, and it’s nice that Overdrive is getting braver with editing together shots of Japanese special effects and its own international cast…but that doesn’t really add up to much and, in the end, we’re left with two episodes that aren’t awful but aren’t anything to recommend to your non-tokusatsu friends either.
Next up: I’m going to watch some of the Overdrive episodes out of sequence so as to avoid dealing with the crossover episodes until I’m ready to re-watch the awful Boukenger vs. Super Sentai.
