Yoroi-Shinden Samurai Troopers

Episode 12

Alright, Yoroi-Shinden Samurai Troopers has polished off its first part, the next cour is set to premiere in summer, so this first season can be assessed on where it left all this off. Fair play for at least beating Shin Sakura Wars at its own game, anyway—where that game still had its old cast locked in the demon world by its end, Samurai Troopers has returned the classic Troopers to the human realm as of this season finale. That's some nice momentum to see, and should provide extra motivation for fans to watch that continuation in July, with the potential to see their own faves in action. Though given how Yoroi-Shinden already treated other old cast members like Nasti and Jun, uhh, maybe temper those expectations.

The season finale mostly functions as a big fight episode that has to wrap with some continuation-teasing cliffhangers. Some of the mechanics of getting to those big fights feel a little BS. But being honest, that kind of BS would be expected from any suitably grandiose superhero show like this. I can extend Samurai Troopers less courtesy in evaluating it just because I've been frustrated with the series over the past few weeks, or I can judge it on the expected curve of its peers. As with all things, it depends.

Take the general participation in the final battle(s). As I noted last week, the situation assembled seemed directly designed to have Gai and Ryo fighting Ramaga side-by-side at the end. In practice, Ryo and Ramaga are almost immediately cordoned off on their own to do the battle one-on-one. This does still fit in a structured, thematic way, what with Ryo having spent the whole season inside of Ramaga, noting that their mental information exchange was a two-way street. This section also follows up on other elements of Ramaga's possession scheme, ultimately having the remaining Ten Warriors abandon him as he tries to exploit them. I don't think I notice that these guys wind up with a clean five-man team left themselves—that's a neat potential alternate-team setup for the forthcoming next season. Yoroi-Shinden, if you make sure Sasuke has more to do, I'll forgive several of your other sins.

But even the smolder of Sasuke can't distract from Ryo's domination of this climax. Even his former teammates' return just allows him to summon his own team-sidelining powerup in the Dawn Armor, effectively solo-ing things until Gai, the show's ostensible main character, contributes by just yeeting a sword to Ryo so he can do the final attack. It would feel like a real betrayal of the attempt at a new generation of heroes if this wasn't all followed up by Ramaga revealing he had a third health bar! He comes back again for a fight, where Ryo resolves to let these new Troopers actually have their own final battle in their own show.

Again, stupid, but also smart in remembering to round back to Gai and his actual arc. Other things come back in the structure of this battle, including payoff to Ramaga's whole possessing-his-son plan and how Gai and Ryo swapped knowledge to counter it. And Gai's resolve to die in the face of this adds another emotional capstone to his journey of learning the true, validating feelings of being a hero. That's another Shōgo Mutō special, don't ya know. Gai asking Kaito to be the one to finish him off even brings some neat circuity to their relationship—even as it's punctuated one more time by late-game revealed lyrics that don't get translated. It's even more galling because Kaito simply speaks the relevant lyrics in this case, leading to a jarring moment where it seems the subs have just cut out. Try to get those rights issues negotiated by the next season, team!

I also just wish Gai's sacrifice wasn't played out through Yoroi-Shinden's favorite game of relentlessly jerking the audience around on the subject of the Sword of Domination killing people who are possessed or not. It ain't cute at this point, especially when what should be the core mystery/surprise payoff of Gai's situation is called out in dialogue that he'll probably be back, and then directly shown as coming back before the finale is over! At least Gai falling into the lava is a neat call-back to Ryo's own character-building lava jump from early in the original Samurai Troopers.

Will Gai's resurrection on the side of the Divine Realm, plus the presence of the classic Troopers, be enough to pique interest in that forthcoming follow-up season? I don't know. Yoroi-Shinden was a series that half the time seemed eager to sideline or excise many of its new characters to highlight the old ones, but then said highlighting came with dumping on those old characters in its own ways. It discarded earlier plot elements and themes to introduce new ones that came and went even more quickly at times. I think, as a whole, this season could be seen as a fascinating tangle of a creation, especially as a legacy follow-up to a classic franchise. But I don't know that it succeeded in paying off that franchise for the classic fans or cohesively constructing itself for any new viewers. That the ending feels even remotely functional despite all that comes off like a minor miracle.

Rating:

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Yoroi-Shinden Samurai Troopers is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris loves transforming heroes, but hasn't been able to make time for Toei's stuff recently, so he'll settle for following these Warriors what are Ronin. Follow him on his BlueSky if you're interested in his opinions on other niche nerdery.

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Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. (Sunrise) is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.