A Natsumi Night's Dream
Summary
"We kinda just left Taro hanging there..."
Taro: In order to unearth the secrets of the Jūto, Inu and I traveled to Jiro's hometown.
Meanwhile, the Nōto Trio were confronted by their supervisor Sonoshi, along with two others.
Meanwhile, the Nōto Trio were confronted by their supervisor Sonoshi, along with two others.
With Taro now in the Forest of Slumber as its new guardian, another Penguin Jūto appears and takes his form. On top of that, Tsuyoshi has been captured by Sonoshi's group; with Sonoi, Sononi and Sonoza in trouble with the Council, they now have no place to go and the Donbrothers are wary of them.
Meanwhile, Tsubasa is left to pick up the pieces of what happened. Will he be able to save Natsumi and Taro from the Forest?
Tropes
- Asshole Victim: Zigzagged on Miho's case. On one hand, it's hard to feel bad for Miho given the amount of romantic chess she's been playing with Tsubasa and Tsuyoshi since the show's start. Getting ganged-up on and mauled to death by a horde of Juto is all the more satisfying. But on the other hand, the Juto seems to run on Blue-and-Orange Morality and she sees no wrong playing both sides, until Taro calls her out on it an episode earlier.
- Back from the Dead: Sonoi activating the Ring of Forgiveness brings back all of the humans they've defeated; even those assumed dead like the insane artist from #8.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Jūto are defeated, Tsubasa has finally reunited with Natsumi, and everyone imprisoned in both the Jūto and Nōto sides have been released, but Jiro loses literally everything and everyone in his life, leaving him emotionally broken. There's also the matter that now all that's left is to deal with the new Nōto Enforcers despite freeing those previously imprisoned.
- Broken Pedestal: Jiro is left heartbroken when he learns the truth about Terasaki, realizing that he has been used by the latter in his whole life.
- The Bus Came Back: Most, if not all of the Hitotsu-Ki hosts left imprisoned (including Tsuyoshi) were returned to the real world when Sonoi used the Ring of Forgiveness, even ones who seemingly were Killed Off for Real like Mashin-Ki's host.
- Chewing the Scenery: Sonoshi and their colleagues jubilantly celebrate Sonoi, Sononi, and Sonoza being relieved from their positions as Noto generals along with their impending death sentence in the most over-the-top way possible.
- Cloning Gambit: Taro's plan all along was to allow a Jūto to copy him so that not only can his clone bring Tsubasa into the Forest of Slumber to save Natsumi and all the other captured humans, once he undoes his own cloning he is able to use his Don Clan powers to burn away all the origami and order the surviving Jūto to never touch humanity ever again. It succeeds with the help of the Crane Jūto, as at one point the Penguin Jūto who copied him wasn't following his plan until her slap and his subsequent Split-Personality Takeover caused by it.
- Crying Wolf: One reason the Donbrothers are averse to a full alliance with the Nōto trio is the fact that they've seen them walk back on their word one too many times to fully trust them.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Tsubasa finally reunites with Natsumi after a year of searching for her while being a fugitive.
- Enemy Mine: Premise of the episode's side-plot. Faced with the reality that their leaders have abandoned them, the Noto go to Cafe Donbura and request an alliance. The members present are hesitant, but are willing to hear them out with an "act of sincerity." That act ends up being the Ring of Forgiveness, whose activation frees all of the Noto's imprisoned humans, even ones assumed Killed Off for Real.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Subverted. Despite Tsubasa staring at the full moon, leading to him checking the manuscript and see it pop up frequently, he still doesn't know how the moon is connected with the Juto until Taro shows the entrance to the Forest of Slumbers to him.
- Foreshadowing: When Juto!Taro appears in the real world, the camera pans to a pool of water with the moon reflecting on it. Turns out that reflection is the entrance to the Forest.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: The Crane Jūto slaps "Taro" for forgetting his motive in allowing himself to be taken over. It works and allows Taro's original personality to perform a Split-Personality Takeover.
- Tsubasa tries to do this to Jiro by trying to get him to see that his friends and Rumi don't actually exist and to snap out of it, but since Jiro still sees the illusions he refuses to believe this, instead pointing to (from Tsubasa's perspective) thin air and insisting it's Rumi. Tsubasa instead changes gears and goes along with it, introducing himself to "Rumi" and just letting Jiro continue to interact with people that aren't actually there in order to get him to cooperate in helping him find the forest.
- I Am Your Opponent: Taro also raises a Go Through Me threat to any Jūto who would dare to oppose his order to never touch humanity, for added measure.
- Internal Reveal: Jiro learns about the illusion of Terasaki.
- It Can Think: Juto!Taro, due to Taro's personality performing a Split-Personality Takeover after a slap from the Crane Jūto.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: The Crane Juto spent most of the show playing both Tsuyoshi and Tsubasa like fiddles, even by impersonating the latter's girlfriend. When Natsumi is freed, Miho is instead mauled to death by a horde of rampaging Juto. The irony being that the two people who could have saved her the most were both preoccupied due to her manipulations, with Tsuyoshi being trapped in the Noto prison due to having a Freak Out trying to find her and Tsubasa being at Jiro's village trying to free the person she copied.
- Money Dumb: After taking in Kaito's words about money representing sincerity, the Trio reveals that they've spent all of their money from the Council for their own personal interests: oden for Sonoi, beauty products for Sononi, and full sets of rare manga for Sonoza.
- Must Make Amends:
- In order to show the Donbrothers their sincerity, the Nōto trio debate on what to do to prove it. Sononi attempts to bond with Shinichi by asking him to teach her haiku, but he rejects it. This leads to Sonoi going on a quest to find the Ring of Forgiveness that allows him to free the humans he and his fellows imprisoned.
- The Crane Jūto helping Taro in his plan to free all the humans trapped in the Forest of Slumber comes across as this, as if to make up for laughing off his "The Reason You Suck" Speech in the previous episode. This ends up backfiring on her as she is mauled to death by Cat Jūto once Taro succeeds in his plan.
- Mythology Gag: Jiro introducing his girlfriend to Tsubasa, the Black Ranger of the group, at a park is a clear nod to a similar scene happening in a previous Sentai, coincidentally written by Inoue.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After the captives are freed from the Forest of Slumber, their Juto selves go berserk and lay the smackdown on Miho.
- No Ontological Inertia: As Terasaki dies, his illusions fade away with him, to Jiro's sorrow.
- Poor Communication Kills: In much the same way he fails to get through to Tsuyoshi, Tsubasa's overly-confrontational attempt to explain Terasaki's ruse to Jiro proves ineffective and only makes the latter angry. Tsubasa goes along with the delusions to smooth things over, but he doesn't have to - Terasaki himself arrives and validates the claim.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title is a reference to Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is titled in Japanese as 夏の夜の夢 (Natsu no Yo no Yume).
- The Reveal:
- According to Future!Haruka's manga, there's another entrance to the Forest of Slumber: the reflection of a full moon.
- The penguin was the symbol of the Don Clan, which is why Penguin Jūto are tasked to mimic Don Clan members and guard the Forest of Slumbers.
- Rule of Symbolism: As Tsubasa and Natsumi finally reunite, one of Tsuyoshi's posters for Miho land near her dead body in the river before she sinks into a full moon's reflection, despite it only being a crescent in the sky.
- Spanner in the Works: Though Taro had already hijacked his Juto duplicate, it's Miho's reactionary slap that allows him to regain control when the Juto mimics his delivery routine; indicated by an abrupt change of voice.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Taro was able to awaken within the Forest of Slumbers, and to Terasaki's shock, even override the personality of the Penguin Jūto that copied him to deviate from its intended purpose and undo his own cloning, causing his Jūto to flee in panic.
- Troll: Sonoshi and their cohorts gleefully rubs salt to the wounds on Sonoi and his party on their excommunication from the Noto before they could attempt to execute the trio personally.
- Wham Episode: The Nōto Trio are sentenced to death and they all decide to join with the Donbrothers. Jiro learns how his loved ones are illusions from Terasaki and doesn't take it well. Taro frees himself from the Forest and activates GolDon Momotaro mode inside, destroying every origami and freeing their captives. Sonoi also frees the Noto prisoners after finding the Ring of Forgiveness. And to top it all off, Tsubasa and Natsumi are now together again as Miho is killed by a pack of Cat Juto, with the latter's body being sent back to the Forest of Slumber.
- You Can't Go Home Again: The Noto trio return to the Layer to contemplate, only to be violently kicked out by their new replacements. They've been deemed deserters and are targeted for execution.
