Kaiketsu Zubat: Episode Six Review

This episode of Zubat promises some interesting developments with our characters, but does it deliver?

Coming off a fantastic episode, Kaiketsu Zubat is still a very hit and miss series as far as I’m concerned. While the episodic plots are interesting, there remains that extra something that just feels like it’s missing. The previous episode remedied this situation by giving us an interesting look at Hayakawa’s boisterous personality clashing with real world situations. This episode feels like it should deliver on an interesting premise – Hawakawa pushing himself too much, but it never quite gets there.

The episode starts off innocently enough, with a bank robbery. At first glance, it might seem like a stock plot. But we quickly find out that Hayakawa, in trying to stop the robbery, put two people in danger by having them see the unmasked faces of the robbers. This leads into the idea that Hayakawa really needs some foresight and think before he acts. In his arrogance, he didn’t quite wrap up a situation and has drawn two innocent people into danger.

Within this series, the police have a strong presence, and that’s a joy to watch. A show that tries to take itself as realistically as this one does need something like that to keep it grounded. While we’re seeing our hero be a badass, this episode turns that on its head a little bit. Hayakawa shouldn’t dash into situtations and ask questions later all the time, it’s liable to get someone killed. Or at the very least, hunted down for a good half hour.

In addition to that interesting set up, we also see Hayakawa injured after having been thrown into the sea.  Shrugging off the rest his body needs in favor of hunting down criminals eventually leads to us seeing his body bruised and battered.  As it turns out, the Magnificent Zubat is as human as anyone else in the series.

And yet, this episode doesn’t deliver on those story beats.  We see these things brought up and they seem to only matter for a handful of minutes. By the end of the episode, there is little to no resolution in regards to some of the problems posed in this episode.  Will Hayakawa be smarter from now on? Probably not, that’s just part of his character. Unfortunately, this episode brings that aspect up as something rather serious and in need of improvement on the part of our hero, but it just doesn’t go anywhere with it. Despite being hurt, we don’t actually see the consequences weigh too heavily on Hayakawa. The guy just keeps on fighting like there’s no tomorrow.

As interesting as the premise of this one was,  I can’t say I liked this episode too much. It brings up fascinating ideas and then proceeds to go absolutely nowhere with them. Will future episodes improve on this? Only time will tell.

Every Wednesday The Tokusatsu Network staff members review every episode of a tokusatsu series. To see previous episode reviews, visit our Reviews page.