Kaiketsu Zubat: Episode Fifteen Review

Shocking and off-script events take Hayazawa and viewers on a roller coaster in The Sad Mother’s Lullaby.

Episode 15 is by far my favorite episode of this series to date. Many out of the ordinary things happen. For starters, the plot differs from any of the previous episodes.

There isn’t really a set “victim,” although, from the bullying the old lady gets, I would say she was the victim. Whatever happened to respecting your elders? Calling her a liar and quickly dismissing her the way everyone did; just plain mean. The only two people who know how to treat elders are Hayazawa and Midori, who shows up for about 30 seconds.

This episode is also the first time we see a female assassin, Lady Koma. Her specialty? Top-spinning, which in and of itself, is cool. Every time I see Hayazawa one-upping the assassin I just want to start singing, “Anything you can do, I can do better.” And I know Lady Koma is supposed to be on the bad side, but, you go girl.

The biggest shock and twist that even I couldn’t predict is when it’s revealed that Lady Koma is the daughter of the old lady. Talk about not seeing something coming. I also believe having this twist is good for a show like this because then it doesn’t become too predictable and people won’t lose interest.

Because of her mother’s pleading words, Lady Koma becomes Komako only to have her mother run off to confront the Wolf Pack. This lady doesn’t know when to quit. They could have easily fled the town to start over, but they didn’t. Instead, her mother is captured when she goes to plead for her daughter’s life. Hayazawa, in the mean time, tries to talk sense into everyone, but fails miserably.

I don’t know how I feel about Tojo. He is a man of the law, but he is willing to let the old lady die. Hayazawa, having the Zubat mentality, goes to save both mother and daughter. After getting his butt kicked, he escapes and tries to save Komako, who, in an effort to save her mother, becomes Lady Koma again. I get dizzy just thinking about her situation; she’s bad, then good, then bad, then good again.

Zubat saves the day as usual, but not before Komako is shot. After the leader of the Wolf Pack is arrested, Tojo tells Hayazawa that Komako survived and her mother is tending to her. I would have liked to see an ending scene of mother tending to daughter instead of just hearing about it.

Overall, I feel this was a really good episode that kept me on my toes.

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