Recap / Ohsama Sentai King Ohger Ep 23 Shugoddams Moving Castle

Shugoddam's Moving Castle

Original Airdate: August 6, 2023
Written by: Minato Takano
Directed by: Kazuyuki Chatani

Summary

"Caucasus Kabuto heeds the call of the Tyrant King."

Jeramie: As dawn approaches, Daigorg stands poised to destroy all of Shugoddam.
In order to fight him, the kings must determine how to turn Caucasus Kabuto Castle into its robot form.
The castle's true form that would drive out the invading Bognaarok with the Shugods, should have revealed itself.
However, it seems that something is still missing...

Gira attempts to activate the Caucasus Kabuto Castle's hidden power, only to quickly find out that it won't move. Kofuki explains that the castle hasn't moved in 2000 years, as he unfortunately found out from Racules' prior attempts. To get the castle moving again before Daigorg's revival, Yanma enlists himself and N'Kosopa's technology team to reboot the internal systems while Shugoddam's citizens and Jeramie gather all of castle's fallen gears. As Gira eagerly waits for good news, Daigorg's reawakening inches closer and closer...

Tropes

• Aesop Amnesia: To the previous episode. The previous episode put great emphasis on the Shugods needing to re-join the fight despite their fear and work to save everyone around them; advancing the notion of tackling impossible odds. Here, the Castle goes through multiple growing pains and repeated breakdowns yet instead of even attempting to tackle the issue with King-Ohger, the rulers border on Single-Issue Wonk trying to get the Castle up-and-running out of fear of the ever-worsening situation. Hymeno's sole attempt to bypass the rigmarole gets shot down and the Shugods' following attempt to interface with the castle ends up being a failure that puts everyone back at square one anyway. Thus, the monarchs barely manage to scrape up a solution to a problem they wouldn't let themselves solve any other way, lucky that Kabuto's sheer power was worth the wait.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: The episode ends with Gira's coronation, which is fully depicted in Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger: Adventure Heaven.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Realizing the gear on his sword is small enough to work, Boone makes a mad dash for the castle; guards protecting him every step of the way.
  • After Kamejim makes Boone drop his sword off the bridge, Jeramie manages to catch it and help the kid escape, sending the gear to the castle.
• Brick Joke: Hymeno manages to revive Kofuki by using a secret technique that literally shocks him back to life. Near the end of the episode, Kofuki promptly passes out with an electric shock.
• Call-Back:
  • Gira gets surrounded and tossed into the air after defeating Daigorg by Shugoddam's citizen, not unlike in #6 when he returns to Shugoddam as a prince after being declared innocent by Rita (albeit temporarily).
  • Gira's slow walk past the throne prior to activating Kabuto is a close mimicry of the last scene of The Secret Of King Racules #3, sans narration and with the added transformation into King KuwagataOhger.
  • Speaking of the Racules spin-off, Douga draws his sword on Kofuki for perceived lack of formality just like did with Vedalia.
• Chekhov's Gun: Boone's toy sword comes in handy when he realizes an old gear on it could be used as a replacement core for the castle.
• Forbidden Technique: Hymeno uses a technique to revive Kofuki by touching the pressure points on his head, allowing him to regain conscious for a day with the only downside being that he will be in agonizing pain for a week once the effect wears off.
• Hope Spot: When the Shugods attach to the castle in order to help repair it, it seems to work for a while... until all the gears disengage due to years of neglect.
• Just in Time: Jeramie gets the final gear right in place just as Daigorg awakens and continues his attack, in part due to Kamejim's interference slowing down the process.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Early in the the episode, the monarchs repeatedly interrupt Kofuki whenever he tries to give them an explanation for why things aren't working, culminating in Rita telling him to "Quit the exposition [and] get to the point." Ironically, he spends the rest of the episode slowly giving them the spiel anyway.
• MacGyvering: Downplayed. Yanma sees a discarded Core on the ground and realizes that instead of trying to plumb the Castle of secrets they can just repair what's broken with what the kingdom has on hand. Despite the comical portrayals of the Castle's deterioration, the solution is the logical addition of new gears to its innards to get it running.
• No-Sell: King Caucasus Kabuto is unfazed by everything Daigorg throws at it. The one hit he does manage to get in actively regenerates itself.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Gira, in all of his "tyranny", accidentally calls his citizens "gears" for all of their help with the Caucasus Kabuto Castle's activation. Naturally, the people instantly get angry with him, while the team collectively cringe. Gira does manage to explain himself however.
• Poor Communication Kills: Gira wants to thank his people for their help in re-activating the castle, yet since he's in full "tyrant" mode he calls them "gears" by accident, causing them to get angry. When he comes out to mollify them, he manages to explain that it was their combined efforts that led to their victory, which the people accept as apology.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title is an on-the-nose one to Howl's Moving Castle.
• Shout-Out: To wake Kofuki, Hymeno touches the pressure points on his head, while getting into a Hokuto no Ken pose, complete with the constellations, and the sound effect when Kofuki's body collapses near the end of the episode.
• Stunned Silence: Shugoddam's citizens go into this after Gira asks if they want to die right then and there. It takes Geroge urging the people to move to get the citizens right to work.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The first time in the episode the Castle breaks down, Hymeno tells Gira to just engage Daigorg with King-Ohger and hope for the best. Yanma instead realizes the Shugods were created around the time of the Castle and thus might work to power it up. He's promptly proven wrong.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Yanma calls Gira by his name this time around instead of the usual "octomush" to remind him of his role as Shugoddam's king, as well as to reassure his trust in him.

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Jeramie: Thus ended Shugoddam's long, long night.
And Gira basked in the people's celebrations, receiving his coronation and formally becoming the king of Shugoddam.
...Or so the story goes.