Shinkalion Change the World Ep 17 Review: Runner’s Low

An unwinnable battle. If you think the encounter with the Phantom Shinkalion is bad, wait until you see the Hades Shinkalion making short work of ALL 4 Shinkalions. Akane must now make a choice between track-and-field and being a Shinkalion Driver, but things aren’t all calm and collected on Ryota and Taisei’s side either, as they are confronted by Ganma about their indecisive attitude.

But first we gotta start with a one-sided beatdown with the Hades Shinkalion – or rather – the beast master. The fight was very one-sided as Eren Ye…I mean the mysterious masked man. The choreograph is decent, but some scenes are still very stiff like when the Hades burst through the flames. It looks like he was just…standing still when he punch Akane. The E8 is still pretty nice to look at but the Hades really took the spotlight this time. The way he and the beasts fight really remind me of Raiden and his buddy Blade Wolf. It is a great debut filled with dominance and mystery.

Despite Akane having the most severe trouble, this episode actually features more Ryota and Taisei. I like that Ganma confronted them about their indecisiveness to push Akane to make a decision. It took Ganma a few minutes to completely uncover Ryota’s facade as well as Taisei. But it’s not like they haven’t grown from past experience. They have decided that they will let Akane decide for himself and support him from there no matter what.

We also get a funky scene with Ina, Taisei and the dude in the engineering department. Taisei was so distraught at Ina destroying something that prob isn’t going to work anyway and yeah it’s a b it of an overreaction but when it comes to his idolized sister, Taisei just dial it all to 11. But I’m sure Ina will come up with some crazy stuff next episode to make the SRG successful, and it seems she gave Taisei some idea as well. Maybe he can come up with something original to himself this time.

This is a great episode. A proper introduction to a very substantial threat and great character development for the main trio as well as building up Ganma as this reliable and almost perfect senpai character. He has become the voice of reason for the team. For the next episode, we can also see Ten and Shion in action. I really miss them and want to see how they would fight together.

Aaron
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