Tomica Hero Rescue Force: Episode One

Last night, while I was expressing my love for Kamen Rider OOO's Akira Date, I was informed that he'd starred in another tokusatsu show: Tomica Hero Rescue Force. I did what any reasonable person would do and downloaded the show's first episode immediately.

In the world of Rescue Force, there are extreme disasters, and extreme disasters require extreme heroes. The members are Rescue Force are those heroes!

After a reminder from our heroes to play safely, and the fun but vaguely 90's esque opening theme, we meet our sartorially inclined villains. Villainous though they may be, they are also aware of the importance of fire safety. They've come into the possession of some kind of weapon that conveniently comes with illustrated instructions.

Meanwhile, the Rescue Force is welcoming their newest member, Todoroki Hikaru. The Rescue Force's symbol in the background there kind of looks like the Robin Symbol, which is pretty awesome. Anyways, he's only been in the Rescue Academy for a year, but his skills are already topnotch. He tells his new teammates that joining the Rescue Force has been his lifelong dream.



They seem pretty indifferent about this. This is apparently because he's only an apprentice. They're kind of being jerks here, but I'm not sure it's supposed to come across that way. 


They train with him, and continue to be pretty jerk-like. Date's barely been on the show at this point, and I'm kind of glad, because I don't want to see him being obnoxious. 

While the Rescue Force has been busy hazing their new recruit, the villains have learned that the device they found creates random explosions if you hit it with a hammer. This is...pretty awesome. They celebrate and mug for the camera. 

At the Rescue Force headquarters, they see the explosions and dispatch the team. They have an aircraft that carries their firetruck, which is pretty awesome. However, they go stand in these tube things before they henshin, which is kind of weird. 

 I'm not sure how I feel about the suits. On one hand, they really do feel like they're inspired by emergency personnel, but they're just not very excited to me. I think I'm just too accustomed to lots of different colors, these designs really aren't bad. 

Seeing the set-up of some of their vehicles makes me really wonder why this franchise was never adapted for North America. It seems like this sort of toyline would sell really well here. There's something about superheroes in police cars and firetrucks that's really appealing to me too. 

The vehicles inside vehicles thing is pretty awesome too. But back to the show! The Rescue Force arrives on the scene, slow down the fires and start rescuing people trapped inside the building. It looks like they've gotten everyone out, but one of the victims informs them that there's a child trapped inside. The new guy (Todoroki/R1) decides to go after him on his own, but suddenly, monsters appear!

The Rescue Force has some weapons like the BREAK HAMMER and BREAK AXE, but apparently, these things are just for rescuing, because they don't really put up much of a fight. Our stylish villains reappear to let us know that these are androids that they created. They do look like the work of a fashion forward team of villains, it's true! 

Out of nowhere, R4 calls on the god of war for strength and suddenly starts kicking ass. R3 and R3 join them, and the four are able to keep up with the androids pretty well, but struggle to take them out. They see an opening and send R1 to rescue the kid. The bad guys start playing with their device again and he gets caught up in some explosions. He makes it to a vehicle only to be blockaded by androids YET AGAIN. This time, though, he won't be stopped!  

He starts tearing through the androids and making his way to his vehicle. R4 seems pretty impressed, much to the chagrin of jerks R2 and R3. He makes it to his car and takes off, and I halfway expect "Highway to the Danger Zone" to start playing. He drives through flames and explosions, which is close enough. His vehicle tells him to go right, but he's a loose cannon and he's going to go his own way! The vehicle is shocked at his ability to anticipate what his AI couldn't. Somewhere, R2 and R3 are scowling. 

He successfully locates the kid, who has apparently made it out of the building and up to a very high place. R4 climbs after him, but he's knocked over by a particularly strong explosion. In spite of this, he climbs back up and makes it to the child. The two of them appear to be trapped, but R1 jumps and uses his BREAK ROPE Batman style to get them safely to the ground. 

The kid is rescued, but the day has yet to be saved as the villains create what looks like some kind of flame monster. R1 asks the boss for permission to use FINAL RESCUE. I'm not used to seeing Date look this serious. Date's name is Eiji on the show, which I find hilarious. Anyways, Eiji/Date/Bossguy approves the request and tells him to explosively suppress the flames!

Apparently, FINAL RESCUE is card based. R1 uses Water Cannon, which launches some water bombs and successfully finish off the flame monster. One of the bombs also takes out the convenient explosion device. The villains don't seem all that bummed, considering. I guess it's hard to get down when you're dressed so fabulously.

R1 learns that the reason the kid was climbing all around a flaming villain was to save his puppy. He heads back to headquarters with the rest of the team and gets told that he's reckless, blah blah blah. Mostly, they keep acting like jerks and don't seem to want to give credit for saving the day. And that's where the episode ends!

This show was pretty alright. I was expecting some lighthearted, goofy fun, and that's pretty much what I got. I will probably check a couple more episodes of this out, if only to see if Date's character gets something to do. I just hope the rest of the Rescue Force either stops acting like jerks or gets some kind of smackdown, because they're already bugging me. 
If you want to check out this show, it's been subtitled by TV Nihon.