Ep. 8: Delusional Beauty War

Delusional Beauty War (妄想美闘) is the eighth episode of Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger Season 2.

Synopsis
The Akibarangers try to find General Tsu while fighting a re-designed Tentoraiger who has the abilities of past sentai villains.

Plot
To stop General Tsu's meddling with reality, The Akibarangers look for him, until they finally manage to find his van, but Mutoumushite, another of Baros lol's monsters appear, forcing them to confront it in the delusional world. Malseena watches the fight from afar, later joined by General Tsu. Despite being a Kenma monster from Juken Sentai Gekiranger, Akiba Red recognizes that Mutoumushite's swordsmanship as similar to the one used by Adjutant Booba from Dengeki Sentai Changeman. The enemy also uses techniques from other Super Sentai villains as well, but when Malseena joins the fight, he refuses to help her and upon being convinced that she is not needed anymore, General Tsu encases Malseena in a block of ice, in a fashion similar to Princess Ial's punishment in Hikari Sentai Maskman.

Overpowered by the enemy, the Akibarangers are bailed out to reality, and make use of a coupon that fell from General Tsu's clothes to keep trailing him. The trio follows a man covered in scars that they believe to be General Tsu, just to find later that he is in fact stunt actor Yoshinori Okamoto, who worked in several Super Sentai installments. Questioning Okamoto about General Tsu, they learn that he was hired by him to perform as the Super Sentai villains he portrayed using motion capture technology, which explains why Mutoumushite can use their techniques. The Akibarangers then return for the rematch against Mutoumushite, and when it uses Adjutant Booba's style once more, Super Akiba Red manages to overpower him by reenacting the scene of Buba's showdown with Change Dragon in Changeman.

By combining the Inordinate powers of the Dairangers, Zyurangers and Hurricanegers into the Inordinate Bazooka, the Akibarangers finish the enemy, and General Tsu flees with the still frozen Malseena while swearing to get back at them on a later occasion. Back to reality, Nobuo and the girls thank Okamoto for his help, and get from him General Tsu's business card, finally learning his address. Meanwhile, the man at the hospital appears briefly once more, turning on the TV just in time to watch a Super Sentai show.

Cast

 * Nobuo Akagi: Masato Wada (和田 正人)
 * Luna Iwashimizu: Shione Sawada (澤田 汐音)
 * Yumeria Moegi: Karin Ogino (荻野 可鈴)
 * Hiroyo Hakase: Maaya Uchida (内田 真礼)
 * Kozukozu Mita: Kozue Aikawa (愛川 こずえ)
 * ©Na: Honoka (穂花)
 * General Tsu: Ryo Horikawa (堀川 りょう)
 * Mutoumushite (Voice): Nobuyuki Hiyama (檜山 修之)
 * Gymnastics Guy: Orakio Matsuyuki (松雪 オラキオ)
 * Himself: Seiji Takaiwa (高岩 成二)
 * Himself: Yoshinori Okamoto (岡本 美登)
 * Customer at Karaoke Box: Taito Hashimoto (橋本 汰斗)
 * Shop Employee: Junichi Gamou
 * Shopkeeper: Oolong-Ta Yoshida
 * Maid: Madoka Takahashi

Tropes and References

 * In spite of being made from the Tentoraiger mold, the monster of the week this time is a kenma monster from Gekiranger.
 * At the beginning of the episode, when Nobuo is complaining to not have been able to recognize General Tsu, in the bottom right-corner of the screen a count up clock (similar to the countdown clocks used in Go-Busters to show Megazord transportation) is seen.
 * During Mutoumushite's battle with Akibarangers, Mutoumushite uses a "Deadly Past" technique, a technique that copy the attacks used from the previous Sentai villains in the past. Most of the Sentai villains' character mentioned was all portrayed by Yoshinori Okamoto:
 * Deadly Past 85, Booba with Bulbados sword.
 * Deadly Past 88, Doctor Ashura's Cut Asschler.
 * Deadly Past 87, Oyobu where he spits fire out from his mouth.
 * Deadly Past 84, Bio Hunter Silva where he shoots lasers out of his finger.
 * Deadly Past 02, Sargain.
 * Deadly Past 86, Alien Hunter's Bo Gardan.
 * When Malshina was attacked by Mutoumushite, she recites the line, "If only Deluknight was here...", a similar reference to the line from Bioman's Ep. 49: Critical Bio Robo, "If only Balzion was here....".
 * When Malshina was imprisoned by General Tsu with his acrylic case, Nobuo recalls the scene of Princess Ial's imprisonment in the ice coffin by Earth Emperor Zeba in Maskman. General Tsu however denies it and said she's only trapped in the acrylic case, just like a giant living figure.
 * Suidobashi is a place where Tokyo Dome City's Sky Theater is located. This is the place where Okamoto works as a stuntman and stage show's actor during his youth years.
 * When Nobuo mentions Okamoto, Yuuko mistakenly refers him as Jiro Okamoto, another Sentai suit actor since both Yoshinori and Jiro possessed similar last name.
 * During their chat with Okamoto, Nobuo mentions Kazuo Niibori, another veteran suit actor who made his appearance as a guest star in the last season. Okamoto expressly said that he's always becomes 'rival' to him, since Niibori had 'defeated' Okamoto many times before as the legendary Red Sentai suit actor.
 * During the roll call, Nobuo recommends GekiChopper as his favourite Gekiranger's insert songs. Actually, the insert song was Osu! GekiChopper!.
 * Luna recommends GekiOrange as her favourite in her roll call. Actually, she refers to Beast-Fist Trainer Robo-tuff, Gekiranger's trainer robot.
 * AkibaRed's throwing gun to AkibaYellow is a similar fashion to Gokaigers swapping their weapons during the fight, although GokaiYellow usually got two swords instead of two guns since the dual-blade style was her speciality.
 * The final battle between Nobuo and Mutoumushite is similar to that of Tsurugi and Booba in Changeman episode Ep. 52: Booba Dies on Earth.
 * Legendary Heisei-era Kamen Rider's suit actor, Seiji Takaiwa also guest stars in this episode. He can be seen wearing jacket written "STAFF, KAKURANGER" on the back and "SEIJI T." on the left sleeve, since Takaiwa was a suit actor for NinjaRed in Kakuranger.
 * When Nobuo and th others emotionally admires him, he mention some of the suit actors he played before, among of them was MegaBlue, GingaRed, GoRed and MagiRed. Funny enough, he didn't mention about Dragonranger, the character that Takaiwa played during his early debut as a suit actor.
 * Okamoto simply call his nickname as Seinoji-kun.
 * When the mysterious person in the hospital turns on the TV, the Boukenger's theme starts, but it is cut off by the episode's end.

Errors

 * When Boukenger plays on the TV at the end, the regular Super Sentai logo appears, but it should've been the 30th anniversary version.

DVD/Blu-ray releases
Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger Season 2 Volume 3 features episodes 7-9: Ep. 7: Delusional Spy, ''Ep. 8: Delusional Beauty War, and Ep. 9: Delusion Number Two''.