Ep. 9: Lame Sentai Disbands

Lame Sentai Disbands (痛戦隊、解散.) is the ninth episode of Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger.

Synopsis
For the safety of the real world, Hakase disbands the team. Despite attempting to return to their normal lives, they are met by Malshina and a Mysterious Man who has their MMZ-01.

Plot
After fighting the Alpaca boss, Yumeria complains that their phone isn't ringing with Hideaki Tsukada after their recent battle, despite it being all over the Internet. Hakase asks for the MMZ-01 from Nobuo, Mitsuki, and Yumeria. She tells the three that she is disbanding the Akibarangers. As she locks up the weapons, the three beg for an explanation, but Hakase can't bring herself to give them the whole truth, only telling the three that the weapons are dangerous. She then closes the cafe and Kozkoz pushes the three out, with Nobuo complaining that they lost their chance to become official heroes. Hakase laments that she can't tell them about him.

At another cafe, Nobuo laments the loss of their powers, and Mitsuki thinks that the incident was sudden and that Hakase had something to hide. Nobuo thinks of incidents where previous Sentai teams had been split up. Yumeria notes that the disbanding was sudden, and Nobuo asks if her dream was to become official Sentai. Yumeria says that while being a Akibaranger was fun, she still had cosplay and making doujinshi. Nobuo asks Mitsuki about her wanting to become a student of Kazuo Niibori. She says that she'll apply to work for him directly. Yumeria tells Mitsuki about Niibori's stunt actor farm, but she wonders about ©Na who is still in their world, and Yumeria says that Hakase will handle it. Nobuo can't believe that they've given up, and complains about the practicality of women. Yumeria gets a call, and on the other end is Hideaki Tsukada, who is in actuality ©Na who is approached by the Mysterious Man who grabbed Yumeria's cosplay card after the Alpaca fight. "He" apologizes to Yumeria about security kicking them out of the Toei studio, and requested to meet them in full costume However, she tells "Tsukada" that their transformation devices were locked up, surprising the Mystery Man. Nobuo grabs the phone and says he'll meet them at 11 the following day in the main office.

Nobuo implies that he'll somehow take back the MMZ-01, and Mitsuki and Yumeria refuse to participate in an act of stealing. Later that night, the Mysterious Man breaks into the Sentai Cafe. At the same time, Mitsuki is struggling with her moves, trying to be like TenmaRanger .of the Gosei Sentai Dairanger, but then wonders why she talked like an otaku. At home, Yumeria struggles with drawing something unpredictable, and that even if she became delusional, it would be the same plots over and over. Nobuo charges out of his house in a cardboard cutout Akiba Red suit, He states his similarity to AbarePink, but a group of kids laughed at him and called him a loser. Nobuo realizes that he can't be a hero and steal when the Mystery Man presents him with his Moe Moe Z-Cune. Nobuo asks how he got it, but the man says he can't have it if he asks, so Nobuo takes the device and heads to Akihabara where he finds someone whom he thought to be as Tsukushima Alpaca on a roof. However, it is actually Tskushima Alpaca 's older brother, Asakusa Alpaca.

Nobuo enters the delusion world and starts fighting the Corporate Drones. In Ginza, Mitsuki runs into Yumeria on the street, while Kozkoz tells Hakase that the back room was broken into. She finds the Moe Moe Z-Cunes missing, and contacts Akagi. He asks to borrow it in order to meet Tsukada, but she tries to tell him to get out of the delusion world, but Nobuo hangs up. On the street, ©Na approaches the girls, and hands them their Moe Moe Z-Cunes, telling them that Nobuo was in the delusion world fighting a strong sub-section chief. The girls take the devices and head for Akihabara. Hakase calls Mitsuki and asks them to return the devices, but she apologizes and hangs up. With no options left, Hakase asks Kozkoz to use the Delusion Ejection System to remove them from the delusion world, but it doesn't work, forcing her to run out and find the three. Nobuo fires the MMZ at Asakusa, but he deflects them. Nobuo says that it doesn't matter if he's ridiculed by others and that he'll become a part of a official sentai. Mitsuki and Yumeria show up, Yumeria saying that it's better to share a delusion, and Mitsuki calling Nobuo helpless. After the roll call, the three attack Asakusa, while in the real world, Hakase struggles to free Nobuo from the delusion. Kozkoz wonders if Akagi could have done that much damage to get the Moe Moe's. She then realizes that the Delusion Ejection Device simply needed new batteries, annoying Hakase.

Once the Akibarangers are out of the delusion world, Mitsuki realizes they were forcibly ejected. Back in the delusion world, Asakusa manages to break through the barrier between the worlds, which Hakase realizes. Just then, Asakusa breaks into the Sentai Cafe via the barrier. When a group of customers enter the cafe, Alpaca attacks them with hot spatulas, but Kozkoz informs Hakase of this while burned. She realizes that the monsters of the delusion world can enter reality whenever they want. In Akihabara, Yumeria and Mitsuki witness others running into the streets burned by the spatulas. Nobuo and Hakase arrive, with the former realizing the consequences of the broken barrier was that their delusions were real and have consequences.The three then attempt to transform, but Hakase explains that the Moe Moe Z-Cunes were built to transform them only in the delusion world. Nobuo then hears Sayaka Honiden, who is being cornered by the alpaca. Nobuo grabs on but is shaken off. Mitsuki and Yumeria try to help Nobuo, but they are easily beaten back, with Yumeria realizing that a fight in reality is harder than in the delusion world. Nobuo is again kicked back while attempting to transform, and the girls call on him to stop from trying. However, he says that if he can break down the barrier between two worlds, then he can transform wherever he can. He charges towards the alpaca and successfully transforms into Akiba Red, shocking everyone. Nobuo summons the Jet Winger to take out the Corporate Drones, then uses the Deka Wappa and Bouken Shovel to finish off Asakusa Alpaca.

After the battle, Nobuo gets bandaged up, and Hakase apologizes for not telling them the truth, but Nobuo says that if he had listened, the attack wouldn't have happened, and the girls apologized. As Hakase is about to exposit to the Akibarangers, ©Na shows up and imitates Tsukada's voice, revealing her tricking the Akibarangers. The mysterious man thanks them for putting the Moe Moe Z-Cune's to good use and reveals himself as a cyborg.named Doctor Z, leader of the Blatantly Evil Guerilla Marketing Firm. Hakase then calls Z "father" and asks what he had become, but Dr. Z rejects her as his daughter, and that he changed the day she became the voice actress for Z-Cune Aoi. The three realizes that Hakase's revelation was completely random, and ©Na reveals that Hakase is actually Shuri Toyozuki, and Dr. Z and Malshina retreat, telling the Akibarangers to enjoy themselves while they could.

Cast

 * Nobuo Akagi: Masato Wada (和田 正人)
 * Mitsuki Aoyagi: Kyoko Hinami (日南 響子)
 * Yumeria Moegi: Karin Ogino (荻野 可鈴)
 * Hiroyo Hakase: Maaya Uchida (内田 真礼)
 * Kozkoz Mita: Kozue Aikawa (愛川 こずえ)
 * ©Na: Honoka (穂花)

Suit actors

 * Akiba Red: Sanshiro Wada (和田 三四郎)
 * Akiba Blue: Haruka Oshima (大島 遥)
 * Akiba Yellow: Fusayo Fujita (藤田 房代)
 * Chief Clerk: Tomohiko Akiyama (秋山 智彦)

Tropes and References

 * The episodes mentioned by Akagi (episode 45 of Dairanger; episode 8 of GoGoFive) are examples of episodes on Sentai where the main team is forced to disband by their mentors or superiors.
 * Nobuo mentions AbarePink, who is the self-proclaimed sixth member of the Abaranger, an identity created by Emiri Sanjyou as her way to try and become an official Abaranger. She doesn't actually possess any powers, and her armor is just a rudimentary costume Emiri made herself.
 * An earlier related character is White Racer, a form taken on magically by Radietta Fanbelt, who is a fan of the Carrangers. Similarly in Power Rangers SPD, Boom created the SPD Orange ranger when he lied to his parents about being a part of the B Squad's rangers.
 * The roll call this time have close helmet shots with their gold insignia shining; this is done notably in roll calls for Denziman through Goggle V where the helmets have an attribute shown off prior to the main roll call
 * In Nobuo's impromptu single-man role call, he mentions the five members of the Sentai team of Fiveman, who were all siblings.
 * Yumeria and Nobuo sing a portion of Battle Fever J's theme song during the initial battle.
 * The battery pack seen when Kozkoz realize she needed to change the batteries, reads ZENIT, a reference to the robotic henchmen of the Londarz Family in Timeranger.
 * There are some references to Kamen Rider Fourze.
 * Kozkoz says "Switch on!" on her attempts to eject the Akibarangers from the delusion, which is the aforesaid show's catchphrase.
 * On separate instances, both Nobuo and Asakusaalpaca shouted "It's reality time!" in a manner similar to Kamen Rider Fourze's catchphrase "It's Space Time!"
 * The maid cafe featured in this episode has also appeared on an episode of Cutie Honey THE LIVE, on which Honey and Seiji investigate a series of murders involving delivery maids. On one scene, Honey finds Seiji in this cafe, with the maids saying the same magic words to make his food delicious. It also appeared in episode 19 of Kamen Rider Kiva.
 * The girl and the man at the front of the spatula attack in the streets are Haruko Momoi and Yamagata Yukio, the singers of Akibaranger's opening theme song.
 * Akagi refers to Doctor Z on first appearance as a "Showa-esque boss character", particularly with his many attributes (white hair, eyepatch and clawed hand as well as a relation to a good member of the cast though being the main villain) homaging Bioman main villain Doctor Man.

Songs

 * Heroic Lily
 * Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger (opening)
 * Gosei Sentai Dairanger
 * Battle Fever J
 * Ashita wa Akiba no Kaze ga Fuku (ending)

DVD/Blu-ray releases
Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger Volume 3 features episodes 7-9: Ep. 7: Race Deludedly, Itashar! Break Your Limits!, Ep. 8: Bonds of Lame Training! A Fork in the Road to Official-ness!, and ''Ep. 9: Lame Sentai Disbands''.