#to write a bean make use of his potential toei

[iristial]

Some headcanons on how I’d rewrite Sakuya from episode 7 onwards

I've made several posts critiquing Toei's treatment/handling of Sakuya and his relationship with Umika, so I thought I'd like to share how I'd want Sakuya to be written from episode 7 onwards

Have Sakuya interested in Umika…but when Keiichiro asks him if he’s serious, Sakuya says “of course I am!” But what gets him thinking is that he doesn’t really know much about Umika when Tsukasa says that he doesn’t know the girl and asks him to focus on the job

This is hammered in by episode 11, where Umika unknowingly expresses that “lately there’s a guy who’s been bothering me at the bistro where I work” to Sakumi(?), and Sakuya decides to take an effort to learn about Umika as a person while respecting her boundaries, rather than just pushing his feelings onto her

It’s hard to do this at first because being subtle isn’t in Sakuya’s dictionary, but you can see him try. He does small things like asking her what she likes and maybe he expresses a genuine interest in that himself. Umika is surprised but she does come to enjoy his company, even if she’s not interested just yet. There could be occasional moments where Sakuya does get Umika gifts, but after a first few disastrous attempts, he manages to get her something small but she loves it and he secretly thinks that’s really cute, to his senior’s amusement (and approval, since they can see Sakuya is taking Umika’s feelings into question)

They develop a little habit of small talking in a comfortable way, and Umika herself feels bad for having to procure him for information, let alone keeping it secret that she is a Lupinranger

There’s an ironic moment where Sakuya might’ve done a nasty one on Umika during a LuPato fight and when he sees her with the bandage, he worries and even gets all kinds of medicine, saying that he didn’t know which one she’d prefer to use or if she had allergies. This makes the love line a little more convincing since Umika sees that he is serious about her and feels something a little more (for those who do ship Sakuya/Umika :) )

Sakuya himself continues to grow as a junior, learning to accept compliments without letting them take over his head (episode 27(?) should serve as the perfect catalyst for helping him realize maybe receiving compliments aren’t the best way to help him develop + compliments are praise/assurance that you’re doing a good job, rather than as critiques of how one can improve). Even so, it’s still a little hard for him to accept criticism since he is a bean

His passion for the propaganda film is partially due to him wanting attention (not from girls, just ordinary admiration) but he is genuine in wanting to become a protector for the public

He makes mistakes on the battlefield, so to make up for it he starts doing target practice on his own and improves in his sharpshooter skills. He also takes an interest in hand-to-hand combat, so that’s why when he first heard of the Empty Headed Martial Arts Dojo, he thought learning a completely new form of martial arts should assist in their battles against the Gangler. Of course, he gets scammed of his money, but in the end he did mean well, so his seniors do genuinely compliment him for taking the time to do just that

Sakuya understands more about Keiichiro’s harsh nature. Of course, Keiichiro can go far in his scolding but as a senior, he has a lot of experience Sakuya doesn’t have and naturally he can learn from that. Episode 36 helps him hammer in the message that this is how Keiichiro helps juniors to grow because if you’re not tough in the police force in the Sentai world…safe to say, that’s a one-way trip to a world of hurt

Sakuya is also a reminder to Keiichiro that it’s important to be focused and on the job, but that sometimes it’s okay to lighten up