What are mods' thoughts on the theory that Dugded and Minongan were going to brainwash Rita if their undercover job actually succeeded?
Hi friend! Thank you for dropping us this ask! :D The mods rewatched Rita's scene in episode 37 and all of episode 38 together last weekend to come up with an answer, then took another week to put all our thoughts down to make sure our reply is comprehensible. lol
The brainwash theory wasn't something we had considered, because frankly, the idol audition storyline was just too weird. (Even Jeramie decided to not recap it in episode 39's opening narration. lol) BUT, your question got the gears in our brains going, so we went hunting for clues!
To consider the plausibility of the brainwash theory, we discussed the plot ambiguity or even outright plot holes that existed surrounding episode 38. In adopting a mentality of "there’s no coincidences, just in-universe reason", we used reverse logic to try to make sense of the events of episode 38.
The questions we discussed were:
Why was Rita teleported away in episode 37?
Why allow Rita to enter the idol audition in the first place?
If there was something deeper going on, why did they let Rita act freely for this long?
Most important of all... If they wanted Rita to be an idol / join the Uchu, then why have Hilbil appear and steal the stage to disqualify Rita?
Here is the breakdown of our answers and rationales:
Why was Rita teleported away in episode 37?
It is so easy to assume that Rita was teleported away because the Uchu wanted Rita in Gokkan. But is that what the story was telling us?
The first question we tried to address was the timing. Why teleport Rita away at this exact moment?
Fact: Morphonia's flashback in episode 38 informs us that Goma brainwashed the Gokkan prisoners after Rita had resecured all escapees in episode 35, explaining why Rita was able to rejoin the Kings in episode 36. The scene was set during the daytime.
Fact: Minongan (literally) crashed in as Goma was in the midst of commanding the brainwashed criminals, and then the idol audition arena was "poofed" into Gokkan instantaneously. And it was nighttime.
Speculation: It is unlikely that it took Goma more than a day to gather the prisoners up. The sequence of flashbacks, from daytime to nighttime, might even suggest that this all took place on the same day. So it is likely the audition was set up just before episode 36, by the latest during episode 36.
Uncertainty: We don't know how much time transpired between each episode. Did episode 37 happen as soon as Rita left with Kaguragi at the end of episode 36? Or did a few days or even up to a week pass? Some Toku shows align episode with air date, season, and festivities (Valentine episode, Christmas episode, etc.), but with KingOh set in a fantasy setting, we don't have that to help us gauge the passage of time. However, we can assume at least a few days have passed for the very least. Hymeno was comfortable enough to host a fair(?) to cheer up her people at the end of episode 36, with food available (since Jeramie was munching on something). Then, in episode 37, we see the Kings partially starved due to a lack of food supplies from Tofu. So whatever food stock Ishabana had while under Kamejim's temporary reign was depleted by the time episode 37 rolled around.
This was necessary for us to consider, because if Dagded had already planned to involve Rita in the idol audition from the very start, it didn't make sense why Dagded would wait until episode 37 to make Goma whisk Rita away to Gokkan. Ergo Rita wasn't the main reason for the teleportation.
So, if not Rita, then the more likely reason is that the Uchu was keeping an eye on Glodi to protect him from Rita's ice seal, as it was the only known way to combat Glodi's immortality at the time. This is supported by the scene before Rita was poofed away:
The slight slow motion and camera pan of Rita walking out from behind Kaguragi puts strong focus on Rita.
Glodi wanted to walk away from Rita. (Something he didn't do when Gira, Yanma and Hymeno appeared in Tofu later.)
Kaguragi announced Rita to be Glodi's "only natural enemy."
Rita believed Kaguragi intended for them to use the ice seal.
It had all the setup for a big confrontation, continuing what started in episode 30. In-universe, it would make sense that the Uchu would want to avoid Glodi being encased in ice again. (Tbh the mods are upset how this buildup was discarded and Rita vs Glodi never happened afterwards.)
Now, in terms of WHERE Rita was teleported to... we assume it's Gokkan. But honestly, we don't know, because there seemed to be a production mistake...?
You see, every other time Goma's Substitution Technique was used, there was an instantaneous replacement appearing after the swap. Even Hilbil took the place of two mini Moffuns in episode 38! (Why 2 Moffuns? No clue.)
However, there was nothing in episode 37.
NOTHING.ヽ(ಠ_ಠ)ノ
Taking "there’s no coincidences, just in-universe reason" to the extreme, the mods thought of a half-serious explanation that Goma switched Rita's with a snowflake from Gokkan, so it immediately melted upon reaching Tofu, or it's just too small to be shown on screen. lol
Seriously though. Mass/size isn't a factor in Goma's Substitution Technique. The only rules seemed to be:
His target needs to be (1) himself or (2) something within his line of sight.
The replacement needs to be either (1) something in his line of sight, or (2) already 'marked' by him ahead of time. (E.g. Iko Marina, Hilbil, etc.)
These rules mean that whenever Goma uses the technique to switch two targets, the switch will always result in something landing near him due to the 'line of sight' rule. Since Goma was stationed in Gokkan during the kingdom reclamation arc, Goma using his technique to teleport Rita with a piece of snowflake when told to protect Glodi doesn't seem implausible. This chain of events could even explain:
Why Rita seemingly chose to “return” and STAYED in Gokkan between episode 37 and 38 on their own volition, and without checking in with the other Kings at all, when initially they were supposed to help reclaim Tofu. As soon as they landed in Gokkan through Goma's technique, they were already under Goma's and Minongan’s watch, so they made a snap decision to go undercover and went offline.
Why Goma "waited" until Rita took the form of Papillon Ohger, and was charging at Glodi to teleport them away, instead of teleporting Rita away as soon as Rita was near Glodi. The Uchu needed time to contact Goma, assuming Kamejim or Dagded were the ones watching Tofu/Glodi from Dagded's room. i.e. Rita and Kagu showed up in front of Glodi -> Kamejim / Dagded sees the confrontation happening through Dagded's room -> Kamejim / Dagded teleports in to tell Goma to assist Glodi -> Goma poofs Rita away. Goma likely had all the Kings marked already anyway, since he had already been successful in causing a body-swap in episode 28.
The "swap Rita with a snowflake" idea is undoubtedly one of our silliest reasons ever, but it was the best we could do. The lack of a replacement object appearing in Rita's place in episode 37 annoyed us because that really was a crucial scene to make sense of what transpired to lead to episode 38. TOEI, OF ALL SCENES TO DROP THE BALL ON... WE NEED CLUES!!! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Anyways... we believe Rita was teleported away because the Uchu wanted to avoid the risk of Rita sealing Glodi away again. This suggests to us that Rita was not targeted as part of the idol audition, at least not at the time of episode 37.
Why allow Rita to enter the idol audition in the first place?
If there was something deeper going on, why did they let Rita act freely for this long?
If they had wanted Rita to be an idol / join the Uchu, then why make Hilbil appear and steal the stage to disqualify Rita?
These three questions had to be answered together to make sense.
The use of Goma's power means the Uchu would know exactly when and where Rita appears in Gokkan. If the intention was to brainwash Rita, the Uchu could have taken Rita by surprise immediately. But it DIDN'T happen, so this refuted the idea that brainwashing Rita was part of the initial plan as well.
Revisiting episode 38, it's interesting to see that TakaMina opened the episode with Kaguragi suggesting that the Uchu wants to persuade Rita to join them by relieving them of their duties at the start of the episode. Structurally, the King’s making these wild theories is great for resonating with the befuddlement audience feels, but it's also as if TakaMina was purposefully planting a seed in the audience's mind that this was a possible theme in the episode.
AND, Kaguragi's idea was never outright shot down! Unlike when Gira wonders if Rita was brainwashed / mind controlled, Morphonia quickly refuted the possibility. So was that what's going on?
Theory A: Maybe not brainwashing, but did the Uchu actually intend to get Rita to switch sides? Is that why they brought Rita in and let Rita "roam" free for so long in the audition, even when Rita didn't bother with any fake name or disguise to go undercover?
Conclusion A: We also shot this idea down because if they really were trying to convert Rita to their side from the very start, it did not make sense that they brought Hilbil in to steal the stage and disqualify Rita. And again, the timing of when they brought Rita in doesn't make sense if Rita was targeted from the very start.
In fact, bringing Hibill in to disqualify Rita was the biggest wrench in trying to understand what the Uchu want. It was giving us mixed signals on the Uchu's intentions.
Ultimately, we fellback into character analysis and concluded that... Dagded is playful, and Minongan is DUMB.
Frankly, Minongan was just a tool, so there’s not much intention we can derive from his actions and speech, especially because we see Minongan completely falling for Rita's ruse.
In fact, this also becomes an argument against the brainwashing theory. If the Uchu truly believes Rita is voluntarily joining their side / wanting to become an idol, then brainwashing should not be necessary. You only brainwash someone if you have use of them, but don't trust them to do your bidding voluntarily.
What was helpful to consider, though, was Minongan's dialogue before and after the audition:
Fact 1: There is a plan for "cleaning up" Gokkan / Ohsama Sentai / Chikyu through the idol audition.
Fact 2: The idol audition is part of a 2-phase plan.
Fact 3: Dagded was aware of the second phase plan and was looking forward to it.
Probably, the idol audition was actually Dagded’s idea that was fed to Minongan, given the mix of absurdity and complexity to such an elaborate level. Considering everything else has led us to believe the Uchu did not originally intend for Rita to participate in the idol audition, it seemed very possible that when Rita decided go undercover on the Uchu, Dagded, being the chaotic, unserious villain that he is, just decided to let Rita be because it was entertaining for him to observe how things would unfold.
Dagded is a god-like being who is childish, playful, and hubris. He is unpredictable, as shown in his actions in episode 31 (use of Nephila against the Kings, sending the Kings to Earth, etc.), and the idol audition itself. They all have taken place due to his whims. To have Rita, whom Dagded sees as a “little speck” that claims to be an "Immoveable King", audition to become his personal idol would probably intrigue Dagded.
However, if Dagded was willing to allow this to happen, then why was Hilbil involved?
Our answer is Goma - the unwilling accomplice in this ridiculous ploy.
From the very beginning, we were shown that Goma was dragged into the idol audition plan unwillingly, only participating because it was a direct order from Dagded. It is especially telling in the two times Minongan needed him to use his Substitution Technique to bring Earth idol Iko Marina into Chikyu, and then poofing her away again, his signature "Nin!" and activating gesture felt very lacklustre.
BUT, when the time came for him to bring Hilbil into the audition stage, his "Nin!" had more conviction this time. This gave us the idea of Theory B.
Theory B: While Minongan was completely tricked by Rita, Goma remained suspicious of Rita's true motives. Bringing Hilbil in was his idea to foil Rita's plan, or to "test" Rita's intention of auditioning to become an idol.
It's a bit far-fetched, but it's also interesting to see how different Goma's reaction was when Rita exploded and yelled that they were undercover. While everyone reacted with a comedic "Oh~?", you don't hear Goma's voice in it. His shoulders also noticeably sagged after the shrug. It gives the impression of an "I told you so" or an "I knew it!" gesture; if he had shaken his head as well, then that would be exactly what it was. It certainly feels different from the surprise and confusion the rest of the group is showing.
So, the more complete version of Theory B is: The Uchu never intended to make Rita an idol or to brainwash them when the idol audition idea first came about. The Uchu were happy to let Rita be in the audition to see how things unfold for the sake of entertainment. However, Goma, the holder of Uchu braincell, wanted a failsafe in place, so brought Hilbil in to disqualify Rita to observe their reaction. He can't outright go against the idol audition operation, but he can have a hand in adding new obstacles as part of the audition.
Why though? Were they actually going to give Rita a "second chance" as long as Rita appeared to be serious about becoming an idol? Was the failsafe actually going to be brainwashing Rita? From this came Theory C.
Theory C: We believe the Uchu, more specifically, Goma, was going to use giving Rita a "second chance" as a bargaining chip. The disqualification creates a scenario where the Uchu can use something Rita wants as leverage over Rita, so they can make Rita agree to do something, like an ultimatum.
THIS was the moment the mods really tried to think about the plausibility of the brainwash theory.
Bigger picture, to get Rita on their side (or in fact, any of the Kings), the options the Uchu have are:
Brainwash via Hilbil (e.g. Nkosopa).
Pseudo-brainwash via Goma's personality switch power. (e.g. Gokkan prisoners)
"Brainwash" via eating Shugod Soul (e.g. Glodi)
Threats via ransom tactic (e.g. Hymeno in episode 36)
Negotiation/persuasion tactic (e.g. historical Shugodom Kings)
But which of them makes sense when paired with the events of the idol audition?
1. Brainwash via Hilbil (e.g. Nkosopa). 2. Pseudo-brainwash via Goma's personality switch power. (e.g. Gokkan prisoners)
With the full extent of this mental exercise already taken place, we quickly rejected options 1 and 2. Because: (i) Again, if this had been the ultimate goal, they could have done this many times over instead of waiting till after the idol audition
(ii) Nothing in Hilbil and Goma's power ever suggested consent or submission as a factor of their power, so to put Rita in the position of losing to Hilbil and using "second chance" as a leverage against Rita seemed unnecessary.
(iii) We don't think the effect of these brainwashing options would yield the result that the Uchu hoped for.
For (i) and (ii), we know the Kings, except for Gira and Kaguragi, are not immune to Hilbil's powers (e.g. ep 44), and we know Goma's power is also effective on all the Kings. The fact that neither of those powers was used on Rita already in episode 38 continues to suggest that the Uchu did not intend to brainwash Rita in such a way.
For (iii), Hilbil's power is temporary and simplistic in nature, and Goma's power is to "flip" the nature of its target's personality. Neither really seemed to be useful in keeping Rita on the side of the Uchu. With Hilbil's power, there can only be one command activated at any given time, and as soon as the command is fulfilled, the control breaks, as we've seen in episode 27 (Jeramie), episode 28 (King's aides), and episode 29 (Chikyu people). With Goma's power, flipping Rita's "goodness" into "evil" doesn't necessarily suggest obedience. In fact, with Morphonia's explanation of what Goma did to the Gokkan prisoners, Goma's power likely would not have the desired effect of having Rita under the Uchu's control.
Rita is highly disciplined and serious, so flipping their personality to the opposite would make them... chaotic and playful? Which sounds more like Dagded and less like an obedient servant/comrade. Secondarily, it's actually also a bit ambiguous what the extent of Goma's power is when switching between "goodness" and "evil". For the criminals, all we know is that it made them stop wanting to break out of jail and become susceptible to asks/commands - i.e., they become cooperative and obedient. But if they are being instructed to commit evil under the name of Dagded, is that still "goodness"? Debatable. So hypothetically, if Rita were switched from "good" to "evil, does it actually mean Rita would also switch from the side of Ohsama Sentai to the Uchu? Or does it just flip their moral compass without changing their pursuit of ridding the Uchu and being Chief Justice?
Moot point. But yeah, we didn't think brainwashing via Hilbil's power or Goma's power was a good match.
3. "Brainwash" via eating Shugod Soul (e.g. Glodi)
This was an interesting idea to consider. It could make sense that to let Rita have a "second chance" at getting close to Dagded, they'd have Rita eat a Shugod Soul as an ultimatum. As far as Rita knows at episode 38, only the Bug Naraku have eaten Shugod Souls to gain power. They didn't know about Gira or Glodi's circumstances yet, and making them voluntarily eat the soul as a sign of obedience/goodwill, or conviction to join the Uchu would be a smart move. It certainly would explain why they chose to disqualify Rita through Hilbil, to create a scenario where Rita needed to do something for the Uchu.
However, eating Shugod Soul has a pretty permanent effect, as well as making them amnesiac. Dagded had said he made Glodi from a corpse with Shugod Soul as the final phase plan to destroy the original Bug Naraku planet, after being asked by one of the original Bug Naraku for such a weapon. (It may be similar to how King Causus asked Dagded for a destructive power and got Gira. Bug Naraku got Glodi, but it backfired on them.)
Because (i) we aren't at the "final stage" yet, (ii) Dagded wasn't "asked" for another weapon, and (iii) the whole premise of the idol audition was for Dagded to "have fun", while brainwashing via Shugod Soul seems plausible, it's not our favourite theory, even if it seems to be a possible logical outcome.
4. Threats via ransom tactic (e.g. Hymeno in episode 36)
This theory didn't make any sense given the premise of episode 38. (i) Gokkan prisoners weren't really taken hostage, and (ii) a hostage situation means the bargaining chip exists already, so the idol audition + disqualifying Rita scenario just becomes unnecessary. So we quickly moved on from this idea. LMAO
5. Negotiation/persuasion tactic (e.g. historical Shugodom Kings)
We actually think there's a lot of merit to this idea, because this is literally Dagded's modus operandi with the Shugodom Kings, including against young Rcules during the first Wrath of God. We even see him trying to do the same to make Gira do his bidding in episode 27 as well.
Dagded enjoys watching species tear themselves apart from infighting, reveling the turmoil and suffering created, not only for the casualties caught in the conflict, but for the ruler he coerced into following his command. The Uchu would know how much damage they could do to Chikyu's rule if they took away the head of Chikyu's international justice system. Adding Rita to their ranks, along with Rcules, would be exactly what is needed to get Dagded's infighting script back on track for Chikyu's eventual self-destruction. Just imagine, if they truly believed Rita genuinely wants to become an idol, they could even "negotiate"/suggest that Rita's assistance in destroying Chikyu is the guaranteed way to rid them of the burden of Chief Justice, and in exchange, Rita can stay as Dagded's idol forever. It sounds ABSURD, but because it's so absurd, it actually sounds like something Dagded would say.
From Minongan's perspective, who already believed that Rita genuinely wants to become an idol, he probably wouldn't see any issue with adding a bit of competition to the audition process by involving Hilbil. Disqualifying Rita and then dangling the "second chance" in exchange for Rita doing something for the Uchu to show their conviction on the path of idol, probably suits him just fine. MNG might even call it the necessary step to take for the sake of stardom! /j For Dagded, it suits his plan as well, since he was just observing everything for fun.
For Goma, the opportunity to make Rita bargain for a "second chance" at the idol audition was win-win for him. The outcome would either be (1) the Uchu make a demand that Rita actually fulfills to show their conviction/loyalty to the Uchu, which means the Uchu gained an "ally" and it eases his suspicions, or (2) Rita doesn't fulfill the demand, so it lets him break Rita's façade, and he gets to prove Minongan is wrong and dumb af.
Summary & Conclusion:
While the brainwash theory is fun to consider and has some merit, there were many evidence from the story to suggest otherwise.
The events of episode 38 show that Minongan (and possibly Dagded) truly believed Rita wants to be rid of the position of Chief Justice and become an idol. That in itself is against the need for brainwashing if they assume Rita is being genuine.
If they wanted to brainwash Rita from the start, they would have had numerous opportunities to do so between episodes 37 and 38, instead of waiting until they disqualified Rita with Hilbil's involvement. So the fact that it didn't happen would also suggest that it was not part of the original plan.
Disqualifying Rita from the idol audition through Hilbil was the Uchu's (mainly Goma's) ploy to test Rita's conviction and intentions of becoming Dagded's idol. It is most likely that they were going to make Rita do something as a bargaining chip for a "second chance" to become an idol, rather than to choose to brainwash them outright. To put Rita in the position of losing didn't seem necessary for the sake of brainwashing. However, if Rita succeeded in infiltrating the Uchu as an idol, but then had their cover blown, then brainwashing would be a possible consequence as retribution.