Nicktoons TMNT episode 21- Karai's Vendetta

By Mark Rodriguez

Originally written on Sunday, April 28, 2013. Keep in mind, these were our thoughts as they were back in 2013 when the show was new and was written shortly after seeing the episodes after their initial broadcast. At the time we had zero way of knowing what to expect.

This episode bring up what I was afraid of since they started training April. An April VS Karai fight. However, it was done rather well and I'm glad with how they handled it. Several things went down the way I expect them to. Anyways, let's start the review.

We start the episode with Shredder and Karai interrogating the captured Kraang. Seeing how the Kraang only let out screeches and such, Karai tells Shredder they can only talk once they're in their robot suits. They jam the little bugger into the robot suit Karai stole in an earlier episode, and Shredder demands to know why they're hunting the Turtles. The Kraang says they are protecting April O'Neil, the key to all their plans. Shredder sends Karai after her.

In the lair, everyone is training, including April. Raph has Mikey trapped in a double armlock, and he just gives up the fight. Splinter asks him why he gave up so easily, and Mikey says it's because there was nothing he could do. Splinter says there is ALWAYS something one can do, and has Raph do the hold on him. Splinter licks Raph's cheek, which distracts him long enough for Splinter to get out of the hold and slam him down.

Later on, Don is studying some of the water that as being modified by the Kraang in their plan to terraform the world to their liking. The Kraang water burns like acid, and they have to be stopped before they infect the city's entire water supply. Due to Mikey freaking out about it melting his pizza, he accidently spills some on April.. which doesn't burn her at all. The Turtles head out to stop the Kraang and invite April, but she has an essay to do and doesn't like the idea of an underwater adventure and skips out.

The Turtles use a sub that looks like a giant sea turtle... but they have to peddle on bicycles to warm up the engine. Once the engine is activated they head towards the Kraang's underwater base, but see it guarded by a giant sea monster, brought over by the Kraang.

Elsewhere, April is trying to figure out a Japanese vending machine. Karai shows up, in regular clothes, and shows her how to work it, since the machine itself doesn't give food, but wooden tokens with kanji on them telling the chef what to cook. They both enter Murakami's place together and give him their orders. Karai's order in particular concerns Murakami but he goes to make it anyway. As April and Karai have some small talk, the Foot Ninja calls herself 'Harmony'.

The Turtles use their sub to block the underwater base's flow of chemicals to infect the water. As the Kraang go to investigate, the Turtles sneak inside. 

At the restaurant, April gets her order, the pizza gyoza, and lets 'Harmony' try some. Murakami brings Karai her order, and she encourages April to have some too. Before she can take a sip, Karai tells her that it's turtle soup. April figures out that this girl is Karai and makes a run for it. Murakami purposely gets into Karai's way to buy her some time. 

 As April runs, she calls the Turtles for help. Unfortunately, this sets off Don's ringtone, which alerts the Kraang that they are in their base. Don tells April to run for her life since they won't be able to save her this time, and the Turtles start fighting the Kraang.

Outside, April steals the motorbike from the pizzaboy (always the same pizzaboy) and drives off. Karai soon finds a bike of her and follows in hot pursuit. April manages to lose her for a few moments since there was a big truck in the way. Karai however, isn't giving up. 

As the Turtles fight the Kraang, Don is too distracted worrying about April and he just wants to leave as soon as possible. Leo reminds him that their main mission is to take our the underwater base. Raph reminds him that they plan to infect the water supply that will hurt everyone in the city, including April. Don finally gets it together and arranges the base to explode in 90 seconds... but just then the sea monster returns and blocks their exit. Mikey is able to tie up the monster with his kusarigama and ride it like a horse. They are able to escape in their turtlesub, but the sea monster is still after them.

The sea monster wraps itself around the sub and um... sounds like it was trying to mate with it. The Turtles all have awkward looks on their faces and Mikey yells out 'IT'S NOT THAT KIND OF SUB!!!'. Don releases some depth charges which makes the monster let it go. The Turtles manage to get away in their sub leaving behind a heartbroken monster.

Karai finally corners April, and the redhead starts to get ready for a fight. However, April is seriously outmatched, and even her ninja fan is of no use. As Karai kicks the crap out of April, our heroine refuses to stay down. Karai gets in an armlock and asks what is so special about her, since she has mutant Turtles protecting her from an alien race that is after her. April says that she herself doesn't know and says she had her father kidnapped and lost her mother. Karai reacts to the fact that April lost her mother (which we assume she did as well), and April takes this split second opportunity to flip her down a flight of subway stairs. 

At home, April tells everyone about her ordeal with Karai. Splinter is proud that she took the advice of using any means to get out of any situation. But he also says that since now both the Kraang and the Foot are after April, she's going to have to stay with them in the sewers, since it is the only place she will be safe. April doesn't like the idea as much as Donnie does. Since she'll be stuck in the sewers until they take Shredder and The Kraang down, she is eager to get started.

My Thoughts-

This episode was awesome, but the main focus was on April and Karai. The sea monster trying to mate with the turtlesub aside (surprised they implied that kinda thing on Nick), the side-plot was kinda boring. Kinda like the Leatherhead episode where they Turtles had to get past a bunch of traps to get to the Power Cell, I didn't really care about any of that and only wanted to see Leatherhead and Mikey, in this episode I felt the underwater base stuff was boring and wanted to see Karai and April. 

I like the fact that Karai snuck up on her in normal clothes and tried to be her friend. I don't know how she knew this girl was April... the Kraang they captured was in no position to give them photos. I like the Japanese references, their way of saying grace before eating food, and the Tokyo style food order machine. For a moment I was wondering why April didn't know how to use the machine since she was supposed to be a frequent customer at Murakami's... but a fellow Technodromer reminded me that she pointed out the machine was new. Nice catch there BubblyShell22!

As for the fight between April and Karai, I guess inevitable since they are the ninja girls from either side, it went down the way I was hoping it would. April was completely outmatched. Now, I don't like seeing her get beat up, but she is just no match for a full trained ninja after training with Splinter for a month at the most. That would be like me practicing in a dojo for a month and then calling out Chuck Norris. The way April won worked for me. She got lucky and tossed her down a flight of stairs. Karai was hurt, and not exactly out of the game, but by the time she got back up the stairs, April was long gone. Like Splinter said in the episode, the important part was that she survived. April didn't exactly win, per say, since had she decided to stay, Karai would have still kicked her ass, she got away to fight another day. And that's the way I think it should have gone. If April were to face Karai and the episode required her to get away, it would have to be with some sort of outside circumstance (in this case the stairs), rather than winning in an all-out fight. Good job Nick.

More little details on Karai being Miwa are thrown in, as not only did Karai freeze up when she heard April lost her mother, which I assume she did as well.... but Karai called herself Harmony in front of April as her disguise. One of the Japanese-knowledgable people (shout out to Raph's Girl) of the Techodrome forums as kind enough to point out that Miwa loosely translates into Harmony. Very damn clever Nick. Very damn clever.

Speaking of names though, the episode title felt a little misplaced. It hardly seemed like a Karai's Vendetta, and more like Karai's Mission. She hardly showed any anger or hatred for the Turtles after the last episode. The only thing was that she followed Shredder's orders without hesitation, but there wasn't any 'How dare Leonardo betray me, I'll get him yet!' vibe carried over from the last episode.

This wraps up my review on the episode. Again, I REALLY liked the interaction between April and Karai. It was more entertaining that whatever the Turtles were doing. And yes, for those that were expecting a Shredder and Kraang alliance... I already knew they'd be threatening and interrogating the little guy for information. I expect Shredder to continue to use the Kraang just like he did to Baxter until whenever he manages to get away. Hell, maybe Baxter will team up with the Kraang to both get revenge on Shredder. As for the Turtles themselves.... why was so much focus put on finishing this particular mission when they sometimes run out of other missions? That portal episode had them run out without destroying the portal or taking the power cell back. Where was their big focus on finishing the mission then, huh?

I also wish they found some other way to have the Kraang water spill on April earlier in the episode. I know this was to establish that she is somehow not human or something, but did they have to make Mikey the one that spilled it on her? I know he's meant to be the silly and goofy one, but there would have been nothing funny and silly if April was a normal human and his little accident melted her arm off.