Remember when Nia and Rebecca replaced Edward and Henry in the Steam Team at Tidmouth Sheds during the 'Big World, Big Adventures' rebrand resulting in practically the whole fandom bursting into flames? Well it was only made worse when our main cast was reduced to the three tank engines from the former Steam Team as well as Diesel and Kana. Up until this point in the reboot, I wasn't really fond of Kana despite her weirdly fitting in from an aesthetic standpoint as not only did she not get a proper introduction or character arc in the series for fans young and old to get to know her better but also because there was nothing to Kana as a character other than being the generic happy-go-lucky friendly type which could easily be swapped out in any story with any other happy-go-lucky character type like Emily. But then with the release of her own episode 'Kana Goes Slow', something amazing happened: this was the episode that made me fully accept Kana as a character in this reboot and while I still wish that she had been given a proper introduction instead of just appearing out of nowhere or had some kind of ongoing character arc in order for the longtime fans to accept her as a character, this was still a great first step in building Kana's reputation among the fandom young or old.
So with that said, many of you may remember when I had reviewed the episode 'Fast Friends' back in November of last year and it gave us what was surprisingly a very mature moment of growth in Kana's character when she explains to Nia how she usually loves delivering fast but not when it isn't good for the cargo since there are times when the quickest way to get somewhere is by going slow because knowing when to go fast or slow is smart especially as that is how she and Thomas won the Sodor Cup back in the full-length special 'Race For The Sodor Cup'. Even if it doesn't mean that much in the grand scheme of things for many longtime fans, this is honestly my favorite Kana moment so far in All Engines Go to the point where I was like "what's this, have I gone insane or are we seeing actual character growth in this reboot?!".
With that in mind, I was excited to see how they were going to further develop Kana's character in terms of her learning that speed isn't everything and...to my sheer surprise, not only did they do just that but I think that this may be the best Kana episode of the reboot since 'Kana Goes Slow' all the way back in Season 1. Think about it, this is an engine who went from 'being fast is my only real character trait' to appreciating the slower and calmer things in life on top of even confirming Kana to be an introvert. In a way, the difference between the personality types of Kana and her friends reminded me of how Anna and Elsa started out in 'Frozen' where introverts like Elsa who stay glued to their computers need to know how to socially interact if they’re going to survive while extroverts like Anna have the opposite problem when they sometimes reveal too much about themselves and would just give their hearts to anybody like a lot of people on social media do.
I know that's a weird comparison, but it's just a thought I had. I never thought we would get another Kana episode as good as this since 'Kana Goes Slow', but 'Kana Recharges' is just what we needed to get back on track again and that is why I'm proud to give it a rating of an 4/5.
