Kamen Rider: Episode 5 - The Monstrous Mantis Man (怪人かまきり男, Kaijin Kamakiri Otoko) (Original Airdate: May 1, 1971)

 Mysterious earthquakes are happening in Japanese suburbs, and a woman Takeshi grew up with has mysteriously disappeared! This raises two questions: (1) Are these things connected, and (2) how is Shocker involved? First off, it turns out the missing woman (Chikako) worked at an earthquake monitoring station. Second, Shocker is using small nuclear explosions to simulate earthquakes, and abducted Chikako to help further their plan to cause an earthquake and destroy the city! ...wait I thought Shocker wanted to turn everyone into cyborgs and then rule the world, how does this further that goal? And why is their commander for this operation a cyborg with mantis powers?

He has a sickle, like a mantis claw. Dunno what that has to do with earthquakes.

Don't worry, in this episode, none of those questions will be answered! You WILL, however, see Takeshi continue to train as a motorcycle rider and explain magnitude to Tachibana. You WILL see two incredibly boring fight scenes with the Mantis Man and some Shocker grunts, and Takeshi inexplicably escape a combination bomb/pit trap when the "blast radius activated my belt". You WILL be unsurprised when Chikako is revealed to be brainwashed by Shocker, and disappointed when a subplot about the Mantis Man's egg just turns out to be a decorative shell placed over the lever that will unleash the final earthquake. I'm aware that last bit sounds insane, but here we are anyhow!

This is easily the worst episode I've watched so far, but not wretched, just uninspired. And nothing made any sense once you thought about it for two seconds. I'm aware this is children's show from 1971, so I'm willing to cut it quite a bit of slack, but we've had four episodes with better plotting than this. Shocker trying to abduct people makes sense, they do want to turn everyone into cyborgs. I don't see how destroying a city with earthquakes is going to further that plot. Oh, also, the "henchman and monster dissolve when defeated" animation has gone from foamy stuff, to blood stuff, and now it's just this abstract string art that disappears in a weird time-lapse. A definite downgrade.

Kamen Rider: Episode 5 gets a 2/5.

Kamen Rider: Episode 4 - The Man-Eating Sarracenian (人喰いサラセニアン, Hitokui Sarasenian) (Original Airdate: April 24, 1971)

"Sarracenia is a genus comprising 8 to 11 species of North American pitcher plants, commonly called trumpet pitchers. The genus belongs to the family Sarraceniaceae, which also contain the closely allied genera Darlingtonia and Heliamphora." 

                                                                                                    - Wikipedia

A young woman is abducted from a greenhouse exhibit by the titular monster, and her very young brother runs and cries to Ruriko, who gets Takeshi involved, and eventually Kamen Rider appears to save the young woman and defeat the vile plant man (not that one). The bulk of the story is really taken up with exploring the young boy's home life, as he lives with his older sister because their parents are dead. The boy learns to be brave and makes a "man's promise" with Takeshi that involves him giving away his favorite model airplane. It's fairly standard Japanese TV of the genre and era, and it carries better than it might because Hiroshi Fujioka, who plays Takeshi Hongo, has an innate warmth that endears you to him. You root for him because of his innate strength and decency.

He looks like a plant, we're doing better this time!

This is the first episode to feel fairly rote, there's no advancement or changes in the overall plot of the series, nor any surprising character developments. Someone stumbles into Shocker's traps, and Takeshi is called upon to save them. Nevertheless, this episode featured some nice touches that do help to remind us of or reinforce the world building that's been going on so far. For one, Shocker abducts the young woman to subject her to the cyborg-ization we've only previously seen Takeshi undergo, and the man they test before her dies from the procedure and is unceremoniously discarded into some sort of chute. That makes the case for Shocker's evil pretty effectively right there, their cyborg process works on only certain individuals, and fails often enough that they have a chute for the dead bodies that inevitably pile up.

Additionally, while we've heard from the narrator that Takeshi Hongo is alone and apart from humanity as a result of being made a cyborg, we've never really seen any evidence of that... until now. While comforting the young boy, and promising to save his sister, he grasps the young boy's hands firmly, and accidentally burns the young boy's hands. Whatever they did to make the effect, it's convincing, and the boy's hands look like he touched a hot stove. Takeshi is heartbroken that he hurt the child, even accidentally, and finally we as an audience have an understanding of the downside of being a durable cyborg who fights for justice. 

Kamen Rider: Episode 4 gets a 3/5.

Kamen Rider: Episode 3 - The Monstrous Scorpion Man (怪人さそり男, Kaijin Sasori Otoko) (Original Airdate: April 17, 1971)

After foiling last week's apartment vampire thrall plot, Shocker has had it with Takeshi Hongo, that asshole that they converted like 75-80% of the way to a cyborg and then lost track of. So, they've got a Scorpion Man (duh-nuh-na-nah-na) with death scorpions, and he has orders to destroy Kamen Rider, just as soon as he finds the one old dude they let escape from the death scorpions test. Shocker maybe needs to focus on perimeter security, is what I'm saying. Anyway Takeshi is alerted to some weird dead bodies showing up by Ruriko (she's back!) and heads off to figure out what's up and protect the old man from Shocker. 

It's at this point that we realize that the police have no fucking clue what Shocker is (an officer laughs off the old man's warnings as crazy talk), which makes Takeshi's mission all the more important, but man, I'm used to Shocker being the one thing people in the KR metaverse have heard of, so that was surprising. He rescues the old man from doctors and nurses who are disguised Shocker Grunts, and holes up in a hotel until Ruriko and Takeshi's good friend we've never heard of, Hayase, show up. There's an infestation of death scorpions and Shocker Grunts, and Takeshi kills most of them, but the old man is killed and Ruriko is kidnapped, so, uh, not a great job dude. 

Hey Hayase, what's up buddy?

Anyway, Takeshi and Hayase give chase, and Hayase is also a motorcyclist, and I'm thinking, wow, are they setting up Rider #2 this early on? NOPE. Turns out Hayase IS the Scorpion Man, and he joined up with Shocker so he could finally best Takeshi at motorcycles, because we all know how good scorpions are with motorcycles. Definitely better than grasshoppers, right? Anyway Takeshi and Ruriko escape and then Kamen Rider and Scorpion Man and a bunch of Shocker Grunts fight in the desert/beach until KR kills them all and they dissolve into blood in the sand. Of course they do. See ya again never, Hayase. 

Jesus fucking Christ, what even

Okay, look I've been avoiding it so far but from the picture I just posted, you can see that Scorpion Man looks like total fucking garbage. He's got one claw hand, a face that looks nothing like a scorpion, no tail, and just, like, boots, I guess? I don't know what this costume is, but it's not a scorpion, and honestly, it's barely a man. It's worth noting that Scorpion Man's primary method of attack is the aforementioned death scorpions, which are scorpions with glowy red eyes that shoot blood from their tails that make people dissolve away into blood puddles. Y'know, like scorpions are known for, spitting things from their tails. I'm not doing this blog to rag on old TV shows, look the costumes for the last two bad guys weren't great but this shit is from 1971 in Japan, I know it's not gonna look modern. That said, I am docking this episode a point for its in-fucking-sane design choices that made me ponder if Shocker had ever seen a scorpion before creating this guy.

Kamen Rider: Episode 3 gets a 2/5.

Kamen Rider: Episode 2 - The Terrifying Bat Man (恐怖蝙蝠男, Kyōfu Kōmori Otoko) (Original Airdate: April 10, 1971)

 In this second episode, Takeshi stumbles upon a weird plot by Shocker to convert an apartment building into Shocker thralls via the powers of a Bat Man (not that one) with sonic wave vampire powers... it's slightly ill-defined. Kamen Rider throws multiple Shocker Grunts off the top of the building to their deaths, no seriously, he tosses them off and then it just cuts to raspberry jam being splashed across the pavement, they're amazingly explicit about it. He then also kills the Bat Man (who to be fair looks more like Man Bat than Batman but hey whatever) and is able to use the bat's claws to cure everyone of their zombie-vampire-thrall state. As you do.

The "Terrifying" Bat Man

A subplot here is that Ruriko (from the previous episode) is trying to follow Takeshi because she erroneously believes he murdered her father. Tobei Tachibana, is a racing trainer and the owner of a snack cafe (two obviously simpatico occupations), who appeared last time but I assumed he was a one-off character, and whom everyone just calls 'Master' (in English) which is totally normal. Anyway, he runs some interference on Ruriko to help Takeshi, and I assumed this was going to be the new status quo, with Tachibana helping Takeshi while Ruriko chased after them trying to "catch" them. Nope! Ruriko falls into the Bat Man's clutches because she's a moron, and then when Takeshi saves her she realizes she was wrong about him. Good to see KR's reputation for garbage female characters starting this early in, ha ha, uggghhhhh. Subplot resolved, I guess? Will she even be around next episode?

The Bat Man's human form, Bruce Wayne some creepy dude

Oh and we get a line in here saying Shocker is the leftovers from Nazi science formed into a new organization, and that their goal is to take over the world by turning everyone into cyborgs that they control. That's, uh, yeah, that's one way to do it. One person at a time, it'll go quick like that, for sure.

Kamen Rider: Episode 2 get a 3/5.

Kamen Rider: Episode 1 - The Eerie Spider Man (怪奇蜘蛛男, Kaiki Kumo Otoko) (Original Airdate: April 3, 1971)

Kamen Rider was the product of Toei TV and manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori, and like all good manga ideas of yesteryear, it's unreasonably violent and obsessed with cyborgs. At its core, KR (Kamen Rider, we're going to be using this abbreviation a lot so get used to it) is a revenge story, with young academic genius and motorcycle enthusiast Takeshi Hongo abducted by the evil organization Shocker and experimented on, turning him into a cyborg. He's rescued by Professor Midorikawa before his brain can be modified to obey Shocker, and they escape, but are followed by the evil Spider Man (not that one). Takeshi transforms into Kamen Rider and kills Spider Man (again not that one), but not before Professor Midorikawa is killed. His daughter Ruriko sees her father die, and blames Takeshi for it. It's a clear cut, well-told origin story. Stan Lee would have approved, I think.

The eponymous Kamen Rider

What's most striking about the premiere episode are two sort of opposing factors: what is here and what's not here yet. The costume and bike are primitive but well-designed, the stunts are well-done for their time, and if the story is largely predictable, well, that's just to be expected of both the era and the intended target audience (kids). What's equally surprising is that the show spends little time on who Shocker is, who's leading them, or where they come from. Shocker still pops up from time to time in modern KR (usually a big crossover movie), so I don't know when in the last almost 50 years they got fleshed out. Also, the grunts don't have what are now considered their standard costumes or make their signature noises, and I'm curious when that'll come in. Stay tuned, as Shannon Manor would say.

The evil Spider Man (not that one)

Kamen Rider was made just over eleven years before I was born, and I have a disposition for watching older TV that should serve me well here. I'm a pretty big fan of 60s Doctor Who, and it's an appropriate comparison because the budgets and effects here are probably (somehow!) lesser than that. Modern KR uses far far too much CG for my taste (looking directly at you, Saber, you goddamn fever dream of a show), but the effects here are primitive enough to sometimes be distracting in the opposite way. There's a sweet spot for me somewhere around KR Black, and I've gotten used to the CG in most of the 2010s era KR shows, but early KR and 2000s KR are largely blind spots for me, so we'll see how I like those eras as I go. So far, so good!

I'm giving Kamen Rider: Episode 1 a 3/5

The Great Kamen Rider Review Project

 While looking for a video recently, I realized that all of the Kamen Rider series has been either officially or fan-translated, and I've watched only bits and pieces of it as a franchise. I like what I've seen, which to date, are chunks of Kamen Rider, Amazon, Black, Wizard, and the currently airing Saber. I've seen all of W, OOO, Foruze, Ghost, Drive, and the first season of Amazons. There's a lot of holes, whole series of holes, that I'd like to plug, and at the same time I need more excuses to write regularly, so here's what I've come up with: The Great Kamen Rider Review Project.

I'm going to watch every episode of every Kamen Rider series, in order, and blog through them to note my impressions and ideas. Because some of it is bound to be repetitive I'm only promising a paragraph, but I'll likely often write more than that. I think there will be lots to discuss or I wouldn't attempt this, but I also know (especially early on) there's bound to be episodes that are like "this episode he fought a fish man. the stunts were of average quality." 

I've always been absolute shit with follow-through on any of my projects or ideas, so I probably won't even share these out for a bit to make sure it gets past a week or two. This format should (in theory) allow me to get ahead and then set posts to go up as I finish my thoughts. I should therefore be able to somedays watch multiple episodes if I want, and other days watch none and stay afloat. If you've made it this far, wish me luck and feel free to comment on and share these mini-reviews and thereby help keep me honest.