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ridersinreview · 7 years

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Kamen Rider Agito

Hello to my two followers and anybody who finds this in the Agito tag. Since my Stronger review went so well I’ve decided to review what is maybe my favorite Kamen Rider Series Agito!

Agito is the father of most modern Kamen Rider tropes and I can’t wait to dissect them. Now we’re going to dive into the first episode of Toshiki Inoue’s first Kamen Rider series, Kamen Rider Agito Episode 1: The Warrior’s Awakening under the cut!

We start off with a commemoration of Kamen Rider’s 30th anniversary followed by the lovely scene of a bunch of scrap scattered around a beach. Apparently a large storm has just passed causing some damage to the Nagoya area. We follow a young boy picking up scrap when he see’s something peculiar in the sand

A strange metal cross! Not only that but those little dials start moving around ominous! But we have no time for that because we’re now heading off to the city, in particular the under ground police training facility for the Squad Against Unidentified Lifeforms, or S.A.U.L. for short.

(Ignore the discrepancy with the text on the screen, it’s a mistranslation) And we that figure in blue, our hero of the show Kamen Rider G3. Kind of weird that he isn’t called Agito but this is a pretty weird series. G3, or Makoto Hikawa, is showing off the suit to his superiors by dodging, blocking, and shooting freaking cannon balls shot at him at high speeds! The long and short of it is that G3 is an Unidentified Lifeform killer, and he’s being directed by Sumiko Ozawa the best character in the entire show.

She is the creator of the G3 armor and as the testing ends we get to see the face of the suits operator.

And wow he is like a pretty puppy. Anyways he, Ozawa and Ozawa’s assistant Takahiro Omuro

(wow that picture sums up his character doesn’t it) are the team in charge of the G3 system and S.A.U.L.’s first line of defense. After the training/showing off for the higher ups Hikawa decides to visit his friend in the O Parts research center for the police. Sure that seems like the kind of thing a police department would have.

Okay time for some real talk. Some people might be confused at why the police have an organization called S.A.U.L. or what Unidentified Lifeforms are. The answer is that Agito is a sort of sequel to Kamen Rider Kuuga. In that series the police relied on Unidentified Lifeform Number 4, what they called Kuuga, to fight and defeat the Unidentified Lifeforms, until the end of series when they developed their ultimate Nerve Breaking Bullet. Now two years later in universe S.A.U.L. seems to essentially be a response to not wanting to rely on Kuuga anymore.

So anyways Hikawa meet’s up with his friend in the O-Parts division Sakiko Mikumo

And she explains the purpose of the O-Parts Division, to examine strange technology from ancient civilizations(like the ones that gave Kuuga his powers) she shows him their latest acquisition, the metal cross from earlier. She tells Hikawa that it’s essentially a giant puzzle left by a long lost civilization and she wants to find out what’s hidden inside and he agrees.

The change locations though to a local Middle School where some girls are playing soccer. Their fun is ended however when while chasing an out of bounds ball one of the girls sees the impossible.

A young boy has been stuck into a tree far to small for him to fit in. Let’s not get too hung up on child death though because we now make our way to Johuko University where a professor is speaking to his students about their graduate thesis.

He is Professor Yoshihiko Misugi and he starts talking about how the chosen topic of one of his students, psychic powers, is not suitable for a thesis. Before the argument can get too far though they are interrupted by a young man here to give the professor the books he had left at home.

(Yep, this picture sums him up very nicely.) This is Shouichi Tsugami who the professor describes to his students as a young man living with him due to special circumstances. Shouichi leaves after saying he will be cooking dinner for everybody, prompting the professor to decide he will be eating before he gets home. Not caring about the sick diss to his coking skills Shouichi starts to head back home, but on his way back to his bike he crosses paths with another man and feels…something.

The music stops, an eerie sound is heard as both men stop moving for a second. You can feel the tension rise, building and building to an explosive climax! And then the moment ends and they go on their ways not knowing what just happened, or the significance. I mean we don’t either but we know that these two are connected somehow.

So now Shouichi is walking his bike home having run out of gas and is met by Mana Kazaya, the professor’s niece and Shouichi’s housemate.

She asks him is he remembers anything and reveals to us that Shouichi has amnesia! Shouichi however doesn’t really want to get his memories back in that big of a hurry, after all having amnesia seems pretty normal to him so why does he have to remember. Mana and him banter for a bit showing their friendship and Mana tells Shouichi that if he remembers that he’s actually really rich he should marry her and rides off much to Shouichi’s dismay.

Another cut, man this show does not like focusing on a scene for to long does it, and we are with the mysterious man who crossed Shouichi’s path earlier reenacting the opening to the first Percy Jackson movie. He surfaces when called up by the school’s swim coach and we’re given his name, Ryou Ashihara, as well as the fact that he is a member of the college’s swim team.

Apparently Ryou has only just recovered from getting hit by a freaking truck and is now ready to swim again in today’s big race!

Back in the G-Trailer Hikawa has just finished another round of testing the G3 armor but his mind seems to be on something else. Ozawa confronts him on this and asks if he’s thinking about the O-Parts group, but that isn’t the only thing that’s on his mind. You see Hikawa has heard of the murder at the Middle School and thinks that it’s something that us normally impossible.

We change locations to a home where a wife is saying goodbye to her husband as he leaves for work, but the entire scene is so tense. The mother looks frightened and lost while the husband is cold and distant. As the husband leaves for work he is being followed by a strange furry humanoid who makes a strange gesture

That’s when so many things start happening at once. A one of the many locks on the cross is opened, Shouichi has a seizure while vacuuming, Ryou has a seizure in the middle of his race, and this odd leopard creature kills the husband. So yeah, shit went down. The wife realized that her husband had forgotten some papers and goes to get them to him, but when she looks around she only finds

So of course the police are called in to investigate the scene. Not only that but we find out that the boy that was killed earlier was the child of the couple we saw earlier. Hikawa is there thinking that an impossible crime like this could only be done by Unidentified Lifeforms, unfortunately he needles the wife a little too hard on if there was anything unusual about her family and she goes off crying. Hikawa tries to follow but is stopped by fellow cop Toru Hojo

who tells Hikawa that S.A.U.L. has no jurisdiction over the murder because the Unidentified Lifeforms are all gone. When Hikawa tries to counter with the fact they were shoved into trees in a way that is literally impossible to do Hojo claims that the murderer only used a trick and that even if he doesn’t know what the trick is finding out is his job.

The scene ends with Hojo letting Hikawa investigate the scene as long as he stays out of his way. So we switch over to the hospital where Ryou is in some sort of coma. Apparently his muscles are convulsing and producing high levels of heat. The doctor suggests it could be the result of intense training but the coach tells him that Ryou is too good a swimmer to do dangerous training that close to a race.

Back at the professors house Shouichi is working on a garden he has in the front yard with the professors son Taichi Misugi.

Apparently Shouichi is really amazing at farming as shown by the fact that he has a freaking gigantic vegetables. Mana shows up and wonders if Shouichi was maybe a farmer before he lost his memory, which finds “Udderly Ridiculous”.

So yeah Shouichi makes puns. It’s pretty fitting and nobody likes them. The police don’t have time for jokes as the wife calls Hikawa to show him something about her family. She says to meet him in the middle of the park at night and that will obviously end very well. As she waits in the park our monster is waiting in the bushes.

We get some shots of Shouichi washing dishes and Ryou laying in a hospital bed as a glowing halo appears above the Jaguars head as he makes his odd gesture before going in for the kill. As the Jaguar is chocking the life out of the wife Shouichi and Ryou start convulsing and hearing a strange ringing. Hikawa arrives at the park but he’s to late and find nothing except for the wife’s purse and a photo of her son.

Yeah we’ll be looking at that in the analysis. Hikawa figures out what happened real quick and scans the tree’s and finds to his horror, like son and husband like wife. He looks for the killer and he sees the jaguar monster. Hikawa tries to fight the monster but the Unidentified Lifeform(?) literally stops the bullets mid air and vaporizes them. The Jaguar’s halo glows, he grabs Hikawa up with no effort at all, and he… throws him away and continues to walk away, not even runing. Hikawa calls the G-trailer and chases after the Jaguar and like anybody would do in the situation he fires his gun at it.

The monster can freeze bullets midair though and turns them to dust. Now the Jaguar begins to run, thankfully before he can lose it the G-trailer appears and Hikawa goes in to suit up into Kamen Rider G3.

He gives chase on his specialized Guardchaser motorcycle and is ready to kick monster ass. Hikawa catches up to the monster at an abandoned warehouse and pulls out the GM-01 Scorpion, the gun he used to obliterate cannon balls earlier in the episode, only for it to have no effect. Okay it’s immune to bullets but that’s not that bad, maybe G3 will have it’s time to shine in close combat. So the Jaguar charges and G3 loses the gun and is slammed into a car without landing a single hit.

After trying and failing to do any damage to the creature Hikawa is given the order to retreat after his helmet cam was damaged and the rest of the suit is mangled, but he can’t even stand up at this point. Before the monster can continue the assault though someone arrives.

(The light is from a car exploding by the way. It was awesome if you haven’t seen the episode) This mysterious figure attacks the jaguar and unlike G3 he doesn’t get his ass handed too him. In fact he manages to not take a single hit before he throws the monster away and prepares his final attack

The rider kick. Agito leaps into the air after getting energy from that symbol on the ground and strikes the monster with one final strike. Then without even looking the Jaguar's halo appears and he explodes

gloriously.

The episode ends with two more Jaguars looking on from the distance and uttering a single word, “Agito”

Next time on Kamen Rider Agito: Who is Agito? Ryou is getting worse! Mana thinks Shouichi might be better of with amnesia! These new monsters, unknown!

Characters:

Makoto Hikawa/Kamen Rider G3- So far it looks like this is our main character. He is the operator of the G3 armor and despite looking adept the armor itself is not up to snuff. Hikawa himself is a very nice character. He is very respectful to everybody around him and despite being a little dense in his questioning of the wife he is immediately sorry. What is a pretty good about him though is his courage. Despite being faced with an insane looking murderous Jaguar creature he still chased after it without his armor. Even when the G3 armor was failing he wasn’t running away and was ready to die to avenge that murdered family. I am looking forward to examine his character moving forward.

Shouichi Tsugami- Shouichi is very interesting. He has amnesia but doesn’t seem to even care about finding out who he is. He doesn’t seem to have any desires, just happy to be in his garden and doing housework. His connection to Ryou though is interesting and as one of the candidates for Agito he is a character I want to see more off.

Ryou Ashihara- Ryou has the least amount of screen time of the three leads but his accident, recovery, and relapse make a good mystery for the show. From his interaction with his coach he seems to be very relaxed around people he cares for, but the fact that the only person in the hospital is his coach makes you wonder where his family is. He is a candidate for the identity of Agito.

Mana Kazaya- The friendly niece of the professor and Shouichi’s friend. She seems to have a crush on him and cares more about finding out his past then Shouichi is. She doesn’t have much to do but she is important to the story later so I’ll be documenting her character progression along with he three leads.

Sumiko Ozawa- The best character in the show. Ozawa is the creator of the G3 armor and a very harsh person. Something I didn’t really note in the recap proper is that when Hikawa called for the trailer Omuro said that they don’t have permission to dispatch the trailer, but Ozawa says who cares and goes anyways.

Toru Hojo- Hojo is presented here as the Scully to Hikawa’s Mulder. He claims that there has to be a rational explanation and refuses to believe that the Unidentified Lifeforms could be back.

Sakiko Mikumo- The head researcher of the O-Parts division for the police and a close friend of Hikawa. She really want to figure out what the Cross Puzzle has inside and this curiosity seems to stem from a need for answers. She seems to essentially be a mixture of several different characters from Kuuga.

Professor Yoshihiko Misugi- Shouichi’s host and a college professor. He seems to be a sceptic when it comes to psychic powers and that was given a fair amount of focus so that implies that this will be a focus of the show.

Final Thoughts:

I love Agito. I love it so much. This is without a doubt one of my favorite rider series and maybe even one of my favorite shows period. Now that that’s out of the way time to focus on what I think was done really well. The music in Agito is top notch, from creepy ambiance when the Lords(the names of the monsters that is never mentioned on show) are attacking to Agito’s battle theme Believe Yourself which always pumps me up. The Lords themselves are well designed. The Panther lord looks very nice with a horrific mouth and eyes that just pierce into your soul.

This show is also very different from the other show I’m reviewing right now Kamen Rider Stronger. While Stronger was focused on just Jo and Yuriko with a little bit of villain screen time Agito spreads it’s time between three protagonists. Another thing Agito has done is set up a mystery. There are so many unanswered questions and little hints that we are starting to get, like the photo the wife left Hikawa. I’m guessing most of you noticed the oddness of the picture. Agito is as much a mystery at times as it is a Kamen Rider show with small questions that act as arcs like the picture and longer ones like Shouichi’s amnesia.

Despite having already watching this show I’ll do my best to keep spoilers past what I’ve already covered a minimum and act like a first time watcher when it comes to analysis.

Special thanks to Tv-Nihon who’s subs were used for some of the pictures and the Kamen Rider wiki who provided the rest.

#Kamen Rider #Kamen Rider Agito #Kamen Rider Review #Kamen Rider Agito Review #Riders in Review #Kamen Rider Agito Spoilers #Kamen Rider Spoilers

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ridersinreview · 7 years

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Kamen Rider Stronger Episode 1

Hello to my two followers and whoever finds this in the Stronger tag it’s self proclaimed expert on all thing Heisei era Kamen rider Cooldownnow. Recently I have decided to finally watch Kamen Rider Kabuto, and partway through I thought that if I was watching Kabuto I should watch the show that inspired it, Kamen Rider Stronger.

So that mixed with my desire to write more has led to me deciding to review every episode of Kamen Rider Stronger starting today. So under the cut let’s begin with Kamen Rider Stronger Episode 1: I am the Electric Human Stronger!!

Plot:

We begin with a lovely shot of a new Japanese hovercraft giving people a tour the ocean. However it seems that strange things are afoot as one of the passengers becomes the Kaiju known as Kikkaijin Gangaru, but I’ll call him the Spring Kangaroo, on an unrelated note come see my new band Spring Kangaroo.

Him and the Black Satan Soldiers, on an unrelated note come see my new band Black Satan Soldiers, take control of the boat and begin to take it ashore. The monsters are shocked however when they see a man is following them on a motorcycle. Spring Kangaroo tells some Black Satan Soldiers to take care of him. A strange woman intercepts some however and knock two soldiers out with as many hits.

Back to the mysterious man on the motorcycle has disappeared and the Black Satan Soldiers are confused. Then they hear somebody whistling a song. It’s our mysterious motorcyclist who introduces himself to the Black Satan Soldiers as Shigeru Jo and begins to kick their asses.

We return to the mysterious woman as Spring Kangaroo finds her in the cockpit wearing a strange outfit, reminiscent of those worn by the Legendary Kamen Riders and calling herself Electro-Wave Human Tackle a warrior of peace and justice, the worst enemy of the evil organization Black Satan. (Note I will be calling her Kamen Rider Tackle from now on because Yuriko deserves at least that much.)

She and Spring Kangaroo fight with the monster fleeing after a few blows. She follows after him but finds him gone as she enters the room with the unconscious passengers. Jo enters soon and sees our mysterious woman and chastises her for losing the monster saying she transformed into Tackle to quickly and giving us her name, Yuriko Misaki.

The two of them wonder why Black Satan would want to steal a hovercraft when they notice a box of matches from a nearby hotel on the floor and decide to check it out, with Jo running ahead before Yuriko showing that this partnership may not be on the best of terms.

At the hotel while our duo check in a mysterious man in glasses orders around the Black Satan Soldiers and even kills one who touches him. This is the Black Satan commander known as Mr. Titan.

When told about Shigeru Jo and Kamen Rider Tackle the Mr. Titan reveals he knows the identity of Tackle and plans to capture her in her room while transforming into his true form.

Yuriko prepares to meet Jo in the hotel lobby after changing out of her clothes but is knocked out when a flower all of the sudden starts spouting off poisonous gas. Meanwhile Jo is getting tired of waiting for Yuriko and decides to go investigate on his own coincidentally running into some Black Satan Soldiers carrying Yuriko back to Mr. Titan. He confronts them and they begin a fight which ends up leaving Yuriko alone on the floor while unconscious. As Jo’s fight takes him outside Yuriko wakes up and wanders off.

Once outside the Black Satan Soldiers have lost site of Jo and meet up with Spring Kangaroo to tell him that they lost Tackle. Before Spring Kangaroo can figure out how they'll tell Mr. Titan the bad news a whistle can be heard, the same one the Black Satan Soldiers heard on the beach. They turn to find standing at the top of the cliff face a man in strange armor.

This is our title Character Kamen Rider Stronger!!! A fight breaks out with Stronger dominating the entire time. Mr. Titan is watching however and decides to cover up their tracks, having the flowers in the hotel moved and everybody inside killed before Stronger can find anything else.

Back at the hotel a man is at the green house moving all the flowers to another location when Yuriko comes in. She has figured out the plot, the flowers grown by Black Satan are poisonous and will kill all those who buy them (Why this is their plan I don’t know but it really is fitting for a group called Black Satan.) Not only that but she realizes how Spring Kangaroo managed to escape, he has the ability to transform into a human and is in fact the gardener Yuriko was confronting. Yuriko transforms into Kamen Rider Tackle and Spring Kangaroo and a few Black Satan Soldiers, however despite being able to defeat all the grunts thrown at her Spring Kangaroo overwhelms her and she is knocked out.

When Yuriko awakens the is tied up over the Satan Dome, a hole where Black Satan grows the deadly plants, also come see my new band Satan Dome, and finds she can’t escape. Not to fear though for Jo strolls in joking about Yuriko’s situation. He frees Yuriko and before he fights Spring Kangaroo he says he will even the odds and takes of his gloves revealing his metallic hands!

(Sorry but that’s the best image I could find with the hands.) Jo scrapes the hands together to charge himself up and transforms into Kamen Rider Stronger. He defeats the Black Satan Soldiers and Spring Kangaroo ending Black Satan’s nefarious plans. He and Yuriko presumably destroy the Satan Dome and ride off.

Next Time on Kamen Rider Stronger: How did Jo and Yuriko become Kamen Riders? What is Black Satan? Why are Jo and Yuriko hellbent on stopping them?

Find out next time on Kamen Rider Stronger episode 2: The Secret of Stronger and Tackle!

Characters:

Shigeru Jo/Kamen Rider Stronger-Here’s our main character, and he sure is a doozy. He’s very confident, having the guts to fight his enemies without transforming and even seeming to enjoy the combat. Interestingly enough he is one of the few Showa Era Kamen Riders to have a partner, Kamen Riders 1 and 2 being the only real example with V3 and Riderman being enemies in the beginning. The dynamic between him and Yuriko is also interesting because of how antagonistic they are to each other. Jo will go off ahead of Yuriko, make jokes at her expense, and chastise her for simple mistakes. This shows that the two of them despite being a team aren't teammates. Not only that but Jo seems to be less likely to use his head. When Yuriko is five minutes late for their investigation of the hotel he assumes she’s just taking a long time getting ready, and he gets so into his fight with the Black Satan Soldiers he forgets about the fact that Yuriko is unconscious. I will go into this more in Yuriko’s section. Jo also has the most notable body modification of all the Riders with his mechanical hands. This is a nice touch and adds a real presence to the irreversible change being a rider was in the early days. Those hands mean that Jo will never have a normal life, forever forced to live with this reminder that he isn’t human. It’s very reminiscent of the surgical scars Kamen Riders 1 and 2 had in the original manga and spirits. His suit is well designed being based on the hercules beetle and the red is really striking. It’s interesting that he is a beetle since the previous Riders mostly had grasshopper themes when they were based on bugs.

Yuriko Musaki/Kamen Rider Tackle-If Jo is brawn then Yuriko is the brains of their duo, however she is just as hot headed as Jo. In almost all of her scenes she is jumping head first into the action and even transforming to early according to Jo. She also get’s real frustrated at all of Jo’s lone wolf actions saying she won’t let him beat her and refusing to let him walk all over her. Like I said though she is the brains of the group so far. She figured out Black Satan’s plan and deduced the identity of Spring Kangaroo and notably she was the one on the hover boat in the first place. I like to think that she had been the one who had figured out the Black Satan would be on the boat and went ahead before Jo. I really like Yuriko as a character sine she sort of subverts what you would typically expect from the hot head Jo’s partner. As noted above she isn’t a calm tactician or a sweet person she matches Jo in hotheadedness and may even exceed him in that regard. Her as Tackle is also cool with her fighting style being made up of precise chops and throws to take out an opponent in one blow. She seems to be a little weaker then Stronger but unfortunately that’s a mix of Stronger being the badass of Kamen Riders and sexism. Her outfit is based on ladybugs which is exactly what comes to mind when you think of female bugs so it fits for the first female Kamen Rider.

Mr. Titan-We don’t see much of the commander of Black Satan but what we do see is pretty terrifying. He casually kills his underlings for just touching him and orders an entire hotel killed to cover his tracks. He isn’t one of those unshakeable all according to plan villains as he does lose his cool and panic when he sees Stronger fighting Spring Kangaroo. This is nice because it shows that Black Satan isn’t unstoppable and despite their power Stronger is still a threat. Mr. Titan’s monster form is the thing of nightmares with that single eye on that blackhead. It’s actually very reminiscent of one of the heads of the Great Leader of Shocker.

Black Satan- The group itself seems very promising, with a horrifying plan and interesting suit designs. At this point though we don’t know their goal except kill a town with Botany. Hopefully we get the true aim of the organization soon.

Final Thoughts:

In the end I’m giving Kamen Rider Stronger two thumbs up. It’s vastly different from the other Showa series dropping us right into Stronger and Tackle’s fight against Black Satan with the origin story delegated to episode 2. Not to mention the very first female Kamen Rider(no matter what Toei says) who kicks total butt. Now I myself know a lot of spoilers from the series because of watching a lot of the crossover movies and reading the Spirits manga. However I’ll do my best to keep things spoiler free up to the point I’ve reviewed.

#Kamen Rider #Riders In Review #Kamen Rider Stronger #Kamen Rider Review #Kamen Rider Stronger Review #Kamen Rider Tackle #Kamen Rider Stronger Spoilers

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