Kamen Rider Build Episode 21- "The Unstoppable Hazard!" Discussion
 

War is on the horizon between the 3 factions of splintered Japan. Meanwhile, Sento's latest upgrade may be stronger than even HE could predict...

One word...Damn

oh Tokunation,..you always tease me on Saturday but I never find it subbed until Sunday.

*sigh*

you vixen you

That was one of the most depressing episodes of rider I've ever seen. More

Now we have to wait sub... i'm ded x.x

Damn, there were episodes of Amazons less depressing then that was. Very curious to see where things are gonna go from here, how much further things can escalate

are we talking Ex-Aid Christmas Special level of depressing?

I think Build Episode 21 more darker and depressing than Ex-Aid Episode 12. Ex-Aid Episode 12 still has funny moments.

This far exceeds that.
There isn't a single shred of humor in this episode.

sounds like they went Full Amazon.



Robert Downey said you never go Full Amazon.


https://i.imgur.com/hbThCqk.gif

oh damnit Iyu, now you done it

Now, THIS is the real christmas special

I wouldn't say that.
Stalk making fun of Sento for using so many red/teal forms was half a chuckle.

Ha!

Knwoing RoseCopter was coming, I was really wondering if they would make a joke about the colors being the ones from BloodStark.
And we got it. haha.

I just watched the episode and... Jesus. I need to lie down for a sec after watching that

The out of control trope is done well here. This series really go hard on the invasion and the stakes are even higher than Gaim at this early point of the series. If Grease doesn't have any main rider plot armor, then I expect him to die too soon, but probably he'll just be render powerless for a while, so we can move on to Seito before some big twist in the 2nd half of the series. Blood stark is like dj Sagara here + Build's mentor. I hope there's more details about him soon.

Who ever expect of kids show, of all things, to go into the horrors of war and PTSD? I mean they basically just broke Sento. And he's not fixed by the end of it, either.

From the set up, It looks like the 7 Best Match special happens before Build fights Grease.

Kudos Sento's Actor ' .']7
This ep is so good

still waiting for the subs but all i can say its really well written. i would say a much more mature and well written story than you normally get. Also we all saw this cominc for the trio they where going to die the minute they used the hazard switch to up their power level the real question is will the other two buy the farm next week or will grease do something to keep them from using their full bottles

Super Sentai will never reach this level of drama. While we have episodes of characters coming back from the dead, here we have our hero killing another person out of his control and it's not fixed by the end of the episode.

THIS... is what I've been looking for in a Kamen Rider series. The mature side of the Tokusatsu that you don't find in the kid friendly Sentai side. Well done, Build.

that's the very synopsis of that Youtube show : Raising the Hazard level so that Hazard form isn't uncontrollable anymore and train for the fight VS Grease.

Part 1 has been posted on youtube by the way and is 16min long. But cannot be seen in my country so I'll have to wait :( : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhZLKeVqfRA&

tbh this was an unnecessary take, Plus, I'm pretty sure if Metal Heroes still existed it'd get this kind of stuff too

Holy shit, this episode is heavy. I don't even think that infamous episode of Gaim was more depressing than this.

Already our main hero is also secretly the guy that founded the villain organization and conducted human experimentation on people before losing his memory. But now he just lost control of his powers and killed a man. And now the only person who can help him is also the guy that's been manipulating him this entire time.


Shit, we like to joke about how much Emu got beat up on and abused during Ex-Aid, but this takes the cake. The entire show up until this point has been an exercise in giving Sento as much psychological trauma as possible.


As a side note, I'm wondering if Banjo is going to go back to his base form because of everything that just happened.

I love that this also further develops Grease's character and shows once again that he's a good guy stuck on the opposite side of a war. He repeatedly prevent the rest of his guys from acting solely out of vengeance, understands that the war is to blame, not Sento himself, and plans on taking out his anger on the battle field and not by staring an endless cycle of revenge.

It's odd that in Kamen Rider, it's not the main character who's rising above it all, but an antagonist, of all people, but it's another subversion that just makes me love the show more.

It's okay for heroes to be unable to handle things sometimes.

80s and 90s Sentai had drama like this. The Sentais of the 2000s and 2010s have since been watered down greatly, many times to the point of being insufferable. ToQger was essentially a watered down Flashman.

If Metal Hero was still on, it would be delving into the stupid wacky hijinks just as much as Sentai and Rider have done. I'm generally happy with what Space Squad and the recent Space Sheriff movies have done in that respect (The Shaider movie notwithstanding). I'd be interested in seeing an Amazons-style revamp of a Metal Hero: not a Space Sheriff, but perhaps Metalder or Blue SWAT could work.

That... That was like, late-show Faiz levels of emotionally tearing a character to shreds. Sento's actor did an amazing job of selling it too, it felt painfully real. Good job Build, you keep this up and you'll probably be my favorite!

It's amazing, how much raw emotion there was this episode.

I watched the episode last night RAW after getting back from a 6 hour shift at work, I should not have done that because jeez this episode destroyed me last night even without understanding what was going on.

https://i.imgur.com/QitsEgQ.jpg

Wait, that image isn't from Build! Weird.

This was straight up one of the best episodes of Kamen Rider I've seen in years. F*** Gaim comparisons (even though I just made one), this was Kuuga levels of not giving a crap about shilling merch. You want a cool new form for Build? Have about 3 minutes of it before he kills a man, and then most of the rest of the episode is everybody being traumatized with barely any background music.

I love it.

For one, I've been on Kamen Rider's case for a while now about overdoing it with the soundtrack and this episode pretty definitively proves my point about the value of silence for me, so that's nice. But beyond that, Build has been doing a stellar job week after week of constantly improving on itself and so far shows no signs of stopping when it comes to delivering an engaging plot with tons of momentum and fleshed out, likable characters who are always growing. It's very telling that the only thing that gets me as excited as an episode of Build is the preview for the next one.

It's pretty nuts when you think about how these upgrade form debuts go. Even for the forms that have some downside, at least the first fight will be pretty triumphant and epic. But with this one it's just like:

"Yes, Hazard form! I wanna see what kind of cool stuff this form can do!"
*Sento's first action is turning against his friend and killing a guy*
"Oh.....oh no :("

yeah, kind of agree.

that was painful to watch.

I've never so looked forward to seeing a new form and then almost immediately regretted it.

This show man,..it messes with my emotions. It really drives home the point that the curse of The Masked Rider is that you fight, whether you want to or not,..you're now a living weapon and you don't really get a say in the matter.

Which is a theme introduced by Hongo in the very first series and I guess is a prevailing theme all throughout the years, but man this episode really drove that point home, hard,..with tears and PTSD. Holy shit!

The one moment that got me more than anything else in this episode was definitely the downplayed delivery (to put it mildly) on Sento's "I don't want to fight anymore" right before the second commercial break. I end up being impressed by the lead actor they pick every year but that was just brutal. I think I mentioned early on that Atsuhiro Inukai is good at hitting a lot of different notes in one episode, and he's only gotten better since then.

black Hazard Build is legit scary.

He really came across as an unfeeling killing machine. I've never seen a Rider I truly thought was frightening, until now. He seemed to enjoy it.

Yeah, the acting this show has been fantastic. Without that there's no way they'd be able to sell half that stuff. This cast can actually pull it off though.

Hours have passed and I still can’t get over this episode. Periodically, there is a moment in a tokusatsu that just haunts me, but this is a whole episode I just can’t get out of my head. Seeing the how the show slowlyyyy started to wear Sento down before dealing this crushing blow to him is shockingly well paced. Even though this was definitely a Sento episode, they make sure we get to see the reactions of everyone else too. The lack of music, the cloying atmosphere, it just nailed everything.

Hazard Build was some Amazon-level fuckery, he straighted up murdered that fool.

Then we have Blood stalk poo pooing Sento's guilt by saying ya'll not even human no more, you just broke a weapon . . . and HANDS HIM a case full of bottles to train with to kill another dude

at this point we gotta ask, is Blood Stalk one of the best villains we've had?

Michi was a sick son of a bitch obsessed with a girl and proving himself

Dan Kuruto was pure ego, literally renaming himself SHIN DAN KUROTO upon
resurrection

I think that's what bothered me and has (sort of?) haunted me today after watching that episode. The guy really presented no threat, ...Build toyed with and then murdered him purely because he could. He enjoyed it.

I've never seen a "Hero" do that in these shows. That was next-level scary Rider stuff right there.

And it was so Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers'ish,..the mannerisms and the cool, calm, calculated murder of it all. Like a cat and a mouse. It was chilling.

I'll say it again, Black Hazard Build is legit scary. I would not want to be in the same room as that guy.

The biggest explosion in the episode is actually when Sento said he don't want to fight anymore in the lowest audible volume possible. You know he's simply broken at this point.

All of the riders are broken somewhat, but Build is most of them all. His stiffened pose when he henshined into Build to "train" with BloodStalk is just a delicious frosting on the cake.

I love it. We are at episode 21 and Build still feel fresh!

Ooh, I just remembered one other bit of this episode that really struck me. Sento having PTSD flashbacks after the Build Driver shouts "ARE YOU READY?!" like it always does. Get it? Because he isn't ready. It'd be funny if it weren't so tragic.