[Kiwami]

I’m up to episode 15 of Black now, watched 14 yesterday. I had some episodes where I wanted to write the "WTF"-type of comment; I was initially inspired by the episode of the cursed village with the Satan-monster which rubs its horns until purple goo shoots out, but then I realized that the rest of the episode was kinda good. Not much fighting, but the village scenes were well done and this time Golgom actually had a serious goal.

Then there was the episode with the Eagle Mutant. Golgom kidnaps artists to train them as psychics, and then lets them infiltrate big tech companies in order to… compete against each other? Because… reasons? Oh well, not that strange, they wanted to destroy these companies so that humanity goes bankrupt or something I guess.

Then there was Episode 13. Crab Mutant abducts human moms so they raise his eggs. I thought this episode would be a lot darker then it turned out, but instead they have the women stand around the eggs and just… watch them? Sing a lullaby? Huh? I guess Crab Mutant wanted to take precautions.

But then there’s episode 14. The episode where they make mutant steroids out of tuna. That’s the greatest thing ever. They introduce Mammoth Mutant, the strongest of mutants (somehow I don’t believe that),he gets his ass kicked by Black (that’s why) and then the crazy professor tells Golgom that he knows a way to make their monsters stronger, by using the fruit they eat and… tuna. So they send the Mammoth Mutant to steal all the tuna. Like, all of it. That's a lot of fish. Wait… no. No! Curse you Roland Emmerich!

Anyways, a local Sushi chef is displeased and goes after the Mutant, with mixed results. Black then looks for the mutant, we get a musical number (Why?), Black finds the monster, the now stronger Mammoth Mutant shoots icicles out of his trunk (Oh yeah I forgot, the Mammoth has ice powers because of course it does) and traps Black with this power. Instead of impaling him with it. Guess it’s hard to aim with that thing. But Black easily breaks free with a new power: He explodes. Oh wait, not quite, the yellow stripes on his head, arms and legs explode. I believe the power is intended to send out a shockwave or heat so that the ice shatters/melts, but this is Tokusatsu, so he explodes.

I love this show. I think by now I have fully grasped the zany-ness. It’s campy, but not silly, even though it sounds like it is. There’s still serous themes behind most of the silliness, the Mutant-suits still look incredibly good and almost scary at times, the effects look great, considering the time they were made. Simple but effective.

And while the show has no real plot besides stopping Golgom and getting Nobuhiko back, I do like that they feature recurring characters besides Kotaro, his family and Golgom. The people introduced in the first episode like the crazy professor, that one lawyer dude or the chairman still make appearances as enemies, giving you a feel of an established world expanding behind the MOTW-plots.

It’s not my typical kind of Rider-show I look for, as I rather want a real story being told and characters developing, but it’s damn fun to watch. It might take a while until I finish it since I watch an episode like every two days, but I want to see this through to the end, especially since there are 2 key enemy characters coming up later I’m very interested to see.