[Kurona]

Two episodes in and that's enough to determine that this is a pretty fun show!

I'm already a little tired of Reiwa, so I decided I wanted to step back into kinda-technically-sorta-not-really-Heisei. Like, it was a year prior and the sequel show that Kotaro's still the Main Rider of is within the Heisei period so, shut it, Heisei show!

Don't know why I'm arguing that point so much though when it's made clear from the get-go how extremely unapologetically Showa this is! From the cyborg surgery to the hooded figures to the narrator determined to turn this into tell-don't-show, it turns out 15 or so years doesn't exactly change a whole lot -- and I love it! This is like the exact mix of goofiness and genuinely darker storytelling I just adore, and I'm finding it reminds me a lot of ZO - especially when the Kaijin step in. No-one, uh, no-one really prepared me for how horrifying these things are! They led with these horrible looking spider bastards with some serious budget behind them and... lord, okay, getting ahead of myself.


The first episode is wonderfully split up into three distinct acts -- Kotaro running away across the city; Kotaro returning home; and Kotaro running into his dad for some answers. The first one is an excellent opening to the whole show. It's practically shot like a horror movie, and between intimidating lady, discount Dr. Doom and the makeup on the short dude here I'm not having a hard time feeling the atmosphere! It's not long before they chuck in a flashback to ensure you Golgom is basically Shocker in their methods of accidentally making their greatest enemy, and that flashback soon turns to reality when we get Kotaro transforming for the first time. I love this transformation sequence. I knew about Batta Man (thanks wiki), but I wasn't aware of just how little he's shown and referenced. It's wonderful, like a little peak at the monstrosity Kotaro's been engineered into right before his overwhelming human spirit converts it into a tool of justice. It's a very confused first henshin for Kotaro, too; he's still very much on the run and has no idea what's happening -- sure he summons his fun bike which he refuses to get off with Kuuga-esque tenacity and he's got a lot of great choreography, but I love just how not in the right state of mind he is. I'm not even sure if he had a belt in this scene? I didn't see it on 'Black Sun', and if I'm right, it's a great choice!

After beating up those losers he returns home, where after not much of note happens other than the subs not translating the intent of Kyoko making clear she's Kotaro's sister; our main hero heads to the conveniently fight-scene-friendly abandoned warehouse... for probably the best scene in the whole episode. Throughout my little Toku Journey I've seen a lot of ways to try and balance out a main character's love and disdain for their shitty dads but I think this is one of the best ones -- Kotaro's dad is acting out of desperation here and it couldn't be more clear. Golgom in his eyes is a conglomerate too ancient and too powerful to be stopped, and will conquer the world. So when they came to him with a bunch of money and a promise to keep his sons safe? Damn right he's gonna take it! ... but also, as Kotaro so wonderfully puts it; all he's done is sold their souls to the devil and twist their bodies in terrible agonising ways. It's understandable why Father Minami did what he did and Kotaro still clearly holds love for him, but he's never so much as attempted to be framed as in the right or of holding any rationality. He sold that away the day he signed up for Golgom.


Kamen Rider Black's first henshin is very wonderfully underpinned with Kotaro's proclamation of the full title, his standing in front of a passed loved one and a great daytime-lit shot to show our hero in his full glory. Despite that I like how he's hardly shown to be invincible; those nightmarish spider suits are really pulling their weight by pulling their silk left and right... and I think this was a great choice of a first monster. There being a ton of them makes sense for their being spiders and it lets Black show off all his cool attacks and feel like an absolute powerhouse just tearing through all of them.


With a lovely final shot of Black fading back into Kotaro... I think I'm gonna like this show, at least for a bit. I've heard from this very thread that it gets a big ol tonal shift later down the line, but for now I'm enjoying the mix of showa-isms and more heisei-ish direct drama and horrible implications about Kotaro's backstory.