[Kurona]

Kamen Rider OOO Episode 9





I don't think I can do this episode justice.

I seriously, seriously don't. Despite being one of the things I like so much about Kamen Rider and was one of the things that drew me into it, I'm always caught so off guard whenever they use the medium of children's television/toy advert to frame such a serious issue -- in this case, intense trauma brought on by our main character's involvement in war and his failure to save the ones he cares about. This is rarely brought up, but even as early as here; Eiji is shown to have easily one of the darkest backstories of a Heisei Riser, in my mind only truly rivaled by Sento -- during his travels he gets caught up in a civil war, makes friends with a young girl; and watches helplessly as she falls to a barrage of missiles sent in a heartless, senseless power struggle. And despite how over the top and loud OOO usually is and how that plays to its strengths, none of that is present here -- when Eiji's talking about it to Hina, everything in the scene is treated so slowly, so seriously because this is not the subject you mess around with, the creative team knows this, and they don't. They go out of their way to make Eiji as real as he can be, and to be frank, so much of that is achieved through Shu Watanabe's phenomenal acting. This is a big part of why I don't feel I can do this episode justice in these little write-ups because if a picture contains a thousand words, a scene contains a billion. He gives so many subtle movements and reactions; and the way he portrays a facade and the way his face shifts when talking to Hina is heartbreaking. There's some fantastic moments in the first few minutes of the episode too where Eiji recognises the sound of an explosion, his face just saying it all as he's recalling something that makes him so afraid, so horrified with everything he's gone through; and when he does get to the scene and recognises what's going on he's trembling with fear. I can't get across to you how good all these scenes are, and in case it wasn't obvious by now, I implore you to rewatch any of these OOO episodes. All of them so far have been complete bangers (oh god that pun was not intentional it really wasn't that's the worst pun I could make), and this one goes above and beyond to very seriously give space to a character who has suffered through unimaginable trauma and show what it's made him into. It's not difficult to make the jump to the conclusion that Eiji is Kamen Rider OOO because he wants to atone for the guilt weighing him down; or that he feels it's his innate responsibility; or that he's just glad to finally has the power to do something. Many parts of this episode have stuck in my mind since I saw it, and seeing the full package again brought me to tears. On these merits alone, Kamen Rider OOO Episode 9 is one of the best episodes of Tokusatsu I've ever seen.

But do the positives stop with that? No, they don't, because this is Kamen Rider OOO and even if the rest of the episode can't reach those highs it can do a hell of a lot to establish and elaborate on details that are so so interesting. Once again -- the Greeed. My favourite villains in all of Kamen Rider, and this episode portrays exactly why: because they're so deeply pathetic. Oh, sure; all of them and especially Uva have put up a great fight against OOO so far. An inexperienced OOO. Barely using a fraction of his power. An OOO that, with mere weeks of experience, once he uses a combo; devastates the Greeed in front of him without moving to such a degree that he gets four core medals out of it. We saw in the last episode a flashback where four fully-restored Greeed are completely curbstomped by King OOO using not just combos but TaToBa to great success and you start seeing shades of it here. This is not a fluctuating power level that does as the plot demands (which for the record, depending on the context; I'm fine with), this is a consistent power struggle which shows our main monsters are hardly adept supervillains; they're helpless creatures caught up in these circumstances using what power they have to do the only thing they know; what both nature and nurture have told them -- get those medals. There's shades of Blade here too where this ritualistic, instinctive nature to them all is being perverted and twisted by the machinations of modern-day corporations and conglomerates for their own needs -- seeing Kazari having his world turned upside down when he starts catching onto there being another player in the medal game is crushing when it's someone like this who's already been shown to be very manipulative and in control. This isn't their world anymore.






Kamen Rider Ghost Episode Golf




https://twitter.com/Reiei8/status/1322526234190835712


Yeah, so, 4 episodes in and Kamen Rider Ghost already gets interrupted by golf, immediately before Specter's true introduction after the heavy teasing and excitement-building last episode. Goddamn tragic. And yes, I could just watch Ghost episode 5 anyway especially since next week OOO suffers the same fate so it would balance out; but I am very serious about keeping to my air date schedule thing no matter how much it's been disrupted for these first couple months. And I have it for a reason -- to simulate how much time people had to sit between each episode to get this experience, so a longer-than-usual wait time between Ghost episode 4 and 5 does fit. I can wait till Sunday.


...






Kamen Rider Gaim Episode 37







I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't even like Gaim, this has nothing to do thematically or structurally or has anything in common with OOO Episode 9 or OOO and Ghost as a whole, I just completely out of nowhere last night got struck with the urge: "I wanna watch the gaim football episode again". Frankly it's the best one: it's stupid, it's non-canon, it's Baron mcedgyfuck getting schooled by a bunch of real life football players, and it's the only Gaim episode until the Gridon/Bravo miniseries that Micchy isn't in. Just a home run all around! That, uh, is a football thing, right? Sports.

There's just something so enthralling about a Kamen Rider episode where I do not care about any fight in it and I just want to get it out of the way so that I can get to the other stuff. Die's been having that experience a lot in his Hibiki thread and I'm kinda stunned to feel it happening here -- occasionally Mars' weird flea bugboy thing shows up to fight Baron (and Gaim, who is also here?) and I just am so bored of it because it's not football. If I wanted to see Baron Banana Au Lait some random monster design into next tuesday I'd watch any other episode of Gaim, but I'm here to watch him inexplicitly become a football ace for no reason! The way he tries to kick a football, completely misses, and it turns out he doesn't know how to play football, is one of the funniest moments in this entire franchise and I'm so glad it lived as long as it did to get to this stage. And then they get real life soccer pros in on the action?? I did NOT remember them teaming up to kick a flaming football at flea bugboy which legitimately damages it, but fuck me, this is just a collage of every amazing moment in The Gaim Football Episode at this point!

The inherent modern Kamen Rider-ness of it all, of the whole "let's interrupt the entire plot in its most pivotal dramatic moment to do a funny football AU episode to promote the movie", is so beautiful that it transcends advertisement and becomes art. The way it continues to take all of it so seriously, the way they pretend to have a plot strung all throughout it or that it has anything to do with what's going on or that half of these questions will be answered in the movie or that there's a moral, emotional or complex core to this at all is amazing. What more can I say? This episode is fucking stupid and watching it right now is exactly how you should be celebrating Gaim getting a ton of attention in merch and spin-off media right now. Sports.