[SPLIT LIP]

First episode was largely composed of what we saw in the trailers, but the points of interest for me were:


- We see Kotaro and Nobuhiko operated on as children in a far more grueling and painful way. And in a shack in the middle of nowhere no less.

- The Kaijin rights struggle is center stage here, being the backbone of the conflict thus far. It heavily parallels real life as is obvious, but notably paints it as very grey and muddled. The initial protests I think perfectly describe the dynamic with advocates and dissenters rallying on both ends with authorities caught in the middle. Most impressively IMO is the fact that the police are painted as just as divided. One cop discriminates against the Kaijin while another tries to protect them, and one cop shoots and possibly kills a Kaijin who loses his cool, though not out of seeming hatred, but rather out of stress and fear. Nothing here seems entirely black and white.

- Kotaro is a Ketamine addict and fuels his addiction by taking shady jobs. He beats a Kaiju to pay back his loan, then takes a hit job on the girl who gave a pro-Kaijin speech. Said speech was facilitated by the Prime Minister, who is quickly revealed to be part of Gorgom. (which is even its own political party)

- The Century King is shown alive. Kind of. It's a big grasshopper man with a missing limb and being bled for a substance called "Heaven" which seems to give Kaijin strength/longevity. Nobuhiko is chained up by Gorgom, apparently no longer fit as a replacement Century King.

- Kotaro doesn't have his King Stone, and without "Heaven" he has aged albeit slowly. He finds the stone (a stone?) on the girl who gave the speech and transforms into Batta Man, violently killing a Spider Kaiju.

I will say it's not bad so far, but I do still struggle a bit with it being Black specifically. It's calling back to plot points from the original but framing them quite differently, and it does feel like this is a bit of a unique tale simply dressed up in Black's name recognition. Kotaro especially feels off, a husk of a man without morals which is a very far cry from the fiery man of justice of the original even fi we're to be believed that he has grown disenfranchised. It's not even a bad character, and it fits this story quite well, but it's not really Minami Kotaro.

Also the start of episode 2 is ironically, if not humourously, opened with both sides of the Kaijin argument blaming the government. This movement has also been ongoing since the 70's.