[ljacone]

Watched the KITsubs release of episode 3 of Kamen Rider last night and all I have to say is oh my damn! ScorpionMan and his man-eating scorpions were pretty brutal. You can definitely see the manga influence on this show, both from the storylines and the crazy camera angles, which to my eye seem to be trying to emulate or otherwise reference the akimbo panels you see in some manga. This was also evident to a lesser degree in some of the daikaiju movies of the era (Godzilla vs the Smog Monster) which like this show was going after a young audience.

We just get some really great scenes this time out, including the prisoners being terminated in the desert, the entire bit in the hotel (loved the Shocker girls!) and then the final fight on the beach.

Also, besides the Nazi connection, Shocker really gives me a vibe of Unit 731 from them as well, with their experiments on humans and the like. It's horrible to say that in the context of a show with a heroic cybernetic grasshopper, but the influence is there. This is even more evident when one considers that this was 1971 and the war was not exactly ancient history for a lot of people, especially in Japan.