[DreamSword]

Episode 41: Reza's Fight in the Parallel World

Switchblade is now legally obligated to watch the BIMA franchise.

Why? Because incase you're bad with faces like I am, that's Tetsuo Kurata. Also known as Minami Kotaro AKA Kamen Riders Black and RX!

And if you think I'm not about to utterly geek out over that fact, then you clearly didn't read my posts on the Gackt episodes of the original BIMA. Because this franchise continues to floor me with the guest stars they manage to get!

Here, Kurata is credited as "Naga Legend" and is revealed to be a different type of Satria than our usual fare, and given how similar both Kurata and Gackt operate, the MO for "Legend" Satria must be as follows:

1. Show up
2. Bully the current Satria
3. Refuse to elaborate
4. Leave

And yet, it works? Like, this episode was so awesome! And Kurata is so cool in this! He's absolutely the main star and I'm here for it!

The setup for this episode is that Reza ends up getting himself caught in a trap while raiding a Vudo outpost, and it's here that he meets Kurata and his thief apprentice. One thing leads to another, and soon enough things escalate into an all out war between the Satrias and a miniature army of Vudo's' soldiers. And man of man is the action spectacular in this one.

Once the war sequence breaks out, all bets are off. You got Kurata taking on legions of Gladion soldiers. Azazel and Karax in a duel to the death. Kurata transforming into a giant dragon out of nowhere! Yeah, turns out that Naga was also the dragon that we saw at the start of "The Beginning" all that time ago. You know, the dragon that helped Ray become Bima-X to begin with? And he also imparts an interesting gift onto Reza as well...

This episode is a wild ride from start to end, and with all the budget on screen, almost comes across more as a short film rather than a just another episode of the show that it's a part of. Which is also owed to how this one is about five minutes longer than your standard BIMA-X episode. They really did go all out with this episode, probably due in part to just how excited they were to have the guest star that they did. And you know what? It certainly paid off, because I had a ton of fun with this one.