[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER CLUB MEETING – QUIZ: KAMEN RIDER URBAN LEGENDS!! EPISODE 01



I love these little quizzes. It’s all the general camaraderie and individual alliances of the KRC, but goofed off via an obligatory piece of DVD content. We get “Kengo” instead of Kengo, for example, where the normally grumpy and curt protagonist becomes an amiable and hilariously underprepared game show host. It’s just enough of the character showing through to make it feel like Fourze content, but still meta and disarmingly giggly.

Which, man, you can tell which of these kids were having the most fun on this show through these quizzes. They all seem like they’re having a good time – as someone who thinks Showa jank is ridiculous, I very much appreciate these kids laughing their asses off in unison at some of the story choices from the 1970s – but some of them just come across as more willing to look dumb in these bits of ancillary content. Miu for sure seems like she’s having a blast, and Kengo is an inspired choice for the first host. Everyone else acquits themselves well, and is at worst amiable in playing along with the conceit, but some folks seem like they really dug this idea.

(Like, I feel as though you can tell the difference between the Actors and the Performers here: the Actors get into a role and can’t really play a game as their character, while the Performers are willing to do something ridiculous if it gets a laugh. I know we’re looking at young people on a Kamen Rider show, so they’re probably all models/singers/dancers from performing arts academies or whatever, but folks like Gentarou and Shun seem like they’re not as equipped to goof around as the others.)

The quiz itself is a riot, letting a group of kids be alternately thrilled and surprised by the idiosyncratic choices that would come to define the franchise, which they themselves are the beneficiaries of with their current employment. It’s less like a bunch of modern-day young adults mocking the past, and more like the children in a family watching home videos of the granddad when he was their age. While I’m a little shocked that Actual Rider Fan JK did so poorly in the quiz (he schools them all on how Ichigou powers his Henshin!), I really enjoyed watching the cast try to reverse-engineer the correct answers from trying to decide what would be the dumbest and/or cutest options, which sometimes fails when you don’t go dumb enough. Fun way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a very cute and very dumb franchise!