Kamen Rider Den-O Update + SICs

The first pics of the real suit are in! Check out this thread over at Thai-Toku (dial-up folks be warned, several large-size images) for scans from the latest mags of the main man's Sword Form, which seems to be his default form as well. Den-O's alter ego is named Nogami Ryôtarô. Also, nice to see there will be regular human-sized monsters as well as giant ones (who do battle with the DenLiner, apparently.)

Also, the prototypes of the Garren, Chalice, Joker (who I believe shares a body with Chalice, with swappable parts) and Leangle SIC figures are out as well! Check them out:

Battle Fight! Round 2: Everyone vs. Everyone Else

For this installment of the closer examinations into the many Rider battles, we turn to the show that was all about fighting, fighting, and more fighting- Kamen Rider Ryuki. This battle comes in episode #40, and is one of my favorite in the series.

Since this comes at a fairly critical point in the series, it's hard to accurately map out everything going on without recapping a bunch of the previous episodes, but here's the long and short of it: with the original Alternative out of the picture, Kagawa Hideyuki, aka Alternative Zero, is continuing his war on Kanzaki Shirô's reckless battle between the Riders. You heard right- a war declared on another war. I told you this show was about fighting! To that end, he's got Tôjô Satoru/Kamen Rider Tiger on his side, and they've been trying to kill Kanzaki's sister Yui, for some deeper purpose yet to be revealed. Naturally, this does not sit well with big brother, nor with our main men, Kidô Shinji/Kamen Rider Ryuki and Akiyama Ren/Kamen Rider Knight.

On top of all this, Asakura Takeshi/Kamen Rider Ouja got his butt handed to him a few episodes back thanks to a sneak attack by Tiger, and is currently incarcerated, much to the delight of his archnemesis Kitaoka Shuichi/Kamen Rider Zolda, who also played a role in Asakura's arrest. Previously, Ryuki got beaten senseless by Tiger, and is currently in the hospital. (He'll be out soon enough, following a little pep talk by Yui.) Knight has been duking it out with Alternative Zero, and Kanzaki has been butting into the action as usual to keep Yui from becoming a splat somewhere in the Mirror World because, you know, it's really all about her. Meanwhile, yet another Rider is about to emerge from the shadows.

Got all that? Good, because here's where our fight begins. Kagawa and Kanzaki just had a little chat prior to this, until Kagawa transforms to go join Knight & Tiger, who have just recently run into each other as well as the double K's, and are now engaged in battle because, hey, that's how this show works. Note here that Kanzaki has threatened Kagawa that unless he knocks off this "Close the Mirror World" baloney, Kagawa's wife and son are as good as dead. This will be important later on.

Alternative Zero enters the Mirror World and joins Tiger against Knight. Watch as Tiger gloats about his mentor being a "great hero" in the creepy way that he does.

As this is all going on, Asakura staged a little jailbreak, much to Kitaoka's frustration. Kanzaki shows up to give him his card deck (previously confiscated) and, following this gem of a reaction...

...he runs towards the camera with one of those classic Asakura "Raaaaaaarghs!" and transforms.

Back in the Mirror World, Knight evens the odds with a Trick Vent, which means it's now a small army of Knights vs. Alternative Zero & Tiger.

Alternative Zero quickly disposes of the Knights with an Accel Vent, a high-speed attack that I like to think is sort of a forerunner to Faiz & Kabuto's high-speed antics. When he and Tiger realize there's now no Knights left at all (as while the duplicates are easily destroyed, the real one is usually noticeably still there) they get a nasty surprise- they get blown away by DarkRaider!

Knight Survive jumps down from the sky and stands atop his bat Monster ally, who transforms into bike mode for the Final Vent. Not to be outdone, Alternative Zero slashes his own Final Vent card, summoning his monster PsychoRogue who transforms into PsychoRoader, Denjin Zaboga-style.

The two bikes collide (with Psychoroader & Zero spinning around rapidly, which is far funnier than it should be) and the combatants are sent flying back. Tiger casually strolls out to view the aftermath, and spots Ouja, who cuts short his usual theatrics and remembers Tiger as the guy who got the drop on him before. Itchin' for revenge, Ouja summons his big horn sword thingy, to be matched against Tiger's oversized claws of doom. There's a great little exchange between them here:

Tiger: You're fighting only for the fight.

Ouja: Do you really need any other reason?

Tiger: As I thought...You really are the worst Rider!

So as you'd expect, they start fighting. About this point, a whole pack of Gazelle-type Monsters (Gigazelle, Megazelle, Omegazelle, etc.) drop in to join the battle. Well later find out they're here courtesy of Kamen Rider Imperer, but before that, Zolda also arrives, keen on taking out Ouja and anyone else in the way. Although he initially doesn't recognize Alternative Zero ("Is that a Rider?") he decides to blast him all the same. Before he can hit everyone with his Final Vent (which, as you may recall, pretty much just blows everything up) he gets attacked by a Monster and joins the greater fight, which is quickly turning into a free-for-all.

But before long, Ryuki Survive shows up. Yes, Kidô got out of the hospital, and with a little help from DragRanzer, destroys/runs over the gazelle horde and stops the action cold. Now comes what is possibly the one of the coolest moments in the whole series.

Ryuki tells Alternative Zero that his family is safe. We get a quick cutaway scene showing one of Kazanki's Monster goons about to eat Mrs. Kagawa & son, but DragRedder flies out of a nearby reflection and smacks him down. So basically, Ryuki just saved the life of the family of a man who pretty much wouldn't be above killing him. As Zero contemplates this, Tiger scoffs that his mentor really doesn't care about that, to which Ryuki replies "I wanted to save them, so I saved them."

Let's go over that again. Ryuki, in spite of possessing a Survive Form, is arguably on the weaker end of the Rider scale in the series. He's a decent fighter, and he's made it this far and all, but compared to most of the others, he's really the odd man out. So he just drove up and halted a battle that involved his best friend who often wants to kill him; another guy who will shoot him just as soon as fight alongside him; two psychopaths, both of whom would gladly just kill him right there; another guy who would kill him if it were for the greater good, and a pack of dimension-jumping monsters that eat people. All of the above are probably better physical fighters than him, and one or two is nearly equal in power when it comes to the fancy card stuff. And what does he do, when they all roll their eyes at his insistence on saving even his enemys' loved ones? He basically asks if anyone there has the balls to tell him that wasn't the right thing to do. With one exception (see below) this shuts everyone up.

By this point, time's running out in the Mirror World, so pretty soon everybody leaves more or less unscathed. But before that, Ouja, as laconic as ever, wants to keep on fighting, and attacks Ryuki. And what does Ryuki do?

He effortlessly blocks it. Eat it, Ouja.

Moral of the story? Sometimes, you don't need to actually be the one throwing the punch to totally own someone else.

Stronger-1, Fence-0

Finals are almost over with, which means FREEDOM! I just have one huge paper left to go, hence the short entry tonight.

Tomorrow will see the return of Battle Fight (which, if you don't remember, originally comes from Kamen Rider Blade) and then...um, well, it gets a little sketchy, but remember, I'll keep going strong with new posts right up until Christmas, then it's a little break.

Anyway, here's Stronger attacking a fence.

I know, I know, he's really zapping it full of electricity it so he can fry some hapless Black Satan Kaijin off-panel, but c'mon- it's up there with the "Stronger electrocutes a random car" from the OP sequence (which was actually in the show somewhere, IIRC. But it's funnier without the context.)

Hyper Hero Dynamite Alloy Collection Kuuga!

Fortunately, Kuuga survived last night and will be the next selection for Ohtsuka-Kikaku's "Hyper Hero Dynamite Alloy Collection Kamen Rider Kuuga Rising Mighty & Amazing Mighty" figures, following in the footsteps of the super-cool Kamen Rider 1 & Kamen Rider 2 (from Kamen Rider THE FIRST) figures. The big deal here is they took the usual Hyper Hero idea (which is a sort of like a smaller Medicom figure that you assemble yourself, but is more in scale with the Bandai RH Softy Vinyl figures, leading to many fans making custom figures using Ohtsuka-Kikaku bodies with RH parts) but made things a little bit easier by requiring somewhat less work. For example, the eyes, usually one of the hardest parts to do (since you have to glue them onto the helmet *perfectly*) are now already attached, and most of the vinyl cutting/assembly has been, for lack of a better phrase, cut down, so all you really need to do now is stick the polyurethane suit on the flexible body and the PVC armored pieces on the suit. Additionally, the body underneath it all is now better-jointed and made of metal as opposed to plastic, hence the "Dynamite Alloy" name, allowing for an overall more poseable and sturdy figure.

Kuuga in the Rising Mighty variety is supposed to be out this month, and the Amazing Mighty flavor is due in March. Since you're just getting one figure he goes for a bit less than the Double Rider combo. I'm guessing we'll probably see Blade done this way soon, since the regular Hyper Hero line just got to Faiz prior to them deciding to go metal. Well, there's always Kaixa & Delta, but they seem to just jump around: the only HH Ryuki characters done so far are the main man, Knight, & Ouja, which probably didn't go over too well with Zolda when he heard about it.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Kamen Rider Kabuto Episode #45

And we're now into the home stretch, with just a few episodes to go. Tsurugi is the focus of this and next week's episode, and then it'll be the beginning of the final showdown between...well, there's a lot of people it could come down between in the end. Kabuto vs. Dark Kabuto. Kabuto vs. Cassisworm. Gatack vs. Sasword. Kick Hopper vs. Punch Hopper. Kabuto vs. Gatack. Sasword vs. Punch Hopper. Drake vs. TheBee. Kick Hopper vs. Gatack. Renge vs. Hiyori vs. Misaki. Riku vs. Everyone.

Jiiya said this: Spoiler Warning!

After the surprise twist that ended last episode, EVIL! Tendô, having returned to this world once more, stumbles along ranting that "I will this world...everything in it". He is confronted by the identical Nogi's. Yes, Nogi has revived yet again, and now has split into two. In case it wasn't before, this episode makes it very clear: there has only been one Nogi all along, and he is somehow capable of recombining his molecules together even after being destroyed. Every time he revives, he becomes more powerful and his human appearance becomes more haphazard, perhaps to symbolize his growing rage at the Riders.

In any event, Nogi (who, despite being two beings, still acts like one, finishing his own sentences and such) tells EVIL! Tendô that "Armageddon is beginning soon" and proposes an alliance. The Tendô rip-off responds be transforming into Dark Kabuto and briefly fights the Nogi doubles, only to be beaten back. Nogi muses that Dark Kabuto still doesn't understand just what he is, and that they will need each other's power eventually.

The real Tendô and Kagami find the fallen Hiyori, and take her to the hospital (watch as Tendô nearly dumps the injured Kagami to rush to Hiyori's side.) The now wheelchair-bound Hiyori is reluctant to tell Tendô what happened, and just blames herself for being selfish.

Tsurugi, also hospital-bound, is recovering from his injuries. Misaki talks with him, as she has now become more accepting of him for protecting her. Before she leaves, she asks how old he is (20) and smiles mischevously. Jiiya then appears for what seems like the first time in ages (seriously, where's he been?)

The Worms attack a bus, and Kagami rushes to the scene, transforming into Gatack to engage in them in battle.

At ZECT HQ, Riku & Mishima meet with a Native named Negishi, who appears wearing a hooded robe. However, underneath he is an overly optimistic & giddy guy who refuses the deep respect they offer him. He inquires about meeting Tendô, and sure enough, the main man appears, ticking off Mishima. Riku introduces Negishi as "our friend", exactly as how he adressed the robed guys back in episode #42. So, as I theorized, they were most likely the Native Elders/Superiors, who seem to be even higher-ranking than Riku and thus why they were consulted before ZECT went along with that whole give-up-the-AMB plot. Negishi asks Tendô if he will help the Natives, and is amused by his finger-pointing response, asking "May I be your fan?" to which Tendô replies "Do as you like."

Worms continue to attack, and Tendô is summoned to fight them. Pay attention the monitor screen here, it looks like someone at ZECT goofed up.

Elsewhere, Gatack is also fighting, and Kageyama wishes to go help him. Yaguruma, cold as ever, reveals that he is wearing a strengthening vest with metal coils and chains, and states that he is going to "regain his darkness", impressing Kageyama.

Tsurugi, having awoken, has his meal set out for him by Jiiya, and mentions that Christmas is almost upon them. Jiiya asks what sort of present he would like (saying "I'll pass along the request to Santa") and Tsurugi speaks of last year's Christmas, when his sister was still alive and they shared a Christmas Cake. Cue Flashback!

Misaki appears and Tsurugi's will is emboldened. Tendô also arrives and asks Tsurugi to join ZECT once more to help them fight. Later, at the Bistro, Tendô suffers some more of Renge's cooking (involving "Kuri", chestnuts, and "Masu", trout), and Kagami freaks out about Tsurugi joining the battle again. He almost lets slip Tsurugi's other identity, but quickly shuts up.

Tsurugi is given his own squad of Zectroopers to lead, and informs them that their primary objectives are 1) destroy all Worms and 2) protect Misaki at all costs. This is followed by a very funny scene in which they go so far as to catch her from tripping and return a video rental for her.

Kabuto, Gatack and even Drake engage in battle with the Worms. When Misaki is attacked, Tsurugi and his men rush to her rescue. After defeating the Worms, Tsurugi and the troops search the nearby river for one of Misaki's shoes, which went flying before the fight.

Tendô and Kagami go to recruit the Hoppers to the cause of defeating the Worms, who are now appearing randomly everywhere in great numbers. They are turned away, as Kageyama has joined Yaguruma in his darkness-regaining tactics. Kagami is reluctant to let them go so easily, but Tendô feels they're just wasting their time in the first place.

Back at the river, Tsurugi finds Misaki's shoe even after all his men have given up and quit looking. Perplexed by his behavior, but at the same time touched, Misaki agrees to go on a date with him. He sets about constructing her present, a scarf, which Jiiya ends up finishing after he passes out.

Elsewhere, Kagami is still freaking out about Misaki getting close to Tsurugi, as he knows the truth. But he can only object, and his inability to give a good reason fails to convince Misaki to change her plans. As she buys him a present the next day, Kagami observes from afar.

The day of the date, Tsurugi wakes up late and starts spazzing out. The heavy traffic does nothing to help matters, so he exits his limo and runs to the designated meeting place. On the way, he is attacked by Nogi, who is now starting to sport a goatee.

"This is my most important day" Tsurugi growls, transforming into Sasword to do battle against the newly-upgraded Cassisworm Clipeus. Elsewhere, Tendô attacks the Worms and meets the other Nogi. Tendô, shocked that he is still alive, is told "I am immortal!" before the other Nogi transforms. Tendô also changes to become Kabuto.

Cassisworm Clipeus proves to be too powerful and knocks Sasword back into human form with a powerful slash. A light engulfs Tsurugi, and even Nogi is surprised.

Hyper Kabuto destroys the grunt Worms, but Cassisworm escapes. Kagami catches up to Misaki, only to be a witness along with her at Tsurugi's transformation into Scorpioworm!

Scorpioworm rushes towards Misaki!

To be continued...

How Skyrider Saved Christmas!

With the holiday season nearly upon us, it's as good a time as any to bring up the proud few Christmas-themed Kamen Rider episodes. Just so we're clear on this upfront, I believe in an equal-opportunity most-wonderful-time-of-the-year, but from personal experience I have always celebrated a fairly secular version of Christmas that involves gift-giving and eating a lot, not too far from the version of the holiday celebrated in Japan, where it's basically an excuse for stores to have sales and for people to eat KFC & "Christmas Cake". Also, there's kinda a short supply of Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/etc.-themed Kamen Rider episodes, so we're going to have to make due with what we've got.

So, that said, I'm a sucker for Christmas episodes. There aren't too many among the various Rider series, and of the few that do exist, the actual connection to Christmas is pretty superficial at best. I'd say the original series' Christmas-themed episode (#39, which I'll review at a later date) is probably at the top of the pile, but I also have a strong fondness for, as you probably guessed, Skyrider's holiday outing. I'll get to that in a moment. Aside from these, there's also a two-parter in Kamen Rider V3 (which comes right in the middle of the Riderman Saga, so it's a bit on the gloomier side before the holiday cheer starts up) and a really odd Super-1 episode that pulls double duty by being a "bad dream" episode. Not that the show itself is all a dream, but it involves a Tapir monster that causes people to experience nightmares and- well, it's a long story that I'll get to some other day. Apart from this, pickings are slim, although I recall one of the episodes near the end of Ryuki at least acknowledged that is was Christmas time.

But back to Skyrider. This one qualifies as a Christmas episode pretty much because it takes place on Christmas Eve/Day and involves a monster who inexplicably turns into Santa Claus in the beginning. So start decking the halls for New Kamen Rider episode #12, "The Dark Santa Claus: Aah! Transformation Impossible"

Our story opens on Christmas Eve in Tokyo, where people are out walking, shopping, stumbling home from parties drunk outta their minds, and all that good stuff. Neoshocker gets into the holiday spirit by, what else- kidnapping random people!

And the ringleader this time around is the slimy slug Kaijin, Namekujin. He briefly appears as the creepiest looking Santa ever at the beginning of the show, mostly just to make a "Here is your present!" crack before transforming and blasting two hapless extras with killer ooze. Ho Ho Ho!

Of course, it doesn't take long for our man Tsukuba Hiroshi/Skyrider to get involved. An ongoing trend in New Kamen Rider is that our hero usually makes his first appearance in any given episode by 1) suddenly appearing to stumble on the weekly Neoshocker plot by sheer coincidence or 2) coming into frame already in the process of kicking someone in the head. This time around, it's the former, but Tsukuba still manages to get mixed up in things fairly quickly. A boy named Kimio witnesses his father's abduction, encounters Tsukuba & friends, and you can figure out the rest. Before long, our hero is sneaking into a massive Neoshocker base somewhere under Tokyo, where the majority of this episode will be taking place. He silently takes out a random Aricommando (the Neoshocker henchmen) and plays a little dress-up.

If you get a kick out of seeing the inner workings and daily routines of early Kamen Rider villains (and really, if you don't, you should probably get that checked out), this is a great episode. As Tsukuba sneaks around, he scopes out the base's communications room, training facilities, power center, and command center. We even get to see some nifty little moments like the one above, where the henchmen must swipe in their access cards to enter the base. We also see what kinda grub they give the prisoners (bread and water, natch.) I like little details like this, because it adds to the overall believability of Neoshocker. Well, as believable as they can be, I guess. In any event, it doesn't take long before Tsukuba locates the prisoners (being used by Neoshocker for experimental fodder) including Kimio's dad, and is witness to a gruesome display of Namekujin's power: killer slug thingies that melt people!

Sooner or later, the bad guys figure out something's amiss when guards start turning up unconcious, so they sound the alarms and a manhunt ensues. Tsukuba is eventually cornered and he transforms into Skyrider to kick some butt. General Monster, Skyrider's early episode archnemesis, observes all of this via Evilvision™. Note that Monster has gotten his unexplained power-up by this stage of the series, and makes a point of showing off his robotic claw (complete with creepy sound effects) as seen below.

Skyrider continues to raise hell. Check out the Neoshocker targets painted to look like Skyrider!

Tsukuba, having since reverted back to human form, eventually makes his way to an operation room, where he falls into Namekujin's trap. Well okay, it's more like Namekujin catches him off-guard, blasting his Henshin Belt with sticky slug goo before he can finish transforming, which renders him unable to become Skyrider. I should point out that this is a neat trick that could probably work to disable most of the other Riders; preventing the fan/power source in their belt from spinning or keeping them from inserting the card/cell phone/Zecter/etc.

BLACK (with his King Stone Flash) or any of the none-belt using Riders could probably get around this, but it's a pretty interesting weakness that gets exploited a few other times (Gelshocker once froze Kamen Rider 1's belt fan before he could finish transforming, and V3's got blasted by ink from Ika-Fire, among others.)

There's an amusing bit where Tsukuba attempts to Henshin several times in a row to no avail. Regardless, he still proves he's the man by saving all the prisoners even without being able to transform. Eventually, everybody who's good escapes, but Tsukuba gets attacked by Neoshocker and suffers a serious beat-down. I mean check this out, he gets hit so hard a giant black blob appears on the screen (okay, okay, it's really the Neoshocker henchmen holding him while Namekujin beats him up.)

Actor Murakami Hiroaki is really getting thrown around in these scenes, it's quite impressive. Eventually Neoshocker's goons chuck Tsukuba off of a building, but the intense wind force from the fall, coupled with Namekujin's gunk finally starting to wear off, manages to burn off the ooze and Tsukuba becomes Skyrider!

And it's go time!

So Skyrider kicks a couple heads, defeats Namekujin in a brutal fight, and the Neoshocker base is blown to bits in an explosive montage. I know, in spite of the fact that it was supposedly somewhere under Tokyo, but hey- it's a Christmas miracle! Kimio and his father are reuninted, gets a present from Skyrider (merchandising, ba-by) and everybody's happy.

And to all a good night!