Hammer Time

In honor of the 35th Anniversary of Kamen Rider V3, the recollections of the entire 52-episode series continues with episode #6.

Spoiler Warning, now hurry up and go watch some V3!

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Kamen Rider V3 episode #6 "Hammer-Kurage Appears! Unleashed, V3's Killing Technique!!"

Want to know how you end a two-parter in Kamen Rider? Watch this episode. It's pretty much perfection, with tons of action, some high drama, a couple punch-the-air moments and the female lead doing something cute. Recipe for success! In fact, I'd say this episodes totally nails it. It hammers home the point, pounding your senses with... okay, I'll stop.

V3 fights off Hammer-Kurage one-handed while keeping the injured dude safe, that's pretty awesome. The title monster is an interesting design; I think it works better in motion than still photos would seem to indicate, as is often the case. The actual design is unusual at this point in the show, with the organic parts of the monster mostly being confined to his massive noggin and one arm, and the rest looking very mechanical.

It's a far cry from how the early promo/production art portrayed him, as looking like a literal jellyfish that had hammers on the ends of its tentacles. Obviously, such a design would probably have broken the budget (or made for a very amusing puppet), so let's be glad with what we got.

Big Daddy H to the K is even nastier than his snakey cohort from last episode. Watch as his bashes poor Mrs. Nishizaki around... and that's with his big hammer hand! On that note, he has to ability to instantly alter it to a ball & chain, which I guess makes him Hammer As Well As Ball & Chain-Kurage, but that's a mouthful, so Hammer-Kurage it is.

He's voiced by Mine Eken, who last gave us the vocals for Kame-Bazooka. As a result, Hammer-Kurage sometimes channels the earlier monster, with his distinctive battle cry being something like a "ZAAAAAAAUUUUUUKKKKKAAAAA!"

His hammer is so strong it causes earthquakes, and he gets a great smash-through-the-wall sequence. Impervious to the regular V3 Kick, our hero has to pull out another Secret to beat him. As mentioned in the episode #4 overview, I like how V3 can do this. No training, no actual physical power-ups; he's already got it in the deck, he just needs to pull out the lucky card at the right time.

The plot is pretty easy to follow, basically wrapping up what began last time: With Murayama dead, the only person who can understand his secret energy formula thang is his assistant, who won't talk. So Destron goes after her son (Tsutomu, if you're keeping track of these things) who's at the hospital where his buddy (Momoru) has undergone surgery to have the bullet removed. Our heroes are there, and they get to meet Mamoru's older sister Setsuko.

I'd make a cryptic Sigma-related comment here, but given that I'm agonizingly behind with Kamen Rider Sigma, I can't, other than to cryptically say that it's a good older sister name. Really good. Like, I might have used it for something and was surprised to see it turn up here. Yes. Ahem.

There's some nice bits here, with Kazami using Rider ID-Protection Excuse #1 ("I'm V3's friend!"), some backstory about Momoru & Setsuko, and a pull-out-the-stops conversation once again highlighting the public's awareness, or lack thereof, of the Kamen Riders. Kazami & Tachibana flat-out tell Mamoru's sister that her kid bro was injured as a result of a secret evil organization seeking world domination with an army of cyborgs.

Naturally, she thinks they're nuts, and are just trying to cover their butts for the accident they got into with Mamoru. Junko does the most sensible thing and explains that Kazami wouldn't lie, he lost his own family to Destron so he knows what he's talking about. Kazami does the least sensible thing and tells her to be quiet, which ends up not helping his argument. Smooth one, Special K!

Fortunately, Destron arrives to move the plot along again, Mamoru's sister gets almost-conned into handing over Tsutomu, and Hammer-Kurage gets to break through a wall.

This leads into an awesome set piece battle with the good guys fleeing from the hospital while Kazami and Tachibana— yes, Tachibana— fight off Destron. Tachibana in particular rocks this scene out, as he gets to hang on to the back of the escape car and plant a tracking device, and that's really Kobayashi on there! This proves useful as V3's able to tune into the tracker via his O Signal, and follow the bad guys to the big finish.

Basically, the rest of the episode is the final fight. Destron manages to get Tsutomu's mom talking at last (after hanging her son hundreds of feet up in the air from a slowly-breaking crane!) but V3 interrupts before they can learn anything, and beats up everybody who's evil. He defeats Hammer-Kurage with the V3 Screw Kick, another of the Secrets.

The Nishizaki family are safe, Mamoru recovers, his sister's fine, and Junko gets to play papergirl on a bike. Everybody wins!

This is just one of those episodes where it all comes together. There's a lot of great little details, like us finally seeing what the switch on the other side of V3's belt does (it sets the O Signal to follow the tracket, apparently) and there's some cool cinematography. Check out the overlit background which Setsuko and the creepy doctor (who is, naturally, Hammer-Kurage) walk in from in one scene, and the jump cut that has V3 leaping in the air yelling "HURRICANE!" and suddenly on his bike, going through a tunnel in the next shot. It's a bit hard to describe, but it's some great editing.

And V3 spends most of this episode transformed! That's always something to note.

"Toh!"

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Rider Screencaps!










Next Time: THE NEXT's Chainsaw-Lizard? This is where she comes from originally. Also like in THE NEXT, there's a monster that's a vengeful reanimated corpse altered by the villains' super science— except done right.

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