Tokyo I'm On My Way

It's funny to think about now, but when I first watched this episode the whole idea of them going to Tokyo from Nagano was completely lost on me. The plot hinges on it. And it's in the episode title no less! Admittedly it was a long time ago and there was no Wikipedia. I didn't have many guidebooks outside of Terebi-Magazine and my Japanese was rudimentary at best, but that fact went right over me.

Although now, I'm pretty sure almost all the Nagano stuff is actually shot around Tokyo. Go figure.



Kamen Rider Kuuga Episode 3: "Tokyo"
Written By Arakawa Naruhisa
Directed By Watanabe Katsuya

This is a different sort of episode, though not the first nor last of its kind. Whereas the first two were arguably done-in-ones that were also a linked story, and the first act of a greater, series-spanning storyline, Kuuga's third outing is definitely a Part 1. After knocking the audience out of their chairs with the previous episodes, this one pulls back a bit and really concentrates on setting things up for the fourth episode. It's a lot of world-building, character-introducing and situation-creating to set things up for where the series will go from here. We're out of the Nagano trial period, and into the Tokyo real deal.

Despite that, it's still a rocking good time that builds to a great cliffhanger. This'll be a shorter review than the last two, but there's a lot to talk about, including several new cast members!

There's Godai's sister Minori (or I guess I should say Yûsuke's sister, but you know what I mean.) I like her, and she's probably by my count the first sibling of a main hero to last beyond one episode, unless you want to count adopted siblings (and out of them, the most famous one was turned into Shadow Moon!) That was novel in 2000 and it still is now, even though we've had a couple Riders with on-screen family in the years since.

I've always felt that having the hero's family around can be tricky, but can also make for some great stories, as the overriding desire is to place them in danger. And few things make the hero fight harder than his or her loved ones in danger, right? Just giving them that much more personal stake can really elevate things (for instance, Kiva might not have been nearly as exciting if Taiga was actually just Wataru's dentist's neighbor.)

It's interesting how the show does take that route, but in an abstract way. The danger to Minori (and everybody else not featured in the action scenes) is touched upon in the dialogue, but also shown to us via nameless extras getting massacred. There's sort of a "It could be you" thing going on. Like I once said, the Kuugaverse is not really a place I'd want to live.

I also need to mention her place of work, the Wakaba Nursery School. I've got some choice words about that place later in the series and a certain storyline that goes on there, but at this point it's all smiles and sunshine. The kiddies are cute and Godai even gets another chance to juggle!

Meanwhile, there's a heckuva lot of weird guys walking around Tokyo too. Even by Tokyo standards. These are yet more Grongi in human form, and here's where the show does some really cool new things with its baddies.

In the same way that the old Riders got plenty of mileage out of the "evil organization" idea, I think Heisei Kamen Rider series have basically recycled the "ancient race", "monsters that walk among us in human guise", "monsters-of-the-week that desire little more than killing/eating people" and "they prey on human weakness/desires/wishes/whatever for evil" tropes a lot. And then there's the big one, the idea of the "villain race" where the name covers a whole species rather than an organized group.

For instance you can say that Faiz fights against Orphenochs, but it's trickier to say that the Orphenochs are the villains of the series, because there's also a lot of good ones (in the main cast, no less!) Contrast that with an old show, where you can usually say that whoever the Rider is up against are unquestionably the villains, and those few exceptions that switch sides are traitors. You could make that argument with some more recent series as well.

The Grongi are unique in that way, which probably comes about because they're doing a lot of those ideas for the first time, but also building off of the evil organizations of the old show. So there's no dilly-dallying around: the Grongi are evil and they want to eat us all! Or kill us, anyway.

Getting back to the ancient race thing though: If you were to make a timeline of the singular Riderverse, you'd have a lot of different guys stomping around in ancient times and something like 3 or 4 origin stories for humankind. Someday I'll elaborate on how I could see them all fitting together, but let's stick with the Grongi for now, and what this episode does with them.

It's pretty cool how they introduce the "monsters of the week" for the next couple episodes, but only in their human form, so we're left to wonder what they really look like (okay, the tattoos do kinda give it away.) We also get some good characterization about them: one guy is fascinated by modern language and communication. Another takes an interest in this "money" concept. Yet another decides that all these new noises are driving him crazy. It's a good way to establish that these are indeed ancient dudes who have woken up to a world very different than the one they left behind. But they're figuring out ways to blend in (mostly) and make the best of their situation. It's the 2000 equivalent of Ankh discovering the internet and Apple™ products.

And it's all done with very little dialogue on their end! Fortunately other characters pick up the slack, and we get some good bits like the blood sample scene, which adds a creepy new detail to the Grongi. See, they are kinda like kaizô-ningen in a way.

There's a big chunk 'o police meeting in this episode, but it's good stuff. The cops go over what they know so far, and there's some nice hints at some future Grongi. Ichijô says what we're all thinking about the #2/#4 thing, but lacks the proof to convince everyone else. As a side note, I have my own feelings about the whole "Unidentified Life Form #4" moniker which I'll talk about next time, but it works here. At this point, nobody knows who to trust and a white Kuuga and a red Kuuga may as well be two different guys.

And continuing the namedrop from last time, the TryChaser 2000 appears at last! Well not quite, it's on a video and it it lacks the distinctive color set o' Kuuga, but that's cool how they hinted at it here. The whole idea of it being a prototype police vehicle is pretty cool and I can't think of a whole lot of other Rider Machines with such an oddball origin. I always like when the motorcycle has a storyline built around it, like in Amazon or Road Sector in BLACK. In my opinion the Rider's bike is practically a character in the show, so you should give it a spotlight episode or at least an origin story.

And as one thing is hinted at and revealed, so is another: Godai's place of work and stay, the Pore-Pore. It's the "Amigo" of the series! The Rider always has to have a place to crash, so here it is. Even if it isn't open, and we don't see the proprietor (though we do hear him, in one of the episode's funniest scenes.)

In addition to the other Grongi glimpsed earlier, there's two more important ones introduced this time. The first is the Rose-Tatooed Woman, who is our "Colonel Zol" of the series. By that I mean the big-league bad guy, second only to the top man and around to give us an identifiable face and voice to lead the Grongi. Although she's not so much handing out orders as keeping them all in line as the game is about to begin.

She has an awesome entrance and first episode. We see only a glimpse of what her Grongi form might look like, and it's one that with hindsight is all the more teasing. Her rapport with Gooma is established immediately (in that she often takes out her frustrations on him.) And there's her interesting relationship with Ichijô, which I couldn't exactly call a rivalry. But knowing where it'll all end up, I'd say she is his nemesis in a way, even more than Kuuga's.

Also, she'll go through a few costume changes as the series goes on, though I gotta say I like the original one the best. It's the red feather boa; I just dig the color association thing.

I have to point out though, if it's 4:10 PM when Ichijô first encountered her, how long was he running after her anyway? In the next scene it's night, then when the Grongi meet up it's only 5:03!

My theory there is either scenes do take place a little out of order (so the Grongi stuff is happening before/simultaneous to that) or the warehouse sequence is just intentionally shot kind of weird like that, with the sudden grainy filter and earthy tint. It looks creepy as hell and coupled with the music cranks the tension up to maximum (broken by the great ringing cell phone moment.) Or it could just be it gets dark around 4:30 at that time of the year. Or Ichijô is somehow channeling Snoopy in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". Your guess is as good as mine!

Oh yeah, and more music not heard on the soundtracks during that chase scene. I guess we should be so lucky people have found the stock music from shows like Decade. I theorize a lot of the Kuuga stuff was originally produced in-house, but just never released. Drag, man. I'll get back to this in episode 6.

The other big addition to the cast isn't a long-lasting one, but she's important: the episode's monster, Zu Mebio Da. First appearing as a woman in short-shorts. The Grongi are pretty fashionable villains.

And isn't that the most pathetic biker gang you ever saw? Two guys? Also you have to admire the guts in the one who gets killed. If the big angry rhino guy didn't scare him, nothing will. Not a pleasant way to die either.

Mebio is cool. I like the sort of-not quite Egyptian look she has, something that the next series would revisit, and then some. She's awfully broad-shouldered for a female monster, but then again Kamen Rider has a long history of obviously-dude female monsters so I'm not gonna complain. She's a tough mama! I think her best bits are next episode where she goes on a literal killing spree, though the kicking that biker was great.

And you can just tell that poor Godai needs a bike soon, with him running for the train.

Things really kick into gear around the 18:30 mark. Heroes and villain all converge on the same area. We're even introduced to a pair of soon-to-be-regular characters with such little fanfare, you'd think they're just more fodder (which one of them almost is next time.) The show's awesome soundtrack really directs things here; I love that "Grongi Resurrection" theme.

Once again I have to wonder what kind of a story the staff spun to get Odagiri on board for this show; if he had any concern about being an action hero, guess what? In this episode, he gets slammed into walls and I'm pretty sure that's really Odagiri taking some of those bumps! I have to applaud him for that.

The fight's pretty good, though it's mainly serving to lead into the next episode. I haven't talked about him before, so I'll do so here: Tominaga Kenji, the suit actor for Kuuga, is pretty awesome. While Takaiwa would go on to become the Nakayashiki of this generation (in that both guys do suit acting for a ton of lead Riders) Tominaga does some amazing stuff with Kuuga that's not quite like anything else. What really stood out to me, especially on this viewing, is simply how animated he is. Almost kind of jumpy, like he's always on edge. One thing this show does really well is make me believe that it's Godai in the suit, while for some other Riders they do sort of adopt a different persona when transformed (although usually for an in-story reason.)

I like the cliffhanger. It's not really a "WILL KUUGA DIE!?" sort of thing as it is a story revelation. He realizes that everybody's pointing their guns at him too, and he's not exactly in a position to tell everybody to hold their fire. This plays nicely into what'll happen next time.

Overall, a solid episode. The really exciting stuff happens in part 2, but the opening act wasn't half bad either.

Next Time: VROOOM VROOOM!