Ah, Yes, 2004. It was the quite the year for me on a personal level. I was just starting to dive into the madness that is the online world, with AOL (Go ahead and laugh) as my service provider. And while I was happy as a lark with
Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Other fans were getting into the shows that Japan was offering,
Kamen Rider Blade and
Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. And you know at first, I HATED these two shows, but this was before a time where I had a broadband connection and was limited to what I could actually watch on the TV. I vividly remember calling Blade "Yugioh cash in crap" and Refusing to watch Dekaranger, often saying "Why the heck would you want to watch anything in another language?"
. . . Yeah, Amazing what about five years does to a guy. Currently, Blade stands as one of my favorite rider shows of all time, and Dekaranger is quite good, though I don't really see it being in any of my top fives anytime soon. So, as I've been running around, glancing at all the Decade rumors and news, I suddenly got the urge to recap the past Kamen Riders and there partners in crime, the Super Sentai. As much as I would love to review them all, I really don't want to review anything that hasn't been subbed completely for english speakers (Kuuga, Gaoranger, Hurricanger, and Abaranger I'm looking at you!). I'm not doing Ultraman, not because I think Ultraman is bad. No, it's rather the opposite, I don't feel qualifed enough to do any synposis on a Ultraman show. I'm no Igadevil, but I've seen nearly all the Heisei era riders that I'm going to be comparing to, And it's about the same for Sentai as well. I'll see about Ultraman when I finally get a few series under my belt and can, well, use the termnology. I'mwill probably post Pros and Cons and a Rating of one of the following:
- Huh? (Used for Episodes that just leave you scratching your head or simply dumbfounded at what you just watch, but not in the good way.)
- Meh. . . (Episodes that don't really attempt to achieve much, but don't raise a series breaking error somewhere along the lines. Pretty much your standard Episode)
- Awesome (Episodes that have a great plot reveal/Twist or one of the better action sequences in a show. Tend to be the better episodes of a series.)
Okay, was that tl;dr enough for you? Might as well get going on what you came here for:
Kamen Rider Blade Episode 1 - The Indigo Warrior
The series begins by zooming into a card in the midst of a game of 52 pick up gone horribly horribly wrong. . . To well, Blade riding his bike, some rider fighting this kaijin, a guy repelling down a rock wall. A woman in some sort of command center picks up a signal, and reports the location of the Undead she has tracked to Kenzaki-kun, otherwise known as Kamen Rider Blade. The woman joins an older man in watching the other rider fight the kaijin, referring him to as "Tachibana". We are then treated to Blade riding his bike through a beach area, while the woman and older man are constantly telling him to hurry. Meanwhile the repeller enters this cave area, undoing his harness and turning around to hide behind a rock. Tachibana is still fighting the Kaijin, the Bat Undead, until a bunch of ordinary bats distract Tachibana
allowing the Bat undead to get in a cheap hit. The bat undead marches toward Tachibana, until Blade suddenly bursts through the nearby wall, knocking the Bat undead aside. He asks Tachibana if he's okay. And then the Theme song starts.
The Opening Sequence to Blade is somewhat trippy. It's literally starts out with the actors posing/goofing off in suits (Including Shiroi, the series rider girl), doing something in character, while metaphorical words flash around on screen, (Plus you can clearly see Mitsuki's face in this episode's OP. I'll keep track of how many times this happens until his character debuts.). It then cuts Blade, Garren and Chalice swinging around there weapons in a showoffy manner until Blade finishes and does this awesome back walk while we see his bike in the foreground, until he reunites with his fellow riders as the Series logo pops up. Also, the theme song, Round Zero is kinda catchy.
As we cut back to the riders, Garren is shooting all over the cave as the Bat Undead flys around. Eventually a copy of his shots break a hole in the ceiling of the cave, agiting the Undead to fly off deeper in the the cave. Garren hops onto his cycle, and along with Blade, persues the undead, never really dropping his coverage of the Undead. They drive around the cave for a while with Garren constantly blasting at him, until Blade throws his sword at the Undead, pericing it's wing. Blade recovers his weapon and pulls this fan of cards out of it, pulling out the four of spades, Tackle. He swipes it through a card reader on his weapon, and then uses the power of the card to, well, tackle the undead before being knocked aside by it's good wing.
Garren comments on how the Undead is too tough for Blade and pulls open a card fan from his own weapon. The Five of Diamonds, Drop, and the Six of Diamonds, Fire. He swipes the cards through his own card reader, and tosses the cards into the air. The cards turn into blue energy that flies into Garren's chest. He suddenlys jumps into the air and flips backwards as his fire envolpes his feet and he basically crashes his feet down into the undead as he lands. Neon Green Blood erupts from the Undead as the buckle on it's torso opens up to reveal some sort of "8".
Garren comments on this, calling the undead an "Catergory Eight" and opens up his card fan once more to pull out an card with out an avatar picture, The eight, and tosses it at the undead. As the card connects with the Undead, the Green Blood starts flying into the card, before the creature itself does. The first Kaijin of the series is defeated and we are only about five minutes into the first episode! Take a note of this, I'll get back to this at a later review The card flys back to Garren, who turns to Blade and tells him that fighting blindly will lead him nowhere. He pulls the lever on his belt and removes the card from inside it, the Ace of Diamonds, Change Stag. The card glows blue as the camera zooms into it, before turning to the side to reveal the Garren inside the armor, Tachibana. He turns around and moves toward his bike, coughing along the way. Blade removes his Catergory Ace, Change Beetle, to reveal Kenzaki without the armor. Kenzaki refers to Tachibana as a wise superior, and comments on how he could hardly keep up as Tachibana just ignores him, putting on his helmet and talking off as Kenzaki returns to his cycle. The repeller pops out from behind a nearby wall, comments how Kenzaki at least had a cool enterance, but was pretty hopeless afterwards.
Kenzaki demands to know who this punk who just spyed on him was. The repeller casually refers to himself as Shirai Kotarou. and that he aspires to be a science non-fiction writer and refers to Kenzaki as his subject. Obviously Kenzaki is werided out, but Kotarou just keeps talking commenting on how he has been investigating "you guys". The men who use fight against these mysterious monters, the Kamen Riders. He continues to chase after Kenzaki, glad that the Kamen Rider's aren't just a rumor, while Kenzaki continues to run away from this creepy stalker. He hops onto his bike and has to struggle just to turn the key to start his bike, as Kotarou isn't about to let his subject just vanish on him. Kenzaki finally gets his bike going and leaves Kotarou in the caves.
The older man leaves his panel from that command center and leaves through the door as Kenzaki pulls up to BOARD, this university like place with a LONNGGG driveway. He rushes indoors, only stopping to activate a couple of security features (Some cellphone and vase system, a hand scanner on a railway of a stair post and a eye scanner disguised as some reglious painting.) He arrives at the head's office, where Tachibana and Shiroi are discussing about how this is the 3rd undead in about a month's time, and why they are being so actively recently. Till the head tells them to just keep sealing the Undead, leave the research to him. Kenzaki comments on how he understands that the Rouze system allows them to defeat and seal the undead, but that's about it.
Tachibana is upset that Kenzaki was sent to his aid so quickly. Kenzaki tries to admit that he really didn't do anything, but Tachibana asks him why he became a rider. Kenzaki answers like he's been scouted, but is wililng to save the world. Tachibana tells him and the head to stop being so naive, and said to consider it his only warning.
Meanwhile, Kotarou is doing research on BOARD (Board Of Archaeologal Research Department), and their involvement with the Kamen Riders. Kenzaki returns to his apartment as his two month's training with BOARD has apparently been finished, only to find himself evicted. Kotarou, still being a creepy stalker, soon shows up and offers Kenzaki a place to live. Kenzaki soon finds it to be a broken down old house with yet another long ass driveway. Kotarou doesn't waste any time laying down his terms, a roof over Kenzaki's head for exclusive information about Kamen Riders. I especially love it that Kotarou brings up the tempature of the region and just eggs Kenzaki into his terms.
We are then treated to a scene of Tachibana in the sewers with a bunch of nests, which soon break open and a bunch of loctus come swarming out. Clearly giving us the impression that Garren is in league with the Undead.
A man in a brown jacket pulls up to this resturant like place, and walks in, overhearing Kotarou talk to a Girl about a "Hero who fights for humanity living with me now!" that Amane, the girl in queston, refers to as a "Kamen Rider" and expresses her interest in meeting this hero. Kotarou's sister, Amane's mother, berates her brother for being silly and brings up his lack of work. He brushes it off, saying he found his inspriation and is going to write a best seller and make his sister and niece happy. The man walks up to the end of the table and annouces he's back. Amane's mother ask how his photography went, while Kotarou notices that the man is using his deceased brother-in-law's camera. The man gives a modest answer, and Amane's mother consuls him by telling him that her husband wasn't that good to being with. Kotarou offers to be the man's bodyguard, despite being pointed out as irresponsable by his niece and sister. The man just refuses and goes down to his room. When he closes the door, he goes through a trippy sequence, repeating "Kamen Rider" over and over, before he ends up in the dark room, dropping a Rouze card with the word "CHANGE" on it and a visual showing a rider standing where he is breifly before returning to normal.
It's late at night now, and Kenzaki is lying on a couch, muttering "Mother" and "Father" in his sleep. As we enter his dream sequence, we see a man and a woman huddled together as a building is burning down, while a young boy is yelling "Mother" and "Father." Kenzaki wakes up shortly after this, and mutters about how silly his answer to Tachibana seemed. He is soon distracted as his cell phone rings. OH SHIT, BOARD is under attack. Kenzaki books it as we see Loctus Undead creating havoc all around the BOARD complex, leaving death and destruction in it's wake. Kenzaki arrives shortly after, not noticing the high number of dead loctus littering the enterance way. He checks around, but can't find any surviv. . . oh hey, It's Shiroi, she's alive. She suspects that Tachibana is controlling the undead, based on an arguement between the head and Tachibana earlier. Kenzaki refuses to believe that Tachibana would betray BOARD though. More Loctus show up and Kenzaki leads them outdoors, but comes face to face with the Loctus undead.
He slids the Change Beetle card into his belt, and pulls the lever. It summons an energy field that he runs into, Henshining him into Kamen Rider Blade. (I love how the energy field that is projected from the belt is a good undead deterant of it's own.) He begins to fight the Loctus Undead, and does pretty decent until he sees Garren just standing there to the side. Blade screams out to Garren, demanding to know if he's a traitor or not. However Garren just walks away as Blade is left to fight the Loctus Undead by himself as the episode ends.
Overall, I personally felt it was a great first episode. We got introduced to a handful of the main characters while setting up the others for more meaty roles in the future.
Pros:
- Blade hits the ball running
Blade really starts off right, with Blade bursting through a wall like the Kool-Aid man, to a invotative battle, and that's before we really get to reallly meet any of the characters. Plus between Kenzaki having to find a new place to live probably would of taken other series five episodes to resolve.
- Kamen Rider is actually a term in the show
If you actually watched more than one Heisei rider series, then you know what I'm talking about. Many of the shows actually danced around and rarely referred to the term "Rider" at all. It brings a smile to my face now more than ever to hear the heros lovingly being referred to as "Riders".
Cons
- It may be too fast for people
Don't get me wrong, I love Blade really got things done in it's first episode. But. . . It can really confuse a person watching the series for the first time. Like the glimpse of the Third Rider, or Tachibana in the Loctus Undead lair. Also some people like to see how a character becomes a hero, and not have the series start with the power already possessed.
- Lack of introduction for some characters
This is probably the biggest compliant I have with Blade's first episode. First time watching it, I was shocked that Shiroi actually survived the whole loctus thing, she really didn't strike me as important at the time. I don't believe she or Karasuma (the head guy we saw calling the shots), were actually referred to by name in this episode.
Rating: Awesome. A few sidesteps aside, I feel this would of been a great first episode to any Tokusatsu Series. It started off with a Bang, and keep laying down the foundation for the series we will be watching from here on out. Some great visuals and gags also help make this a memorible episode.
