Subatomic Brainfreeze

How Did Kamen Rider Fourze Own This Week? - LET'S START A ROCK BAND

The young man in the center is JK. You spell it JK, but you pronounce it "Jake." HI JK. He's the club's information officer, and he doesn't really get a lot of screen time. We found out really early in the show what everybody else was all about, but not so much JK. So we just had the JK arc. Or the Gene arc.

Unbeknownst to everybody, JK has all the time been the DJ of Milky Night Carnival (you have to say it with a heavy Japanese accent), the call-in radio show that is sweeping AGHS.

His other code name is Gene, after the swishy J-rock god he once dreamed of becoming.

(...wait, wasn't JK a b-boy up until this point?)

BUT A MONSTER OF ROCK IS ON THE LOOSE!!

JK used to know this guy (when he wasn't a giant monster), and they had a band called Gene God. They kind of sucked, though. But now, with the help of monster powers, JK suddenly has a singing voice!

Anyway, JK's dad was obviously in Fence of Defense back in the day, but he quit the game. So the kid has a dad issue. A rock dad issue! So, as nobody knows the painfully obvious fact of "Gene"'s identity, he joins up with the rock monster and they proceed to terrorize/brainwash the student body with their hit single "Love Is Overdrive".

This leads to the punchline of the whole episode, as Yuuki, Kengo, and Tomoko, inspired and possessed by the dark spirits of rock'n'roll, scream their way through the Hayabusa-kun song. Oh, this show, this show.

Obviously the whole Gene thing gets laid out, and the cliffhanger of this arc is JK leaving the club to pursue his dream, space monster stuff be damned. But, because Fourze is that kind of a show, losing JK's friendship power causes the suit to malfunction. Gentarou has to solve bro problems before he can beat up the monster.

The power of rock has completely defeated the KRC. Only college kids and Kamen Riders are immune.

So the only thing to do now is fish with an old man.

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JK, I LEARNED GUITAR FROM YOUR DAD BUT I HAD TO DO A LOT OF FISHING FIRST. THAT'S HOW I GOT "ROCK SOUL" AND "BURNING HEART". NOW, DITCH THIS MONSTER CONCERT CRAP AND BECOME THE TRUE GENE WITH ROCK POWER!!

After a display like that, of course the monster lost. JK reinstated, his old buddy is back on campus, everybody is happy.

"Goodbye Gene, from JK, Jingu Kaizou." NEXT TIME: THE ANTI-YUUKI APPEARS!!

THE BALLAD OF SPACE JESUS: A Very Special Episode of "Kamen Rider Fourze Owns"

Hey, guys, I haven't put the Fourze recaps on the site in a while, and I didn't even do last week's Fourze recap becaue we've entered an arc with major spoilers. So, I'm going to run these recaps on the site. Big spoilers. Seriously, don't keep reading. I'm going to put a screenshot in between your eyes and the spoiler.

Okay. Last week on Kamen Rider Fourze, in order to save his comatose friend, Ryusei joined up with the bad guy whose superpower is to induce (and reverse) comas.

Why, he even did the One Inch Punch on Gentarou!

Gentarou says he's glad Ryusei was finally honest with him... and dies. Not comatose, no heartbeat, dead. That was the cliffhanger we were left with last week. Even though this isn't a show that can get away with killing a lead-- and so we knew that things would be okay somehow next week-- it was kind of a bummer. Kengo drags the body back to base.

Anyway now Ryusei's school is a Fist of the North Star-style dictatorship where either YOU ACT IN THE PLAY OR DIE, DAMMIT.

This whole arc has obviously been a setup for JK to finally do something cool.

Look at that strutting. Tomoko has a really scary crying face, which is probably why she's the designated character to inflict guilt on Ryusei. "A Kamen Rider would never do that!"

Nobuyuki Hiyama-- I mean Tachibana, yeah-- reveals himself and the whole Meteor thing to Kengo here. "You must know that Gentarou Kisaragi can't die here. Haven't you already opened the door to miracles in the past?" So we're going to space ressurrect Gentarou. I'm fine with this.

Ryusei has his friend brought back, as promised, and Ryusei tells him everything he did to get him back. His buddy basically replies, "Man, that's messed up, you've really gone downhill dude, I used to look up to you" and then immediately falls back into a coma. Now that everything has gone to hell, Ryusei finally feels remorse. "KISARAGIIIII!!"

Meanwhile, a good old Fist of the North Star-style execution is taking place at Toei Tokusatsu Lot C. Obviously Ryusei jumps in, despite the fact that his Rider privileges have been revoked. He's set on fighting to the death, and so he gets the living hell beaten out of him by an army of small-fry bad guys.

"You're not done defying logic yet, are you?!"

Meanwhile back at the Rabbit Hatch Kengo found a secret message from his father: "IF YOU WANT TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE, THEN YOU GOTTA BE BROS. SIGNED KENGO'S DAD."

So sure, what the hell. Kengo puts the belt on the corpse and tries out the final switch.

This brings him to the land of the dead, of course, and he yells to Gentarou "WE JUST NEED MORE FEELINGS, BRO". I'm not going to screenshot this entire sequence but it's pretty incredible. Gentarou transforms from beyond the grave and yells AAAAAAAAAHHHH and it's just the greatest.

And so Gentarou forgives his own murderer. It's cool, bro, cause they were both fighting hard for their friends, right? And that's kind of okay, we guess. There's a lot of fighting with the actors outside their suits this time, which is something I wish they did more often on this show.

And then this. When Gen says "it's space time!" the camera actually leaves the galaxy.

The final form can just use all the switches at once in whatever combination Gentarou can think of. It's also kind of really ugly, but hey.

All is forgiven back at the Kamen Rider Club. Next week they're going on a field trip to feudal Kyoto. Oh boy!

How did Kamen Rider Fourze Own Today? Episode 27 - NOW SPACE IS ALL STRINGY AND STICKY...

 

THIS TIME ON #FOURZEOWNS : THESE CG CHICKEN NUGGETS ARE NAMED AFTER THE MOONS OF JUPITER

SHOCKING VIOLENCE IN THE KAMEN RIDER CLUB AS MIU SHOVES POOR YUUKI FOR A LAUGH!

GOTH-CHAN IS PSYCHICALLY OVERWHELMED BY POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. "THE BUBBLING BROTH OF YOUTH... MIGHT BE GOOD."

AND NOW, A FUCCONS SHOT. "IT MIGHT BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT KIND OF ENVIRONMENT PRODUCED THIS GOOFBALL."

(seriously everybody is completely frozen during this scene)

"METEOR ISN'T A BRO YET. I CAN'T GIVE HIM ULTIMATE POWER UNTIL HE'S A TRUE BRO."

JK COMIN' AT YOU COURTESY OF LISA FRANK

"BIKES ARE LIKE DYNAMITE FOR THE SOUL!!" - GENTAROU'S COOL AS HELL GRANDPA

EVERYBODY GOT TOGETHER AT GENTAROU'S TO EAT THIS. THIS COLLECTION OF NERF BALLS AND BROTH. GALAXY HOT POT.

SHUN IS FROZEN IN ICE BY A FOODROID AFTER EATING A POTENTIALLY DEADLY MEAT-MARS LOADED WITH CHILI POWDER

DESPITE STRING THEORY REFS, THE GROANINGEST SPACE JOKE IS "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF FRIENDSHIP"

NO! GOTH-CHAN IS SUPPOSED TO CHEER FOR ME, KAMEN RIDER METEOR!! I'VE BEEN SUCH A FOOL!! NOOOOOO

BY THE WAY THE PLOT WAS THAT CANCER FOUND OUT WHO METEOR WAS AND RYUSEI CAN'T BE METEOR ANYMORE.

BUT THAT WASN'T AS MUCH FUN AS TAKING SCREENSHOTS OF A HOT POT PARTY

NEXT WEEK ON #FOURZEOWNS THIS HAPPENS. REALLY CHEESY RHYMING JP CATCHPHRASE "MY FATE WILL CALL DOWN A STORM!!"

How did Kamen Rider Fourze Own Today? Episode 26 - I can't lose... NOT UNTIL I'VE STOPPED PROM!!

Yeah, I'm just turning this into a weekly blog. I love this show. It's impossibly silly, it's got a great ensemble cast, and it embraces the goofiness of its premise wholeheartedly. It makes me grin like a child every week. As I said before, I've been doing these writeups on Twitter and all that's really going to change is that I'm going to paste them to the site as well. Be warned, this is screencap-heavy and light on text, which is exactly the kind of blogging I like to do on Twitter rather than here. Also, all the text is in caps.

Obviously these are episode spoilers.

HOW I FELT IN MY HEART WHEN I THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO WRITE SHUN AND MIU OUT OF THIS SHOW

THE SWITCHER REVEALS HER MOTIVES: "I CAN'T LOSE... NOT UNTIL I'VE STOPPED PROM!!

THINGS ARE SO AWKWARD AT KAMEN RIDER CLUB THAT SHUN PUNCHES KAMEN RIDER IN THE HELMET... IT GOES POORLY

YOU WOULD DO THE SAME IF YOU SAW THIS GOOF OBLIVIOUS WITH A PILLOW AFTER THE GIRL YOU LIKE CONFESSED TO HIM

LIKE ANY GROUP OF HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS, THE GRADUATING CLASS AT AGHS PICKED A BLUES BROTHERS THEME FOR PROM

RYUSEI, MEANWHILE, IS BEING USED AS A TROPHY. HIS PROM FATE ISN'T-- HIS TO DECIDE

RARE FOOTAGE OF KAMEN RIDER METEOR DEFEATED BY CG SKULL GHOSTS

YOU KNOW WHAT, MIU? FUCK PROM. I HAVE TO GO KICK MONSTER ASS RIGHT NOW

YOU KNOW WHAT, SHUN? FUCK PROM. I HAVE TO GO KICK MONSTER ASS RIGHT NOW (TEARS PROM DRESS AND RUNS)

THANK GOD, GENTAROU WAS GETTING HIS ASS KICKED

ROBOT PILOT SUIT? I HAVE A TUX

RIDER RAILGUN TACKLE!!!!

"I WANT YOU TO DANCE WITH MIU." "BUT DUDE--" "DO IT." "SHUN.. YOU'RE A REAL MAN!!"

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AFTER A SAD "THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES" SEQUENCE: HAHA JUST KIDDING WE'RE CLUB MEMBERS FOR COLLEGE TOO

THANK YOU BASED BAIT AND SWITCH

NEXT WEEK ON #FOURZEOWNS: COOL GRANDPA

I would have been sad if Miu and Shun went. They're already so underused and so much fun when they ARE used. There isn't a character on this show who isn't in some sense endearingly goofy.

Kamen Rider Kuuga: NO FEAR, NO PAIN, NO IRONY

So I've really been into Kamen Rider Fourze: if you aren't following me on Twitter (which is at this point more active than this blog), you're missing my weekly ALL-CAPS screenshot party writeups of every episode mere hours after they air. The hashtag is #FOURZEOWNS. These are becoming so frequent that I'm going to have to start blogging them, huh? Let me know in the comments if that's something you're interested in seeing.

Though I'm well aware and fond of the whole Kamen Rider idea, I've never watched an entire Rider series. It's like watching robot anime: the idea is all well and good, but can you really make it through 50 straight episodes that consist mostly of the hero defeating a different monster every week, especially if you're not watching it as it runs like with Fourze? I don't finish anime often as-is!

So I figured I would watch the first Kamen Rider series of this current era, Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000-2001). I'm aware that Fourze is extremely unorthodox as these shows go, so I picked the most orthodox series I could. Though Kuuga is certainly still a kids' show that's trying to sell toys, it's also a revival of a franchise that had been dormant for quite some time and it's clearly also gunning for adults who grew up with the character.

It's very basics-oriented: it's got the hero on a bike, it's got the monsters, and he beats them up. No fear, no pain, nothing too cartoonish and no chuckling irony either.. The show is so dead serious that the theme song is by one of the guys from Crystal King.

To that effect, I want to call the show CSI: Rubber Monsters Division, as it focuses heavily on the special police's ongoing effort to track down and kill an ancient tribe of warrior beasts (the Grongi) unleashed upon an unwitting populace. Almost every week we see tons of civilians slaughtered for sport on camera: though no main character is ever in danger, for a kids' show they really don't mess around with the human cost of the Grongi attacks (and one dog). There is a sense of immediate danger every week, particularly when some cop mentions stoically in passing that casualties for this week's monster are up to 1,207 or something.

Meanwhile, an ancient belt-shaped artifact has attached itself to this easy-going fellow (Yusuke Godai) and when it comes down to it, the transformed Kuuga the only guy who can land the killing blow on these monsters. So every episode the cops figure it out, they give it a try, it doesn't work out, they call their Kamen Rider (the name is never used in the show, only Kuuga or the police's "No. 4"), and he takes care of business. As the show goes on the cops get more competent, Kuuga gets stronger, you get the idea. Spoilers: the bad guys get beat.

The effects on this show are in that very special early 00s area with which you might be familiar: it was late enough that CG was extremely cost effective but early enough that it looked terrible in low-budget shows like these. This isn't to say that the CG in Fourze is particularly good-- it's really not, there's a reason the Power Dizer isn't used often-- but this CG hasn't aged well at all: you'll be thinking of TWELVE O' CLOCK. On the other hand, the suits and props are superb as expected from Toei and aged just fine. There are even extended bike action sequences and bikefighting at one point!

(it was hardsubbed okay)

All the stuff is really cool, and I can see why Kuuga is such a well-regarded show among genre fans. The final battle is excellent in its own way, but man, I really wish that amazing final form had longer than two minutes' screen time...

Characters are flat, though, acting is stiff. When the show ends you wonder what purpose half the cast served, and things feel just a little bit incomplete. (In an extra episode, the actors joke about an imminent movie... which, unusually for Kamen Rider, never happened.) Kind of what I expected. After playing Yuusuke, Joe Odagiri went on to be an honest to god movie star, and according to Wikipedia he had trouble playing this character. I kind of understand: there's not a lot to him aside from "he's laid-back and a really good guy!" Odagiri carries this much out with I'll-be-a-movie-star-after-this charm.

Points get belabored. Especially at the end of the show, the catchphrase "he fights to protect everyone's smile!" is absolutely hammered into the ground to the point where even a kid would want everybody to shut up about it already. The scripts spend a lot of time on stuff that is obvious and very little on the mysteries behind the Grongi and Kuuga: by the end you really don't know a thing and nobody cares because they're more relieved that they've stopped the monsters that have been going around killing hundreds of children for sport every couple of days. That's reasonable, but as a viewer...

One thing about this show: the Grongi dialogue (it's another language altogether) is left untranslated in the subs I saw. You can watch with subs for these scenes but the translators warn against it, saying the dialogue is full of spoilers. I haven't read that dialogue but I feel confident in saying to go ahead and watch the show with the Grongi translated anyway. At the end of the show you really find out very little about what was up with them or Kuuga except for things you figure out by context. I'm pretty sure they spell everything out in the Grongi dialogue, but there is nothing in this show-- the origin of Kuuga, what the Grongi are trying to accomplish-- that is an "oh my god" revelation by any means. I can't see how spoilers would be worse than watching a bunch of three-minute scenes where you don't know what the hell anybody is talking about that are never paid off on.

There are definitely shades of Kamen Rider developing the boys-love fanbase that it would eventually have in force: it is worth noting that Yuusuke and the ace detective Ichijou have a far more personal and emotional send-off at the end of the series than Yuusuke has with his long-suffering girlfriend Sakurako. All I'm saying is there was some serious subtext behind "Now, please look... at my transformation."

I would recommend this if there was some kind of super-short cut (there are some recap specials, but that doesn't really cover it) or maybe someone could put together a list of essential-viewing episodes that'd take it down to 20 episodes or so. It's fun genre fare but it didn't change my life or anything.

Kinda like the new sentai Gobusters: I'm kind of surprised they never did the Metal Gear-style special ops motif for one of these shows before. I love the shades and weapons (those voices! IT'S TIME FOR BUSTER) and it's impossible not to love the Power Rangers shoutouts-- the Gobusters fight Megazords, and the "it's Morphin' Time!" catchphrase appears in English-- but these characters aren't very likable off the bat. Of course, from watching the beginning and end of Gokaiger, I think the Gobusters have a very hard act to follow. Kinda like whatever Rider has to follow Fourze...

I don't think I'll become a major fan of Japanese superhero shows anytime soon-- simply too much to watch-- but I see myself checking in every so often. It's fun stuff. Next I'm gonna watch Garo.

Spoiler stuff after here. Nothing much because again, there is no earth-shaking unpredictable revelation in Kuuga.