Kamen Rider Kuuga Ep 2 Recap- Toei Vs. Marvel and DC

Behold my… Recap!

Well since we’re coming in the second part of the two part special edition that combines Episode 2 with Episode 1, I’ll do a short refresher to catch everyone up to speed. Though, if you haven’t read my Episode 1 recap yet I would recommend you start there  to catch up.

For about 15 minutes nothing happened. Then a Spider monster showed up and murdered a bunch of police officers,. It ended with Godai Yusuke, the Man Who Chases Dreams, turning into a white armored dude who barely managed to not die and thus sort of saved the day.

I promise you this half is way better… even if it has it’s own silliness. Also I promise you that the Godai and Ichijo romantic subtext hinted at last time is only going to get way, way hotter and heavier before we’re through.

We open on a pretty dark scene. A woman gets out of her car in a vacant parking lot in the middle of the night while a Bat Kaijin watches her from the roof of a nearby church.

It should be noted that unlike a lot of Tokusatsu the mouths for the Kuuga Kaijin move, and in some cases that works well to produce a more realistic effect fitting to the series darker tone. Anyways, in a move that surprises no one who has a passing familiarity with Bat monsters (and believe me, I’m something of an expert), he descends and attacks the woman. There’s a nice bit where the audio cuts silent right at the moment of attack which fits well to the mood of the scene.

But enough dark moody stuff, what has our hero been up to while innocents are in danger?

Sleeping… in a restaurant booth… for 11 hours. Well, I’ll give it to him. Being nearly choked to death by a Spider monster really takes it out of a guy. The first thing he does after waking up though is order more food, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe in Japan people are allowed to just live in restaurant booths? Sakurako is with him and gets internet signal in the booth so maybe that’s where they’ve elected to stay at while on their little trip.

We cut back to detective Ichijo with his perpetually whiny subordinate and they discuss how since the ruins incident there have been mysterious events. Events including but not limited to cows being drained of blood, reports of mysterious ‘night growlings’, and most importantly MASS CHILD DISAPPEARANCES. In case you missed it the ruins incident was YESTERDAY.

Thankfully the police have a cover story in place to make sure the public doesn’t get scared. But we’ll get to that later, for now they’re going to allude to the fact that they’re getting an awesome acronym to help fight the monsters.

We also learn the monsters are now being officially titled ‘Unidentified Life Forms.’ Which… doesn’t speak to the imagination of the police. If I’d been on the force you bet I would’ve been calling them Beasterizers. Or maybe Monrificants. But what should be important here is that our hero is now finally named. No longer must I call him White Armor Guy for now I can proudly call him ‘Unidentified Life Form Number 2!’ Man, makes me wonder why they called this show something lame like Kamen Rider Kuuga when they had such a sweet hero name like the Spectacular ULFN2 all lined up.

While driving along Ichijo happens to somehow see Godai sitting in a window in a restaurant which either speaks to phenomenal powers of observation or the strong romantic bond already developing between them. So he stops by to investigate, as one does.

Ichijo states that he is here on a hunch as to who the Mighty ULFN2 is. A hunch based entirely on the fact that Godai and the Incredible ULFN2 both like giving thumbs ups. So what sort of cover story does Godai concoct to protect his secret identity, ensuring the safety of himself and his loved ones from a society that both fears and hates him?

He is very lucky that Ichijo has a thing for him, is all I’m saying. After Godai unthinkably complains that the Invincible ULFN2 is kind of a lame super hero name Ichijo freaks out over all the danger Godai has put himself in. And then this happens.

Unfortunately before Ichijo gets a chance to play doctor he’s interrupted by his subordinate reminding him that he has an actual job to do. What with the ludicrously large number of crimes that have happened last night. Only then does Ichijo remember that he actually knows a medical examiner that he wants Godai to go see. I’m still betting this ‘medical examiner’ is going to turn out to be Ichijo wearing a fake mustache.

At the crime scene the police note that despite us seeing that the Bat Kaijin had a whole mouth just full of teeth somehow he was able to get the angle just right to do this attack proper vampire style.

Now that is just a dedication to ones craft. If you’ve gotta drink someones blood to survive at least you can do it right I say. Also, there were at least 5 of these attacks last night and some drunk was ranting about a monster that was scared of sunlight.

In any case now we learn what the polices cover story for this single night massive crime spree was.

A BEAR.

Ok, this deserves a thorough analysis. First of all there is no way the police managed to clear up that giant spider web from the day before, not without people seeing it at least. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they didn’t try to tie this one to the bear somehow, because I think telling the public that bears can weave giant spiderwebs for catching prey would be more terrifying then letting them know monsters were loose.

So the polices story is this. A single, solitary bear got loose in the city the day before. First it rampages through the streets. Destroying cop cars and murdering police as it goes. Then it smashed in the front of the police precinct and killed all the cops it could find within. Then it wandered out into the streets at night where it proceeded to kill five random individuals and a bunch of cows. And lastly, at some point during this whole thing, it ATE A WHOLE BUNCH OF CHILDREN. Remember these are child disappearances and there’s no way they claimed the bear kidnapped them. So they must have just told the public the bear straight up ate them all.

And this bear is STILL ON THE LOOSE.

Yeah, I sympathize kid. I’m just saying if their goal was to keep a lid on public panic then I don’t think the police thought this cover story through.

Godai, who followed Ichijo because… there wouldn’t be much of a story if he didn’t, overhears the girl and her mom worry about the nearby churches priest. Godai, being a nice guy, decides to break into the church to see if he’s Ok. He finds the priest inside and the priest is super creepy, totally silent, and scared of sunlight.

So Godai concludes that everything is fine. He also fails to notice a dead body stashed just a few feet away from him. Which all together makes me think that Godai has a lot more to learn about this super hero business than just how to keep a secret identity.

Godai visits Sakurako at the restaurant that she once again explicitly confirms they stayed in the night before only to learn that she’s going to a funeral for the dead archealogists. She also finally suggests they get a proper hotel room, but Godai notes he has more important things to do.

Those important things being waiting on the side of a random road until the middle of the night where he’ll just happen to see Ichijo’s cop car speed by with its lights on so he can follow it to the next monster attack. I guess I can’t argue with results.

The police are already being slaughtered by the Bat Kaijin who goes out of his way to show himself doing the same earring flick gesture that the priest was doing AS IF THE AUDIENCE DIDN’T KNOW WHO THE BAT MONSTER WAS ALREADY.

I’m pretty sure the whole… creepy silent guy who is afraid of sunlight and has definitely murdered someone already thing tipped us off. Anyways. Ichijo and Godai arrive on the scene and Ichijo proves once again that the Unidentified Life Forms are bullet proof only to have Godai jump into the fray to protect the detective from the Bat Kaijin’s attack. Godai transforms into the Fantastic ULFN2 for about a minute before the Bat (which is Unidentifed Life Form Number 3, by the way), beats him unconscious.

Just before he lands the finishing blow, the Bat Kaijin proves to be subject to the same weakness as the Spider Kaijin (Unidentified Life Form Number 1, just so we’re clear on this realistic but honestly rather dull naming convention.) Namely, despite guns having absolutely no chance of possibly harming him he still prioritizes attacking people with them over the one person who he knows has legitimate super powers.

Then a new cop car shows up at the scene, and it’s headlights are bright enough to scare the Bat Kaijin into running away. I would note that all the other cop cars already at the scene had their headlights on too, but maybe this ones are UV lamps or something. Also, to be honest, it’s not like the Bat Kaijin has too much to worry about at this point. He’s pretty conclusively shown that even the Heroic ULFN2 is no match for him… unless he had a flashlight, I guess.

After escorting Ichijo to the hospital Godai finds the detective straight walking out without letting them give him a proper check up even though the nurses are pretty sure he has broken bones. Which, though it isn’t smart, does make Ichijo a total badass.

Then the two have an argument where Ichijo gets right up in Godai’s face about how fighting these monsters that the police have no means to harm in any way (aside from headlights) is the polices job. And I want to stress that no part of this exchange seems like a lovers quarrel.

After a random flash of shots of the red armored guy from the beginning of the first episode Godai meets with Sakurako to talk about how he’s been thinking about a red armored warrior. You see in his mind he imagines himself being colored red, and he thinks he needs to be colored red. But he’s not colored red even though red seems like the right color. He’s not red at all, at least, not nearly as red as he could be. Ok basically they repeat the word red over and over again for like a minute.

Then they leave and go to the archaeologists funeral where Godai sees a high school girl crying and he gets angry. Presumably because she has some red on her uniform and he just wishes he could even be a little bit more red like her.

We cut to Ichijo who has tracked down the drunk who was rambling about monsters that the police ignored previously despite knowing that there are definitely monsters around. And through him finds out that the Bat Kaijin… is at the church! Oh no! It couldn’t be the innocent priest, could it!?

Also, Ichijo demonstrates quite a bit of competence when he learns from his earlier mistakes and decides to pack a rifle this time around.

Of course he admits that he’s just operating on a hunch and a drunks ramblings, so maybe breaking into a church with a high powered rifle isn’t the best of ideas. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And rifles.

While stalking the church we see the priest hanging upside down from the ceiling as priests are often wont to do. When suddenly… he morphs into the Bat Kaijin! I… I’m shocked. I really, truly am.

The pair have a fight which mostly proves that Ichijo should have boned up on his vampire movies as you clearly want a shotgun for these situations. The Bat Kaijin uses his speed to avoid the rifle shots, unfortunately leaving the actual effectiveness of the weapon up to speculation. I should also note that this scene includes Ichijo trying to find the hiding Kaijin by checking carefully through each corner of the pews in the church, only to have the Bat Kaijin smash through the stained glass window behind him. It is pretty sweet.

Ichijo is knocked down and has the rifle stripped away from him. And at this point I am completely turning off the snark because what follows is just way too awesome to even try to make fun of.

As Ichijo struggles to fight back he knocks over the candles scattered in the church and the building gets lit on fire. The fire even catches onto Ichijo’s coat, and the Bat Kaijin moves in for the kill on his now helpless victim.

And then Godai smashes through the doors of the church on his motorcycle. A bike he intentionally wipes out on so that it can slide through the aisle towards the Bat Kaijin where the bike explodes in a totally awesome fireball.

Goodbye sweet motorcycle, you had the death all bikes dream of. Being used as an improvised weapon against a vampire in a burning church.

Godai manages to put out the fire on Ichijo and vows to fight against the monsters. Godai claims that he never wants to see anyone cry again, and only wishes to see everyone’s smiles. And then he finally says those three magic words to Ichijo. ‘Behold my… Henshin!’

Alright, for those of you who don’t know, ‘Henshin’ is Japanese for ‘Transformation.’ You’ll note that in almost all material you’ll ever find pertaining to Kamen Rider Henshin is never translated. That’s because the word is something of a trademark for the series. Nearly every single Kamen Rider will use the word ‘Henshin’ to announce their transformations. In fact, the genre Kamen Rider belongs to is known as  ‘Henshin Hero.’ What I’m saying here is, expect to see a lot of ‘Henshin’ in this blog.

But it is just fun to say. Seriously. Right now stand up, strike a cool pose, and belt out ‘Henshin!’ You’ll feel super, super nerdy. But you will have fun. If Kamen Rider teaches us anything it’s that something can be campy, silly, serious, and fun all at the same time. And Henshin is a great encapsulation of all of that.

But back to the episode at hand. Now having proudly proclaimed his Henshin, Godai’s belt magically appears around his waist. So obviously Godai strikes a sweet Henshin Pose against the backdrop of the burning building, as any one of us would do in this situation.

He fights against the Bat Kaijin for a bit and as he does the armor grows around him just like before. Though now it comes in full red to match the roaring fire around him.

The Bat Kaijin swears to kill him, calling him ‘Kuuga’ in the process. And just in time as I was just getting sick of calling him Unidentified Life Form Number 2. The police will still use this designation (actually Number 4 now as the Red form gets a new number). From this point on our hero and your humble recapper (who… I guess is a hero too In a not that heroic way) now identify this form as Kuuga.

A pretty awesome fight ensues. While a rock guitar wails out Kuuga gains the upper hand quickly, but as the building is now literally collapsing around them he grabs detective Ichijo to pull him out to safety. The Bat Kaijin bursts out of the fire that has now consumed the inside of the building, grabbing Kuuga and flying into the air where their struggle crashes them through the roof of an indoor amusement park… or steel mill. Point is, it looks like the kind of place where Batman used to fight villains during Batman: The Animated Series all the time. Full of tracks and railings and stuff to be knocked into and even dangerous electrical cabling to be torn loose.

Speaking of comics, as the ‘Batman’ and Kuuga begin fighting through the building who should join the fray?

Why it’s our friendly neighborhood Spider-Kaijin!

As a quick aside, though it will hold true less and less as time goes on it’s something of a Kamen Rider tradition to have the first two monsters be a Spider and a Bat. Both Spider-man and Batman premiered as heroes long before Kamen Rider… and I’m not saying that there’s a connection there except that is exactly what I’m saying.

The melee-a-trois is not going well for Kuuga, and though the Spider Kaijin tells the Bat to step off as this throwdown has gotten personal the Bat joins in anyways to overwhelm Kuuga and finally the pair pin him against a wall. Just as they prepare for the kill… and now I’m going to sigh… YET AGAIN the Kaijin are distracted by Ichijo shooting at them with his pistol. Which once again does not hurt them in the slightest.

I guess Ichijo knows a lot more about monster hunting than I do since the distraction is enough for Kuuga to break free. The sun starts to break through the walls of the building and the Bat Kaijin, realizing that day is breaking, makes a break for it himself and escapes while Kuuga and the Spider Kaijin both take their fight to the roof.

Kuuga is subdued once again by the silk spider spit. But this time, now that he’s gained the power of his red form, he summons the strength to break free. Now let it never be said I don’t deliver on my promises, as he gives a totally sweet jump kick to the Spider Kaijin.

This will be the first of many and they will only be getting better.

The kick doesn’t finish off the Spider Kaijin immediately. Though after standing back up his chest begins to glow with a strange orange light.

The light soon forms into a symbol. Though whether it means ‘Death’ or ‘Warning’ will have to be left to the viewers imagination because after a few seconds he just straight up explodes. After taking a moment to warn Kuuga that he will definitely be hunted down and killed of course.

With his first enemy finally defeated Godai goes to find detective Ichijo and the romantic subtext hits critical mass.

And with that we end episode two. As the special edition ending theme is done over a black background text crawl rather than the usual ending for the series I will hold to comment on it completely until episode 3.

So, Final Thoughts?

This half of the special is way better than the first. Right off the ‘bat’ (oh yes. I love lame puns) we open by introducing a new monster and the pacing continues moving at a pretty good clip. The fight is even better this time around because Kuuga is now fighting at a much more even level with the Kaijin. Plus we get not one, but two explosions. Along with a burning, collapsing church, our first true jump kick, and though I like to make fun of it, there’s definitely a building chemistry between Ichijo and Godai that speaks well to how their partnership will develop.

With the series now in full swing you may be noticing that our motorcycle riding hero is now down one motorcycle. Well, stay tuned for the next episode that’ll bring us tattoos, startling police competency, and our first look at the finest in Engrish Wheels!

Seriously, am I the only one who sees this?

Kamen Rider is Copyright Toei Company, TV Asashi, and Bandai. The Subbed version recapped in this article was produced by the wonderful folks at TV-Nihon.