Welcome back to the ongoing series where I recap each and every individual episode of Kamen Rider Kuuga.
This episode is rather heavy on the police forces and detective Ichijo, and I want to stress that this is a very good thing. Though before we can get to the plot proper we get to see Ichijo reading a love note that Godai left for him while he was recovering in the hospital promising that he’ll come back to see him after he takes care of some business in Tokyo. The note explicitly notes he will not be doing anything ‘half-assed.’
I am sure that Godai, the only man currently capable of fighting the Kaijin, must be aware of the gravity of the situation present in Nagano right now. He definitely won’t be skipping down just to do something stupid… and I certainly wouldn’t be phrasing my assertions like that if I was setting the matter up to make fun of later, obviously.
And since he is abandoning his only ally to go on this trip he must have some very serious business to take care of. I am quite looking forward to seeing what could be so important that he has to risk the dozens of innocents who could die in his absence.
After the opening credits we see a strange man with crazy eyes and a rather… interesting sense of fashion walking down the street.
He seems to be focusing on all the random conversations of people around him. Carefully studying the crowds as they mingle about. And judging by the tribal tat he’s sporting he’s either a dude-bro or one of those Kaijin in their human guises.
For the safety of the people in Tokyo lets hope it’s the later. Kaijin have nothing on the dangerous funk of Axe bodyspray.
Godai and Sakurako arrive in Tokyo, and… Godai suggests they grab some lunch, while Sakurako decides to take a nap instead. Godai was going to ask her to do some research on the belt but decides not to push matters and… I mean, that can’t be the important appointment because he was literally hanging out with her all the past couple of days in Nagano. And even if she had to go back to Tokyo it’s not like he couldn’t have asked her to look into this over the phone.
I’m starting to worry about you Godai. I’m not sure that you’re taking this as seriously as you promised is what I’m saying.
Ichijo arrives at work to check up on the investigations only to find that the police have been unable to track down the escaped Bat Kaijin. They tried to use a police dog to track its scent but the dog just went nuts and started attacking everyone. Now would be a good time to note that the police are going to actually get pretty competent as this show goes on and this is a good sign of that trend. They’re clearly out of their element but they are taking logical steps towards trying to investigate these bizarre occurrences. It’s very good establishing material to help set the serious tone of the series.
Then we get a close up of this guy.
Ok, so, you know not everything can be serious.
He’s just standing around, breathing heavy (which is unsurprising), yelling at trains (a little more surprising), and itching another one of those tribal tattoos (really not surprising.)
Back in Tokyo, Godai arrives at… the elementary school his sister teaches at. Where he says Hi to her and juggles for a bunch of kids.
Ok maybe this important appointment is very time sensitive. I mean maybe he’s meeting with a very busy individual who couldn’t possibly meet with him earlier in the day. So Godai has to find something to do to take his mind off of all the stress he’s under while he waits. Maybe there is still a chance he’s taking this all as seriously as Ichijo is.
Speaking of Ichijo we return to the police headquarters for a little talk with the CSI folks. After taking some blood samples from the last fight the police have been investigating the Spider Kaijins blood. They’re pretty explicit in noting that they recovered its body, though as it exploded last week that meant the police went and scraped up all the bloody chunks so they could do some analysis on it. Analysis that includes a nice little science lesson for all you kids at home.
Did you know that Spiders don’t have red blood cells? I did not. I for one would love to see more of this. Every week when fighting a new animal themed monster, Ichijo learns a surprising science fact about them. And now I’m just thinking of the fact that Big Bird is basically a Kaijin. I should get off this train of thought before it leads to its inevitable jump kick based conclusion.
The police have a sit down meeting where they discuss everything they know about the Unidentified Life Forms so far. What’s interesting is that they come to some wrong conclusions and some right ones. Realizing that they are bullet proof the police have decided to issue higher powered hand guns, sub-machine guns, and sniper rifles to their units. There’s still no proof that will work, but it is a step in the right direction.
They have also identified white Kuuga and red Kuuga as two separate Unidentified Life Forms, numbers 2 and 4 respectively. They picked up on the fact that both of them look alike of course, but at the moment they have no reason to suspect they are in fact the same person. They also take time during their important recap session to note that Kuuga has a really awesome belt, because despite all the Kaijin having various decorations on them, plus legitimate super powers they could be warning the people present about, they know any belt that awesome has to be extra special important.
Also of note, they have spotted a total of seven Kaijin so far and have decided to name the one that killed all the archaeologists number 0. And while the other numbers somehow sound kind of silly, I am digging that the mystery shadow monster is called Unidentified Life Form Number 0.
Perhaps most importantly they note that their blood analysis comes out very similar to humans.They’re not ready to claim the Kaijin are humans, but they speculate they are human like life forms. It’s worth noting that at this point none of them have witnessed a Kaijin transform so they aren’t aware of them taking human disguises.
The police are ordered to shoot to kill, and not capture. Which I think may be a bit of wishful thinking as I’m pretty sure up to this point they have also been trying to shoot to kill with a decidedly poor track record. That order finally sparks Ichijo into speaking up. He tries to convince the police not to target numbers 2 and 4 without letting on that they are, in fact, one in the same person. And that he wants to date that guy and maybe buy a cute little cottage somewhere with him or something. Instead he just goes with the far more plausible excuse that they have saved his life in previous fights with the other Kaijin.
Though the police chief seems open to the possibility, Ichijo has no proof to back up his claim and they can’t take the risk. The Police chief also somewhat unnecessarily wraps up the meeting specifically called to talk about the rampaging murder monsters they don’t yet know how to kill with this.
I think they got it Chief.
Ichijo tries to call Godai to warn him about the police now being out to murder him only to find the number on Godai’s business card goes to an Oriental cafe named ‘Pore Pore.’ He leaves a message on the napping Sakurako’s answering machine to have her warn Godai to keep away from Nagano, and he clearly looks torn about his conflicting duties and feelings at the moment, and I don’t even mean that in my teasing shipping way.
On that note, we cut back to Godai to see him having a talk with his sister, and maybe this is his important appointment? I mean, maybe they’re talking about really serious life or death stuff that couldn’t be covered in a phone call?
Nope? Ok, then it’s time for instructional videos!
Instructional videos about awesome motorcycles, so I’ll give it a pass. This is the first introduction to the very word salad named ‘TryChaser 2000.’ The police have been working on this bike for a long time before the Kaijin showed up but have now decided to use it against them. Even the police realize the value that really cool bikes have in the war against monsters, is what I’m saying. The only thing we know about it at the moment is that it has a top speed of 300 km/h, or around 186 mp/h, which would make it one of the fastest motorcycles in the world.
I wonder if Godai will manage to find a bike as cool as that really awesome one the police are getting. That one of a kind prototype being delivered to his friend Ichijo. His friend who is basically trying to go out of his way to help him in fighting against the Kaijin, and would probably give him actual items he owned (or were say, owned by the police that he could steal for Godai.) I wonder about this, while watching a show that is named after the fact that the main character rides around on a really awesome motorcycle. Oh the suspense!
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see because rather than learn more about this kick-ass bike we’re going to get another instructional lesson for kids. This time about how money works.
We find another of the tattoo’d men wandering around, looking on curiously as people exchange money for goods and services. And now I’m thinking that I could REALLY get on board for a Kamen Rider focused entirely on teaching simple lessons to kids. With Kaijin learning about society, Ichijo learning about animals, and Godai teaching fun arts and crafts and what not. Unfortunately, there’s more Goofus than Gallant in this Kaijin as after picking up a coin on the ground he just scares passersby by shoving it at them, attempting to imitate the actions he’s watching around him without actually understanding them.
They actually do a really good job of making the human forms of these Kaijin feel subtly off in their humanity. As they are just strange monsters trying to pretend that they fit in. That is except for the big faced dude who was screaming at trains, that was just funny.
And now we return to Godai to see if he’s off to his important appointment yet and… he’s locked himself out of the restaurant he works at.
So back to Ichijo. While wandering around town aimlessly Ichijo bumps into a strange looking woman and hear’s her speak in the Kaijin language and I just realized I should explain that or this section will make no sense.
See, I may have mentioned a few times before that the Kaijin have said things. What I failed to mention (as it wasn’t particularly important then), is that no one knows WHAT they’re saying. And that includes the audience. The Kaijin in Kuuga do not speak Japanese, which makes sense as they’re like centuries old monsters who’ve been locked up underground till they were multicolored lightninged back to life.
Now you may notice (as per the image there above) that their words ARE in fact translated in the sub I’m watching. Well that’s the translation group translating their language, not Japanese. You see, the Kaijin language in Kuuga is actually a cipher that the Kamen Rider fan-base figured out after the series had aired which allowed people to go back and figure out what the mysterious things they were saying were. Which is all a really cool, and a long winded way of getting to the point.
See, Ichijo has heard the Kaijin speak (the Bat Kaijin threw a few threats at him), and now he has bumped into a random lady in the street who seems to speak the same language. So he wants to pull her in for questioning, whereas she decides to straight outrun him.
In heels.
For Kaijin still getting used to human society that’s a pretty dang advanced skill is all I’m saying. She manages to escape by doing the old… turn a corner and then you’ve disappeared trick. Though she adds a classy touch by leaving behind a cloud of red rose petals for him to run into to further distract him.
Ichijo runs a bit farther onward and in most shows this would be where he’d look around and realize he lost the lead. But since Ichijo has already demonstrated time and again that basically being super lucky is his main skill instead he just spots her walking away and manages to tail her for like, half a day. Because it’s now night and he’s still covertly following her around when she goes to an abandoned building to meet with with the Bat Kaijin in his human guise. The Bat is curled up in a blanket nursing his wounds from the fight with Kuuga.
And then her fingers transform into vines and start crushing his head.
Things haven’t been going well for the Bat, is what I’m saying.
We cut to a tunnel in Tokyo (I should note that scene locations are date and timed stamped in this show.) In the tunnel the three other human Kaijin we’ve seen along with a new female human Kaijin meet up. They then reveal that they’ve all received a rose petal, presumably from the woman that Ichijo has been following.
But before we can get a hint as to why, two idiots show up and start antagonizing them.
Unsurprisingly for idiot gang members in a TV show they decide to sexually harass the female of the group. Equally unsurprisingly, that leads to her murdering one of them in an ironic fashion. Specifically, she knees him so hard he flies into the ceiling (get it? ‘Nice Legs?’), and after likely breaking his neck from the impact he falls back to the ground with a sickening thud. Have I mentioned that I like the use of sound on this show yet? Seriously, this series does a good job with it.
While the other idiot tries to escape on his motorcycle the female in the group morphs into a Cat Kaijin. And if its super speed is any indication, it is likely a cheetah. However, I’ll just state that I already know according to extra materials that it is a leopard so, you know, don’t want anyone trying to pull the ‘Um Actually’ card on me. I’m just saying, when you have a super speed cat it’s usually going to be a cheetah, right?
Its super speed is done with a blur effect that is impossible to get a good screen-grab of, just to note.
See?
We return to the talk/headcrushing between the Bat Kaijin and the Rose woman, where without the subtitles we learn that the Kaijin are going to Tokyo, what with them slowly repeating ‘Tokyo’ a bunch of times. With the subtitles we learn a few other things but I’m going to hold off on it till later when that becomes in universe knowledge.
Ichijo forgot the second rule of tailing though, leaving his cell phone on. The first rule being to always pack snacks, which he also forgot, but will have less dangerous consequences since his ringtone alerts the Kaijin to his presence. His shot in response to their attention manages to graze the Bats cheek, only for the cut to heal right in front of him.
It implies that they might be vulnerable in their human forms at least, since they don’t just pop the bullets out like they do in their Kaijin ones. Before the Bat is able to kill Ichijo (he does rough him up a bit) the Rose woman orders him to hold off and the pair exit while Ichijo’s phone goes off again. He answers it only to find out that the police in Tokyo have spotted a blurry image of the Leopard Kaijin running down the highway that shows they’re as bad as getting screen-grabs as I am.
Unsurprisingly Ichijo’s main concern is for the safety of Godai who he knows is in Tokyo right now dealing with his important appointment. And so we cut back to Tokyo to find…
Godai going back to catch the train to Nagano.
What the heck man? What was this important appointment of yours? Canceling a lunch date with your friend you’ve been hanging out with in Nagano for days? Juggling? Breaking through the window of the place you work at? Seriously, Ichijo expresses my feelings best here.
It should be noted that at the news of the monster being in Tokyo, Ichijo seems to have decided to run from Nagano to Tokyo on foot… which according to a quick Google search is about 150 miles so… you know, I’ll give him a pass. He’s not thinking with his head, he’s thinking with his heart.
He’s right to be worried though as once again plot convenience dictates that to help move things along the Leopard Kaijin has chased her prey right next to where Godai is getting on the train, so of course he has to step in to fight. And I think you know what I mean by step in to fight. I mean Henshin!
Which you’ll notice the translation group does with a nice little graphic effect of Kuuga’s stag beetle motif symbol. Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, Kuuga has a stag beetle theme going on. Just thought I should note that, not like it’ll be important later or anything.
They barely manage to get into the fight, though, before the police show up. And soon about a half dozen cop cars have both Kuuga and the Leopard Kaijin boxed in. The police split their targeting between the two Unidentified Life Forms, and just as they prepare to fire… we hit our end credits for the first time properly.
So, quick end credits review!
The end theme is “Aozora ni Naru” or “Into the Blue Sky”, performed by Jin Hashimoto. It’s a mellow song that I’m not particularly a big fan of, and the staging for the end credits is Godai asleep in a park while other main characters run past him in the background. Which would work in theory, I think, but comes across kind of flat in execution.
So, Final Thoughts?
The reason the Godai bits in this episode are weak is because they’re padding. This week is really the Ichijo show, and it’s a pretty dang good one. We get to see the police starting to respond seriously to the Kaijin threat, and are getting to see the beginnings of Ichijo’s investigations. Kuuga does a lot of good with the mystery that it builds up, and it will continue to do so. Remember, we’re three episodes in and not only do we not have a name or a goal for our villains yet, but we don’t even understand their language. (Well, we have some of those with the power of hindsight and really dedicated translation groups, but I prefer to review this series as it was intended to be seen.)
And now that we’re into episodes proper no longer will I have to blindly assert what we’re going to see next time, since we’ve got a whole ‘On the Next Episode’ section to bring up!
And so next time, we’ll be seeing… Kuuga shot to death! Godai talking to Ichijo so clearly he wasn’t shot to death! The Leopard Kaijin beating up police officers! And Kuuga getting the TryChaser 2000 because come on why should we even pretend like that’s not going to happen!
All coming up next time on Kamen Rider Kuuga episode 4: Dash!
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.
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