Welcome back dear readers, to my ongoing recap of Kamen Rider Kuuga.
Today we get a really fun episode, and a conclusion to last weeks cliffhanger! For those of you who need a refresher Kuuga and a Leopard Kaijin were just cornered by police in a back alley and considering the police consider Kuuga to be in league with the other monsters, they have standing orders to fire. I wonder what will happen next!
Ah. Well… huh. That wasn’t terribly surprising.
While the Leopard Kaijin seems to take offense to the show of force by the police, Kuuga grabs her to pull her away from the cops before things can get too messy. And while the fight is just getting started and the police release a hail of gunfire we roll into the opening credits.
When we cut back from the opening detective Ichijo bursts into the police headquarters with terrifying news!
This scene seems to entirely exist just to show how worried Ichijo is for Godai, because there is absolutely no tension in it at all. It just sets up some of his fellow cops pointing out how weird it is that he would care about that particular monster, because it’s not like it’s his boyfriend or anything. It is literally undone less than a minute later by the official police report coming in to say that Life Forms 4 (Red Kuuga) and 5 (Leopard) were both shot at before they fled the scene.
Now this scene does introduce three important points. First off, the police note that when the Leopard Kaijin fled the scene it was too fast for the police cars to chase so the TryChaser 2000 was used to try and track it down. It is the only thing fast enough to keep up with the Kaijin’s speed. It does make me wonder what unlucky cop was assigned to whip through busy city streets at almost 200mph to try and chase down a monster that could easily murder him with a flick of its wrist if it was agitated… I am just saying it’s unsurprising that that cop lost the tail. I bet he was really giving it his all.
Secondly, the police confirm that they managed to hit the Leopard Kaijin in the eye. As you may recall, the police are using higher powered pistols than they had before and it’s the first evidence we have of them possibly being effective. Actually, after this police scene we get a quick snippet of this.
That’s the bloody eye socket of the Leopard Kaijin after she fished the bullet out, confirming the damage done. It’s rather important moving forward that there’s evidence that regular humans can do something against the Kaijin, and we won’t be just seeing them solely rely on Kuuga to save the day.
But definitely the most important part of the whole scene is this.
I guess trying to explain a bear darting in and out of traffic at super speed was going to be just too much for the public’s imagination. Though I am now imagining it and I am seriously terrified. I realize Kuuga is all dark and serious but man if they had just gotten rid of the monsters and had him fight a super bear through the whole series that kept getting newer and stronger powers… but anyways.
This is great. The police note that the situation is getting too out of hand for the information control people to keep up with so they decide, without any real fanfare, to just go ahead and make the information public. It shows off the polices competence and compassion in one stroke. They realize that it’s the best move to keep the public safe and there’s no dissent or stress over it.
Ichijo is ordered to head to Tokyo for an information sharing session between all the various departments and while on his way out he gets accosted by his perpetually whiny subordinate. The subordinate is concerned that Ichijo is being too much of a bad-ass.
I’m kind of wondering why whiny subordinate is talking to Ichijo’s doctor?
Anyways, I really love that ignoring doctors advice is totally a recurring thing with Ichijo. He’s a regular person dealing with super-human problems and it’s a nice nod to his willingness to go beyond his human limitations. Especially as it is followed up by a scene of him alone grabbing his stomach in pain. Just because Ichijo is willing to push himself past his limits doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them, and that’s a big motivator for him to start working with Kuuga to handle the problems he can’t solve alone.
The action cuts back to Tokyo, and this week we actually do get to see Godai do stuff! Unfortunately, the first thing we get to see him do is wake up sleeping on the floor of Sakurako’s office that he broke into the night before. And of course, as he is the hero, him sleeping right in front of the door causes her to trip over him and nearly injure herself which earns nothing from Godai but some chastising since she didn’t lock her windows.
I would like to note that we have not on camera seen Godai enter any building except via breaking and entering at this point. I guess Ichijo has a thing for the bad boys.
Unfortunately the plot doesn’t really advance here, as since episode 2 there’s been talk of Sakurako looking at the belt to figure some stuff about it and she just repeats that she’s been looking into it but hasn’t found anything out. And now I’m starting to wonder if she’s really any good at translating at all. Maybe the fact that she translated an ancient text as just dozens of repeats of the same two words wasn’t sign that they had a crappy language and instead that she was just a crappy translator?
Godai does own up to the fact that he’s kind of just been lucking his way through fights so far though, and he is worried he’s going to be outmatched going forward. But then he gets a call from Ichijo asking to meet up since they’re now both in Tokyo. And Godai explains the phone call to Sakurako like this.
How am I supposed to make fun of Ichijo and Godai if you just make the jokes for me Kuuga! Frustrating.
We cut to the most eagle eyed cop ever. Seirously, he is biking past a waterway and somehow by glancing over a bridge manages to notice the bullet on the ground the Leopard Kaijin fished out of her bloody eye hole. He goes down to pick it up and inspect it, as a cop is wont to do.
Things aren’t going to end up well for our new super cop. Unbelievably our sharp eyed sleuth manages to miss the Leopard do a little dash in front of him like, twenty feet away, so man I don’t even know what kind of weird vision this guy has… not that I’ll have too long to think about it!
See, the Leopard is a little put out that her eye was taken away by police gunfire. So she’s going to put out… all the polices’ eyes!
And before you even have time to think about how lame that joke was she runs away and runs smack dab into the Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills!
Hey, remember how I said I’d love to talk about Japanese Spider-man some day? Well, don’t hold your breath on Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills. Also don’t hold your breath on Spider-man. I mean, I want to talk about it some time but… probably long after you should take another breath, unless you can hold it for a really, really long time.
So, since we’re still playing by the rules of the original series and we don’t know what the Kaijin are saying (despite the fine work of the sub group meaning that yes, we know exactly what they’re saying), all we get out of this exchange is that the other Kaijin are all grumpy faced angry at the Leopard Kaijin. As demonstrated by a series of meany faced close ups that of course includes the Bat Kaijin doing his earring flick thing like he is just waiting for a close up so he can do it because that is his thing man!
It’s kind of weird that they are not happy that she is murdering police, as I’m pretty sure this isn’t like the mafia and the Kaijin don’t have a rule against whacking cops. But it is a good sign, just like some of the odd behavior we saw last week, that they are not just indiscriminate killing machines. There’s definitely something going on here that the audience doesn’t know about, which is always good fun.
Ichijo and Sakurako share a phone call which notes that the Leopard Kaijin has been spotted running around and Sakurako asks Ichijo to prevent Godai from transforming, which he promises to do. I’m not really sure how he plans on doing that but since I’m pretty sure he’s not planning on following through on that promise I won’t have to worry about it.
Once again utilizing his power of plot convenience Godai happens to be near a cop who is chasing the Leopard Kaijin on a police motorcycle, only to have the cop wipe out right in front of Godai. Our hero takes a cursory moment to ask if the cop is ok, and after not checking up on him at all steals his bike.
Godai at least puts the helmet on, so I guess there’s one law he has managed to not break today? I’m starting to think the polices intent to treat Kuuga as a criminal may not be that misplaced.
Godai tries to tail the Leopard Kaijin, but the motorcycle is too slow to prevent her from gouging out another cops eyes. Though now that he’s hot on her tail, the Leopard Kaijin has to reach deep into her bag of tricks to escape our hero!
She runs up some stairs.
Yeah so… I know I said Godai does cool things this episode… so kind of maybe just reserve your judgement for the time being? I promise he’ll make it up to us.
Ichijo catches up to the now stalled out Godai and slaps some handcuffs on him so that he can escort him away from the other police present and not at all because… well I should probably just leave such reasons to the imagination as I am trying to keep this recap in the PG-13 range.
While the two share a car ride to the police headquarters there’s a good bit of character building. Godai asserts that just because he will be killed one day while fighting the Kaijin that isn’t a reason to stop, and that it’s because he values his own life so much that he wants to fight to protect the things important to him. He’s also quick to point out that Ichijo is the same kind of person he is, which is a little on the nose but it serves as a good reason for why the two are falling so easily into a partnership.
The two catch a report on the police scanner that the Leopard has only escalated her killings, and we cut to a nice action scene where the police have ringed in the Kaijin only to now be futilely shooting at air as she leaps and claws her way through the surrounding crowd.
The police are really dropping like flies in this series. It’s pretty impressive they’re still dedicated enough to go out on rounds after all this stuff keeps happening. Still, it doesn’t look like they’ll have any chance to even get off another lucky shot to injure her. They are definitely in need of some assistance.
Ichijo reaches into his pocket and, I’m not kidding here, pulls out that love note that Godai had left him in the hospital letting him know he wasn’t going to do things half-assed. I cannot believe that thing is making another appearance and is now apparently a treasured keepsake of Ichijo’s.
Ichijo takes Godai to a secret room in the police garage and… what could be inside!?
I am shocked, really. This is me shocked.
Ichijo shows Godai how to start up the bike, which seems needlessly convoluted as the whole right throttle is detachable and serves as the bikes key while you also have to input a four digit dial password to get it going. Now finally sitting astride his new bike, Godai can barely wait to get to the good part.
I don’t think Godai really needs to turn into Kuuga just to drive a motorcycle, but then again if I could turn into an awesome bug armor monster guy I’m pretty sure I’d be doing it all the time too. Actually, I’m pretty impressed it’s taken him this long to do it this episode. I’d have probably changed when I was yelling at my translator friend for not locking her windows.
But before we get too far off topic, we have cool stuff to distract us. Namely a full minute of Kuuga just tearing down the road on his sweet bike while pumpin’ synth rock blares in the background.
If more motorcycle ads were run like that I might buy a bike myself.
That, however, is just the appetizer. It’s the first course to get us primed for the awesomeness to come.
We cut back to the Leopard Kaijin murdering more police officers, snapping quite a few necks and clawing up faces (this series does get surprisingly brutal), before she pins one of the last cops left as she is primed and ready to gouge out his eyes. That’s when Kuuga interrupts her by driving by while unnecessarily popping a wheelie, before he shifts to a front wheel wheelie so he can spin out and smash her in the face with the back tire!
Kuuga pauses to check on the cop who was just about to have his eyes gouged out, and the cop is I’m sure infinitely thankful he managed to keep them just so he could see how sweet that wheelie kick was.
The Leopard Kaijin proceeds to run away, but now with his super fast bike Kuuga can give chase. After hitting a few jumps and navigating through some obstacle course like environments the Leopard leaps to the second floor of the building they’re in, taunting him openly with his inability to make it up to her.
But lookout Leopard, because unlike that crappy ass old regular police bike he’d had earlier, Kuuga’s new bike can climb stairs!
I wonder if that was a specific design consideration the police had for this next generation motorcycle. Like the design group was all sitting around one day and talking about what they needed to be sure they could catch any criminal, and after everyone agreed that it should be the fastest motorcycle in the world, some other guy raised his hand and added in addendum that it should also be able to climb stairs, as that is apparently something the police needed it to do?
In any case it’s pretty funny that, you know, they decided that was the best visual way to tell the audience this is a better bike. I mean, they couldn’t have had the Leopard Kaijin just outrun the old one with it’s super speed or something, that’d have been silly. Nope, clearly stair climbing was the way to go.
Some more obstacle course hijinx and yes, more stair climbings ensue. In whatever dilapidated building it is that they’ve found themselves in they end up on the top floor and are somehow in a big open area full of abandoned, wrecked cars under a domed roof and I am really trying to wonder what this place is supposed to be. I’m going to go with a defunct used car dealership that went out of business because you had to drive the cars down the stairs to get them out of the place, because… what the hell man?
After some posturing, Kuuga and Leopard finally face off, head to head.
Kuuga hits a rampless jump and they launch at one another only to completely miss. Which I will only forgive for two reasons. 1.) It looked cool when they did that… jump past each other both pose in the air kind of thing. And 2.) As soon as they land Kuuga does yet another wheelie smash into Leopards face, this time hitting with the front tire.
I really cannot get enough of those, which makes me very sad because right after that last one Leopard pulls Kuuga off the TryChaser. It’s almost like she doesn’t want to keep getting smashed in the face for my amusement. Spoilsport.
The police show up as the two fight, and one pulls a gun on them. He fires and causes a spark which causes the room to burst into flame. Ichijo and the cop who Kuuga saved earlier (Sugita, he has a name now!) team up to convince the rest of the police to stop shooting. Ichijo himself looks back to Kuuga and gives him an approving nod because Ichijo is now totally down for letting the super powered civilian have an awesome monster fight in the middle of a burning building. I mean, the last time that happened Ichijo was only hospitalized for a bunch of broken bones that haven’t healed yet, what’s the worst that could happen?
Kuuga and Leopard fight for a little while, until Kuuga finally lands the finishing blow. Which is a rolling, front handspring jump kick that hits with enough force that it causes Leopard to slide back across the floor while Kuuga pushes her in the air.
The jump kick is in fact so bad-ass that after hitting her into the wall he proceeds to kick her again without once touching the ground just so he can knock her straight through the wall. All so she can explode of pure embarrassment on the other side, since she has been shown up so hard by Kuuga’s sweet moves.
In fact, the jump kick is so awesome that after landing it smoke is seen rising up from Kuuga’s feet for no real reason other than that it looks totally kick-ass. Since the cops are looking on in awed silence of his awesome kicking prowess, Kuuga only has one appropriate response.
And there is only one proper way for Ichijo to answer that back.
I would like to stress that there is no dialogue for this end bit. It is just wailing synth rock while Kuuga lands a really cool jump kick, and then everyone just kind of hangs around and admires how totally bitchin’ that jump kick was and gives it thumbs ups. Talking would only ruin the moment.
And that is the end of the episode because OF COURSE IT IS. After you jump kick someone so hard you knock them through a wall and they explode, what more could there possibly be? They don’t even try to put the fire out, it seems like it’s gone out itself in respect for how great that jump kick was.
And readers, seriously, if you haven’t seen Kuuga yet I can let you in on a secret.
This isn’t even close to his best jump kick. We haven’t even gotten to his actual proper Rider Kick. This is like… a warm up. Like a taste of jump kicks to come. Oh there is so much jump kicking glory ahead of us, you have no idea. I am so hyped to be able to tell you about it. Really, it gets nuts.
I can promise you that you are not prepared, and that is great.
So, final thoughts?
This is a pretty good episode. The police work is still fun to watch, and watching a Kaijin just tear through police is always entertaining. The fight scenes with Kuuga are getting pretty good too, and I think you can guess I’m on board with his finisher in this one. Godai still suffers from being less interesting than Ichijo, but this episode did start to pull a bit more at his character than previous ones where he was just a happy go lucky kind of guy. It’s actually kind of refreshing to have a main character who’s pretty committed to just trying to be a good guy without really that many hang ups. Of course the main star of this episode is the TryChaser 2000 and honestly… at the moment it’s cool but it’s kind of a let down. It’ll get cooler as the series goes on but for now other than them hyping it up to us it hasn’t done that much more than a regular bike could other than apparently climb stairs.
It was employed twice in wheelie kicking a monster in the face though, so I have to love it. Sorry, it’s sort of an obligation.
And that just leaves us with the ‘On the next episode’ bit!
Sakurako and Godai argue over what his name is! Real medical science with brain scans and everything says Godai is a monster! Blue Kuuga! Ichijo promises to shoot Kuuga should the bad things happen! And Kuuga dreams of joining the NBA!
All coming up next time on Kamen Rider Kuuga episode 5: Distance!
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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