Welcome back to my ongoing series of recaps of Kamen Rider Kuuga.
Alright folks, some bad news up front… it’s going to be a little while before we get back into good and proper jump kicks from our hero. I know, I know… I promised so, so many jump kicks. And truly, there will be. But sometimes things have to explode for other reasons. Such is the circle of life. I think. I distinctly remember explosions being somewhere in that circle, maybe on the bottom.
This week starts off with a replay of last weeks ending, the short version is that Kuuga got the tar beat out of him by a Grasshopper Kaijin and was thrown off a building. So… let’s hope he kind of ends this weeks episode a little better.
After Kuuga gets beat up some more, detectives Ichijo and Sugita arrive on the scene. Ichijo tries to line up a shot on the Grasshopper Kaijin, but can’t get a bead on him.
Ichijo well knows that his gun can’t hurt the Kaijin (outside of a very lucky shot, remember so far bullets have hurt the Kaijin a grand total of once this series), but they do serve as distractions. What he should remember though is that Kuuga is also bulletproof so… I’m just saying he could really just unload here and everything would probably work out alright.
Just when all hope seems lost, the wind changes direction and some smoke billowing from a nearby factory starts blowing towards the fight… and the Grasshopper Kaijin jumps away. I honestly didn’t see that one coming.
But hey, after the credits there is a scene I saw coming, Sakurako sitting in her office not translating things!
Ichijo calls to ask her if in her translations she came across anything that would explain Kuuga turning blue, and of course she hasn’t because she hasn’t translated anything at all yet. C’mon Ichijo, I’d have thought you’d have figured this out by now. He tells her that Godai is in the hospital because that’s what happens when you’re thrown off a skyscraper, and she rushes to see him.
When she arrives at the hospital Godai hurries out and gives her his usual thumbs up before leaving, letting her know that everything is fine. This is immediately followed by Ichijo and his medical examiner friend showing up to let her know that that particular thumbs up was a lie because Godai is basically a walking corpse.
The examiner speculates that Godai may have survived because he has super-powers and yeah, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re probably right about that one. Brilliant deduction! Then he says that normally someone in Godai’s condition would take a full month to recover, and I’m seriously wondering if he usually thinks it takes just a month to get over something minor like being thrown off a skyscraper.
We see Godai doubled over in pain for a bit, just to show that like Ichijo he hides his injuries from everyone else. This is again something Ichijo explicitly confirms after, and while I normally get on this show a bit for hiding things from us these parallels between our two male leads are getting way too explicit. Ichijo does also own up to the fact that he was lying before when he promised Sakurako he would prevent Godai from fighting as Kuuga because there’s no way he could stop Godai. But on top of that he admits he didn’t want to stop Godai anyway, so… not to take Sakurako’s side but that was kind of a dick move. It’s not surprising she decides to leave while turning down his offer for a ride, is all I’m saying.
More confusing Kaijin stuff! We enter the aquarium bar to the sounds of… unsettling grunts, but it turns out one of the Kaijin is just doing handstand walking.
This Kaijin stuff sometimes feels like a performance art piece. I’m pretty sure the script for half these scenes just had stage direction like ‘Do random stuff to make it even weirder.’
The Grasshopper Kaijin shows up in his human guise and says some stuff in the Kaijin language and then looks super smug, which makes all the other Kaijin look pissy. Then the Rose Woman says some stuff and looks super smug. Then the Grasshopper Kaijin grabs a drink and waves it around to everyone while blatantly repeating the same word four times in a row.
For those who may have forgotten (or not read which why would you be starting like six episodes in a recap series just go back to the start, alright?), the Kaijin language may have been untranslated in the original broadcast, but after the series aired the fans were able to figure out what the cipher for the language actually was. This scene seems to have been deliberately added by the production staff as a clue that could be used to help crack the code, since it’s easy to guess at what kind of word he was saying and once you have one word figured out it can help you towards getting the basic language rules.
And all of that is setup for me to mention the fact that the fans of this series spent time and effort to translate a language that for all they knew when they started may have just been gibberish, while the in show ancient language translator has yet to do jack all. We even get another shot of Sakurako just walking around being mopey rather than attempting in any way to help her injured friend.
Comic relief time begins now. The Pore Pore manager tries, off screen, a bunch of silly ways to wake Godai up and then tells someone else about this silliness! Because that’s what audiences love. Hearing about scenes second hand that might have been funny to watch, right?
It turns out he’s talking to Ichijo, and Ichijo has to hang up to prevent the manager from rambling on with more of his crazy (note: the manager may actually be crazy) stories! Wasn’t that all hilarious? Comic relief time is now over. Thank god.
Ichijo immediately gets a call from the medical examiner who is now named! He’s Tsubaki everyone! Whatever they talk about is kept hidden from the audience though, because it looks like it’s interesting and we can’t have that, not when we have more Sakurako moping to watch!
Sakurako goes to meet up with Godai’s sister, who also gets a name! Minori! Man, it’s like all of a sudden everyone’s just getting names today! And hey, guess what? Sakurako totally admits that she’s been nothing but a load since the start of the series, and she is trying to ask Minori for advice on what she can do.
Hey, here’s what you do Sakurako, it’s really easy. YOUR JOB. Seriously, both the police and a good friend of yours asked you for help translating some ancient writings. It has been shown, in series, that you’ve already translated a bunch of them but are deliberately not reading them because you’re being whiny. So I guess what I’m saying is GO READ THOSE ANCIENT WRITINGS. Man, even when she’s trying to get better I still hate her.
She and Minori share a few wholly unearned thumbs ups before we get to a far more interesting scene.
First off, we find out what the call was about. It turns out that the people who died in the mysterious falling deaths injuries were inconsistent with just falling, and look to also contain signs of assault. This leads to pretty conclusive evidence that a Kaijin was involved. Which… I mean, during the assaults a police officer was picked up and dropped by the Grasshopper Kaijin and lived to report it so I kind of thought that would have been sufficient proof but hey, I’m not a special task force cop. Maybe they require a little more evidence than just that.
What’s cooler is that when investigating why the Grasshopper Kaijin fled before killing Kuuga the police were able to figure out that, based on the wind direction the previous day, all the assaults happened in areas where the smoke from the factory wasn’t blowing. With that knowledge they have narrowed down the location where he’ll attack next.
They break off to increase patrols in that area, and Ichijo is loaned an even more high powered rifle than he had before.
See Sakurako? This is how you are helpful to your super hero friend. By being actually competent. Try it some time, would you?
Godai is moping himself though, wondering why he turned blue, and noting that he pretty much got beat up no matter what color he was so he’s not sure if there’s any advantage at all. The manager shows up and tries to cheer him up by saying that different sauces are good with different meals, but he mixes up what meals are good with what sauces. It’s enough to make Godai feel a bit better about things even if it isn’t funny.
And then manager does this.
In case you couldn’t tell what he was trying to do… after a second he corrects himself.
This isn’t played up like him doing this to be intentionally goofy. Manager is, in fact, so stupid, that he does not know how to properly give a thumbs up. He has to actually look at his hand, realize he is using the WRONG FINGER, and then switch it around. This… I mean, now I just feel bad for the guy.
Godai has just been hanging around with this man who has some kind of untreated mental illness and Godai just chuckles at his inability to perform basic human tasks. It’s… it’s kind of creepy. Also I will never, ever eat at Pore Pore. I’ve sympathy for the disabled, but when the guy cooking your food can’t keep his sauces straight I’m pretty sure it’s going to be terrible.
Godai steps out to clean up the sidewalk around the shop when he overhears cops being attacked on the police radio built into his bike. He then uses his work ditching skill (maybe skill 527?) to speed off to the scene where he can help.
Then we get some frantic Sakurako typing on a keyboard action… while she’s listening to talk radio no less! Because who wants to see police fighting monsters when we can see high stakes researching in real time? Research so boring even the researcher needs distracting stuff going on in the background!
Actually, there’s some stuff I really like about this scene. While searching the ancient texts Sakurako doesn’t just look for ‘Blue’, but for various words that might relate to ‘Blue.’ She finds what she’s looking for when she finally searches the word ‘Water.’ I’m not saying that it’s the height of complicated research but at least it’s a nod to things not being just plainly spelled out.
But even when Sakurako is trying to be helpful, she is still totally the worst. She hears news of a Kaijin attack on the radio, and attempts to call Ichijo about it. Right when Ichijo was in the middle of lining up a shot on the Grasshopper Kaijin. The ringtone alerts the Kaijin (C’mon Ichijo, learn about vibrate already), breaking him from his fun of murdering other police so he can go murder Ichijo. And the Kaijin decides to go all out on this one.
Apparently, Ichijo is just too awesome to give him a crappy end like picking him up and dropping him. No Ichijo gets something special.
He gets his own car flipped on top of him.
Sakurako decides to head to the scene herself, and if Ichijo was just murdered I’m pretty sure that with her level of competence she’ll probably crash her moped on the way to the crime itself. We do get to see, though, the important message she has to deliver.
A long object just like water? What? I… I am thinking the ancients must not have known much about water.
We get to see more of the Grasshopper Kaijin murdering police officers, which is always good fun, until Godai heroically shows up and in a very awesome scene attempts to ram into the Kaijin only to have the Grasshopper straight stop the Trychaser with one hand. Like a total boss.
Then, after the Trychaser futilely spins its back wheel unable to push past the Kaijin, the Grasshopper leaps up and delivers another awesome ass jump kick to knock Godai right off his bike.
I feel like I should avoid using ‘awesome’ too much there but it really is the only word that does that little exchange justice.
Godai realizes that, you know, transforming into his Kamen Rider form may be the way to go on this one, but his Henshin doesn’t quite go the way he was hoping.
Once more, Blue Kuuga is a match in speed and agility for the Grasshopper Kaijin, but lacks the strength to hurt him… at all. So we get some blurred movement effects and super jumps which I am having trouble following because the pumping synth rock is just so great I’m pretty much just jamming to that.
Blue Kuuga gets the stuffing kicked out of him and really he has no idea what to do. But who should come to the rescue? Why… is that Sakurako, breaking through a police roadblock?
Uh… I know I’ve been giving her a lot of crap, but ramming your moped through a police blockade so you can deliberately go to the scene of a monster battle is actually pretty great. Like, +5 points there Sakurako, easily.
Also, Ichijo’s super luck powers kick in to save his life by putting him in the one possible place where the tipped over car wouldn’t have crushed him to death!
It turns out those front mounted silver rear view mirrors were actually a pretty good investment, no matter how much the other cops made fun of his car for looking silly. And even though Sakurako did something cool, Ichijo just survived having a car dropped on top of him without a scratch so I am going to take away Sakurako’s five points and give them to Ichijo for sheer badassitude. Sorry Sakurako, better luck next week.
Hey, remember when I joked about Sakurako crashing her moped? Well when she finds the fight and tries to bring her scooter to a stop she totally crashes it for no reason. Like she just hits the brakes and falls over. It is hilariously inept.
Alright, enough funning. Time for coolness again. So, after telling Kuuga about the whole ‘long object’ thing, Kuuga suddenly realizes what she’s talking about! The music switches up to an almost disco-y beat (with the ‘wow-chica’ thing going on), which I can really get behind. As the music continues to rock Kuuga breaks off a part of a nearby handrail, and after spinning it around all kung-fu style it transforms into an extendable blue and gold staff!
Now armed, Blue Kuuga proceeds to payback all the beatings he’s had as he just mercilessly pounds on the Grasshopper Kaijin while he waits on Ichijo to show. After all, Kuuga’s gotta be sure both of his friends can see his new finishing move. Unfortunately it… isn’t super great. It’s no jump kick, just a jumping staff strike. It does have a neat little effect where it makes space distort and ripple where he hits, so there’s that at least.
And hey, it’s enough to make the glowing symbol appear and for the Kaijin’s wrestling belt to start cracking up, which leads to the inevitable explosion. And we get to see some steam coming off of the staff like it had off of Kuuga’s foot from his jump kick a few weeks ago.
I’m wondering if they take it in to be analyzed whether medical examiner Tsubaki will comment on how there’s a concentration of muscle cords now in his arm optimized for delivering jumping staff strikes. Or maybe muscle cords in the staff itself? C’mon show, give me more psuedo-science!
And with a last little bit of smiling from our three leads and a thumbs up from Sakurako we bring this episode to a close.
So, Final Thoughts?
This episode finally gets us past the very annoying subplot of Sakurako being unsure whether she wanted to help out Godai and Ichijo, which is definitely good for us. Combined with the last episode so far the Grasshopper Kaijin has definitely provided the best overall fight scenes. They don’t get as much mileage this week out of his jumping around, but up until Kuuga gains his staff pretty much everything the Grasshopper does makes him seem unstoppable. That really helps to build up how important getting this weapon is for Blue Kuuga to fight at one hundred percent.
I’d be remiss not to note that we get some more good police competence this week. Not only did they manage to narrow down and locate the Kaijin, but we see that they even took efforts to block off the area to safeguard civilians. It is kind of funny to still see the standard police fodder keep showing up though as the police have at least lost dozens of people by now.
And on a personal note, this is one of the times where you see a much better way for them to have done the Trychaser’s color changing powers. Since it’s now demonstrated that Kuuga can shapeshift certain items from certain forms, they could have just said Red Kuuga can customize the colors on the Trychaser. C’mon guys, you’d only have had to wait like one episode for this, geez!
Ok, ok… I’ll keep Trychaser rants to a minimum.
So! Next Episode Preview!
Random dude dies! Random girl whines about the police not doing their jobs! We see the police doing their jobs! And we get a glimpse of the next Kaijin!
Will your humble Recapper manage to avoid making both the obvious Batman AND Nicholas Cage Bee jokes next week? Tune in to find out with Kamen Rider Kuuga: Episode 7 Grief!
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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