Kamen Rider Kuuga Ep 8 Recap – Bee Bee Gun

Glad to ‘bee’ back for this weeks installment of my ongoing recap of Kamen Rider Kuuga! I would like to promise that all further Bee jokes this week will be funnier but… er… on to the recap!

Well, apparently Kuuga didn’t quite fall to his death last week. Though considering he’s still green he’s still suffering under crippling sensory overload. The full sounds of the city of Tokyo are overwhelming him while the Bee Grongi just looks on.

The Bee Grongi makes a few half hearted attacks, but really Kuuga is already writhing in agony so… he doesn’t have to do much to win the fight. He kind of just has to… not shoot himself in the head. So… not a good start this week for our hero!

He makes the already oft repeated Grongi mistake of not finishing off the weakened Kuuga, saying some Grongi language stuff before flying off. I’m not, you know, telling you how to do your job Bee Grongi but last episode Rose Woman was explicitly all pointing out that Kuuga has been murdering tons of Grongi so far… I mean, I kind of think she’d be happy with you killing Kuuga when it would take literally a single shot from your Bee needle?

Kuuga shifts all the way back to white Kuuga from way back in episode 1, remember him? Really weak and crappy?

Ichijo shows up just in time to see Kuuga shift all the way back to Godai, and even though the super senses are cut off he’s still struggling to just try and stand up, which is all in all got to be one of the lowest points our hero has been at so far. And that’s saying something. At this rate his next color change will probably just cause his arms to fall off.

After the opening credits Sakurako gets a call on her phone from Ichijo, but before he can say anything at all Godai wrestles the phone away from him because Godai is SUPER hyped about this new transformation!

I gotta say, I love this. I mean, we just saw him almost dead a minute ago, and now Godai is like a little kid just unbelievably excited at how cool his new powers are.

Ichijo wrestles the phone back and asks Sakurako if she knows anything about a Green Kuuga, or anything about a flying Kuuga in the texts she’s translating. I dig this too, as it’s pretty clear that Ichijo is trying to be proactive about things rather than just crossing his fingers and hoping that Godai’s new powers work out.

Sakurako admits that she won’t be able to get to the research right now, but for once it’s not her being the load. Mika has gone missing and she’s part of a group trying to find her. Remember Mika, who I was complaining about in the last episode getting in the way of people doing their jobs by being whiny and mopey? Well now she’s managed to make her absence actually keep people from doing their jobs. So… yeah, watch as I grow to love her more and more.

I should note that while this phone conversation is going on for some reason they decided to spin the cameras around both sides of the call as they cut back and forth, and it is super disorienting for no real reason. Which I approve of because it distracts me from thinking about Mika!

Ichijo and Godai head off to the hospital while we cut to the Grongi lair. The Bee and Bat return in their human guises, with the Bat looking pretty roughed up. The Bee marks some more squiggly lines on the chalkboard and I should point out that he holds his pen super weird.

I have no idea why. I mean the Grongi clearly don’t understand modern conveniences since they mess around with radios all weird and shout at cars, but I was not under the impression that writing implements were a startlingly new invention.

The Rose Woman grabs the Bees arm, and seems kind of agitated that he lost his bracelet in his last outing. He seems to put the blame on the Bat who gets beat up a bit for his trouble because of course he does, that has kind of replaced his character tic of flicking his earring. If you can call having someone smack you around a ‘character tic’, I guess. Which you can because it is always entertaining to watch. Way more fun than earring flicks.

The Rose Woman fishes out a fresh Bracelet to hand over, and the Bee does not seem too happy about having to get the new one.

He slips it on and clicks over one bead while saying something about the Linto, and then flicks another over while saying something about Kuuga. This seems to satisfy the Rose Woman and the Bee heads out… and we get for one of the first times a good angle shot of this new meeting location and they are meeting up in like, some kind of weirdly lit Natural History museum with skeletons and fossil displays and stuff. How is this place at all a hideout? Are there like, just abandoned museums in Japan? Because if there are I totally want to go explore an abandoned museum. Please. Let this be a thing.

We then cut immediately to a very… interestingly framed shot.

They ah… share some really interesting looks as they talk about how interesting Godai is. But it turns out they are checking out more x-rays of him. Tsubaki speculates that when Godai turns green that his nerves are stretched to an extreme level, which should allow him to pick out far away targets if he can focus it.

However, the power needed to use his Green form seems to burn out his usual energy reserves which is why he reverted back to white Kuuga after 50 seconds. And yes, Godai specifically counts it to 50 seconds by way of what I guess is some skill related to super time keeping.

Tsubaki says that the stone in his belt seems to be recovering power but that it’ll take about 2 hours for him to be ready to transform again. Godai still doesn’t know what to do when he’s Green though, but that’s fine because he’s about to get a new part time job. Because Ichijo springs the news about the whole missing Mika thing and Godai, being super nice, says he’ll take care of finding her.

Dang you Mika! I still hate you being all mopey but you gave a chance for Godai to show off how much of a hero he is by constantly putting others needs before his own! I’ll hate you even more for making your situation have positive narrative outcomes! Because reasons!

The Pore Pore Manager calls Sakurako trying to find where Godai is and during the call makes a bad joke… I think? There’s like, no joke at all. He talks about how he’s got a new fuzzy menu but it’s still fuzzy. Usually when I see stuff like this I assume it makes more sense in the original japanese, but Sakurako doesn’t laugh and immediately finds an excuse to get off the phone so I am pretty sure he’s just as unfunny in the original script. It makes me kind of wonder why they would intentionally write a comic relief who even the characters in series acknowledge is unfunny?

And then the manager fails to hang up a phone correctly. Seriously. He looks at the phone like he has no idea how to work it, and then flips it over to hang it up in reverse.

You know who else can’t work modern technology? The Grongi! Maybe manager isn’t mentally challenged at all, but secretly an ancient monster! I’m just saying that I’m going to keep an eye out for any sweet tats he might have.

Godai swings by the university and I should note it’s Jounan University, I didn’t mention it before because I’m bad at my job? He’s only there for about ten seconds to ask Sakurako to get to work translating, and to try to cheer up Mika’s mom.

What’s great is that Mika’s mom does not in any way agree with him, or seem reassured in the slightest. I am pretty sure Godai’s attempts to lift her spirits are… uh… well let’s just say he should stick to giving thumbs ups and saying ‘It’ll be ok!’ in the future.

Back at the Police Science Research Institute, which is an awesome name for a place by the way, Enokida fills Ichijo in on some bad news. The Bee Grongi figured out that flying around in circles kind of made him easy to find and seems to have randomized his pattern. But there’s good news! They managed to luck into finding out previously that the Bat Grongi makes sound waves whenever he flies that can be detected and had made detection equipment for that. But they have also just found out the Bee Grongi makes detectable sound waves from his quick wing beats, so the same tracking equipment should be able to give the police a rough guess at where he is.

And Enokida has even more good news!

She is incredibly excited about getting to make weapons. I mean, I know possibly giving the police a tool to fight the Grongi is definitely a good thing but I am kind of wondering if Enokida shouldn’t maybe be grinning ear to ear when talking about weapon development. Though honestly it kind of makes me think she’s kind of cool so maybe I should hope she gets to make more weapons in the future?

There’s a little montage kind of bit of our heroes all getting to work. Sakurako is translating while Jean is trying to keep Mika’s mom company, Godai is out looking for Mika on the Trychaser, and Ichijo is tracking the Bee Grongi in his car. Unfortunately the music is more… horror movie than pumping 80’s power ballad so… we’re probably not going anywhere good with this.

We come across a woman out shopping with her daughter, and we get to see the Bee’s insect vision zoom in on them.

As the music continues to hover all creepy the ladies car breaks down and she gets out to check on the engine, and honestly when they have the Bee kill a bunch of people in a row it’s kind of just a cool scene, but when they drag it out like this it’s a little harder to watch. It’s that classic horror build up where the tension is ratcheted because as the audience we know the woman has no idea she’s about to be killed. Though considering she lives in Japan I guess she might have that constant vague dread that some rubber suited monster is going to kill her… it’s just something you learn to live with.

Thankfully, just before the Bee can take his shot Ichijo pulls up in a skid, runs out of his car and tackles the woman and her daughter, causing the dust cloud to erupt right from where they leaped! Nice save!

Ichijo hustles the pair to cover while he tries to get a bead on the Bee, but it seems to have already escaped. Also his gun has no chance of hurting it at all so… you know, probably good for him that it decided to go on to its next target. Ichijo gets a call from Sakurako who informs him her research is done.

There’s nothing in the texts about a Green warrior or flying of any type, but based on the various things Godai was talking about she found a passage that details a warrior who ‘knows where evil doers lie, even from afar. Like a gale, he’s a warrior that shoots down evil.’

Ichijo repeats back the last bit to her without thinking about it, and immediately realizes that guns… also shoot.

Okay it’s not like this one was a difficult puzzle.

And now… ugh… I have to get to Mika. Okay because maybe all through this episode ever so often they cut to Mika waiting on trains and buses but I didn’t talk about it because all those scenes were super boring and did nothing to advance the plot except remind the audience that there was a sad sack wandering around maybe thinking about committing suicide, and we finally get to the bit from last weeks ‘on the next episode’ bit. Where she walks out in front of a train.

So we find Mika at a train crossing with the train coming, while mournful piano music plays in the background.

We get cuts of her looking to the train while the gates slide down, and the train barreling down the tracks. As it comes we keep cutting to Godai riding around from random beach to random beach, hoping to find Mika even though he has absolutely no idea where in all of the entire country of Japan she might have gone to. Maybe having one guy just randomly ride his motorcycle around looking for her was kind of a bad idea?

We cut back to a closeup of Mika’s face as the train gets closer, and she closes her eyes while she waits on the inevitable.

The inevitable train passing by without actually hitting her because she never walked onto the train tracks, that is.

Ha ha, psyche! The show’s not that dark! Actually, they didn’t even utilize the shot from last weeks ‘next on bit’ where she walks in front of the train, which was apparently just a fake out. Based on the staging of the shots here she never even contemplated actual suicide. In fact, we’ll see that this train was just on the way to where she really wanted to go. She was just throwing around fake suicide threats for attention, because she’s annoying!

Now we find get a shot of the Bee Grongi tailing Godai, while Ichijo is tailing the Bee, but Ichijo can’t raise Godai on his police radio because Godai has left his bike behind since he found Mika.

It turns out that Godai had remembered the necklace she had that she cared a lot about, and he knew that the types of shells on that necklace came from the beaches in this area so that was why he was checking them out.

I have no idea if seashell identification is one of Godai’s skills, and I should note I guess there is this whole thing I never mentioned where she has this necklace and it is in photos of her and when she gets to the beach she has flashbacks of her dad but guess what she’s horrible so nope! Your humble Recapper refuses to care about her backstory.

What I do care about is that Godai reveals that he can skip a stone on water 7 times, which Mika claimed was impossible. Well you are wrong Mika because you have grossly underestimated how awesome Godai is. He gives her some of his usual words of advice about doing what you can and hey even though I don’t care about Mika I can care about Godai getting to be inspirational. This is something he’s very good at, and it should be remembered that Godai is very big into the idea of doing what you can.

Inspirational speeches, however, are interrupted by the arrival of Ichijo. He has been tracking the Bee to their location, somewhat curiously recognizing Mika before Godai… I mean, he hangs out with Godai all the time and he met Mika or about a minute. Maybe he just doesn’t think that Godai would be out at the beach with a girl… because reasons.

Anyways, he realizes there’s only one reason the Bee would be there. Because just like Godai out at the beach with a girl pollination is the last thing on the Grongi’s mind!

Godai quickly henshins, turning straight into Green Kuuga. After Ichijo drags Mika a few feet away he tosses his gun back to Godai, who proceeds to do some poses with the revolver while Sakurako in voice-over repeats what she had told Ichijo earlier. Something that… you know, no one has told Godai yet that I’m aware of. It didn’t happen on screen at least.

After posing for a bit though, the same thing that happened to Blue Kuuga happens again, and the gun transforms! This time into a Crossbow Dart Gun Like kind of thing that ah… Okay it is kind of lame looking.

But hey, you know what’s not lame? THIS.

Yeah, he manages to use his super senses to find out where the Bee Grongi is, and without breaking a sweat catches the needle shot at him between his fingers before tossing it away.

I would like to remind you these needles normally perfectly pierce through someones brain, then heart, and then the concrete beneath them. And Kuuga didn’t just dodge it, he casually caught it like it was nothing. Awesome. It completely makes up for the fact that Green Kuugas finisher is just that he pulls back on the crossbow and shoots an arrow into the Bee that makes him explode. They even try to show the shot of him firing the arrow from like six different camera angles to make it seem cooler but dude, guys, the needle catch was the cool bit. Deal with it.

At the very end of the episode… and I sigh… Mika breaks down crying and apologizes for what she’s done.

Okay you know what? I’ll accept it Mika. I know Godai and Ichijo will because they’re awesome cool heroic dudes and since I like them I’ll accept it too. It’s rough  losing a family member after all, and it makes people do stupid stuff.

So, Final Thoughts?

Honestly, I may have been down on her but the Mika plot for these two episodes was… well… pretty honest. I mean it does feel like she’s a real character. Having your dad die is tough, having your dad be slaughtered by some horror movie monster is probably tougher still to deal with. Mika may be an annoying character but no part of her story really rings false. Still things can be honest without being entertaining, and I didn’t just skip through half of her story because of spite. It’s honestly just pretty boring.

Enokida still hasn’t really had a chance to establish herself as a character, she’s mostly an exposition dump, but at least it’s nice that the show acknowledges multiple disciplines. We have Sakurako for the linguistics, Jean for geology, Tsubaki for medicine, and Enokida for engineering and applied sciences. This episode is one of the better broad examples of how the various individuals are all working together. All three of our main leads contribute to the defeat of the monster, and it’s pretty cool that the show actually goes that route rather than just have Kuuga rely on brute force to win the day.

Green Kuuga is a nice idea thematically, but by design he leaves less room for interesting action scenes than Blue and Red Kuuga. Still, as a change of pace and a compliment to our heroes arsenal it’s a logical choice without necessarily being an obvious one. Plus he opens up the room for a little variety in terms of action, which will be better utilized moving forward.

And now, on the next episode of Kamen Rider Kuuga!

The police have found out the Grongi are gathering somewhere! A weird guy in a giant dunce cap climbs out of some water! Pre-schoolers and manager are both huge fans of Kuuga and maybe also have the same level of intelligence! And someone asks Godai if he’s becoming a fighting weapon over a shot of Kuuga choking a Grongi out while just going sick-house on it with repeated liver blows so that kind of answers the question for you!

All of that and more in Kamen Rider Kuuga Episode 9: Siblings!

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.