Kamen Rider Kuuga Ep 16 Recap – It’s Alive!

Welcome back, dear readers, to a cliffhanger resolving recap of Kamen Rider Kuuga!

When we left our hero last week, as you will almost certainly recall because it was incredibly awesome, Kuuga and the Acid Trip Grongi were about to ram, respectively, their sweet new bike and their ratty old truck into one another. They were about a millisecond away from collision and there was no time left to avert the crash! So what happens now that we’re back?

Well, it turns out that Kuuga actually veered off way before hand and avoided the hit.

Laaaame.

 

It’s the worst kind of resolution, where they have to actually go back and change the footage to negate last weeks ending. But don’t worry, things will start getting moderately cool to make up for it. See the reason Kuuga diverted was his bike started acting up, and right after swerving aside the new armored Trychaser comes to a complete stop and won’t start up again. Acid Trip takes the initiative to backup into the bike, and just as Ichijo arrives on the scene in time to almost see our hero run over Kuuga instead turns Blue and leaps over the truck, landing safely away while the Trychaser is smashed into a sparking explosion pile.

Now on foot, Kuuga strikes his usual Blue form fighting pose and gets ready for the truck that starts barreling towards him again as we cut to the credits.

And hey, at least this time they didn’t try to cheat us out of anything since when we come back Kuuga is still definitely about to be run over. Of course, Blue Kuuga has no trouble leaping into the air again, but this time he jumps high enough that Acid Trip completely loses track of him. He makes the classic beginners mistake of getting out of the truck to try and see if he can get a better eye on Kuuga, which ends with our hero landing a falling karate chop right to Acid Trip, forcing him to shift into his Hermit Crab form and pretty pathetically cling to Kuuga’s leg as he gets hammered a bit.

The Hermit Crab Grongi really doesn’t put up much of a fight. He manages to knock Kuuga away only for Kuuga to land conveniently near some barricade rod that he can turn into a staff, and with one hit he knocks the Hermit Crab into a pile of garbage near all the sparking wreckage which immediately and violently explodes.

Kuuga shields himself from the explosion and I am almost 100% sure that was the suit actor actually trying not to get hit by the flames from it. It is a huge explosion like five feet away from him and it does not look safe in any way shape or form as a stunt, but it does look 100% cool.

The armored Trychaser actually managed to survive being run over and exploded and be completely undamaged, which speaks to that being some dang impressive horse armor! Seriously, I don’t think ancient times were throwing anything that hardcore at horses. Ichijo seems unconvinced about the whole thing, first off doubting whether or not the Trychaser even should be considered a horse, and then noting that the whole thing could be dangerous. But Godai has an airtight argument!

Yup, it’s totally fine! That’s why it snapped onto your bike and shut it down right before someone was going to run you over. Completely sound logic.

Ichijo gets a call from Sasayama to inform him that his mother has collapsed, and Ichijo tells her it’s more important that she gets Enokida on the line as he has some important things to discuss with her, which is straight up cold. The music even gets a bit chilly while Godai looks uncomfortable in the background overhearing a little of the personal conversation. We know that Ichijo really values his work but not even asking about his mom is… well I would say that it’s depressing but hey, remember back in the day when Ichijo tried to run from Nagano to Tokyo on foot just because he thought Godai might be hurt? Kind of painting that scene in a whole new light.

Enokida agrees to inspect the armored Trychaser to see if it’s dangerous, and Godai tries to ask for some information from Ichijo while he just brushes the questions off. I mean, at this point he is just kind of sitting in his car waiting for stuff to happen so he could at least call the hospital to see what his moms condition is, but it almost seems like he’s intentionally avoiding the issue.

And then we learn that Sugita’s child Hazuki is actually a girl unlike I erroneously reported last week!

Or maybe he has a son and a daughter? Sugita is like, only half a character so these shall continue to be mysteries for us as we move forward. It’s nice though, honestly, because it makes all these conversations seem more realistic. Sasayama seems to know about Sugita’s family situation but it’s never explicitly gone into detail, it’s just noted that he’s a pretty devoted father. It doesn’t have any particular impact on the story but it makes everything feel more natural than if just everything that happened revolved around our heroes.

Speaking of, Enokida shows up and Sasayama tries to talk with her about Ichijo, and how much of a jackass he’s being, and Enokida has to point out that she’s pretty awful too.

Man we are just learning all kinds of minor character back stories here. Sasayama even talks about how her dad used to be a cop but got sick and died. It’s just this weird few minutes where all the police are all real focused on expositing about their backgrounds. Notably not including Sakurai because he’s even less of a character than the rest of the cops running around.

After everyone airs their personal business we get a shot of the Bat Grongi and the Rose Woman meeting in public and talking vaguely about the horse armor, and for the first time that I can recall explicitly naming a Grongi!

They even name another Grongi, Gadora! Actually some of the Grongi have had their names stated before, but only amidst a bunch of Grongi language stuff, so it was impossible to guess what was what.

When dropping off the Trychaser for study there’s a weird little point where Enokida learns Godai is Kuuga OFF SCREEN and it is handled remarkably casually.

She is ridiculously calm with the whole thing! She’s just ‘Oh neat so he’s the worlds only super hero and the only person capable of fighting off the monsters that want to old school style murder us all. Spiffy.’ It’s kind of weird too that Ichijo explicitly has kept information about Kuuga’s identity away from the police, which we know because his boss chewed him out about it once, but when it comes to introducing him to everyone Ichijo doesn’t even seem to worry about it much.

Also, Enokida met Godai way back in Episode 7 and was totally cool with talking about police business in front of him, when Ichijo was basically just passing him off as a ‘friend’, and I kind of missed it then but apparently Enokida just assumed that Ichijo dragged his dates along to work with him or something?

Anyway There is a neat bit where Enokida gets excited about dismantling the Trychaser and Godai starts to worry that she’s like Tsubaki while Ichijo just has this stone look on his face like he doesn’t want to answer the question. Enokida reveals that Ichijo’s mom is apparently going to be fine, but Ichijo just doesn’t even respond to the information and runs off to do some investigation while Godai decides to just bum around while Enokida completes her research. I think he’s just so used to bumming around watching Sakurako do nothing that he wants to see what actual research looks like for a change.

Back at Jounan University Jean shows up and he is very sad. And not just because he never got to see a bear! He’s all sad because he lost the rocks and betrayed Mika!

Ok, so… a couple of things here. First of all, it’s not like he could’ve done anything to stop a rock monster capable of exploding a truck so I’m not sure what he’s worried about. And secondly I’m pretty sure that not having to deal with Mika anymore is considered a net positive.

Godai calls over to Sakurako to let her know about the horse armor situation, and Sakurako reveals that she actually managed to get some new information herself. All she found out was that the Linto thought the Horse Armor was a messenger from God. Which she translates to mean ‘it’s a good thing.’ Thanks for telling us nothing we didn’t already know Sakurako!

After failing to be useful in any appreciable way, she does the only valuable thing and delivers the message to Jean that the rocks were recovered and it does pick up his spirits a bit. So Sakurako’s value this episode could’ve been achieved by being an answering machine basically. Hey, that’s actually slightly better than usual, good job!

At the Police Research Institute the show does something which seriously surprises me and is totally great. Enokida points out that even the parts of the bike the horse armor didn’t snap onto have changed, so that it’s basically a whole new bike.

Now, this is really spiffy and something you don’t usually see. In fact the armored version of the Trychaser is a totally different bike, likely because doing actual snap on armor for a motorcycle would be very complicated. But rather than just having the audience pretend we don’t notice it has different wheels and the like, the show actually pulls the prop usage into part of the lore. And, considering Kuuga has the power to change objects from one type into another, it’s also an established thing that can happen in this universe so it’s not even completely out of left field!

That’s not even me just connecting the dots, the show explicitly draws the parallel between the two when Enokida worries they won’t be able to change the bike back.

The bike has all sorts of monitoring equipment hooked up to it… including an EKG with an actual heartrate like blip on it because… I guess the Trychaser has a heart? But anyways it’s been pinging along normally until Godai touches the bike when suddenly all the instrumentation starts going nuts and the Trychaser starts to glow again while the psychic music riff plays.

No, it’s not because Godai touched the bike, the bike actually reacts to Pore Pore Manager slapstick!

Yup, what with him being a secret Grongi and all. I mean, right when the bike starts green glowing we see him ram a serving tray into the back of a woman’s head, and then inform her that she is eating Oriental food which she should already know as she is a customer in an Oriental cafe because… I don’t know, it’s funny?

Well, Minori shows up and he ropes her into helping out as it’s all too crowded for him to do alone, and he explains where Godai and Nana are but he switches up who’s at where. Ha ha ha, oh Manager, you are a delight with your whimsical incompetence.

Back at another disaster area, Sugita is inspecting the explosion and confirms that the cops have gotten quite good at Grongi clean up.

So yes, the show has implied they did this in the past but now it’s basically become routine for them to the point where finding a crime scene without strewn bloody chunks to bag and tag is an oddity.

Sakurai finds an open manhole cover though and the pair realize that the Hermit Crab Grongi must’ve escaped! Which we confirm right after when the Hermit Crab pops out of a manhole cover conveniently next to an apparently abandoned truck, because dude the episodes half over and we can’t waste too much more time not having him running people over.

Ichijo meets with his boss and once more asks that he be allowed to keep the Chief of Police in the dark about Kuuga and now the UFO that they’ve captured, which seems weird because he has totally introduced Godai to Enokida and the Research Institute and I’m pretty sure if his goal was to keep a tight lid on this stuff he wouldn’t just be blabbing to everyone what’s going on? Still, the Chief notes he can’t be sure of the matter but that they’ve literally no choice but to put their faith in Kuuga as the police kind of can’t kill the Grongi themselves (confirming that the police have only dropped 2 out of the 24 that have shown up so far), but he sort of spins it in a nice ‘Hey he’s a hero so we’ll help him out’ kind of way.

Then Ichijo runs into Sasayama in the hallway and it is awkward.

Like they just stare at each other for a few seconds until Ichijo seems palpably relieved to learn from a passing officer that the Hermit Crab has shown back up and is back to his vehicular homicidal ways.

Also we get a shot of Ichijo’s mom waking up in the hospital, right before getting confirmation that yes…

The Trychaser is alive! I mean they even explicitly show that EKG again showing a quick heartbeat. Man, and I thought having a leg optimized for kicking was great, but having horse armor bring your motorcycle to life and give it a heartbeat is about ten times more delicious psuedoscience.

Before they can figure out what it means Ichijo calls to report the Grongi attack, and as though on cue the Trychaser roars back to life (or maybe offscreen Manager spilled some soup on a customer.) The bike snaps off all the cables that have been hooked up to it… somehow… and causes a lot of sparking and kind of seems really dangerous for all the researchers standing right next to it.

Godai apologizes for having to dash off, and Enokida whines about all her equipment being destroyed, but there’s more important stuff to get to. Namely night time bike on truck fighting!

Yup, based on the timestamp it’s been almost two hours that Godai has been driving to get to the truck rampage, and when he catches up to it it seems to be on an empty road in the middle of nowhere but now at least the Grongi is driving around in his Grongi form. Because apparently he has gone past the point of trying to be sneaky about this murder spree in any way shape or form.

The same showdown occurs, and Kuuga once again guns it while the Hermit Crab kicks his truck into reverse, and we are once more treated to an oncoming head on collision!

Only for them to chicken out and have him divert off to the side immediately right after because it’s like they know it’s what I want to see and they’re toying with me!

Man, what the heck is the point of putting ‘horse armor’ on this thing if all it’s going to do is clumsily dodge all the time! It’s not even as maneuverable as the regular Trychaser is!

It’s not like it’s about to do something totally cool like start at ramming speed again… and… burst into flames.

Oh man… oh man… is it… is what I think is about to happen going to happen?

Oh c’mon, I can’t be the only one thinking this can I?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Ichijo even gets out of his cop car explicitly so he can get a look at how awesome this is going to be.

And how awesome is it going to be? Is it going to totally make up for all the teasing they’ve put us through earlier?

Oh, I don’t know… maybe it’ll just involve the Trychaser hitting the truck so hard that not only does it flip over, but that it pushes both it and a car behind it ACROSS THE EMPTY ROAD IN A GIANT SCRAPING TRUCK SLIDE. FOR LIKE FIFTY FEET.

Oh, and maybe it also MAKES ITS OWN GIANT GLOWING LIGHTNING EMITTING SYMBOL ON THE TRUCK.

And then just maybe oh I don’t know EVERYTHING EXPLODES. WHILE KUUGA LOOKS AT IT HEAD ON BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME.

What is this… I… there’s more episode left? How? How am I supposed to focus on writing a recap when I just got to watch all that!? That’s what you’re supposed to end the episode on. It was AMAZING. I mean… guh… I… I can try?

I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be distracted by the fact that we get a shot of Kuuga climbing off the Trychasher and through the fire we see that his entire body is smoking.

Ok through the magic of instant replay I’ve rewatched that whole thing about ten times now, with the wonderful excuse that I had to time the recaps for it, so I think I have it out of my system and can move on.

So Ichijo comes by to check out the flaming wreckage and he is grinning ear to ear and he and Godai seem all in all pretty stoked about blowing stuff up again. Oh, and the Trychaser, which I want to remind you just FLIPPED A TRUCK OVER, breaks back into it’s original way lamer not truck flipping over form.

Godai tells Ichijo he should go visit his mom at the hospital, but Ichijo says he’s got too much work still to do to clean up the mess, and Godai just smiles and leaves him to it. But once he’s back at the office Ichijo realizes it’s getting late, and once he thinks he’s all alone he gives his mom a call.

And it’s… well it’s really sweet. They both tell the other they’re too busy for the call, and Ichijo just seems really… emotional. It’s not happiness so much as it’s just relief to have spent a few moments talking with his mother, and seriously is Ichijo’s actor good at portraying it. Seriously I tried to get a screengrab that showed you what I meant but… it’s not just the way he looks. It’s the way he sounds like he’s just maybe holding back a tear, and how he moves like he’s just struggling to breathe a bit while he struggles through the call.

Really, it’s just… kind of surprisingly emotional. I dig it.

Alright, I’ll give it to them, that’s a good shot to end the episode on.

So, Final Thoughts?

Man, this episode is really good! For a lot of reasons too, and not the usual suspects. No jump kicks and the only actual fist fight is remarkably short and uninteresting.

No this episode really delivers on the slow burn emotional stuff. It’s really hard to read Ichijo through the whole episode as he ignores his mothers condition, and only in the last moment do we see that it’s just all bottled up emotion. It’s not anger or sadness or anything concrete like that. It’s not a cheap payoff like some shows would do, just having him announce how he really feels. No, it’s just… it’s understandable. Even if his mother was fine and not in any danger, it was still a shock and there was just no processing it for him. Even in the end he just manages to relieve the pressure, but that’s enough.

It’s one of the more resonant emotional stories this series has had, likely because Shingo Katsurayama, Ichijo’s actor, is definitely the best actor in the series. And even though the event is minor, he just manages to bring a lot to the part even at those times where he doesn’t say anything. He’s got this way of looking that makes him seem older than his years, burdened with responsibility.

Also the episode has a motorcycle come to life in it, and said living motorcycle knocks over a truck, causing it to EXPLODE. I rest my case.

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

The Rose Woman introduces the 25th Grongi! The 25th Grongi goes on the attack! Kuuga and the 25th Grongi fight and it looks pretty hardcore! Then… wait… Godai in white form on the helicopter? Sakurako telling Godai about the long object? Tsubaki… giving his warnings about living weapons!? No… NO! It’s a… a…

CLIPSHOW!

Noooo… join me for the most loathed of television programming next week, as I recap the recap in Kamen Rider Kuuga Episode 17: Battle Preperations!

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.