Welcome back to my ongoing recap series for the second Heisei era Kamen Rider show, Kamen Rider Agito!
At the end of last weeks episode Mikumo had just stumbled on the evil baby she’d birthed with her crazy mad science experiments. Oh you think I’m overreacting about it being evil? Sure I guess you’re right I wouldn’t know if the baby was evil just because it was made with twisted scientific experiments on ancient DNA models. I mean it’s not like the baby was up and walking around despite being literally minutes old or anything. 
And it’s not like those footprints the baby left behind are evaporating in steam that leaves behind a replica of the symbol that was tattooed on the back of that definitely not evil babies hand. I mean that might lead someone to think something was wrong with the ancient monster science baby and that would be patently unfair to the little guy wouldn’t it.
The episode picks up proper with the G3 crew studying the garbled surveillance footage of last weeks Turtle battle where they all agree that it seems like Agito was on their side. This time… Also they all agree that G3 has been generally pretty pathetic. 
I mean Hikawa is trying to save a little face here but yeah it’s not like anyone is leaping to his defense here. “Oh no Hikawa, I’m sure you’d have been fine on your own, really!” Ozawa asks how the investigation into the coin bottle is going and things cut over to the Misugi household where Taiichi is in trouble because he spent the polices evidence without permission.
What I love about this scene is that their idea of putting Taiichi in trouble is making him sit with Shouichi and study, and then they deny him the ability to use Shouichi as a house slave like the rest of them are doing. Their house is seriously messed up. Taiichi is successfully able to get Mana in trouble with him because she’s been doing terribly on her tests, so I guess you don’t have to be smart to be psychic, but Shouichi has a brilliant idea! 
Shouichi theorizes that he might have been a brilliant college student before he lost his memories. Of course, since he’s let himself be talked into being an unpaid slave to this family I think the evidence that he isn’t a genius is rather in full force here. Over at the university the swim coach gets a call from Ryou where the erstwhile student wants to get some advice from his former mentor. This is the first thing we’ve seen of him since inviting his coach in to talk with him and now his coach seems to be a bit wigged out while he’s taking the call. Something definitely happened when the two men were locked up alone in Ryou’s apartment, but what? And is there any joke I can make here that at all will be in good taste? No? Moving along then!
It takes all of one math problem for Shouichi to realize he’s not a genius college student and Mana immediately puts him back on the task of serving her tea. Well at least that little exercise has put him back in his place in the household! Ryou shows up at school to meet with the swim coach only to find that he’s not there despite saying he would be, and in his place the rest of the team meets up with Ryou and… ha ha ha… they try to intimidate him. 
No offense swim team, but three skinny guys in Speedos trying to act tough in front of an actual biker is one of the most unbelievable things in a series full of evil babies and ancient digging Turtle Kaijin. Somehow they’re able to convince Ryou to leave and then they go find their coach who was actually hiding out in his office. The coach apparently sent the kids out to scare off Ryou, which shows how little he was in his right mind. He refuses to tell the kids why, absolutely refusing to discuss anything of what was going on between him and Ryou. Whatever it is, it clearly has him terrified though. And considering he’s basically Ryou’s only ‘family’ it’s hard to say that bodes well for the kid. Ryou had hid nearby and glumly watched his coach basically vow never to speak to him again and with him being the only person Ryou trusted to open up to now I feel bad for Ryou! And not just because he’s been shortchanged so much on screen time!
Hikawa stops by the O-Parts research group only to find that the military is clearing the place out and that the lab is being shut down, and he finds Mikumo smoking a cigarette among the discarded research materials. 
Okay we’re going to break down the levels of ridiculousness here, because there are A LOT. First of all, they are explicitly shutting the lab down because there were no results with their DNA experiment. So for the first bit of insanity, Mikumo has apparently decided to keep secret that there is an evil super ancient baby on the loose. Not good science there Mikumo! Secondly, the government has shut the lab down because one experiment failed, despite them having been able to successfully open up an ancient cross safe that was left by some precursor civilization that hasn’t been fully studied yet. That seems pretty dang short sighted! Third, look at the cross there on it’s side, it looks like they’re just planning to throw it out or something. Like apparently it’s just garbage now that it has been opened and not some crazy example of high tech ancient artifact that probably deserves tons of study all on its own? And lastly Hikawa, our lead detective, at no point in this scene seems to find Mikumo’s shifty nature suspicious, which just once again highlights his amazing police skills and really shows us why he was picked to pilot the G3. I’m probably missing other absurdities here but if I spent too long dissecting that we wouldn’t get to watch Ryou brood over old pictures of his old girlfriend! 
I mean basically it seems like Ryou just sits in his room all day either looking at pictures of her or staring at a wall so he is really going hard to fill in the brooding quotient to make up for the other heroes, who have teamed up to fill in the ‘stupidity’ checklist pretty well. And since Mana isn’t all that bright either apparently, the Professor has arranged a tutor for her. A very… familiar looking tutor… 
Well at least we have a name for Ryou’s girlfriend, but apparently Ryou is being dis-serviced once again as his supporting character gets introduced in the Misugi household. Man this show likes to screw him over coming and going doesn’t it? Mayumi settles in to help Mana study and Mana just uses her psychic powers to pick out the answers, apparently from Mayumi’s own thoughts. Why Mana doesn’t do this during tests I have no idea. Shouichi has himself developed a crush on Mayumi so he decides to weasel his way into studying with her which is both pretty sketchy and pretty sad. But there’s little time to mull over that because it’s time for the first kill by our new Unknown! 
We see some kind of energy tunnel before looking out over the falling sky, which makes it seem like we’re seeing things from this poor souls point of view before he falls to his death in the middle of the street. We also get to see explicitly that a bunch of toddlers playing in a nearby park all turned to watch this man be murdered which is very classy Agito. I guess if they can’t be murdering little kids they want to be traumatizing them. We also get our first peek at the new Unknown but it’s a little hard to make out what he is. Some kind of lizard most definitely. But who has time to look at the Unknown when we can watch Shouichi make a fool out of himself while trying to flirt with Mayumi? Really the only joke in the scene is that whatever Mayumi says she’s interested in Shouichi immediately admits to having an interest in the topic himself, which leads him to sounding like a pervert. But since he’s lying to try and impress a girl he just met that doesn’t make him much better than a pervert?
Also Hojo is a dick. I… does that just go without saying now?
Hojo tells Hikawa he’s going to get up with the top brass about getting Hikawa replaced as the pilot of G3. Oh I didn’t say I disagreed with Hojo of course, he’s just being a dick about it.
Oh and Mikumo is stalked by an evil child.
Oh what you think that child isn’t evil just because he looks creepy and is dressed all in black? Oh silly me did I forget to mention that whenever she realizes he’s staring at her and she tries to look in his direction he vanishes? Oh and of course there’s OMINOUS LATIN CHANTING whenever he’s on screen. So, you know… pretty sure… I’m right on the evil thing. Hmm, I wonder what other evil children are connected to Mikumo… almost like I forgot about something…
Well while I’m thinking on that Hikawa shows up at the Misugi residence and Shouichi is surprisingly dickish to him. Man apparently even Shouichi is getting in on the jerk train. Mostly because Shouichi is trying to hit on Mayumi and his obsession with her crossed with his desire to make really, really bad jokes just grates on Hikawa’s nerves. Hikawa gives Mayumi a ride home (while Mana and Shouichi tag along for the trip) and Mayumi talks about her boyfriend who she’s not sure if she’s still with, describing him as a very determined individual.
Oh and it’s the start of a running gag where Shouichi forgets Hikawa’s name, replacing it with other close names! And even when Hikawa corrects him he still gets it wrong! Which… I really don’t know if Shouichi is intentionally doing it as a joke, if he’s stupid, or if he actually cares so little for Hikawa that he just can’t remember it…
Oh and as an odd first meeting between our three leads all at once they drop off Mayumi and she runs into Ryuo, and though Shouichi wants to pick a fight with him Hikawa just drives off leaving Ryou and Mayumi alone to talk about their feelings. But that’s boring shouldn’t we watch more of Shouichi behaving like an idiot?
Yeah see what I said about that running joke? Like if he kept picking names that were close to Hikawa you could just say he kept mishearing but… it’s really hard not to read that as intentionally dickish behavior. And for no good reason, wee! Seems like the Misugi family is teaching Shouichi well!
Ryou and Mayumi reconnect after three months apart, where Ryou had apparently abandoned her after his accident. It’s clear enough he had good reason to what with how terrifying his off screen revelation was to his coach but now with no one else in his life he seems drawn to the one person who still supports him. Ryou realizes it is probably a bad idea to connect with her though and decides that he’d best leave her be.
Mayumi doesn’t know what she’s getting into, and it’s very easy to view this as Ryou making a choice he really shouldn’t just because he’s so alone at the moment that he needs someones presence. Things are not looking like they’re going to end up well, is what I’m trying to say.
Ryou leaves with a promise to meet back up with her and things go worse faster than you might have suspected as the Unknown of the week attacks, and it becomes actually clear it’s a Cobra Unknown. Thankfully Hikawa is on the scene to protect her!
Wait how did Hikawa get there first? He has no means of detecting where the Unknown are other than public reports. Was… Was someone like, stalking Mayumi or something? Seriously he just like leaps out from behind a tree and punches the thing, it is a super weird way to introduce him into the scene.
The Cobra Unknown summons wind to knock aside the two of them, and since the G3 isn’t at the scene yet Hikawa is even less equipped than usual to deal with the situation. Thankfully it seems like Shouichi’s psychic abilities have kicked in properly this week and it’s not long before he bails Hikawa out once again. Agito recognizes the unconscious Mayumi and reacts to her, implying that perhaps Shouichi does have some awareness of himself while he’s Agito. But there’s no time to deal with the situation as he’s drawn into a fight with the Cobra. It’s… not that impressive a fight honestly, just a few traded blows before they draw their weapons and run off to a temple to staff fight.
Shockingly though, ‘Believe Yourself’ comes to an end and the Unknown hasn’t exploded yet! The fight is silent for a moment before the ominous Latin chanting from earlier picks up and we see someone watching the fight from afar.
That is one evil kid who is just not taking anyone’s crap. Seriously. Look at him. He is just so done.
Agito is unable to gain the lead in the fight before another combatant shows up, a whip wielding Gorgon Unknown. She looks across to the evil child who gives her an approving nod and then she enters into the match as well, the pair pushing Agito even harder than before.
Agito manages to knock the Cobra out, but the Gorgon is able to summon more wind which seems to disorient our hero. And while he’s dealing with that mess Ryou is in a tunnel somewhere clutching his stomach while he cries out in pain. We see Ryou’s hand morph into a green claw and then, well…
And with a last bestial cry as Ryou reaches for the heavens the episode comes to a close!
So, Final Thoughts?
Again with us being early on in Agito‘s run I am going to take a little time to compare it to Kuuga. What you might have noticed by now is that the Unknown… just aren’t as interesting a character as the Grongi were. They don’t really have personalities to speak of, and there’s little to distinguish them other than their weapon of choice and a few special abilities. That’s actually okay. Agito is busy enough as it is juggling a larger core cast with three lead characters and it just doesn’t have the time to fully flesh out every monster of the week. It’s a little disappointing, but it’s honestly the right call to make.
This week it finally seems like we’re going to get a chance to flesh Ryou out more but instead we spend a lot of time touching on his supporting character through the eyes of other characters. Obviously we need some means to bring all the leads together but it’s a little unfortunate that Ryou remains steadfastly far less developed than our other two leads. This has a lot to do with his nature as a brooding loner which gives him less plot development potential than a heroic if misguided police detective and a good natured if slow witted amnesiac, which makes the decision to fill out Mayumi’s time mostly with the rest of the cast feel a bit bothersome.
That being said it’s nice that they are at least doing something with Ryou. We’re five episodes in and he’s at least being tied up to the plot in some way. It’s a little disappointing that they just end the coach plot so abruptly though. I mean since the coach never meets with anyone else and we don’t really know all what Ryou revealed to him it just feels like a big waste of time.
And of course a lot of this episode is devoted to the mysterious EVIL BABY… er… EVIL YOUNG CHILD. Yeah it’s… it’s not really a spoiler to let you know that they’re one in the same. It’s good though! Very mysterious and creepy, and it helps to give some grounding to the villains. He’s definitely in a leadership role from his short interaction with the Gorgon Unknown but why considering he’s just a newly born life form, and what’s his interest in Mayumi? It’s a good kind of mystery that’s fun to follow. One wonders what is going to happen next. And speaking of…
On the next episode of Kamen Rider Agito!
The Cobra Unknown attacks Ryou and Mayumi! And after Ryou warns the Cobra to stay away… a new Rider appears!
It looks like it’s time for the Third Warrior to make his entrance (not in this episode… which… was called the third warrior…) in Kamen Rider Agito Episode 6: Sorrowful Monstrous Fist!
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.
Kamen Rider Recap 