Welcome back to my ongoing recap series for the second Heisei era Kamen Rider show, Kamen Rider Agito!
We find ourselves back this week with Ryou adopting his newly christened Rider form Gills as he seeks to attack the mysterious Evil Man who has seemingly been his aid and benefactor while he was recovering from his last battle. The Evil Man remarks that Gills is apparently afraid of him but doesn’t seem bothered by the fact and allows Gills to do his heel drop kick without trying to stop him… since it turns out he doesn’t need to as Gills heel hits him and then passes right through him. It’s not like he’s immaterial, it’s more like his body almost behaved like a jello or something, resisting for a moment and then yielding.
Oh and he starts glowing. The Evil Man is really a Jedi! I dub that theory… plausible. In any case he does vanish after glowing for a little while and Gills cancels his Henshin, which we now see definitely involves him just molding back into Ryou. Ryou looks down at the Evil Man’s glowing symbol left in the ground which fades pretty quickly before he starts wondering why he had such an instinctual fear of the guy.
And I start wondering if they’re going to explain either of their plots anytime soon! But no time for their story which I will tell you is DONE FOR THIS WEEK, it’s time for the credits!
After the credits we’re back at the Misugi household where the Professor is springing a surprise for Shouichi!
The direct comedy bit here is that Shouichi assumes the application is for everyone in the house before him, including the little kid Taichi. The nice implied comedy here is that the Professor absolutely hates Shouichi’s cooking so he’s sending him off to culinary school so he’ll get better at it.
Actually the professor just thinks Shouichi should be doing something with his life rather than be the Misugi families slave, but Shouichi protests that he likes being the families slave… so there’s some definite weird Stockholm Syndrome going on here. Mana thinks Shouichi should focus first on getting his memory back but Shouichi actually states that at this point he doesn’t much care either way if he gets his memory back or not.
Over at the police testing facility Hojo is getting the feel for operating the G3.
He’s up against pop up target dummies that actually fire machine guns at him, and with a number of dives and rolls he manages to not only avoid every shot fired at him but have a 100% accurate hit rate shooting back. The police brass watching on seem to think they made the right call in putting him in as the new G3 operator and at this point it’s kind of hard to disagree with them. Even Omuro is impressed, but Ozawa is not buying it one bit. Of course Hojo does act like a total jackass and is completely full of himself but honestly I might rather have a competent jerk superhero rather than a nice incompetent one.
Mana and Shouichi are having a walk and talking about the dreams for his future and Shouichi wishes he could get amnesia again. Actually he wishes he could have amnesia every day, because then he could always wake up to fresh new experiences. Normally I’d call him an idiot but given his personality that might not be a terrible existence for him. But dreams of constant amnesia are blown out the window when they run into a woman who keeps awkwardly staring at Shouichi!
She can’t seem to place him but has a vague memory of knowing who Shouichi is. And since that could be a clue to his history Mana and Shouichi thoroughly question her and… ha ha no actually they just give her their phone number and ask her to call if she remembers anything later. I mean sure she’s the only person they’ve ever come across who might hold the slightest clue to his amnesia but it’s not like they’d want to inconvenience her or anything.
At the police HQ Omuro is basically just fawning over how awesome Hojo is when the G3 team runs into Hikawa who has been reassigned to criminal investigations. Hikawa tries to be nice to Hojo who clearly puts on a front of being nice back while undercutting Hikawa every chance he gets. Ozawa is still holding out hope for Hikawa to come back while Omuro is wondering why she’s bothering when Hojo is performing better on test runs than Hikawa ever did.
It’s great because it doesn’t even seem like a crush kind of thing or anything. It doesn’t come off like Ozawa has any real interest in Hikawa, she just basically likes him better than Hojo and I can actually totally buy that. Hojo is a total dick after all.
We get a cut of the street lady remembering who Shouichi was while taking a shower (only from the neck up so this remains a family friend blog aside from those times I’m talking about Hojo) and then calls over to the Misugi household to interrupt some mild cabbage oriented humor (get it because… because cabbages have a ‘mild’ flavor… oh man the horrible shows comedy is rubbing off on me) and she has an off-screen conversation with Shouichi. Dun dun dunnnn!
Shouichi schedules a meeting with the woman the next day while the family is forced to eat shredded cabbage because Shouichi isn’t in the mood to cook and everyone else in the family remains literally helpless in the face of even the most minor of household chores. I mean it’s not like they were busy they were just sitting around home alone all day and not one of them could even bother to pop down to the market for take out or something. But while Shouichi worries over learning about his past and the family wallows in their ineptitude the mysterious street woman calls someone on the phone and discusses her meeting with Shouichi ominously, making it clear she intends to be very careful in Shouichi’s presence before she hangs up and then begins to fearfully shudder.
She clutches herself and shivers and gasps and everything. That’s… that’s not a good sign for what she may know about Shouichi’s past…
At the G-Trailer Omuro and Hojo are talking about Ozawa and we learn some interesting facts about the absent woman.
Yes Ozawa is actually the one who built the G3 system, which is pretty dang impressive and also the kind of thing it seems like someone should have brought up isn’t it? We also learn she was a child prodigy, having graduated MIT at 15 with a 180 IQ before coming back to Japan where she’s decided to work with the police. It certainly seems like an odd job choice but I would wager there are very few other fields where you’d be prompted to build your own superhero armor so I can give her a break because I’d be totally down for doing that myself.
Hojo also seems to be somewhat focused on getting Ozawa to acknowledge him, and has plans on capturing Agito to achieve said goal. Oh sorry did I ‘Dun Dun Dunnnn!’ earlier because I should have saved that for now as that’s more of a ‘Dun Dun Dunnnn!’ kind of moment.
Shouichi is at the market buying wire cable and cutters and… just generally a lot of unsavory looking items while he’s seeming overtly shifty. Considering Shouichi has been only apprehensive about meeting this woman from his past so far… well let’s just say it’s not a good look for him. Also it’s pretty obvious this is going to come back into play later. HINT HINT
Meanwhile Hikawa is meeting up with his new partner and Hojo’s old one, Kouno! It seems like Kouno is taking Hojo’s complete abandoning of him pretty well, but generally Kouno comes off like a nice old fashioned sort of dude whenever we meet him.
Also Kouno is apparently very competent judging by this little exchange! But despite literally ever single person he’s ever met calling him an idiot Hikawa has decided to once again stick by his theory. I’ll give the man some respect for persistence at least. But delicious roadside ramen meals get interrupted by… murder! Dun Dun Dunnnn! (Man that’s getting used a lot this week!) They get a report and rush off to answer it while we find Shouichi returning to the Misugi household to offload all his suspiciously purchased goods as he tells the family that he never met with the woman (named Miura now). Oh he was at the designated spot, but she never showed up and hasn’t been answering her phone… according to him. But the tense music in the background sure isn’t making this scene come off like it’s comfortable.
I’m not kidding here the music is all thrumming and uncomfortable and it just makes Shouichi’s happy go lucky mood, and especially his smile come off ass very unsettling when he seems fine with Miura having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.
I hope I’m not alone in thinking there’s something just not… natural about that smile.
Over at the park the police have cordoned off a crime scene and you all earn no bonus points for guessing the body that they’ve found.
Hikawa thinks he might actually recognize her but when he checks her ID he doesn’t recall the name. She has been strangled by the wire wrapped around her body… the same type of wire we saw Shouichi buying… and he and Kouno conclude that though it was a brutal murder it doesn’t seem like the Unknown were involved. When checking her day planner the meeting with Shouichi comes up though, and that is a name that Hikawa does remember.
At another park a father and son are playing catch when… the ground beneath the father bursts open and water starts pouring out of the ground. And out of the new lake he finds himself submerged in a er… ‘fearsome’ monster emerges!
Okay not every monster design can be scary alright? The Octopus Unknown starts to drown the father who yells for his son to run away to safety. But since we know that in general the Unknown stick to only one murder method it doesn’t seem like this fellow could have been behind Miura’s death earlier in the episode… not really looking good for Shouichi here.
With the report of the Unknown attack in Hojo gets a full suit up sequence as the G-Trailer deploys to the scene of the crime, but more distressingly Hikawa and Kouno have caught up with Shouichi and Mana who are out shopping. They want to bring in Shouichi for questions about Miura’s murder but while they’re talking to him Shouichi gets a psychic flash about the Unknown attack and like always he’s compelled to run off to it, which makes it seem like he’s attempting to make a break from police custody.
While Shouichi is being taken into police custody Hojo as G3 arrives at his own crime scene on the Guardchaser. He finds the drowned father on the now dry earth but while he’s inspecting that a fresh lake is created only a short distance away near where the man’s son Yuiichi was hiding, and the Octopus Unknown latches onto the boy to use as a human shield.
A human shield Hojo doesn’t even hesitate in completely ignoring.
He literally opens fire the moment he sees the monster, fully aware of the screaming child as he continues pumping round after round from the GM-01 into the Octopus regardless of the cries of the child and his own mission supports orders to prioritize saving the kid over engaging the Unknown.
Eventually the damage causes the Unknown to throw away the kid and engage G3 directly, which results in a new song kicking in. Since Agito isn’t involved we don’t get his theme and instead get treated to for the first time ‘STRANGER IN THE DARK’. Which… considering it’s G3’s theme isn’t not nearly as cool. I would recommend you just pretend we get to listen to ‘Believe Yourself’ instead.
Hojo’s fighting style as G3 does have something of a distinct vibe to it. He only engages in melee when the Octopus gets close but he seems to try and focus on using maneuverability to keep his distance where he can weaken the Unknown with precision pistol shots.
Eventually he softens the Octopus up enough to go for the finisher and after mounting up the GG-02 grenade launcher he blows up… er… melts the Unknown.
It’s Halo did appear, but rather than burst into flames it sort of oozed into a steaming pink puddle on the ground. Which the police seem to consider well… likely the end of the threat. I mean why even double check right? It’s not like collecting all that ooze might be good sample material for research or anything.
And with the monster defeated(?) and Shouichi being hauled off to prison, that’s our episode!
So, Final Thoughts?
First to get the usual complaint out of the way. We only get to hang out with Gills for a minute this episode. He seems like he has a compelling story developing but the show is really not interested in devoting any time to it!
Now for the good news. The stuff we get instead is equally as entertaining! Lots of really good fun this week as plot lines start crossing and all sorts of drama starts developing. One of the best moves the show made this week was not showing us Shouichi’s innocence. See despite the fact that he is the main character… he’s really something of a bizarre blank slate. Shouichi can come off as weird and somewhat unsettling, and his activities this week really do set him up to be the murderer. Now it’s unlikely he’d have just killed her for no reason but it’s very plausible, even to the audience, that something could come out to reveal he was the killer and that she is somehow connected to the Unknown or the like. Especially since we know Shouichi is prone to blacking out and losing control over his own body.
Busting Hikawa down to detective and putting Hojo into the G3 also is a very good call for development. Not only does it give Hikawa a chance to look competent (since he’s cast in a role that isn’t written to just be second fiddle to Agito) but having Hojo as a contrasting G3 gives the audience a chance to see why Hikawa is good for the role. Sure Hojo is a capable operator but even in his first outing his self confidence has caused him to put a small child in great danger. It’s a good way to start casting doubts to Hojo’s capabilities even with him being apparently ‘better suited’ to the role of G3.
Agito is starting to find itself at this point. It’s shedding a lot of the baggage that tied it to Kuuga and working to find it’s own groove which is a much more drama intensive story telling format. And by raising the stakes not by introducing new more powerful creatures but by creating more interpersonal conflicts the show has reached it’s own form of maturity that will serve it well as it moves forward.
And now, on the next episode of Kamen Rider Agito!
Shock of shocks the Octopus seemingly survived! Hikawa and Mana both seem to have doubts about Shouichi’s guilt while Hojo goes off to apprehend the Octopus once more… though his thoughts seem more focused on Agito!
It seems like everyone is going to be put to the test next week in Kamen Rider Agito Episode 10: Silver Points and Lines!
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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