Kamen Rider Agito Ep 12 Recap – The Shining

Welcome back to my ongoing recap series for the second Heisei era Kamen Rider show, Kamen Rider Agito!

Things kick off this time around with another little game of catch up, where the important facts from last week were apparently that Saeko freaked out and plead ignorance to why she would be in Ryo’s father’s journal and Hikawa’s knocking himself unconscious while distracting the White Zebra Unknown.

Awww he looks so cute when he’s passed out from likely massive internal injuries. Agito shakes free of the White Zebra Unknown but when he tries to find what happened to the Black one he finds it’s disappeared, and in his time looking for it the White one gets away as well. Probably should have sent the White one to jump kick oblivion before looking around there Agito.

With no reason to stay at the scene Agito walks off into some conveniently dramatic mist while Hikawa comes back to his senses which is pretty impressive since he was apparently only knocked out for about ten seconds, and we’re off to the credits!

Shouichi returns to the apartment but Mana’s already left because she claimed that things were getting weird. Which is a pretty apt description I suppose in general but compared to the fact that Shouichi was just off fighting Roman Gladiator clad Zebra’s with the power to rapidly age people to death I kind of feel like calling a peculiar woman ‘weird’ may be overselling things a little bit. We do get a few shots of Saeko sitting in her room doing absolutely nothing while the camera goes insane flying around to different angles just to make things seem ‘weird.’ I’m sorry show but you can’t toss Roman Gladiator Zebra’s at me and then expect me to be freaked out by a girl sitting quietly in her room.

Back at police HQ the top brass are having a meeting to call out Hojo for using the G3 without authorization and in one of the all time great dick moves in the series Hojo first says that he only used the G3 to prioritize saving lives which is most important, and then immediately claims that the real problem was that Hikawa used the G3’s gun without permission. And he says that while Hikawa is sitting right next to him with his arm in a sling.

Do you know how much of a jackass you have to be to try and get someone in trouble for fighting a monster to protect a pregnant woman? You have to be a Hojo level jackass. A Hojackass if you will.

No one in the room even dignifies Hojo’s assertions with a response and instead asks Hikawa why he was watching the woman at all and Hikawa explains that he found a book of names at the crime scene of the man who died last episode which lead him to realize he was looking for baby names and that his wife was pregnant, so the Unknown was targeting the unborn child. So in like one single act Hikawa has now made himself not only look like a total badass but come off as a competent detective for once. It’s like the show figured they had to work quick on turning him around from being an incompetent feeb.

In any case the top brass immediately reinstate Hikawa as the G3 operator (unsurprising), and then mull over why the Unknown would be going after unborn babies. Which is a good question of course. It at least narrows down the possibilities of what they could be after when targeting a person since it’s not like unborn babies have had a chance to actually do a whole heck of a lot.

Mana and Shouichi head back the next day to try and interview Saeko again but she’s out lake diving once more so they have a talk with her brother instead about the pots and the Agito scribbles on them.

Apparently there’s legends of ancient civilizations in the lake area and while all her pottery is from the Joumon period (around 10,000 BC) there’s some rumors of an even older civilization that might have been in the area. You know how it goes, ancient lake civilizations leave behind apparently dozens of relics and academics just ignore it so one crazy lady has to go out and scuba it all up. It’s a pretty common story in archaeology.

With her brother not being able to provide any real help they head to the lake to talk to Saeko only to see her flailing in the water. While Mana tries to take a moment to figure out what’s going on Shouichi, being the self sacrificing hero he is, immediately sprints and dives into the water to swim out to her, and in a great scene just after he approaches from one direction we see another figure cutting in from the other to try and get to her.

Unsurprisingly it’s Ryo! Between the two of them they’re able to get her to shore where she reveals she just got her foot caught… and almost drowned because of it. Okay in two days she’s needed to be saved twice (I mean once was just from having her tire stuck but still). I’m kind of thinking going out alone to the lake is not actually that great an idea for her.

She’s quick to shut down both our heroes though, telling Shouichi she doesn’t recognize him and reaffirming for Ryo that she knows nothing about his father or his father’s journal. She starts to explain why she is at the lake, and it’s to research the legendary civilization that had been in that area. Apparently the civilization had been attacked by evil spirits constantly but survived under the protection of a ‘Holy Warrior.’ And while she talks on about the Holy Warrior she idly starts doodling a familiar looking symbol in the sand.

When Shouichi tries to ask her about the symbol she quickly changes the subject and wipes it away but we do learn that she believes there are statues of the warrior in the lake… for some reason… and she’s trying to find one… for some reason. It seems like a lot more than intellectual curiosity. She seems honestly pretty emotionally invested in everything, and very, very close to snapping.

Back at the G-Trailer Ozawa and Omuro are welcoming Hikawa back onto the force. But Hikawa is having trouble getting psyched up. And not because, you know, he’s going to have to be out risking his life again. No he’s just seen how incredibly obsessed Hojo is with the G3 and worries he doesn’t have Hojo’s passion for the work. Hikawa is probably the only person in existence who could look at Hojo and wonder ‘Man how could I be more like that guy?’

Ozawa eventually gets fed up with his whining and threatens to give the G3 to Omuro.

Omuro doesn’t exactly sound stoked about it, he just seems to realize that he’s not really a character so that was kind of out of left field. He wasn’t even in frame when Ozawa brought the point up and had to shift so that he could be on camera. And neither of them even dignify his response! Poor Omuro, maybe you’ll be a character some day!

But for now Hikawa apologizes since he certainly couldn’t risk someone who barely exists getting to be the G3 pilot and musters some enthusiasm to get back out there and fail miserably at fighting Unknown again!

Back at the Misugi household Shouichi informs Mana about the name of his Kamen Rider form and tells her about the symbols matching up, and they agree that they need to learn more about the ancient civilization since it might give some clues about what’s going on now… which would be nice because both they and the audience have literally NO idea about what’s going on now. Who Shouichi is, why he’s Agito, who the Unknown are… ANYTHING would be a nice clue so it’s good we’ll actually finally get some!

Having decided that knowledge is power Shouichi and Mana head off to the best place to go when you need help researching something. The internet… I mean the library!

I’m actually pretty impressed the librarian right off the top of her head remembered that they don’t have ANY books about that one particular lake, but also… DUN DUN DUNNNN! And while they’re learning about this surprising lack of legends we see Saeko’s brother in a dark store room somewhere shoving pots into a bag. Hmm… seems there’s something suspicious afoot.

Also something pretty creepy as we get a look at the research paper that Saeko has been working on.

Well it looks like the kind of translation that Sakurako would have written (I’m not even referencing Kuuga anymore and you still get picked on Sakurako, deal with it!) but no seriously something is really messed up here.

We see Saeko’s brother planting the pots for her to find and when he returns from his boat on the lake he runs into Mana and Shouichi and immediately fesses up. But what’s kind of nice is they don’t actually accuse him or anything, they seem in pretty high spirits when they bring up the question of what he’s been up to.

It turns out about a half year prior his sister locked herself up in her room and wouldn’t engage with anyone or do anything and no matter what anyone did she refused to reconnect with the world. Until one day some random guy visiting their house told her brother about the lake legend. He knew immediately it was a lie but Saeko overheard and was interested in it, and since it was the only thing she was interested in her brother took it on himself to create fake evidence for her to investigate in hopes it would help her come out of her shell.

And with Ryo listening in he asks about the incident that caused her to break from reality… hmm… I wonder what it could be?

Dun dun DUNNNNnnnot really surprising facts…

Shouichi though brings up how weird it is that someone who have a break from reality which is kind of shocking for someone with AMNESIA to say since however amnesia works in the real world in works of fiction there’s a good 80% chance you’re dealing with someone blocking out painful memories.

Shouichi talks about how beautiful the world is and how you shouldn’t run away from it, and then just literally starts listing off objects. He starts with the sky and the lake but starts getting down to things like houses and bugs, and is basically just going to list every single noun that he knows until Ryo finally interjects just to shut him up.

Fun note this is the first real argument Ryo and Shouichi have had in the series… shockingly mild way for these characters to have any kind of rivalry introduction huh?

Saeko shows up and Shouichi arbitrarily decides he’s going to run off and tell her everything is a lie while Ryo thinks it’s not Shouichi’s place to meddle. Since Shouichi refuses to even engage in debate on the subject any longer Ryo is eventually forced to punch him out. And it’s kind of hard to argue with Ryo here. I mean dude her brother’s right there I think if anyone should be having a talk with Saeko it should be him and not some random guy she met a few days ago who keeps bothering her.

The Black Zebra Unknown shows up back by the pregnant woman it’s hunting, but the police have her fully on guard and are of course entirely proficient at protecting her.

Or you know they are all being turned into super quickly aged corpses. But hey at least they’re willing to throw wave after wave of men at the problem and not… you know… just have Hikawa on standby ready to turn into G3 to actually have a chance at fighting this thing. I mean HIkawa is even there too but hey’s on personal bodyguard duty for the woman rather than being in the G-Trailer, or just being already suited up!

Shouichi gets a psychic flash of how bad a job the police are doing fighting the Unknown and is once again compelled to run off, leaving everyone else behind at the lake. Everyone left there all agree to just leave Saeko be and head off, but while they’re departing the White Zebra Unknown strikes at Saeko as she’s leaving the lake!

And it approached her from underwater so I guess… Zebra’s are amphibious?

Ryo is already a distance away but even though we don’t see him get an explicit psychic flash he immediately turns around and Henshin’s to Gills, once more with that odd visual effect of Ryo riding his bike next to Gills riding his bike. And yes Gills has a special bike of course he would, he’s a Kamen Rider. But seriously his bike isn’t magic or anything he just literally transforms Ryo’s normal bike so… yeah that visual effect remains cool but such a weird choice.

The police let Hojo drive the getaway car they’re bringing the pregnant woman in which proves to be a mistake as they’re overtaken by the Black Zebra and in some nice stunt work the Black Zebra hangs on the roof of the police car while he’s attacking the windows. And in an even cooler bit of stunt work Agito catches up to them and actually leaps from his bike onto the back of the cop car to take the fight to the Black Zebra!

Meanwhile before the White Zebra has the chance to finish off Saeko Gills arrives on the scene, and we get our first really good look at his bike which, unsurprisingly, matches up in theme quite well to how he looks.

It’s never mentioned in series but the name of his bike is the ‘Gills Raider’. Having it be introduced here driving through water is a nice touch! Also a nice touch is that he keeps repeatedly ramming the White Zebra with it and as you are all well aware I am a huge fan of people ramming motorcycles into monsters.

The action cuts back and forth between the two fights for a bits so I’ll hit a few highlights. Mainly that I wasn’t kidding about the Agito fight having some good stunt work.

Obviously some of the close up shots are staged but there’s enough long view shots where they are definitely fighting on the back of a moving car for the whole fight scene to feel very cool.

Hojo also rams the car to fling the two off and then immediately climbs out of the wrecked car to pull his gun on Agito as he’s still obsessed with capturing him. Agito is too distracted to notice and Hikawa is not about to let Hojo draw a bead on their rescuer.

I think that picture well captures a good look at Hojo’s desperate insanity, don’t you? Hikawa eventually slugs Hojo one and knocks him to the ground where Hikawa can look down at him with righteous indignation. Which all feels like a FINALLY kind of moment. Seriously I can’t believe it took that long for someone to punch Hojo. Yeesh.

With the real villain of the episode punched out, all that’s left is for ‘Believe Yourself’ to kick in and for Agito to wrap things up on his end with a Rider Kick… one that leaves him standing in a very unconvincing explosion effect as the Black Zebra blows up right away rather than the usual flailing around with the halo over his head that most Unknown get.

I guess since that fight was more about Hikawa/G3 than Agito they couldn’t use the good explosion special effects. Have to be consistent after all.

On Gills side honestly all he gets is some ramming hits with his bike (which oddly happen between cuts so we don’t get to see that much), and then in the end he finishes off the White Zebra with his own Rider Kick. Also with the benefit of an early explosion (Zebra’s are highly combustible, another Agito factoid for you), but since he blows up while Gills is still back flipping I’ll even give a pass to the bad special effect because of how cool that is.

You know how before I was debating whether cool guys looked at or didn’t look at explosions? Well now I have some proof. Really cool guys, like Gills, are so cool they have to achieve both at once, so he flips at explosions.

Remember that. Cool Gills flips at explosions. Words to live by.

However Gills was spending too much time being cool and not enough time thinking about Saeko, and during the middle of the fight she lost consciousness and drifted below the water. After de-Henshining back to Ryo he tries to dive into the Lake after her but he can’t find her as we see her still and lifeless body drifting below the waves. And that’s the…

Wait… there’s something else. Dramatic music accompanies the arrival of a Limo at a hospital, a hospital where they’re keeping the mute Evil Man. A stranger climbs out of the limo and checks in at reception and starts writing down his name ‘Tsugami Shou…’ But before he can finish it he crumples up the paper and instead leaves his name as Sawaki Tetsuya, before heading off to seemingly meet with the Evil Man.

And that, my dear readers, is the episode.

So, Final Thoughts?

This episode is good… but frustrating!

First of all they spent a lot of time implying this episode would finally give us some answers or hints about Agito only for that to all turn out to be a dodge. I mean yes it does at least serve as a means of confirming the importance of the Akatsuki-Gou incident but we already kind of knew that connected a lot of the characters so teasing the audience with an ancient civilization only for it to turn out to be a mental illness is… well frustrating!

Also it’s great to see Hikawa redeemed a bit and given another shot at being G3… which makes it frustrating that he doesn’t get to actually become G3 again in the episode. I mean if you want us to feel like he’s reclaimed his place in the show it would have been nice for him to even contribute to the last fight of the episode.

And like always the sting at the end raises some great new mysteries, like why there is another Shouichi seemingly running around and what his connection to the Evil Man might be, but since we’re getting so few answers it really just adds to the huge pile of questions we already had.

Honestly don’t get me wrong I know I sound disenchanted but it’s not bad. It’s a very fun and engaging episode and for once I really like the last fight, as the back of the car stunt work really is great. But Agito has found a rhythm that works… now it just needs to start working on actually advancing itself.

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

Some sort of giant scorpion tail stings a guy to death! Hikawa is investigating a murder, and it sounds like an old time one from before the Unknown appeared! Also the Scorpion Unknown has a big goofy shield!

Will Hikawa continue to be a competent detective? Will he actually get to become G3? And why the heck is the Evil Man in a hospital instead of in prison!? Let’s see if we find out next week on Kamen Rider Agito Episode 13 – Dad’s Clue.

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.