Well, I'm back folks. Been falling behind on things, but figured I'd make it up to you guys by taking on another Kamen Rider series! I'm gonna do these in the order I finish them, so after my initial dive into
Kamen Rider W, I'll follow it up with my second dip:
Kamen Rider OOO (Like saying multiple Os), the 40th Anniversary series!
As the twelfth series in the Heisei Era of Riders and the series airing during Kamen Rider's 40th anniversary AND holding the honor of airing the 1000th episode,
OOO was pretty much put on a pedestal to celebrate the legacy and impact the spandex-wearing grasshopper man has had on Japan and its neighbors with dedicated translators. Once again, I'll be going spoiler free (well, BIG spoilers) with personal thoughts on everything in general. I'll be skipping the movies again, and just sticking to the "core" series (hehe, joke, there, I'm funny). No interesting cast or crew choices....in this paragraph. Well, second verse, same as the first, let's go!
Story Structure
In an unnamed Japanese city, a museum goes through the usual antics of having world destroying artifacts get damaged, opened, and all sorts of usual shenanigans that crack it open like a pinata. In this series's case, the world destroying artifact was holding the monstrous Greeed, five powerful monsters based on animals are unleashed to wreak mayhem upon the people. The Greeed are beings made of "Core Medals", three sets of medals that contain the power of the animal species they represent that give them power and life, and consume and are fueled by "Cell Medals" common silver versions of Core Medals that are mass produced by human desire and greed. To obtain power, they go out to farm the Cell Medals from humanity and ever go after each other for their Core Medals and become whole. Ankh, the red bird Greeed reduced to a floating right forearm, is the common enemy of the remaining four and is their first target until Ankh finds assistance in the ambition-less, passionless vagabond Eiji Hino and grants him the power to transform into the titular Kamen Rider OOO, using the Core Medals Ankh stole from his fellow Greeed. While Eiji wants to use this new power to protect humans from the Greeed, Ankh only cares about using Eiji to destroy the other Greeed to grow stronger himself. And so, the two unlikely allies are joined together and backed by the mysterious Kougami Foundation to combat the Greeed and gather all of the Core Medals.
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| OUR HERO RIDES TRIUMPHANTLY INTO BATTLE! |
With such a BIG set-up and many Core Medals to track down, OOO was definitely given enough material to keep a lasting story that can drag out through 50 episodes instead of dragging on. Once again, we don't really have "filler" episodes, something I'm actually KIND of missing from these shows as I have finished my fourth series now. The characters immediately grabbed me with their comedic antics, as this series is certainly more comedy-focused than the dramatic W.
Each two episodes show how one of the Greeed is planning on gathering Cell Medals by picking a reluctant human to be their puppet to foster their Greeed in each of their own unique ways, addressing the subject of "greed" and its many interpretations. Rather than painting greed as a black and white sin, the series actually takes it into a gray area and addresses greed more of a concept of void vs excess and how even greed and human desire can be GOOD things. Eiji and Ankh more or less stick to crazy antics being practically homeless until Eiji gets a home in the "theme of the week"-based restaurant Cous Coussier and fighting each other on morals as much as they fight the "Yummy" of the day (my favorite pun in Kamen Rider history so far). And the series keeps you from getting bored by introducing the fact that the Greeed are monsters of...greed. That is their only drive, so they are just as much each other's enemies as Eiji and Ankh's. Being comedy-based, a lot of the comedy comes from the enigmatic Kougami Foundation and how its president is a total whackjob who is a giant mastermind.
Each Greeed has their own unique way of gathering Cell Medals, somewhat matching their personality so it makes each encounter different and interesting on how Eiji and Ankh will tackle them.
Where as
W eventually got tiresome with its ever tried and true motivation of the villain being "revenge" every now and then, how greed and desire are observed and addressed in each episode is new and different each time. My biggest problem and contingency on reboots these days is this: you're free to re-tell the story of the character we know today, just do something FUN and NEW with it. Be inventive, don't just either do everything step by step the same or completely botch it and miss the point. Of course, while I do like this series, I do have some grievances.
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| Enjoying the view, ladies~? |
A minor issue I have is the driving tension between Eiji and Ankh. Its obvious what path Ankh will go down, but the number of his d-bag moments certainly outnumber any redeemable moments. Ankh constantly crosses the line, but while he is punished, I just find it irritating that they still expect him to hold up his own end of bargains. Luckily Eiji isn't an idiot, and plots against Ankh just as must as Ankh plots against him.It's an interesting relationship, to say the least. Luckily his eventual redemption made up for everything.
While greed is addressed, I will admit that it can drag a bit in that while how the issue of how it and desire are treated. Yes, the motivation for the desire is pretty much different each time, I do have to roll my eyes how some motivations do look like an ass-pull. Case and point: a spoiled daughter buys a lot on her own until her father's job is thrown to crap, so she just freaks out and just starts buying more and more and getting them into even more debt. Meh.
But my biggest issue of OOO in the grand scheme of things: the villain. I can't reveal who the ultimate big bad is, but I can say that their motivation just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sure if you were to go into some in-depth philosophy lessons for a few minutes, I could get, but as it is the villain's ultimate goal and reasons for doing what he does not only make little sense, but WHY and WHERE he got such a motivation is just weaksauce and doesn't compare in comparison to other characters and their motivations and goals. Bottom line: the villain is ultimate the show's failing point. That's two series in a world where the villain's motivation is either too vague to get or just plain weak. Not a great way to go.
But as a whole, Kamen Rider OOO's story is strong, filled with interesting lore, and PLENTY of comedy to keep you from getting bored from the typical dragging of Kamen Rider series. The villain is the weakest point, but luckily they at least give his final battle something worthwhile and plenty of fun characters. Whom we will take a look at next!
Characters
Eiji Hino (
Shu Watanabe): Meet Eiji Hino, or as he's called in some circles, Godai 2.0! I kid, but Eiji is your typical roaming vagabond who only wants to do good, get paid to get by, and doesn't carry anything beyond tomorrow's underwear (which they show him in A LOT. Fanservice knows no gender). But surprisingly, Eiji isn't a dimwitted boy scout; he's just as conniving as the Greeed are, pretty much forcing Ankh to be his partner throughout these excursions.
And, there's a lot of depth to him beyond his broken smile. I think he is the most damaged but most charming Rider I have ever seen, and that's after going through four series so far. Yeah, its not much compared to total amount of series, but it's really saying something about this man's character. This is nothing spoilery as they delve into it pretty early on, but Eiji was the son of a politician and traveled a lot and at one point was friends with a village of vaguely-middle eastern people. The village is one day destroyed by rebels that his father pretty much set up, and blamed the loss of many lives on himself, shattering whoever he was and breaking any kind of humanity on him. From there on, he goes about as a traveler with no true ambition or drive or passion; just passing through the motions of living like a zombie, but still having some hope and optimism, keeping tomorrow's underwear as his greatest concern beyond protecting others. He makes it his entire life to save others, no matter how much strain and punishment his body is put through, even if its killing him. Just as he reaches a point where his powers start controlling him and breaking his body down to the point of barely standing, he still finds the obsessive pull to go towards innocent, trapped civilians chanting "OOO!" like they're waiting for a savior to come. It's actually quite chilling just how much pain Eiji goes through. But through it all, Eiji is forced to confront his past and begin healing as a person, and becoming a new man as a result of it. Who he becomes in the end is up to the viewer to find out, as Eiji has earned the spot of my favorite Rider in the series so far. There's actually an interesting read on his PTSD that I would highly recommend reading about from this tumblr, "Henshin Posers!"
http://henshinposers.tumblr.com/post/88998476479/kamen-rider-ptsd-rider-themes-part-1 . Fair warning, there are unmarked spoilers for this and other series, but seriously give it a read sometime.
Bonus Fact: Shu Watanabe has performed several songs on the show's soundtrack for each main Core Combo. My personal favorites being
Sun Goes Up and
Time Judged All.
Ankh (
Ryosuke Miura): The red-colored bird Greeed who just has the obsessive drive to become the most outlandish and hipster looking motherbastard I have ever seen. After being freed, Ankh was only a floating right hand that attached himself to the half-dead corpse of a detective that helped Eiji in the first episode. First off, FULL props to the puppeteer of Ankh's hand, Satoshi Fujita, because I never knew it was possible to have a hand EMOTE, but man did he do it. Ankh is the wildcard, obviously ill-intent and doesn't truly care about Eiji, his friends, or any other human so long as he can get lots of Cell Medals to be fueled and as long as Eiji can beat the Core Medals out of his fellow Greeed. Being a Greeed, he isn't exactly "whole", and is constantly wanting something to fill the void. But as all Anti-Heroes go, Ankh is a pretty cool case. At first I thought he was going to be your "typical anti-hero", with his too cool for school attitude, constantly POSING whenever he sits up in trees or high places, swishing his head back and forth, and munching on phalic objects (ice pops). But Ankh is actually THE STRAIGHT MAN within Eiji's company, which makes it hilarious since he's a monster among them experiencing things as a human. Ankh is the most NORMAL out of them, as he has to deal with the random antics of Cous Coussier owner Chiyoko, Hina's compassion and impossible strength, Eiji's own twisted brand of manipulation, and Date as a WHOLE. He's a serious man with an agenda who's surrounded by insanity and is slowly becoming just as crazy as the rest of them. This is a man who's lost his goddamn mind and wants to kill everyone in the room. Ankh's obvious path to redemption is WELL done, and I actually felt my heart turn a bit in the final 10 episodes as Ankh's heading toward the finish line of his character arc. The cherry on top is actor Ryosuke Miura just LOVING this role and just over-acting the entire time (in the FUN way). The man obviously loves the part and the flashyness, and milks it in nearly every scene.
Kousei Kougami (Takashi Ukaji): The mysterious and eccentric as hell president of the Kougami Foundation, the man celebrates the birthday of every employee in his company, spends most of his time baking cakes, and provides Eiji with such wonderful toys to play with all while screaming, singing, and just spouting random engrish "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and "WONDERFUL"! Kougami is just fun, and the definition of the Bunny-Ears Lawyer. He acts like a loon and nutball, but is easily THE most manipulative man in the entire series who plays everyone around him like chess pieces. While he is shady and his motivation unknown, he is ultimately on the side of good. He's just not afraid to lie to our heroes because they didn't ask. Kougami's entire purpose is to remind everyone of Kamen Rider's 40th birthday by shouting it nearly every episode and having an obsession with births and beginnings, but his hamminess is just A JOY. Praise Ukaji-san because I just can't stop smiling when I see him on screen.
Greeed: The four Greeed are the main antagonists of the series, four monsters of pure desire and greed. Each of them represent a different method of obtaining what they desire that matches perfectly well with their personalities.
Uva (
Yūsuke Yamada), the green insect Greeed, is brash, angry, but perfectly willing to play the waiting game with his plans and desires.
Kazari (
Taito Hashimoto), yellow feline Greeed, is the smartest of the bunch and plays the leader role, and is on no one's side but his own and willing to use Eiji's desire to protect people against him.
Mezool (human form
Honoka Miki, voice
Yukana Nogami), blue fish Greeed, is conniving and the one who keeps the others in check when they start getting ambitious and is the most patient of the bunch. I find it somewhat typical and odd that she desires true love and her human disguise form is that of a middle school girl with a habit of wearing shorts (her human actress being 13-14 at the time of the show's airing). Lastly, we have
Gamel (
Hiroyuki Matsumoto), the dimwitted large-mammal grey Greeed, who is the dumb tank of the group who just causes mayhem and does whatever he's satisfied with at the moment. These four conflicting personalities makes the tension of who's going to betray who first thrilling and actually pretty funny with how easily and soon their so-called teamwork falls apart.
Akira Date (Hiroaki Iwanaga): My favorite character next to Eiji, Akira is the Secondary Rider for this series, Kamen Rider Birth (can you guess who named it?). Date was hired by Kougami to gather 100,000,000 Cell Medals and destroy the Greeed and their Yummies in the process and be paid that much in Yen as a reward. Date is basically a bounty hunter Kamen Rider, and is hilarious in the process. He's fighting for a good purpose, but REALLY wants the payment that comes along with it. He's fun, easy-going, but really does have a bit of a practical and dark mindset. He just looks badass walking around in his flight suit, aviator jacket, and lugging around a giant jug of Cell Medals, and using a gun that can shoot Medals with enough kick to send a normal human flying. Date is a little bit of a nutter, just taking a lax look at things but with the RIGHT amount of seriousness to get down to business when lives are at risk. I also do love how his whole concept is an opposite to Eiji, as a Rider. While Eiji uses the power of nature and animals combined with the forces of what is essentially magic (okay, ALCHEMY), while Birth was purely a creation of the Kougami Foundation and uses tools and the common Cell Medal to fight. Just some fun analogies I found there.
Shintaro Goto (Asaya Kimijima): And one of my least favorite characters, former cop Goto was the survivor of a squad of Kougami security that charged at the Greeed during their release, and doesn't see Eiji as the true hero and not using OOO to its full potential. Goto is driven by pride, and is nothing but annoying when he constantly complains about not being given the power to fight the Greeed and is just reduced into a delivery boy giving OOO more toys to play with. But thankfully, the show realizes his issues and works him to basically go through an embarrassment conga-line to have his pride shattered and understand that he needs to work toward what he wants and earn it, getting some well-deserved humility served up. He's pretty much bland otherwise as a character, being a straight man to everyone else's insanity but not EMOTING his frustration with them as much as Ankh. Just bland, but he's at least given a character arc.
Doctor Kiyoto Maki (Yu Kamio): The head of the science division of the Kougami Foundation, Doctor Maki essentially creates the toys and gear for OOO to use including robot animals, motorcycle vending machines, and studies the Greeed and Yummy. Cold and emotionless, Doctor Maki holds little regard for anyone else's life, because of his obsession with "endings" and death, believing that something's worth can only be measured and determined when it dies (very much like how the afterlife judges newcomers). Kougami's complete opposite in nearly every respect, and a master manipulator all the same. That is until you knock the strange doll off his shoulder; then he's a damn loon trying to put it back on his shoulder. This, of course, is exploited for all the comedy its worth. Doctor's Maki's history and past are slowly revealed as the series progresses. While it started off pretty interesting and enthralling, once endgame comes around he just starts falling apart. A shame too, because seeing Kamio-sans acting is really endearing and glues you to the screen as he monologues.
Hina Izumi (Riho Takada): The sister of the cop Ankh possessed, she sticks around as funny side character with no real purpose beyond giving Ankh a morality pet and for SOME reason having super strength. They give absolutely NO REASON why she's super strong. My own theory for why involves Kamen Rider Agito, but I haven't finished the series so it's in the air. She doesn't really have much a character other than ship tease for Eiji AND Ankh (oddly) and hilariously strong. She's the worry-wort, and has nothing much beyond that. but credit to her actress, Takada-san, who was only 15 when the series was made and did her job pretty well.
Erika Satonaka (Mayuko Arisue): Kougami's secretary who eats Kougami's cakes and acts as a delivery service when Goto isn't around. She acts bland and uninteresting, but come episode 20 she's actually pretty badass, being able to take on the weaker Yummy's and even use Kamen Rider Birth's Cell Medal gun. She's more or less just there for fun as well, and the fact that most of her trope consist of fanservice-related items, you can pretty much guess her main purpose.
Chiyoko Shiraishi (Marie Kai): The owner of Cous Coussier. She's eccentric and changes the theme of her restaurant every week. Coo-coo. Nothing to see here. Move along.
The main objective of
Kamen Rider OOO is to have fun, so its characters obviously have to be fun. I am disappointed that the female characters don't really have much purpose beyond being odd. But as the purpose is to have fun, I did have fun with these characters. Eiji is one of the deepest and most scarred characters I've ever seen and his journey to fixing himself is amazing and Ankh's own path to redemption. Being fun-oriented, everyone is over the top is a glorious way. Well done, actors.
Fight Scenes/Designs
After seeing how
W does things production-wise,
OOO pretty much followed the same pattern. The Rider suit designs are pretty awesome, with EVERY Core Medal being a piece of the suit, creating A LOT of different combinations (and toy sales!). I honeslty am curious if the suits were all designed as separate pieces, or if they're similar to the kid toys where each section could be attached and dettached for whatever combination they're using this time around. Each pure Combo of OOO is awesome looking and able to combine elements of each animal the Medals represent to make a unique design for each form, and thank god Birth is an entirely separate design. My major problem with W's Rider designs was that barring the CGI and weapons, they were literally pallette swaps. Hell, even the movie riders Eternal and Skull were the same suit with new paintjobs, different helmets, and added accessories.
The monster designs were all unique and different, and had a "character" to them with each episode and how they went about the action scenes. Once again we jump around to different terrains for the fights, but at least they're not random jump cuts like in OOO (the worst offender being the Joker/Heat Dopant fight). With all the various animals and forms that show up, they're all pretty cool. If I had a least favorite, it would have to be the Cat Yummy-Dominatrix with scalpels on her hand.
CGI is more rampant here, but its honestly not the worst I've ever seen. So long as you're better than the so-called "shape-shifting" special effect from WolfCop. Plus the final battle became a CGI-fest, but at least it doesn't become just a stupid, high octane, pointless, laser light show that certain final battles like to go. I left impressed, and not disappointed. A win for everyone.
General/Final Thoughts
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| REMEMBER: REGARDLESS OF BEING NEXT TO THE NAZI-CLONE, OOO IS THE GOOD GUY |
OOO is fantastic. When I finished it, I kept trying to think of why I liked it so much more than
OOO even though it wasn't as strong or compelling as
W. And then it hit me with all the bright colors, happy atmosphere, and comedic focus that doesn't forget that its a drama and needs conflict with the characters:
Persona 4.
Persona 4 is my all-time favorite RPG, is a sunny, funny, and absolutely emotional journey that was such a far departure from its predecessor's tone
Persona 3. Weird to bring it up, but I would call
OOO "
Persona 4-Lite". It's not as in-depth and as much as an emotional journey, but it's just strong and happy enough to keep you entertained and see what wacky antics our characters will go through first as the multiple factions clash and it becomes a mystery over just who will be left standing when the dust settles.
But what
OOO has ultimately over
W, is the ending. I have seen A LOT of arc-based shows, and I have never seen a more tied together ending. Every character who had an arc finishes it, all loose-ends are tied, and I was left completely satisfied (Giggity [these are the jokes, people; cheap but effective]). I would HIGHLY recommend
OOO to any casual fan just looking to get into Kamen Rider. I do however have to add the stipulation that the episodes that celebrate the 1000th episode, and the 40th anniversary by extension, there will be A LOT of jokes and references thrown that will just zoom right over your head. So take that with a bit of caution.
Kamen Rider OOO was a great, fun, enjoyable ride through and through. I would highly recommend it, just don't expect to take it TOO seriously by the end of things. Well, with this out of the way, I shall move on to future projects and keep in touch. And remember....
"COUNT THE MEDALS!"
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| Just putting this here for you to try and guess the context...God I miss Date |
