So after the previous episode dropping that huge bomb, the question of course would be what would be this series’ idea of how to follow it up. This episode on itself gave us some interesting answers to that. I’m not entirely happy with this episode, but I’m most definitely intrigued.
What I didn’t like about this episode is how it ditched some of the realism here, most notably one event: the one where Samurai Flamenco kicked that giant crocodile with metal armor outside of the bus. I mean, this series has always stressed that Masayuki has no superpowers: all of his powers come from gadgets. That is one part that they need to keep in this series, otherwise that will pretty much go against a lot of the build-up of the first seven episode. And that was some really great build-up!
However, what surprised me was how fast this episode went. You’d think that the creators would want to let things sink in and take their time for this, but instead this episode really developed Masayuki and having him change. At the end of the episode he already was consumed by his own fame and had sold out. He had already beaten like… four more goons from King Torture?
What most struck me about this episode was what it was building up for. The way with which most people have already forgotten about all of the policemen that died (and this show actually acknowledges it, rather than making it a writing flaw). Something is going to happen, and knowing episode seven, it’ll again be big. It’s now up to the creators though, to actually use this build-up. You can have such good build-up, but if the actual delivery in the end disappoints then you’re either way stuck with a nasty aftertaste.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
I’ll repost what I posted on another site even though people jumped all over me for it:
This episode was really, really weak. I could see they were going for a parody of old supervillians but it really wasn’t funny at all. I was pretty bored through the whole ep. Here’s hoping they step it up if they intend to stick with the fantasy plotline because right now it’s looking like the show totally jumped the shark.
As a huge Kamen Rider fan I wouldn’t mind if the show went full toku (which is what I had originally expected), but I can definitely understand why it seems weird and over-the-top.
And I would have vastly preferred either the whole series be grounded-in-realism or full-toku- this sudden genre shift is a little jarring and I’m not too sure I’m happy with it.
Still enjoying the show though! And probably going to enjoy it either way.
I really hope this episode was just setting up for something big. The enemies were just plain bad even in terms of being a parody. This was a disappointing episode for me. Please just be the “calm” before the storm.
Episode 9 was more of the same. Failed parody that frankly, just sucked. If we weren’t so deep in, I would probly drop this. Will stick with it just to see if it somehow redeems itself.
I too don’t like the episode, but 9 was much better. I think, by this point, it’s pretty obvious – if there are idiots, who wants to be super heroes, there’s got to be idiots, who wants to be super villains. If this is there the story is heading, it’s awesome. If not – would be sad.
Things were a bit slow this episode after the giant gorilla reveal. No casualties and the monsters weren’t all that menacing (boiling pot rhino). The latest episode though while started off dull quickly changed pace to being a lot more dark with King Torture’s appearance though. I’m still pretty interested in how they’ll lead us for the rest of the series despite the fact that I did enjoy the realism from earlier on in the series.