
Obligatory Kamen Rider Os first impressions
And so it begins. Watched episode 1 raw, so obviously I will have missed things. :D
The first episode kind of already confirms the impression I got from the press releases and character descriptions: that many elements of Os are very obvious nods in the direction of past Riders. To be fair, Kamen Rider is a franchise that relies on a specific, limited set of tropes; but what I'm talking about isn't that exactly. A trope is an archtype basically, something honed down to its basic elements; what I'm talking about is the specific ways in which those archtypes are explored. That's not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if one liked what is referenced, and it's all revisited in a way that revamps the ideas.
In many way, _Kamen Rider Os_ feels like _Kabuto_ on (even more) crack, in huge part because at a glance the Mysterious Kogami Foundation comes off as very similar to ZECT (and BOARD, to a lesser extent). The motorcyle brigade totally reminds me of ZECTroopers (who in turn are derived from Riotroopers), both in uniform and in how they are sent to attack the Greeed (how many e's??) and subsequently get decimated; the president of the Foundation is like Kagami's father at his loopiest (red shoes, anyone?), while also giving off that same vibe that he knows exactly what is going on and that all of this is part of furthering his own agenda.As for Eiji himself, I may completely change my mind about this, but if he reminds me of any previous Riders, it's probably of a mix between Godai and Shoichi (full disclosure: I have not finished Kuuga). Godai was a sort of drifter by choice (drifter not in the sense of moving around, but in how he seemed to live a lackadaisical sort of life, without putting down roots), and Eiji is much more of an actual literal drifter. As for Shoichi, more in the way of his personality and how he approaches life, I think. Hard to really tell yet, particularly going off a raw episode, but that's the vibe I get.
I say a man killed by Greeed. I am assuming he was killed, and to be honest, to me this was the strongest bit of this episode. There was something just so chilling about the way it happened, how Eiji turned in time to see the detective's presumably dead body just dragged up by this disembodied hand that had been helping him, and then to see him changed and possessed by this entity. Because at that moment he knows that Ankh is very much not human, and that if he helps Eiji it's for his own reasons that have nothing to do with protecting human life. To us, a reanimated body, with a new, alien personality is a horrifying idea, and it just works so well to give the whole thing a certain something more. I can just tell I'm going to love Ankh.
As for the rest of it... it's all very arcadey, isn't it? Which I suppose is the point. I must admit that I'm not loving the "Taka! Tora! Batta! TA-TO-BA! TATOBA! TA-TO-BA!" thing, seems a bit dopey, and... I don't really like the OP. Ah well. I do think the vending machine thing works surprisingly well, at least as it was used with the motorcycle brigade.
Overall, not really among the best first episodes of a Heisei Rider series, in my opinion, but interesting enough.
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