Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Jul 5, 2014 9:02:29 GMT -5
"Trained to change into an Oni to save people, these mysterious men: Hibiki, Ibuki, and Todoroki. Meeting them every day, I, Asumu Adachi, think I am changing too."
KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI
SYNOPSIS
Graduating from junior high into high school has made Asumu Adachi feel his life lacks focus and direction. On his way to a memorial service before his entrance for high school, Asumu's life is saved by a man named Hibiki, a mysterious man who shrugs off his seemingly superhuman abilities by saying he works out. Intrigued by this mysterious man, Asumu soon begins tagging along after him, soon learning that Hibiki does a lot more than "work out."
Hibiki is an Oni, a being trained to battle the Makamou, a race of monsters that dwell in the rural areas of Japan and consume the flesh of any human unlucky to wander into their path. The Oni, through their various schools, have learned to destroy the Makamou with a technique involving "pure sound." Hibiki uses taiko drumming, his ally Ibuki uses wind energy from his trumpet-like weapon, and Todoroki uses the energy from his electric guitar. Together the three Oni criss-cross the country, assisted by their allies from Takeshi Gear, an organisation created to provide them with weapons and devices to aid their hunt.
But someone is upgrading the Makamou as well--changing them into stronger, deadlier, beings. As the battles become harder and more desperate, the various Oni begin to form a tighter alliance and work together to stop them.
Meanwhile, Hibiki and Asumu become mentor and student, and it seems that perhaps even Hibiki will train Asumu to become an Oni and someday replace Hibiki. But Asumu's future may not lie down that path . . .
ANALYSIS
Buckle in, this is gonna take awhile.
After the terrible ratings of Kamen Rider Blade, it was briefly considered that it was time to give the Kamen Rider series another rest and try something else. One idea that was floated was resurrecting another Shotaro Ishinomori creation, Henshin Ninja Arashi, and doing a new version (despite the rumours, Hibiki is not an update of Arashi with "Kamen Rider" slapped on it at the last minute) and running with that for a year while the production re-grouped and took some time to look at where things were going.
However, while Blade had been a ratings failure, it had strong toy sales, and that was just enough to give Kamen Rider a reprieve from cancellation, and in the name of putting their best foot forward, they injected the show with more fresh blood than ever before--new writers, new producers, even the basic structure of the show was overhauled (for the first time since Kamen Rider Kuuga, Hibiki actually has an end credits montage, which hasn't happened since) The lead actor was a bit older and more mature than the Heisei Riders to this point had been. Even the Hibiki suit itself looks extra-flashy, thanks to a special light-reactive paint they begin using for the Rider suits in this series.
The fights take on an added dimension as well--for the first time, as a rule, monster fights happen between normal-size Riders and giant-sized monsters fairly commonly (until the budget gets cut mid-season, but more on that in a bit) It's an amazing thing to see, not least when you think of the budget they're doing this on.
To further set him apart, I should mention here that Hibiki, despite being highly trained, is not much of a motorcyclist. Or able to drive a car terribly well. In fact, it's best not to let him behind the wheel of moving vehicles as a general rule.
In terms of presentation, the show continues to make itself distinct--the mood is either very light, relaxed, contemplative, or out and out dark and eerie (the early episodes do an amazing job of making the Makamou's appearance on the scene eerie and terrifying in an almost David Lynch sort of way) and that sits cheek by jowl with the odd spontaneous musical number, various slapsticky comic routines, and a mentor/student relationship which, to Western eyes, may seem a little bit weird.
But the mentor/student relationship is at the heart of the show. Hibiki and Asumu's relationship to one another is contrasted with the struggles of the other riders, Ibuki and Todoroki, to train or, in Todoroki's case, be their replacements--Ibuki's student leaves him, which causes him to question everything he'd believed in up to this point. Todoroki feels himself unworthy of his mentor's name and so keeps his own to keep from despoiling his legacy. There's a theme of what it means to follow someone and what you do when their path isn't yours anymore that runs through the first half of the show.
And then, in episode 30, everything goes to hell.
No one really knows the whole story of what happened during Hibiki's run that led to the producer, the head writer, and the backup writer being replaced, but it's one of those controversies that caused a huge uproar at the time (even the actor who played Hibiki was publicly irate about and called the whole process "fraudulent" as well as saying the final episode went through multiple rewrites in the middle of filming, causing valuable production time to be wasted and filming to scrapped) For a culture that generally doesn't air dirty laundry publicly like this, this caused a major firestorm, and the hush that falls over discussions of Hibiki's second half is usually filled with a lot of speculation.
It is generally suggested that a number of the changes had to do with budgetary and scheduling matters--hence the disappearance of the giant Makamou and so much location shooting in the mountains is soon curtailed. In addition, some of Hibiki's more brutal weapons--in the early episode, Hibiki sports some Wolverine-esque claws, and the ability to breathe fire out of a "mouth" in his mask--were eliminated, as they were supposedly "too scary" for younger viewers.
None of that is unusual, in and of itself (Blade had a similar writer changeover, after all). Kamen Rider has been in trouble for violent content before and it's made on a tight budget and a tighter clock (in general, a rider series is 7-8 episodes ahead of whichever episode is being aired presently) so these things happen. But how then to explain the loss of other distinctive touches that had nothing to do with budget matters? (the kanji on the screen to catch your eye when the Makamou or the Oni appear, the instrumental theme, etc.) With the changeover, the show's just not as good as it was--the quiet, contemplative nature of the show and the subtle examination of the relationships between master and student get muddled, and while Hibiki doesn't quite become "just another Kamen Rider show," it loses a lot of uniqueness, and I think the behind the scenes mess has given it something of a black mark and it is generally assumed that it must not have been very good to have so many problems.
I thought that way when I started on it. And I was wrong. It's not classic Kamen Rider, and as such, it's absolutely wonderful. It's a very winning show that intentionally subverts most of the classic Kamen Rider tropes (Hibiki is no tortured hero, there is no master plan among the Makamou as such, and the battles have fairly manageable stakes to them--the fate of the world doesn't necessarily hinge on what they do) and when you've seen as much Kamen Rider as I have, when you see people REALLY pushing against the boundaries of what you can do with the genre and getting into this interesting groove, it's great to see, and I was very disappointed when the changes took hold and it just wasn't as good as it used to be.
I think the actior who played Hibiki said it best, when he said the show was "essentially an incomplete process."
Thankfully, almost ten years later, Hibiki is getting something of a reassessment, and a more favourable one at that. Having returned for an arc in Kamen Rider Decade (where, it should be noted, it was very much done in the style of the first half of Hibiki) and is even getting his own S.H. Figuarts figure at last, which means that maybe it's OK at last to admit that this strange puzzle of a show was OK after all. It probably shouldn't be your first stop along the path of Kamen Rider shows (unless your tastes tend towards the idiosyncratic) but it's well worth trying. You just might like it.
NEXT WEEK
Shiro Kazami witnesses the organisation known as Destron committing a murder. Suddenly a target of Destron, Kazami dodges multiple assassination attempts before they finally murder his family. The first two Kamen Riders attempt to help, and Shiro begs them to turn him into a cyborg as well to gain vengeance for his family, but they refuse. Unfortunately, he soon gets injured and they have to do it anyway. In seven, join us for a trip back to the Showa era and a look at Kamen Rider V3