Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Nov 17, 2013 0:11:27 GMT -5
(I started it on Saturday, it still counts!)
KAMEN RIDER KUUGA
SYNOPSIS
Long ago, the monstrous Grongi tribe were at last stopped from their murderous game, the Gegeru, by a warrior named Kuuga, who defeated all of them and sealed the head Grongi, N Daguva Zeba, in a cave. In the present, the Grongi are resurrected and a man named Yuusuke Godai (who is one of the most ludicrously perfect protagonists ever) finds Kuuga's belt, the Arcle, and can use its power to become Kamen Rider Kuuga, and he helps the police defeat the Grongi. It looks a lot like this:
As the show progresses, a number of things become clear. First: The Gegeru is not some kill-crazy murder spree. The Grongi are attempting to turn humanity as savage as they are, and plunge the world into the Ultimate Darkness. That's not good. Further, Kuuga is becoming more powerful. Monster fights that initially follow the usual one-on-one Grongi vs. Kuuga model suddenly have darker context--even if Kuuga can destroy the Grongi, Kuuga's attacks are so powerful that when he hits the Grongi with his final attack, the resultant explosion causes a mile-wide fireball. As Kuuga assumes his final form, Ultimate, the true danger becomes clear--at full power Kuuga is as much of a danger as the Grongi, and the only thing that will keep Kuuga from going berserk is Yuusuke's strength of character. Even then, the notion that humanity is all but helpless and utterly stuck between two insanely powerful forces is not at all a comfort . . .
ANALYSIS
Back at the turn of the century, Kamen Rider had been off the air for nearly ten years. There had been a few movies in the early 90's but by and large, the money was being spent elsewhere. But as the new century dawned, it was decided to resurrect the venerated series for one more try. The result was Kamen Rider Kuuga, the first of what is called the Heisei series (for simplicity's sake "everything from Kuuga on is a Heisei series." Beyond that, like the UNIT Dating Controversy, it is best left unexamined lest one's head explode)
Kuuga is an odd duck of a show, partially because as it's the first of a new cycle, the franchise is at least a decade past its peak years at this point, and the kind of straight-ahead boys' adventure that was the core of classic Kamen Rider wasn't really gonna fly. There's a bit of it--Yuusuke has 2,000 individual skills, wants to "protect everyone's smiles," and given the stress he's under almost never loses his resolve and all of this is played totally straight--but the story actually turns that into something a virtue--his humanity is the thing that keeps his power from becoming as much of a threat as the Grongi, and so while he's not the most dynamic protagonist, it's turned into a virtue rather than a liability for the most part. The story is, boiled down to its basic level, a story about keeping true to yourself and not being corrupted even when the world is driving you to it.
To leaven Yuusuke's Gary Stu-ishness a bit, Kuuga has one of the most fleshed-out supporting casts ever. The show is seriously more interested in following them than the monster fights at times, and it's not unusual for the running time of a given episode to largely be taken up with events from their lives rather than the monster fights. It's something they never really try to do again in any of the subsequent series, at least not in this way.
The stunt-work is amazing and the fights have a real intensity to them. A real effort was made to make not all of the battles feel like they did in days past--two guys in rubber suits kicking each other in a rock quarry, so you have fights in the rain, or in snow, or at night (which was always fairly rare) and Kuuga's ability to form-change means means that the fights don't get too monotonous.
The bad news is, they were really hedging their bets. Released at the advent of widescreen HDTV in japan, Kuuga is . . .well, not done justice. It looks very videotapey, especially when all the previous Kamen Rider shows had been shot on 35mm, and so stuff like the first transformation cip above, when rather ghastly PS1-era CGI is painted on Yuusuke, it looks rather awful in today's context.
Also, tonally, it's a bit all over the place. Yuusuke is good as good can be, and he and his supporting cast can be serious and also goofy at times and then you have a Grongi attacks and someone dies bloody. Couple that with the fact that the plot can be a bit inscrutable (the Grongi have their own language, which is not translated, meaning that flipping great wodges of exposition get lost due to someone's desire to be obfuscatory. It can be a bit maddening trying to fit it all into a larger arc structure because the arc stuff is about 20 episodes long and a good deal of the rest is blind alleys and filler. All of them are. These are essentially toy commercials that run for a year, and that's their primary duty, so . . .filler is inevitable.
So, should you start with this one? Oh my God, no. It's an interesting historical curiosity--if you want to see how Kamen Rider came back and was a force to be reckoned with that continues unabated to this day . . .well, this won't explain it. It's better to watch this one a few series in when you have more of an idea of what works and what doesn't work for you and Kamen Rider and you can go back and look at this as a rough EP from a band that went on to do a string of great albums later. The seeds are there, and it's fitfully great, but the best is still a ways off yet.
Nevertheless, I chose it first, because you have to start somewhere, and it gave me a chance to do an active preamble. We'll see Kuuga again soon though, but for now, his story is complete.
That's all for Kuuga. Join us in seven (and hopefully I will do better with regards to actually starting and finishing it the same day) Join us next week as we look at 2008's Kamen Rider series. The Fangire are a race of murderous vampires. The Blue Sky Organization has been formed to fight them, but the only person who can vanquish the Fangire is the one who's destined to be their king--Wataru Kurenai. And he's a shut-in. Why is he so unwilling to fight, and what does all of this have to do with what happened to Wtaru's father 22 years ago? Join us as we wake up and break the chains of fate. Next week it's Kamen Rider Kiva:
KAMEN RIDER KUUGA
SYNOPSIS
Long ago, the monstrous Grongi tribe were at last stopped from their murderous game, the Gegeru, by a warrior named Kuuga, who defeated all of them and sealed the head Grongi, N Daguva Zeba, in a cave. In the present, the Grongi are resurrected and a man named Yuusuke Godai (who is one of the most ludicrously perfect protagonists ever) finds Kuuga's belt, the Arcle, and can use its power to become Kamen Rider Kuuga, and he helps the police defeat the Grongi. It looks a lot like this:
As the show progresses, a number of things become clear. First: The Gegeru is not some kill-crazy murder spree. The Grongi are attempting to turn humanity as savage as they are, and plunge the world into the Ultimate Darkness. That's not good. Further, Kuuga is becoming more powerful. Monster fights that initially follow the usual one-on-one Grongi vs. Kuuga model suddenly have darker context--even if Kuuga can destroy the Grongi, Kuuga's attacks are so powerful that when he hits the Grongi with his final attack, the resultant explosion causes a mile-wide fireball. As Kuuga assumes his final form, Ultimate, the true danger becomes clear--at full power Kuuga is as much of a danger as the Grongi, and the only thing that will keep Kuuga from going berserk is Yuusuke's strength of character. Even then, the notion that humanity is all but helpless and utterly stuck between two insanely powerful forces is not at all a comfort . . .
ANALYSIS
Back at the turn of the century, Kamen Rider had been off the air for nearly ten years. There had been a few movies in the early 90's but by and large, the money was being spent elsewhere. But as the new century dawned, it was decided to resurrect the venerated series for one more try. The result was Kamen Rider Kuuga, the first of what is called the Heisei series (for simplicity's sake "everything from Kuuga on is a Heisei series." Beyond that, like the UNIT Dating Controversy, it is best left unexamined lest one's head explode)
Kuuga is an odd duck of a show, partially because as it's the first of a new cycle, the franchise is at least a decade past its peak years at this point, and the kind of straight-ahead boys' adventure that was the core of classic Kamen Rider wasn't really gonna fly. There's a bit of it--Yuusuke has 2,000 individual skills, wants to "protect everyone's smiles," and given the stress he's under almost never loses his resolve and all of this is played totally straight--but the story actually turns that into something a virtue--his humanity is the thing that keeps his power from becoming as much of a threat as the Grongi, and so while he's not the most dynamic protagonist, it's turned into a virtue rather than a liability for the most part. The story is, boiled down to its basic level, a story about keeping true to yourself and not being corrupted even when the world is driving you to it.
To leaven Yuusuke's Gary Stu-ishness a bit, Kuuga has one of the most fleshed-out supporting casts ever. The show is seriously more interested in following them than the monster fights at times, and it's not unusual for the running time of a given episode to largely be taken up with events from their lives rather than the monster fights. It's something they never really try to do again in any of the subsequent series, at least not in this way.
The stunt-work is amazing and the fights have a real intensity to them. A real effort was made to make not all of the battles feel like they did in days past--two guys in rubber suits kicking each other in a rock quarry, so you have fights in the rain, or in snow, or at night (which was always fairly rare) and Kuuga's ability to form-change means means that the fights don't get too monotonous.
The bad news is, they were really hedging their bets. Released at the advent of widescreen HDTV in japan, Kuuga is . . .well, not done justice. It looks very videotapey, especially when all the previous Kamen Rider shows had been shot on 35mm, and so stuff like the first transformation cip above, when rather ghastly PS1-era CGI is painted on Yuusuke, it looks rather awful in today's context.
Also, tonally, it's a bit all over the place. Yuusuke is good as good can be, and he and his supporting cast can be serious and also goofy at times and then you have a Grongi attacks and someone dies bloody. Couple that with the fact that the plot can be a bit inscrutable (the Grongi have their own language, which is not translated, meaning that flipping great wodges of exposition get lost due to someone's desire to be obfuscatory. It can be a bit maddening trying to fit it all into a larger arc structure because the arc stuff is about 20 episodes long and a good deal of the rest is blind alleys and filler. All of them are. These are essentially toy commercials that run for a year, and that's their primary duty, so . . .filler is inevitable.
So, should you start with this one? Oh my God, no. It's an interesting historical curiosity--if you want to see how Kamen Rider came back and was a force to be reckoned with that continues unabated to this day . . .well, this won't explain it. It's better to watch this one a few series in when you have more of an idea of what works and what doesn't work for you and Kamen Rider and you can go back and look at this as a rough EP from a band that went on to do a string of great albums later. The seeds are there, and it's fitfully great, but the best is still a ways off yet.
Nevertheless, I chose it first, because you have to start somewhere, and it gave me a chance to do an active preamble. We'll see Kuuga again soon though, but for now, his story is complete.
That's all for Kuuga. Join us in seven (and hopefully I will do better with regards to actually starting and finishing it the same day) Join us next week as we look at 2008's Kamen Rider series. The Fangire are a race of murderous vampires. The Blue Sky Organization has been formed to fight them, but the only person who can vanquish the Fangire is the one who's destined to be their king--Wataru Kurenai. And he's a shut-in. Why is he so unwilling to fight, and what does all of this have to do with what happened to Wtaru's father 22 years ago? Join us as we wake up and break the chains of fate. Next week it's Kamen Rider Kiva:
