Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Dec 7, 2013 13:59:34 GMT -5
KAMEN RIDER FOURZE
"Space, the final frontier--filled with cosmic energy. These young
people will open the door to the future of space with Astro Switches.
Space is in your hands! Reach out and seize the universe!"
SYNOPSIS
Amanogawa high school is a crazy place, even by the standards of wacky high schools. There are the usual problems with cliques--there are jocks, queen bees, and teachers who are downright obnoxious and won't stop punctuating everything they say by snapping their suspenders. There's also a locker that functions as a teleportation gate to a moonbase, because why not.
Into this situation strides would-be bad boy Gentaro Kisaragi, who has the most impossible hair known to man. Gentaro's just transferred over and only knows one person--Yuki, who he knew from childhood, and is the biggest space groupie you can imagine. Gentaro has a simple ambition in life--to make friends with everyone in the world, no matter what it takes to win them over. It's because of his irrepressible nature that he gradually wins over a whole group of students (goths, sportos, street dancers . . .they all think he's a righteous dude) and forms the Kamen Rider Club, a group that both investigates urban legends about so called "Kamen Riders," and give Gentaro a way to make even more friends, but also are trying to figure out just why in the hell the school is under attack from creatures called Zodiarts who are behind it.
Fortunately, there's someone to help--Kengo Utahoshi, who is irritated by the Kamen Rider Club and Gentaro especially, but has the key to help them fight the Zodiarts and the Horoscopes that control them--namely, the Fourze Driver and the Astroswitches, which when combined, give Kamen Rider Fourze a wide array of powers to whip Zodiart ass with, and while Kengo can't fight himself, much to his initial dismay, Gentaro can, and with that uneasy partnership, we have our hook for the series:
As things go on, a few more complication present themselves--for one, the appearance of Ryusei Sakuta, or as he is known, Kamen Rider Meteor, who in addition to acting a hell of a lot like Bruce Lee, also seems to be operating his own agenda. Also, the person behind the Horoscopes might have had something to do with Kengo's father, and might also have a thing or two to do with Kengo, the reason the Astro Switches were created, and the ultimate destiny of mankind.
ANALYSIS
Kamen Rider Fourze was commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Kamen Rider series, which they soft-pedaled slightly as they'd only recently done an anniversary series in Kamen Rider Decade (there are hints of this--"Fourze" is a phoneticzed "forty," and each member of the Kamen Rider Club is named after , but more importantly, it was the first series to roll out in the wake of the Fukishima disaster, and the creators of this series have cited this as the thing that made them determined that Fourze would "bring smiles back to the people."
(also, to sell jillions of Astro Switches while they were smiling. Seriously--they moved a LOT of those)
And this it does without apology or irony. Fourze is so damned positive it's virtually impossible to continue having a bad day when you watch it. Gentaro's quest to make friends with everyone (including the students, teachers, the Zodiarts, and in one occasion, a giant robot) is the thing that drives the series--he will not take no for an answer for making friends, and in a real sense, it's his faith in his friends that unites hem in the Kamen Rider Club and makes them break out of the stereotypical roles they got locked into being in high school--jocks don;t have to JUST be jocks, geeks don't have to just be geeks, etc--there is a theme of reaching for something beyond "the way things are."
And on one level, that's what the conflict between Fourze and the Horoscopes is. Fourze's motifts are all of rockets, space, etc.--he represents the technology-positive future slipping out of rigid old earth and aiming for the future and the unknown. The Horoscopes represent the old way of doing things--mankind is ruled by the stars instead of going to them as equals. This may sound somewhat highfalutin' for a show where the lead character's head is shaped like a rocket, but . . .it's there to be had.
And, in what is becoming a motif here lately, the music's really awesome from the intro theme, "Switch On"
To Kamen Rider Meteor's theme, "Shooting Star"
To Fourze's Cosmic States fight song, "Cosmic Mind"
Fourze is probably a great into into Kamen Rider for anyone, as its general lightness in tone, rather bizarre take on high school drama, colourful action, and genuinely likeable characters, and hilarious comedy really is hard to resist. It's not the deepest show out there, but if a lighter Kamen Rider show is where you're feeling it, then by all means, this is for you.
NEXT WEEK
Our first consecutive series! Tokyo is beset by attacks from monsters called Phantoms. It seems that certain people, when they fall to despair, die, and the Phantom within them takes over. However, there is someone out there fighting to be their last hope and destroy the Phantoms. In seven, we take a look at Kamen Rider Wizard
www.dailymotion.com/video/xy0f1m_kamen-rider-wizard-henshin_people?search_algo=2