Kamen Rider Black RX Episodes 14-15

EPISODE 14

Gotta love how incompetent the Crisis are. They're growing a girl to raise into a Super Duper Crisis Princess or something. It's taken time and care, and she's actually made from the cells of the unseen Crisis Emperor. Within a matter of milliseconds, one of the grunts bumps into the Easy Bake Oven that's cooking the girl and kills her. So the genius Maribaron hatches a plan to kidnap a regular Earth girl and pass her off as this botched experiment. They end up deciding that Hitomi Sahara's the best candidate, and this kicks off a nutty four-parter.

Really, I don't understand why the show pretends to have Koutarou hide his identity, or have that nobody knows. Whenever shit's going down -- weird shit, Crisis shit -- everybody's looking to Koutarou. Drop this dumb stuff, writers. Just have it out in the open. Especially when RX is calling Reiko "Rei-chan," just like Koutarou. C'mon. She has to know. If not, she's as dumb as the writers of this show. Hey-ooooooooooooooo.

The opponent of this episode is a robot named Death Galon. He's sort of been overestimated by the fandom for some reason. I have no idea the intention of the design, but he looks like he was some scrapped idea for a Shadow Moon RX -- he looks like a "power-up" for Shadow Moon, right down to having a belt with two green gems, the way RX has two red ones. Death Galon's not interesting, though. He just looks cool, that's all he does. He's the Boba Fett of Kamen Rider.

Random notes for a random show:

1) Once Hitomi is kidnapped and the Saharas are losing their mind, Shigeru storms out to look for her, with Reiko following, trying to talk some sense into him. For this whole scene, an instrumental of "Long Ago 20th Century" plays. This scene doesn't deserve it. This show doesn't deserve it. It's one thing for composer Eiji Kawamura to reuse SOME BGM tracks from Black, but I think it's a big mistake for them to use a main theme, and one tied so closely to Black. "Long Ago 20th Century" fits Black, with all of its doomsday and apocalyptic imagery, to a T. It's definitely a song about the world, far in the future, if Golgom possibly won. (Well, that's what I always thought.) I think Golgom when I hear that song. Leave it out of your Flash Gordon shit, Toei.

2) It's at this precise episode when I reached the "I'd rather break this glass and slash my wrists" point of whether or not to proceed with another episode.

"I am the son of the moon! Shadow Moon RX!"

EPISODE 15

RX has forced Death Galon to take him to Crisisland in search of Hitomi. When RX and Death Galon are trapped in a cave by Crisis, RX is made to believe that Hitomi dies and he gets so pissed off he gets an upgrade -- he turns into Robo Rider. As Robo Rider, Koutarou refers to himself as "the prince of sadness." I don't know where he pulled that out from, but it's in keeping with the total randomness of this show.

Tetsuo Kurata's voiceovers as he holds the "dead" Hitomi are great, as is Jiro Okamoto's mannerisms and physical performance. I don't really get the point of Masked Rider Super Gold, though. If it's born out of his emotions at the thought of losing Hitomi, then...why Robo Rider? Why's he robotic? What the hell is this? Why's he actually moving like he's RoboCop or Jiban now? What? Why? Huh?!

Not only is Robo Rider a dark sign of things to come with this franchise -- absorbing the Metal Heroes and becoming more of whatever Toei wishes than Ishinomori -- but it just makes this show even further separated from Black. It just seems so out of place. So much of this show is, I think, producer Susumu Yoshikawa being kind of like "I LOVE the Space Sheriffs, but they're yesterday's news. The last couple of Metal Heroes were barely even Metal Heroes! Let's bring some Metal Heroes into the show of the franchise that's NOT tanking." And, in the end, RX tanks, killing the franchise for over a decade. Hmm. There's a lesson there, Toei, and you didn't listen to it.

The only thing I like about Robo Rider, really, is his helmet, which pays nice homage to robotic heroes of Ishinomori's past. I still don't think it's a good idea for a Kamen Rider to become this robotic guy, though. It just doesn't work. Doesn't make sense to me. This show is maddening in how much of it is random, forced nonsense that doesn't make sense. ARGH!

Random note for a random show:

I like that, once RX and Death Galon are trapped, RX is kinda like "Hey, let's not fight. They betrayed you, it's pointless, so let's just find a way to get outta here and kick their ass." That's kinda logical. But Death Galon is all "I wouldn't be in this mess without you, so let's fight!" Dummy. Since Death Galon is Rider-y looking, and a robot, I think Robo Rider should have come from him -- RX defeats him after blowing his top when one of Death Galon's errant blasts "kills" Hitomi, and he then ends up absorbing his robotic form or something. Makes more sense to me.