Kamen Rider Black RX Episodes 18-20

EPISODE 18

Cockamamie nonsense. A vampire tale, but told with -- get ready for it -- flying squirrels instead of vampires or vampire bats. Unbelievable.

Random notes for a random show:

1) Kasumi no Joe's still running around in that weird leather outfit. He's also taken to calling Koutarou "aniki," which proves the character's meant to be much younger than the dude playing him. Kasumi no Joe and Koutarou act like a two-man comedy group here, which is cringe-worthy, but goes on to become a recurring thing. We're also back to "Reiko, you dumb woman" when Koutarou and Joe are talking about their battles and she overhears them and they just laugh her off. Nutty dames, AMIRITE?!

2) At one point -- at two points, actually -- Koutarou is bitten by these Squirrel Vampires. He decides to haul ass back to the RXcave -- wherever it may be, the abandoned warehouse district so popular in the '90s Metal Heroes -- and proceeds to do one of the most disgusting things in all of toku. He turns into Bio Rider and fights off the Squirrel Germs -- with some hardcore grunting, like he's taking a primo dump -- and then squeezes an antidote out of his body, which is colored like piss, and Joe catches into a test tube and then Koutarou orders him to take it to the hospital ASAP. That's GROSS!

3) The villain plan in this episode -- I'm not kidding here -- is to have the monster bite kids so they'll go into a daze and try to jump off buildings, thinking they're Flying Squirrel Vampires and can fly, when they'll just plummet to their doom. Not only will these Kid Squirrel Vampires be committing mass suicide, but it will seriously depress Koutarou and then the monster will do the same to him!!!!!

This episode has been brought to you by Takashi Ezure's intestines, as it's a piece of POOP.
__________

EPISODE 19

Araki's second of two scripts for the show. His first one was the one that I mentioned as being the first episode of RX I didn't mind. How's this one fare?

Eh, it's nothing special, but nothing too offensive. We've seen plots in toku about artificial suns so many times, that when I hit an episode like this I'm like "Is this the one where they're at the rocks and fighting off the approach of the artificial sun with some big gizmo?" And the answer is, of course, "yes," every time.

This is just like a vintage Rider script -- the bad guys are targeting a scientist, kidnap his kids, Rider intervenes. I mean...it happened in every single episode of every single '70s Rider. It's a well worn plot. But RX has been so Anti-Rider that you're kinda like "Hey! This mediocre episode is all right, because it feels like Kamen Rider!"

Crisis has a monster that creates a second, artificial sun, and they do nothin' with it but threaten the kids of the scientist who wants to stop it. I mean...they're already doing things like roasting Tokyo just to prove its power, so...why are they thinking so small? They could probably threaten Tokyo to hunt down this scientist and have him killed by ordinary citizens if it means they'll make the weather cool off. Crisis are just terrible villains. There's some junk about how they're after some jewel or something, but it's forgotten as quickly as it's brought up.

And that's about all that can be said about this one.
__________

EPISODE 20

I'm not going to lie -- this episode is one of the first things that's always come to mind for me when I think about RX. It's just one of the most absolute stupidest and pointless episodes I've ever seen in a toku. I don't even think something as super low-rent and silly-ass like Bycrosser would accept this script.

It's the one where the monster of the week goes around town utilizing bananas -- he can turn bananas into keys, in which to break into vaults and steal gold. He can freeze bananas which he turns into shuriken that he thinks he can kill RX with. If that's not stupid and horrible sounding enough for you, this episode features a lot of Papa Sahara, and the first half is devoted to Shigeru following Joe as he follows the suspected Crisis monster. (It's not hard to figure out who the monster's disguised as, as he acts like a big weirdo.)

I should point out the monster's human form is played by the late Kouen Okumura, who's really likable as Suke-san in Abaranger, but was unfortunate when it came to other parts for Toei. He appeared in the original Kamen Rider series, so that's a nice tie. It's not his fault this monster and episode suck, but it's sad that he's tied to what I consider one of toku's lowest, dumbest points. This shit really is reminiscent of MMPR, when they didn't know what the hell they had, so you had full episodes of random shit like the Rangers helping Billy build an ant-farm the entire episode or something. Why's that on television?

Random notes on a random show:

1) Crisis makes it sound like the monster's robbing vaults just to lure out Koutarou, but then later they say that they want gooooooollllllllld to build a golden palace for the Crisis Emperor. That doesn't sound like it would turn out terrible at all.

2) This episode is when Joe ditches the leather onesie and begins to dress like a character from Double Dragon. Somebody on the show hates Joe, because they like to dress and make him look like an idiot.