Kamen Rider Black RX Episodes 21-22

EPISODE 21

This episode's written by Jun'ichi Miyashita. It's not the first episode of RX he's written, but it might be the first one that matters. Of ALL of the writers working on RX, he's the most qualified to be working on it, because he handled a heavy load of Black episodes. Why doesn't he do more RX?! Why isn't he the main writer?! Why's the main writer instead a guy who had ZERO to do with Black? Ezure was previously main writer of Super 1, which was super kid-friendly and barely a Rider show (it's a proto-Uchuu Keiji), and a couple Fushigi Comedies. Well, what's RX if not a Metal Hero-seeming, kid-friendly, barely Rider crossed with a Fushigi Comedy? Ugh.

This episode begins with Koutarou and Joe palling around playing soccer, which -- of course -- stirs up thoughts of Nobuhiko for Koutarou, since that's apparently one of the only things Koutarou can remember about his brother. (That, and that he likes to laugh on boats.) The narrator refers to Nobuhiko as Koutarou's one and only friend, so...sorry, Kenta Satou! I knew it was fishy that you claimed to be Koutarou's childhood friend and saved him from a bear trap and stuff. (Ezure, of course, wrote that episode. I like to think this line is Miyashita's way of being like "Wrong! Nobuhiko was Koutarou's best and only friend.")

Although Joe's only been around for a few episodes, Koutarou notes that he's grown as close to Joe as he was Nobuhiko, and that gives Koutarou a kind of dread. When Joe's fiancée, Sela, crosses over from Crisisville, Koutarou senses something off about her and Joe turns on him in an instant, which really makes you dislike the character. Before Koutarou can get a word out what exactly he's sensing, Joe's going off on him and storms off. And, of course, Koutarou ended up being right, and even when Joe's apologizing to him later, it doesn't quite make up for how much he overreacted. But Koutarou takes the blame! He blames himself for letting Joe storm off in anger with Sela, because he was having traumatic flashbacks of Nobuhiko. Koutarou's too damn nice to the annoying people who surround him...

Sela, surprisingly, doesn't end up being a Crisis spy or anything, she just unknowingly has a monster of the week attached to her. (It lives within her shadow, which is kinda neat, but not done as coolly as the similar Space Beast Soldier Kaage in Changeman.) The plot of this week is that Sela has a list of all of the Crisis refugees hiding out on Earth that Crisis wants so they can preemptively stop a potential uprising. It's just weird to me that there's apparently SO many people who have crossed over from Crisisbama, but nobody's heard from them. How long's this been going on? What exactly has the Crisis Empire been doing? Why wait until they did to invade -- were they waiting for Golgom to bite it? Why am I asking more questions than this show intends to have asked about it, and certainly more questions than they intend to answer? Do I even care at this point? Let's move on to the next paragraph.

The backstory with Joe and Sela is that Joe had escaped from Crisis' clutches and was saved by Sela and her tribe, and that they fell in love. So when Crisis found him, he willingly turned himself in to Crisis, willingly walking right back into the cyborg operation he had managed to escape, just so Sela and her tribe wouldn't be punished by the empire. So, Joe's actually a cool sounding character, and Rider-y, but the problem is that they make him a comedic sidekick, and he IS a sidekick, and to someone who casts a large shadow like Koutarou. Joe probably should have been a second Rider in the show, but I guess they didn't have the guts to do that at the time. A second Rider would have been better than giving Koutarou those random and ugly forms that don't fit or make sense, IMO. (Imagine if Joe debuted and he was Robo Rider -- that'd fit more than Koutarou becoming "the prince of sorrow" out of nowhere.)

This episode ends with a tease of Shadow Moon appearing on a mountaintop, doing a pre-cursor to the Kamen Rider J ending credits. The references to Nobuhiko at the top of the show were nice, the show finally acknowledging SOMEthing about the show it's supposed to be a part of. But I imagine this little tease had to have blown people's mind at the time -- that is if it hadn't already been spoiled by something like TV Magazine, which it probably, certainly, was. Even though it kinda wrecks how the show ended, Shadow Moon's return was probably predicted by a lot of viewers. But after sitting through 20 episodes of gnomes and moth parasites and poison satellites and kids trapped in bicycles and cactus girls and squirrel vampires, it was probably an absolute shock to see Shadow Moon again, something that actually pertains to the show it's purportedly a sequel to. Something that promises to be about something, momentous. You had to know it was going to be disappointing, though. C'mon. Forget it, Jake. It's RX.
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EPISODE 22

Shadow Moon returns and...it's a disappointment. There's no real reason for him to come back -- they couldn't have written there was, like, a big earthquake that shook him loose or something? That General Jack purposely brought him back? No, he's just up and walking around. We're told he doesn't remember his past, he's just following an instinct to kill RX. So, he's just Michael Myers now. And although he's spent his time since Black dead and buried, he somehow knows his old foe Black is now RX.

But since Crisis said in the premiere that they researched all about Koutarou/Black, it's easy to connect that they had to know about Shadow Moon, so once Shadow Moon appears, Jark does show interest in getting his help. This causes the other Crisis generals to fear they'll be replaced, and it gets into some behind-the-back scheming that's not all that interesting with these particular, under-underwritten characters. Seriously, this group of villains is just so uncompelling. Shadow Moon's the draw here, this just needed to be focused on him and unrelated to Crisis. Have one itty bitty scene where Jack's trying to recruit him but he refuses and have that be it for Crisis' involvement in the story.

This episode could have been better, it needed to be bolder and not afraid to show how traumatized Koutarou could possibly be. Shadow Moon killed him! And then he mortally wounded and left Shadow Moon -- his brother -- to die in Golgom's lair. But Koutarou quickly makes up his mind that this isn't truly Shadow Moon, but just basically a zombie; he looks at him as being no different than the latest Crisis clown. (We could have been shown his transition from Black to RX, how he got over his trauma so that this new skirmish didn't affect him so much, but, no.) So, there's just no real meaning or impact behind this new battle. It's a gimmick match. You're just further injuring us by trying to give us a taste of Black, but screwing it up in the way that's been the norm for RX. This episode could have been a good opportunity to close the door on Black, since that's what they want to do, and could have been character-focused -- tightly focused on Koutarou, his trauma, completely getting over his trauma/how he recovered in the first place, and really have finally tied up loose ends. But it's all just a pointless gotcha.

I think it's sad to pass up the opportunity of looking at just how kind of unfair life has been for our hero, how dumped on he is. Look at all Koutarou went through in Black -- Golgom tore his family apart. They cut Koutarou down in the prime of his youth. They irrevocably damaged his life, his hope for a normal life. He had to kill his brother. His battle with Golgom was incredibly personal, and when it was over, he tried to move on. Despite the odds, he found a place to live, he found SOME happiness. (Imagine if the Sahara parents weren't so annoying -- how stronger it would be if Koutarou found a nice, loving family to have as his surrogate family in this new place of peace.) But he's targeted by Crisis and pulled into a completely new battle that he has nothing to do with. But because he is who he is, and such a good person, he stands up against Crisis and fights them. But now this important figure from his past reappears that he has to contend with. It should all be so much bigger and emotional, but Shadow Moon's a glorified monster of the week here. We're meant to ooh and ah just because he's Shadow Moon, and a tie to the previous show, but the effort's not put into it.

Random notes:

1) How cool would it have been if Shadow Moon had flat-out killed Gedorian when he was aboard the Crisis ship? Not only would it have been a nice homage to his instant-killing Birugenia, but...Gedorian was asking for it. He's such an obnoxious, coked-up pest that he's always asking for it, so wouldn't it have been nice for Shadow Moon to just kill him here? Neither characters nor audience would have missed him.

2) A Sahara-free episode! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, so refreshing. Now if it could have just been Crisis-free, as well.

3) Actually, for the previous episode's setting up having Koutarou look at Joe as his new brother, this episode doesn't bother following that up in anyway; Shadow Moon possesses Joe for a scene, and rather than do anything with that, it's just quickly brushed aside. And Miyashita wrote this episode, as well, so I definitely feel like he had intended for there to be more of a comparison there, like maybe the whole episode it had been intended for a Shadow Moon-possessed Joe to fight Koutarou, so he's reliving his nightmare, but since RX is so damn soft, it had to be changed into the generic, uneventful BS we were presented. Joe gets knocked out and spends most of the episode unconscious at the RX Cave -- Shadow Moon only possesses him to issue Koutarou a challenge. Pointless.

4) Shadow Moon survives this episode -- the Crisis generals interfere with the battle, so he lets Black off on one of those techniques found in Wolzard's Wussy Rules of Battle, which is that they'll resume the battle when Black heals. Get outta here. Shadow Moon doesn't have his remaining sliver of humanity or pride -- he's meant to be a revenge machine here, so it's not believable he'd just let RX off. The showmakers just want to keep teasing and tormenting the fans of Black by prolonging this. And we know the next appearance will be just as disappointing.

I mean...the show's hitting the halfway point. It's been mostly a pile of turd. It's torn down everything Black accomplished. Imagine if they had taken this opportunity to course correct. Like, "Hey, we're bringing back Shadow Moon. And the first thing he's going to do is kill all of the Crisis losers and take over, and then we can work on making this show the actual sequel it should have always been!"