I decided to split BLACK X BLACK RX and Amazon arcs in two special reviews so that I can flow in much of my fanboyism in those specials. Like the previous special, I will do an introduction then review their respective episodes and do an overall review of the entire arc. While I am at it, I will start flowing in my fan gushing on it. To kick things off, we will start with the first arc based on the Showa Era Kamen Rider Series, BLACK X BLACK RX Arc!
When I heard that they are planning to do a BLACK RX crossover, and I wasn’t following Decade that much, I was like, hey, did they end the, Decade, Destroyer of Worlds-thing? When I did a quick browsing, it seems they didn’t, making that certain plot left hanging for its conclusion. As we all know, initially, Decade was planned to be a 30-episode series but if you do the math, 9 Heisei Series AU World Crossovers times 2-episode arc will equal to 18, leaving the additional 12 episodes left hanging.
Since there are 12 episodes hanging, they might decide to create “fillers” to fill those 12 eps, thus we have Nega and DiEnd arcs, now we less 4. Accordingly, it was planned that Decade will have a crossover with Shinkenger, minus 2 for a total of 6 more episodes to fill in. What they decided to do with the remaining 6 episodes, dedicate 4 episodes of it for fanservice! Not that I am complaining but they have a plot that they need to close before introducing a new enemy, Dai Shocker to everyone! It felt like that, there is no proper transition in the series.
If you watched at least one Showa Era series that involves two organizations (I will recommend to you Amazon since it is fully-subbed by Hi no Tori Fansubs) what they did is that they made a slow build-up for the next organization. Then once the current organization is defeated, this is when they will fully introduce the new group to the public. The Showa Era arcs are one of the problems of the series if you will focus on the fact that Decade should only meet up with the Riders of his generation. And since what’s done is done, we have no choice but to appreciate the effort they did in bringing TETSUO “FREAKIN’” KURATA back as Kotaro Minami!
More like a tribute to the first unofficial Kamen Rider and Super Sentai crossover special thanks to the Power Rangers and Saban’s Masked Rider, the backdrop dropped in the image of the Crisis Fortress (cue in the fanboys). So, Tsukasa, dressed up as a guy that came from the year 1989 is roaming around in this new world, holding a new Kamen Ride card in his hand. While at it, he meets a robot coming from the Crisis Empire called Kaima Robot Shubarian attacked him and calls him Joe the Haze (Kasumi no Joe).
Yep, we are at RX’s World right now and Tsukasa is cosplaying as Joe the Haze and since there is a Joe the Haze, he must suppose to aid BLACK RX, and lo, a familiar voice was heard along with the familiar badass lines followed by the familiar fight scenes that was then followed by the familiar transformation movements. Yep, this is RX’s World alright.
After the fight with Shubarian and the appearance of an Imagin and a Fangire in this world, Decade who helped was again, blamed as a Destroyer in which after some quick communication, this issue was resolved with RX. It still bothers me as I rewatched this arc, isn’t it Kotaro knew Joe the Haze for quite sometime and obviously, knows how he looks like but why does Kotaro identify Tsukasa as Joe the Haze and not as a Joe the Haze cosplyer? Could this mean… no, it is not possible that in AU BLACK RX’s World Masahiro Inoue portrays that Joe the Haze. It. Is. Not. Possible.
Anyways, we are re-introduced to Kotaro Minami, that he is RX, saw a cameo of his work in the original series (WAH! HELICOPTER! XD) and that he is fighting Crisis with Joe and lately, external forces that are not Crisis is attacking his world. The familiar, “Let’s figure out what will Tsukasa will do in this world” line is then mentioned and after 25 episodes of doing that process, Tsukasa is sick and tired of it (Finally! He noticed!). After giving a disrespectful reply to Kotaro (Don’t you dare give a disrespectful reply to Kotaro again, don’t you dare!) he leaves along with Natsumi and after taking some pictures, we are introduced to Dai Shocker and its official, Apollo Geist.
Who is Apollo Geist anyway? He was Kamen Rider X’s rival and like the enemies coming from the series, he was based on a mythological being and an certain creature or entity. In his case, he was based on Apollo, the Greek and Roman god of the sun and the German word, “geist” which means, “ghost.”
What is Dai Shocker anyway? To give you a simple answer, it is basically something fans wanted for a long time, all organizations that were established since 1971 up 2008 are now in a single large organization. Cool. Apollo Geist used his Perfecter, a device that allows sucking up the life of its victims and giving it to those who holds it on Decade, but Natsumi protected him thus, sucking out her life force.
Kaito, learning of their situation decides to, you guess it, troll Tsukasa around and starts a game of whoever gets Apollo Geist’s Perfecter wins the game. With Natsumi’s slowly dying, can Tsukasa save her? How will Dai Shocker affect this game? Will Kotaro do some major involvement in this arc? That is something that I don’t want to spoil… unless you watched it.
On to the review, like everything in the series, this gives newer fans a brief info about the older Riders that is not Decade. The first episode sums up the Rider, BLACK RX and in some point, tidbits about Crisis Empire’s conquest in conquering Earth.
Aside from that, we are introduced to Dai Shocker, the organization of all evil organizations that existed in this 38-year-old franchise (Why 38? W and OOO didn’t exist yet at the time when this series aired). Like I said earlier, it is something fans dream of that was first achieved via fan fiction. I mean, who wants to see Kamen Rider Knight fight against Bat Man or the Bat Grongi? Or see Den-O fight against Daguva so that we might see Momo getting beaten up to the pulp by him (I know, I am being mean to Momo). You get the picture. Dai Shocker gave this impression that if they want the Riders to stop beating them up to the pulp, they should all join forces to defeat him. If you put this in the Kuuga-Agito perspective, they first forget that they are opposing tribes because they have a single enemy that they should defeat, namely, the Riders.
My first impression on Apollo Geist, few words, he is awesome. His gun, even if it looked like it is not fit for this era, stood out when he shot his enemies. Did I mention that his shield is really cool aside that it can double as a boomerang? Any fansubing group who is reading this, please sub Kamen Rider X or KITSubs, please continue X once you are done with New Kamen Rider!
After checking his small article in Henshin Hall of Fame in which he dons a different yet similar armor, I was like, I am sure that we can see future redesigns of older villains in the near future… and I was right. More on it once I will do a review on All Riders DC.
Burn Kiva-la, BURN!
Even if he did something minor in this episode, Eijiro hinted that all of us wear a mask and he will attend a Masked Ball, thus he will iron his vampire cape. Take note these keywords: Masked Ball, Vampire Cape and Eijiro Hikari. These words will give us a hint on his major role in the series. Heck in this episode alone, we are already hinted of his evil side when he burned Kiva-la with the use of his iron!
On to Kotaro, if you notice when he is in RX mode, his Revolcane is not a lightsaber, more of a cane with a swirling design below its handle, giving me an idea that even though Tetsuo Kurata is the one who portrayed Kotaro, this is still an AU Kotaro. It was justified when Gorgom’s Rhinoceros Mutant appeared and him declaring it as a new enemy. This Kotaro has its own struggle, the struggle in losing his friend, Joe the Haze. It seems that this Kotaro is not used in seeing a lost, unlike how the original Kotaro did back in BLACK in which he lost, the person he considered his brother, and later, Kasumi and Kyoko went to America for their own safety. In short, in my own opinion, it seems that this Kotaro is not used in fighting alone.
Overall, the episode was a good start in the Dai Shocker storyline of the series. Sure, the Decade, Destroyer of Worlds storyline is left hanging but at least we learned that as of this episode, crossovers with older Kamen Rider series are officially possible.
On the next episode, Decade went to the dimension wall in which Apollo Geist entered! He ends up in BLACK’s World in which a different Kotaro Minami faces him and attacks him because of him blamed to be the Destroyer of Worlds! What will Decade do?! To stop teasing you, here’s the second part of this arc.
Decade was welcomed by BLACK and now, is being attacked by him. Boy, seeing Decade being owned by BLACK was a fun sight to see! Anyways, DiEnd came and shot BLACK then summoned Femme… and now BLACK can’t hit a girl… and now, I see BLACK being owned by a girl! This is definitely AU BLACK. In the original series, he fought a monster that pretends to be a girl, and later on, fought Priestess Bishium in her monster form!
And so, the fight for the Perfecter continues as Natsumi’s life is on the line. Who will win in this “game”? Will BLACK have a major involvement in this one aside from giving friendship speeches? That is for you to find out… unless you watched it more than three times just to see Kotaro transform into BLACK!
On to the review, this episode continues the “game” that Kaito started, which was pointless considering that someone’s life is on stake! However, unlike the first one, which happened in RX’s World, this happened in BLACK’s World. Kaito explained why there are two Kotaro Minamis, it was simple, there are two different entities with the same name and face. Wow, TOEI is serious in placing BLACK and BLACK RX as a separate Rider!
AU Kotaro here is similar to the AU Kotaro back in RX’s World except they had a reverse scenario. If I will only base their backgrounds that were given in this episode, this Kotaro is fighting Gorgom alone from the very beginning. Aside from that, we learned the fate of RX Kotaro’s friend, Joe the Haze. He was stuck in BLACK’s World. If you watched the original series, it feels like a tribute or a shout out or whatever you like to call it to Kotaro back then in which from the start of the series, he is fighting Gorgom alone and hides this secret to those close to him. Later in the series, he gains allies and friends who support him in his fight against Gorgom. Sure, the Senior Riders never made an appearance in the series but the support of his friends made him stronger as a person as he continues to fight Gorgom alone.
This is one of the rare episodes in which we saw Daiki’s good side, even if he “won” the game (Well, he stole the Pefecter from Decade in the last minute after the epic toss made by Geist) he gave Tsukasa the Perfecter… even if the demand is to respect Kaito properly.
To wrap this episode review up, I will talk about the final battle with BLACK, BLACK RX, Decade and DiEnd. After Decade obtains the BLACK Kamen Ride Card, DiEnd steals it and says that he can’t use it… giving me a conclusion that even if the Decadriver has the ability to give its wearer the ability to transform into any Rider he chooses, it has its own limitations. It seems that its limitation is that you can only transform into any of the ten main Heisei Riders.
The double transformation sequence with the summoned Kotaro and RX Kotaro was awesome. But for starters, it bothers me, why did DiEnd summoned Kotaro and not immediately summon BLACK. My theory is that the worlds seemed connected in a way thanks to Kotaro’s appearance; hence, he can directly summon the human form of the Rider directly. In practice, it may seem to be that if he is in Blade’s World, he can summon Kenzaki. But since Tetsuo Kurata is involved in this, the only proper answer to this mystery is… fanservice. That scene would not be epic if Tetsuo Kurata is not involved. To remind you how epic it is, here it is.
Overall, this episode is basically, dedicated for Tetsuo Kurata and BLACK and BLACK RX service. This is not the first time we saw BLACK fight side by side with RX. The first was in a short 3D film that aired in amusement parks back in Japan. Even with the amount of service, this is one of the best episodes in terms of fight and stunt choreography.
The entire arc overall, this is the first arc of the build up for the film, All Riders vs. Dai Shocker. This arc builds us up to the organization of all organizations, Dai Shocker. That they will do everything to defeat their common enemy, the Kamen Riders… which is awesome. This episode also introduces retro villains and retro monsters to the newer fans. Apollo Geist is one of the fine examples of this one. At the end of the arc, we saw a foreshadowing of the so-called Darth Vader of the franchise, Kintaro… I mean, Shadow Moon (Can’t help to pull that seiyuu reference!) and the foreshadowing of one of the most iconic villains in the franchise, Doctor Shinigami.
There is one single theme in this arc and that is friendship. The arc questions Tsukasa these questions: how much will you do for a single friend and how important are they to you? This leads us to one of my favorite parts of this arc, Kotaro being a mentor figure to his junior. Though indirectly, the message is there. He tells Tsukasa in RX’s World the importance of having a friend to support you and in BLACK’s World that even if you are away, you are still connected to him or her wherever you will go. The answers to the questions that I said earlier were answered when Tsukasa used the Perfecter given by Kaito to suck out part of his life force and give it to Natsumi.
When I let my cousin watched this arc of Decade to him, he noticed many changes to the franchise that the Riders were more into the trend and some of them might not transcend generations like what BLACK did to him back then. Aside from that, he mentions that the concept of Decade was fun and that it allows newer fans to know the older Riders that their brother or sister enjoyed back then. Why did I say this, it is because he is a BLACK fan and his influence to him never ended after the series ended here.
At the end of the arc, we saw a black and white photo of a girl and a man wearing coat being held by Eijiro. After placing it on the wall, it fell which dropped the next backdrop, Amazon’s World. Next time on Kamen Rider Decade COMPLETE Review, Amazon’s World Special that will be followed by Kamen Rider Decade All Riders vs. Dai Shocker Director’s Cut review!
Long, long ago, in the 20th century...