Not to be mistaken with the other Spider-Man that will have an upcoming reboot film and a butt-ugly costume. Anyways, Takeshi Hongo is a prodigy college student from Johoku University, a great athlete with an IQ of over 600. One day, Shocker, a terrifying organization who forces people to become cyborgs and use them to conquer the world, abducted him! Yep, this is the first episode of Kamen Rider!
Let’s get down to business, for starters, the concept of Shocker abducting citizens that fits for their standards in world domination is one of the factors why I love the first episode. In this review, I already watched the first episode of Kamen Rider trice and this is the only time I actually decided to review it! Back to the review, and unluckily, Hongo fits with the standards that Shocker set. One of the best things about this episode is how they depict Hongo’s life before he ended up becoming a grasshopper cyborg and slowly shifts with his life after the surgery.
The scene inside the warehouse defined most of his character. Because he has these newfound abilities, he will use it to protect the world from Shocker but there are also doubts within him if he is still human or somewhat not human because of him being a cyborg. This one factor made Hongo, Hongo. Even though he is not anymore human, he still a human emotionally. The struggle within him is one of the factors that made his character interesting to watch.
For the first monster of the week, Spider Man, I love his method on killing people. It was clean and fits well for his character. As for the fights, it was old school fare with a lot of martial arts and with Kamen Rider improvising his attacks to defend himself against his opponents. Heck, he even grabs their weapon and use it against them! I salute you, Hiroshi Fujioka for the great stunt work!
As for Kamen Rider’s first design, it was simple and straight to the point. To be honest, there is something with the original Kamen Rider design that I liked most that is missing in the upgraded versions that most new fans saw. Rewatching this episode made me realize what was lost in the upgraded versions, the sadness in the classic design. As I watch his fight against the early Shocker foot soldiers, I can see the sadness with his character unlike the newer versions where it felt like he is a hero being cheered by millions. This sadness is one of the factors why the first episode was strong. Kamen Rider is a melancholic hero who fights for the sake of humanity so that they won’t experience the same pain he had.
Overall, the first episode of Kamen Rider is really good. I can’t believe that this is the start of one strong franchise which is running for 40 years! Since this is the first episode, it established many staples in the franchise, such as bug-themed heroes of justice with a sad back story that rides motorcycles. Since KITSubs subbed the other four episodes, I might as well take a look on it.