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SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Well, I finally finished Kamen Rider Kuuga courtesy of Midnight Crew's subs.
My thoughts:
I. Loved. It.
For starters, Kamen Rider Kuuga is hands-down one of, if not the, best acted tokusatsu I've ever seen in my life. Every performer gives it their all here, even some of the more minor characters get strong actors to match. Joe Odagiri plays Godai Yusuke in the classic heroic vein. His performance truly makes you feel like rooting for this character, even if he is perhaps overtly reckless and optimistic. It is a true shame Joe is not likely to return to the genre since he said the role was far too exhausting, but after his intense fistfight in the snow with Daguva in the penultimate episode, I can understand why.
Honestly, the strongest member of the cast would have to be Shingo Katsurayama playing the serious and hard-working but friendly detective Kaoru Ichijou. His camaraderie with Godai is a unique relationship, one that never aims for "bromance" like Kamen Rider Blade or Kamen Rider W, but instead entirely focuses on the strong trust these two gain during the war with the Grongi. The perfect example of Katsurayama’s strong acting comes after he discovers Yusuke is “killed” by a Grongi with a lethal poison attack. His silent reaction in the police car, showing signs of subtle shock and disbelief, feels real. Newer Kamen Rider actors oughta learn some pointers from this scene if they truly want to make a moment of grieving believable.
The supporting actors do a strong job with the work, and it helps that each minor character has their own role in the series. None are tossed to the wayside when the writing staff runs out of ideas to execute the characters. All of the side characters have arcs that are normally portrayed in a handful of episodes at a time, but they rarely get boring even if they do not directly tie into the week’s battle. The main point is how Yusuke deals with the people around him and their situations, and doing everything in his power to help them smile.
Perhaps the most surprising performance belongs to Serge Vasilov, who plays Jean Michel Sorrel. Normally in tokusatsu, foreigners tend to be played up for laughs or their Japanese often tends to be broken. Not so with Jean, who actually does a better job with his Japanese dialogue than his English. It also helps that he plays it as straight as the rest of the cast, thus his role is equally believable.
Now, the most logical aspect to touch on next would be the other “cast members”, the Grongi and Kamen Rider Kuuga himself. Kuuga has a pleasantly simple design compared to many of the newer suits that resemble either Metal Heroes or Sentai rejects. It is flexible, has the classic insect motif, and all of his forms have eye-catching color schemes. The only major problems in Kuuga’s suits are the floppy shoulder blades for the Growing and Mighty forms, and the zipper is visible since not much effort was made to hide it.
I wasn’t too offended by the large number of forms Kuuga possessed in the series, namely because all of them had their role to play in the series. Also, the number of forms for Kuuga is contained compared to Kamen Rider W or Kamen Rider OOO’s numerous mix-and-match forms.
The Grongi also have simple suit designs, but this allows many of them to do stunts that are more acrobatic, stunts that newer kaijin suits seem to have a hard time with. Unfortunately, not all of the designs are too memorable, some suits are re-used or just look very plain.
The Grongi, however, make up for this by simply being great villains. These guys are ruthless killers, making it hard not to side with Yusuke when he literally beats a few of these guys to death. The Gegeru is a great concept; I have yet to see something like it in any other KR series. The fact that they also speak in their own language for most of the scenes they’re in is also clever, although it gets frustrating when most of these scenes are left untranslated (although I’m not sure if that was an issue with MCS’ releases).
Moving on the aesthetics of the show, Kamen Rider Kuuga is mostly excellent outside of some heavily dated CGI (seriously, Mirai Sentai Timeranger aired the same year and that show’s CG looks so much better). The cinematography looks fantastic, expected from the same guys who would later bring us the eye-orgasm inducing Kamen Rider Hibiki. Color filters are used to give off atmosphere, not just because the director wants to be “hip”.
The music score provided here is one of Toshihiko Sahashi’s best he has ever composed. I’m no music critic, but there are several pieces of this soundtrack I could hum right off the top of my head. To me, if you’ve accomplished that feat and you’re not Kenji Kawai, the score must be incredible. It’s a shame he hasn’t composed any KR show since Kamen Rider Den-O, I’d take his scores over all of the bland soundtracks we’ve heard since. Finally, the opening theme is classic Kamen Rider levels of awesome, and the tranquil ending fits the overall theme of the show pretty well.
The fights in Kamen Rider Kuuga have yet to be matched by any Heisei Rider TV series. Period. Not only do these fight sequences display large amounts of creativity and unique settings (an airborne helicopter, a burning church, a mountain drenched in a snowstorm), they’re full of suspense and exceptionally choreographed. Yusuke switches to the form best suited to the situation, not just simply to remind the kids in the audience that there are more toys to buy. The use of the motorcycle in these fights screams of old school, although there are times (episode 4) when the TRCS2000 is overdone to the point of just showing off.
I think those are all of my thoughts on Kamen Rider Kuuga. Don’t forget to check out all of the tie-ins to the series, including the hilarious “Episode 50” which is full of staff in-jokes and pokes fun at numerous film techniques.
Congratulations, Kamen Rider Kuuga. You are now my favorite Kamen Rider series.
*gives the show a fitting thumbs-up*
Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5
tired
depressed
blah
good