Premise: In the mysterious Yggdrasil City, dancing street gangs roam wild, battling each other with parallel dimension Pokemon. OK, not really but it’s all sort of confusing. In the midst of this madness, one man will step up, drop an orange on his head and emerge as Kamen Rider Gaim!

Aqua’s Verdict: Still Ripening

From the very first moments, it’s pretty obvious that Kamen Rider Gaim has the notorious Gen Urobuchi on board. Verbose opening monologues, a G-rated cyberpunk dystopia ran by an omnipresent mega-corporation, destiny as an arc word and opening credits loaded with symbolism hinting at corruption and suffering; it’s all here, and it all works. Yet Gaim shares not just the Butcher’s positive traits with his earlier works. Like Psycho-Pass and Fate/Zero, it seems to be a bit distanced from its characters. Despite introducing a bunch of them, the characters fail to make an overwhelming first impression. Though Kouta and his peers — especially his adorable female sidekick Mai Takatsukasa, one of the two roles quite impressively taken on by Yumi Shida — certainly look like interesting, complex characters, the hero of this story does not immediately stand out like a Ryo-, Shou- or Gentaro. It is another awesome, slapstick-y performance by suit actor Seiji Takiwa that really brings the character to life, and it remains to be seen if Gaku Sano has the skills to be just as good out of the suit.

Rather than characters, the first episode of Kamen Rider Gaim focuses mostly on world building. Urobuchi sets up a city distinctly different from the generic Tokyo setting most other Kamen Rider shows use, and the spunky (and very 80’s) idea of rival dance crews bringing the joy in a world ran by Evil, Inc., including wacky underground DJ, could work very well with the franchise’s established tropes. The real question remains which vibe Gaim is looking for. Having elements both silly and macabre, Urobuchi’s take on the beloved kids’ franchise seems to be heading headfirst for an identity crisis later on. I want to watch the man’s take on a Kamen Rider show, and I want to watch a silly show about fruity Kamen Riders fighting evil Pokémon too, but I am not sure if I want to watch both at the same time.

Nevertheless, I remain optimistic. Kamen Rider Gaim‘s first episode showed more ambition than its predecessor did during its entire run. The secrets behind the mysterious forest, the Lock Seeds, the Inves and the mysterious blonde girl already have me intrigued, and the prospect of a full-on Rider War has me excited, though more for storyline purposes than for seeing more of the admittedly pretty tame face-off previewed at the very beginning. Like Kyoryuger, I expect Kamen Rider Gaim to start getting better as soon as its drops its first-few-episodes-obligations and starts diving into that storytelling it seems to be so proud of.

Zigg’s Verdict: Tangerine Dream

There’s clearly a huge amount of potential present in Gaim, and that’s reflected in the various intriguing strands that this first episode takes. There’s a lot of stuff to get excited about here – the opening that teases a Rider War, the cool, silly vibe of the street dancing crews, the weird relationship between the Pokémon-esque battling game and the monsters, the freaky otherworld…it’s a lot to take in all at once.

That I think was the major weakness of this first episode. It’s so busy, so all over the place with what it’s trying to say and do, that it sort of lacks a core story to carry us onward. In particular I was disappointed with the character introductions – they’re sort of lost within the whirlwind of other things. Kota seems a nice enough chap but there’s no immediate hook to his character – he’s not funny or goofy enough to endearing and not rugged or determined enough to be a badass. I’m hoping that freed from the frenetic pace he gets a chance to come into his own. The only character who comes out cleanly is Kaito of Team Baron, who gets off easy by occupying the ‘smug jerk we love to hate’ role with aplomb.

With all that said, there’s definitely things here I want to see more of. The interaction between the various threads – the monster battling, the otherworld and the fruit – is interesting and there’s a lot of potential there for some cool mythology. With Urobuchi at the helm I’m more confidant than usual that we’ll get some sort of well crafted plot arc to tie these elements together. And while the inherent silliness of the Rider style may blunt his more visceral story twists, let’s hope it can also curb some of his more unpleasant tendencies. It’s difficult to say how well the marriage is kicking off, but it’s certainly already produced food for thought.

Random Observations

• The belts already talk too much
• Surprisingly dark, non-poppy theme song this year, as far as a song with co-ordinated dancing can be ‘non-poppy’.
• With our regular subbers Over-Time taking a break from Kamen Rider for a year, we’ll be working from translations by the fine folks over at Aesir Subs