Recap: Acquiring his own Driver, Kaito transforms into Kamen Rider Baron and battles Gaim through to the other world. Kouta is defeated by the powerful and ruthless Kamen Rider Zangetsu, leaving his teammate Mitchy to step up to defend Team Gaim.

Aqua’s thoughts: The Urobuchi is strong in this one. Our hero grows overconfident with his newfound powers and acts like a douche for all of ten minutes before he gets chewed out by his sister, yelled at by his friend and eventually owned by Kamen Rider Zangetsu, the Yggdrassil-employed melon Rider who is revealed to be Mitchy’s older brother. Pride always comes before the fall, and I am fairly certain that now Kouta has learned that with great power comes great responsibility, his role in the rest of the show will involve him trying (and failing) to prevent the other Riders from going down the same path. Being Kamen Rider is suffering.

Speaking of with great power coming great responsibility, by far the most interesting bit in these two episodes I found to be Akira’s speech about “real work”, which reveals a neat bit of character depth. I do not necessarily agree with her, but her opinion that doing a job doesn’t just mean earning money, but also enriching yourself and society as a whole by doing something that helps people is sound. It reveals that Invess battles, even in this world, are considered to be something for kids, and that growing up involves knowing that you cannot spend your whole life playing. Some people thought of this as Akira “shaming” her brother’s “lifestyle choices”, but I find it to be a clever moral. You certainly could live your entire life goofing off and making money by cheating at games, but that doesn’t mean you should.

Four episodes in, Kamen Rider Gaim has already done some pretty impressive things with its characters. The four Riders all seem to be complex characters with various motivations and values. Nevertheless I would like to see the show take a short break from the babble about the strong and the weak and flesh out some of the background characters. For a character who seems to be pretty important to the story overall, we know surprisingly little about Mai, and I don’t think the other Team Gaim dancers have even been called by their names once. They’re Chucky, Rica and Rat, in case you wondered. In this regard, Gaim might need to step up its game if it wants to atone for Wizard‘s sins.

If you are looking for something Kamen Rider Gaim is consistently good at, however, look no further than the action scenes. While Ryuta Tasaki’s hyperkinetic directing does not always hit the mark in comedy — the Baron member yelling “Bana-Bana-Banana?!” comes to mind — but for action, it is at its best. Especially the bike race between Gaim and Baron in episode 3 looks impressive, doing away with the franchise’s rather jarring inability to make the bikes appear fast. With the multitude of Riders, the Invess themselves seem to be little more than accessories to the battles, at least for now, but this does bring in some nice changes. No more CGI overloads! No more mooks! Now that our four… uhm, “heroes” have been introduced, it remains to be seen how the monsters of the week will fit into the overall arc. That is, if our four Riders can stop fighting each other.

Random observations:

• Yumi Shida, the actress who plays Mai, is part of the idol group Yumemiru Adolescese alongside Karin Ogino, better known as AkibaYellow.
• No more silly post-credits quiz shows since Ryo Ryusei’s little “Kamen Rider Mango” incident, but we do get crazy Japanese commercials now. Thank you, Aesir, this is a change for the better.

Zigg’s thoughts: Some solid, impressive work has been put in in these two episodes and as a result Gaim now feels like a much more complete, fleshed out show than the last time we saw it. The most telling stuff has been put exactly where you’d hope it would be – in character development, and the result is what look to be fertile seeds for future development. Urobuchi and his writing team have managed to create four distinct characters to function as the four main riders, each of which approaches their role with an entirely different philosophy, and each of whom has unique objectives. That’s fantastic for variety and should hopefully lead to some strong interpersonal battles, plugging what was a weak point in Wizard.

Of the four Kouta is probably the least immediately interesting but then he’s the straight man, a role he fulfills admirably here. Baron is destined to be a fan favourite, a preening arrogant pretty-boy with probably the coolest outfit and a sparky rivalry with our title character. It’s the brothers who appeal to me most – Mitchy is a quite, reserved character, which itself is rare in such an over-the-top genre as this, and there’s a wealth of storylines that he could be anchoring. His desire to make a difference, his seeming crush on Mai (and the possibility of a rivalry with Kouta therein), his concealment of his upper-class roots and the fact that his brother is, if not the big bad, certainly an agent of evil – all of these are strong directions the show could take his character and any or all of them could produce compelling plotlines. Takatorabata on the other hand is very much a one note character at this point, but that’s what we need – a cold, unflinching figure to play villain and represent a single minded counterpoint to our free spirit heroes.

It’s interesting to see already how much of Urobuchi is present in Gaim. It’s a lot more than I thought, and while watered down for the preteen audience, many of his familiar themes are here. The obsession with personal strength, the familial conflict, heroes in breakdown and horrible doom lurking unseen in the background are all hallmarks of his writing and I’m both impressed and a little nervous. Impressed because it shows Urobuchi hasn’t compromised on his style even though he’s now on a super mainstream kids show, and worried because bereft of a powerful editor he often has the tendency to disappear into a more of angst. I’m hoping that the inherent restrictions of the format (the age of the audience, the need to shill merchandise etc) will act as that braking influence on him.

Regardless, it’s impressive to see the speed at which Gaim has cemented its strengths. Some of my concerns still hold – there’s still a lot of chaff, and the tonal ping-ponging between dark and goofy can be a bit much – but they’ve done the most important thing, which is set up a narrative I’m interested in. Game on.

Random Observations

• Unlike Aqua I’m not a fan of the excessive shakycam in some of the action sequences.
• Nobody who has ever been in an actual school would think white blazers were a good idea
• On the other hand, Mitcy has pimpin’ pajamas.