Zigg’s verdict: Struggling to Turn Lead Into Gold

I will say this about the first episode of Kamen Rider Gotchard – I did not hate it. If that sounds like I’m damning it with faint praise though, that’s kind of because I am. There’s nothing egregiously awful here, but also nothing which really makes me latch onto it as a unique and promising aspect. Every time we do a tokusatsu First Look I offer the disclaimer that, even more than anime, it’s very hard to judge a first episode because the focus is inevitably overwhelmingly mechanical – the most important thing is establishing the premise and getting that sweet, sweet merchandise on display so the kids can run out to purchase it. That’s as true here as it’s ever been, but I still think there were some worrying signs.

Probably the most concerning issue to my eyes is our main characters. After Geats offered us an entertainingly dickish title character, Hotaro here can’t help but seem like a step back, reverting to the perpetually pleasant blandness of a default protagonist. It’s a bit too soon to judge Junsei Motojima’s acting ability, but he certainly doesn’t make an immediate impression, and as per usual ‘high school student’ is about the most boring possible archetype to build around. I’m not getting great vibes from Rinne either, who seems to slip immediately into the familiar cold, stand-offish sidekick role, and Reiyo Matsumoto’s performance seems…let’s be kind and go with ‘limited’ for now. The villains are more interesting, what with their theming as the Fastes of Greek myth, and Kanon Miyahara’s legit martial arts background, but casting an actual child as your lead bad guy seems like one of those ideas that is great on paper but really should have been halted at some point before it became reality. Bonus points though for hiring Nobiyuki Hiyama to just shout STEEEEAAAM into a mic.

Production-wise we’ve got a similarly mixed bag. I generally like the Gotchard suit (although I worry how well that shiny finish is going to hold up) and our first monster costume is genuinely cool, with the bound ‘human’ arms being a great visual flourish. On the other hand we’ve still got a bevy of unnecessary CGI, with the brief grasshopper transformation standing out as both ugly and completely pointless. A more serious concern comes in the opening moments of the fight, which features a drop in video quality so astonishing I’d be ashamed of putting it in a home movie…on VHS. For a few years now Rider and Sentai  shows have very clearly been using off-the-shelf commercial drones for some of their more kinetic shots, and the resulting loss of quality has always been easy to notice, but this is a truly staggering example that I’m pretty astonished was deemed OK for broadcast, and suggests some pretty serious time pressures on this episode.

The net result is an episode that’s…totally OK I guess. That one shot aside, there’s nothing incredibly wrong with Gotchard‘s premiere, but it also feels quite a bit like Toei are just going through the motions. The trading card motif makes all the sense in the world given recent shows’ shift towards ruinously expensive gacha-style mechanics, but it’s hard to feel good about the inevitable wave of throwaway powerups that will ensue. There’s also the lingering shadow of previous ‘magic’ themed Rider shows which have tended not to be great in recent history – see Saber and Wizard for examples. Let’s see if Gotchard can buck that trend and build on this solid debut to create a genuinely entertaining story. It’s not an immediate thumbs down from me but they’ve got some work to do for sure.