Premise

A young man named Shoma flees from his mysterious enemies through a magical realm of doors, and falls through one to be washed up on a beach. Rescued by a local boy, he soon finds that stomach-mouthed monsters are abducting ordinary people. Thing is, Shoma also has a stomach-mouth, except he’s got a taste for justice as the snack-powered hero Kamen Rider Gavv!

Zigg’s verdict: Mouth Sounds

This is a really bizarre opener which caught me somewhat off guard, and in that sense I have to give it credit. After 15-odd years of watching tokusatsu it’s rare for something from the medium to blindside me, and so on novelty alone the first episode of Kamen Rider Gavv can be counted as a success. The thing is, I’m not sure this novelty mostly comes from meaningful changes to the time-honoured structure of Rider opening episodes. Instead, it comes from just having really, really freaky vibes. Whether that’s a good thing or not…well, we’ll see.

Now to be fair, there are actually quite a few things that this episode does right outside of being kind of odd. The cold open is pretty effective, immediately doing the job of adding a little mystery to our protagonist Shoma, while framing his sudden appearance through the down-to-earth window of a regular kid adds to the surreal craziness of what’s to follow. It helps that Ayaki Hirano delivers one of the better child performances we’ve seen recently, coming across as appropriately weirded out. Giving some screen time to our wannabe investigative reporters is a good sign too – we don’t really get much of them here, but considering how protagonist-heavy first episodes usually are even featuring a supporting plotline at all indicates some level of attention will be paid to it.

The most notable high point of this episode though is probably the action, with a really fun on-foot fight between Gavv and the monster in an arena of shipping containers (only in tokusatsu could you seriously claim a crate maze as an exciting new location). A particular highlight is when Gavv and the monster end up fighting while wedged in-between the crates, but there’s a bunch of cool touches like the brief use of first-person camera to convey speed or the shot from ‘inside’ the container. Overall the pacing is brisk and the direction snappy, as to be expected of Rider veteran Teruaki Sugihara, who also directed the similarly tight first episode of Zero-One.

So far, so good right? Well, here’s where things get a little subjective. Look, a snacks themed Kamen Rider makes all the sense in the world – the show has always been a catalogue of the most marketable obsessions of pre-teen boys – but did it have to be so…kind of gross? And it’s not even the boisterously marketable Ren & Stimpy style of gross, it’s just a lot of mouth and tongue imagery but presented in modern Kamen Rider‘s very clean, sterile aesthetic. The mismatch is palpable and teeters on the edge of outright self-parody. You might argue dinging a show purely for design aesthetics is kind of shallow, and I’ll agree with you on some level, but also television is a visual medium and tokusatsu television especially so. Gavv isn’t as off-putting as my personal white whale Kamen Rider Ex-Aid but it’s still kind of uncomfortable to look at, and I already despise Shoma’s insane stripper-windbreaker combo with tear-away stomach covering. There are more mundane issues too – we’re back to belts which just cannot stop talking and there’s the usual generous slathering of horrible CGI, especially in the back half of the episode.

Overall I’d say I came away from this first episode of Gavv…intrigued? There’s not really anywhere near enough substance to comment on yet, and as I just expressed I’ve got some reservations about the theme and aesthetics, but the thing is weird also means different and given how formulaic Rider shows are a little difference goes a long way. The big question is whether that weirdness is just skin deep or if the writing has the chops to back up the kooky visuals.