Kamen Rider (1971) Episode 4 Review

This episode’s baddie is the Sarracenian, a cannibalistic plant creature with no real speaking voice, just a really annoying squeal. This episode is full of annoyances, with Kamen Rider committing the sin of having a little tyke take center stage, with you, me, and everyone else getting dragged along for the ride.

In this episode, Ken’s little sis get’s captured by the Sarracenian, and it’s up to Hongo to track her down before she gets tested for Shocker Cyborgazation. There are a couple of moments that help in fleshing out Hongo’s struggles with being a modified human, but for the most part this episode is dominated by the little kid.

Note the throwing technique. I too almost wanted to throw something while watching him.

I’m not the greatest fan of kids in shows or flicks, especially if it’s from a previous era like this show is. When you watch this episode you’re going to get a lot of horrible overdubbing of the kid crying, of which they used THAT sound button a lot, almost as much as the Kamen Rider “Toh!” sound fx, and his character just comes off as a little too whiny for my tastes. Your tolerance of the kid is going to probably determine if you can make it all the way through this episode to be honest.

On another note, it looks like we’re finally settling into to what looks like to be the main transformation technique for Hongo, in which he hits a button on the Cyclone to speed up the bike and transform it into it’s armored mode, while providing the speed needed to power the Typhoon Belt, transforming himself into Kamen Rider.  Looks like it’s going to be a while before we see that signature “Henshin” pose.  I also like that they have really made the effort to distinguish when he’s about to pull off one of his finishers, via the jump/spin of the belt/eye’s light up sequence. The only thing that worries me right now is that there’s really not much to the areas to shoot for fighting, a lot of it tends to consist of either a dirt area or Ruriko’s place. Hopefully they vary it up a little bit more, a fight in the city would be nice.

I am really impressed with the way Hiroshi Fujioka continues to carry on the Hongo role, it was his interactions that helped carry me through the episode. When confronted with an issue like his lost humanity, Hongo simply tries to deal with it the best that he can and then proceed to curb stomping Shocker, if this were a modern Kamen Rider series, we would probably be dealing with a 2-4 episode arc in which the hero would have to deal with his issues (commonly known as the “Emo Rider” phase) before gaining resolve to continue fighting. Hongo gives himself very little time for reflection, which leads to some “Like a Boss” situations, mainly near the end of the episode as Ken and his sis are reunited, Hongo’s comment is simply “It must be good to have family”, then he simply walks away. It can’t really get much better than that.

Episode 4 gets a half-recommendation for me, if only for Hongo and his manliness. Otherwise if episodes centered around little kids like Ken aren’t your thing, you can skip this one.