Kamen Rider Fourze (2011) Episode 1 Review

Alrighty folks, it’s time for a new Kamen Rider series, this time being the titular Fourze, brought to you by the folks behind Kamen Rider W, one of the more critically successful Kamen Rider shows in recent years, with an extra dash of the writer for Gurren Laggan along for the ride. So, does Fourze stand out and blast off to a great start? Find out after the jump…

To begin with, this is a high energy show, even more high octane than Kamen Rider OOO’s first episode and feel. It kinda helps that the show is set in a high school environment, so you have a cast that is primarly about doing silly things, worrying about grades, boys, girls, and all that jazz…well, except for one Kengo Utahoshi, who walks his own path and is constantly fumbling around with a switch of sorts, even rejecting a fellow classmates’ love letter by throwing it off of the bridge. Of course this brings in the Yankee who will become Kamen Rider Fourze, Gentaro Kisaragi, who after explaining that one must care for others in his own silly way, proceeds to jump off of the bridge and bring it back to Kengo, much to his dismay. Stuck in the middle is Yuki Jojima, childhood-friend of Gentaro and also current friend of Kengo, who together are monitoring any strange happenings going on with the school.

Speaking of strange, Gentaro ends up in the school cafeteria, where he gets a “lesson” from Yuki on how all of the students are grouped up, similar to how American High Schools work. After managing to sit in the wrong table, Gentaro manages to anger the head cheerleader and then be forced to take a beating from the football team as Yuki is held hostage by them. During said beatdown, the first Zodiart appears, known as Orion. As it starts to chase after the football team and wreck havoc, Kengo reappears in a mech known as the Power Dizer to ward it off before starting to suffer the physical strain. Yuki and Kengo try to leave Gentaro behind and escape to their hideout known as the Rabbit Hutch to grab the power of Fourze which can combat the Zodiarts, but Gentaro follows them and nabs the Fourze Driver for himself, leading to an inital battle with the Orion Zodiart as it tries to destroy the school.

This was a really good episode, it managed to introduce the characters right, setup the conditions for Fourze to step in, and even kept things going for the future foreshadowing. It’s kinda of nice having a Kamen Rider who is not really battle-trained and ready to go, as you see Fourze brawl with the Zodiart across the school. And speaking of that fight, you can tell Koichi Sakamoto is behind a lot of the choreography, as they bash through walls and really work to convey how powerful these warriors are before going with the obligatory CG battle moments that are a hallmark of initial Kamen Rider episodes. I do like the Astro Switch system although I feel for collectors, as the O-Medal Set could break wallets as it is, and this looks to be worse. I honestly wonder how they are going to be able to effectively incorporate all 40 switches into the series span, especially when you take into account the soon-to-be-coming additional forms and Final Form.

Another plus of this episode is the Yuki character. I have to say it’s nice to have a energetic female lead, we’ve been getting a lot of passive-mopey leads as of late character-wise. The moment that convinced me about how awesome of a character she was is the moment where she shows Gentaro how to use the Fourze Driver:

That’s just hilarious to me, I can’t help it.

So, does this episode make the series worth watching? I think so, although you should keep in mind that Kamen Rider series usually take 2 episodes to set up as Toei likes their mini arcs, so those who are cautious should wait until Episode 2 comes out to make an initial judgement. Henshin!