Kamen Rider Fourze (2011) Episode 5 Review

I guess for those looking at this pic and wondering why we would post something like that, well, this isn’t a kid’s blog folks,  just to get that out of the way. Besides, you (as in our reading audience) are going to get a earful when I finally get around to posting that Hibiki Retro Overview. So in this week’s episode of Fourze, JK tries to con his way into becoming Gentaro’s buddy while Miu plays dry foil to Kengo and Yuki steals the show with Overwhelming-Moe-Moe-Kyun-Massive-Attack. Oh, and the rest of the Episode’s pretty nice too.

So this episode mainly deals with JK trying to weasel his way into friendship with Gentaro, who manages to give him the cold shoulder for a bit, all while the Scorpio Zodiarts bestows a fencer with the Unicorn Zodiarts. As this is going on, Shun decides to pay Miu a chat as part of his kingly duties while warning her of the “dangers” of hanging out with Gentaro and Yuki. Miu decides to leave the conversation and skip her way over to the Rabbit Hutch to try stargazing. I actually liked this part simply because of the more-gradual shift in her personality that is a result of her friendship with her fellow Kamen Rider Club members. I do like that she still keeps her tongue though, especially since it allows her to be a foil to Kengo’s acidity and she does match up with him pretty well in that regard, well, when they’re not doing the exposition bit about the new Foodroid or talking about the Elec Switch.

After this we get the Yuri Fanservice Bit (and no, I’m not talking about THAT Yuri), in which Nozama decides to show Yuki a more grander way of eating seafood with Natto, of which the latter enjoys while being understandably creeped out. She is joined by JK and Gentaro with the former still trying to get him to come to his fabulous party, even resorting to nabbing a Ayumi Hamasaki-look-a-like to get Gentaro to come, only to bolt upon seeing the new wielder of the Unicorn Zodiarts. As JK is chased around only to be stopped by Gentaro, we witness Yuki Moe Moment #1 followed by Gentaro feeding the Unicorn a Rider Rocket Punch. As Fourze and the Zodiart are up in space for a second, we get some more silly catfighting between Yuki and Miu before the two combatants return. Kengo has the Elec Switch brought to Fourze, which turns a portion of his armor gold and bequeaths him a sword-like object known as Billy the Rod. It’s Super Effective at bashing the Unicorn around, but it’s also taking a toll on Fourze which causes the fight to end at a draw. While Gentaro is wary of the switch’s power, JK is already scheming plans around it.

We then shift to JK’s party (filled with footage of Gentaro being awkward at all the pop music the kids are listening too nowanddays) where once Gentaro finally locates JK, he finally gives in and tries to do the friendship handshake only for JK to rebuff him and have him indulge in High School Caligula. We follow the good times with Yuki Moe Moment #2, where she gleans info from the BurgerMeal via humming along to some rad tunes while Kengo and Miu was esoteric about the club and Kengo’s relationship with Yuki when she alerts them to the identity of the Unicorn Zodiarts. Kengo has her track down Gentaro while tossing her the Beat and Chain Array switches as the Unicorn Zodiarts makes his appearance at the party. Following the standard folks-rushing-around-in-a-panic-while-the-hero-transforms-for-battle sequence, we go to our battle moment for the episode, in which Yuki joins up with Fourze and gives him the new switches, leading to Yuki Moe Moment #3, in which Fourze uses the Beat Switch to paralyze the Unicorn while Yuki looks cool with her headphones and does a pose…..

Okay, just to break off a moment here, but WOW do they have a lot of Yuki Moe stuff in this episode. It’s like the staff producers and writers saw all the gifs and “So Kawaii!” comments towards her Henshining up in Episode 1 and decided to turn that up to 11 in this episode. I’m not really minding this per se, but some parts of this episode feel like part Kamen Rider, part this:

Anyway, back to the action. Fourze manages to bang him up good with the Chain Array only to have the Unicorn evolve and form a fencing horn which allows him to outduel Fourze. At that moment Kengo calls for the Elec Switch, only for Gentaro to realize that it is missing. We then see that JK had one of his friends steal it for him, thinking he could use it’s power for himself while berating Gentaro’s beliefs in friendship.

This episode was nice by itself as you do get to see JK’s more sinster side which make for a much better Friendship Quest worthy of this 2-Episode Arc. To be honest I thought he was going to get shoved into the club by proxy of a 5-min. bit rather than having episodes 5 and 6 dedicated to his story, although I am interested in how he enraged Nitta (the Unicorn Zodiarts) as well as how Gentaro is going to deal with someone who has effectively betrayed his trust. As always the fight sequences are top notch here, and I did notice that there isn’t as much wire-fu this time around, but that is probably due to the Unicorn Zodiarts being more of a ground-based fighter. I also loved the joke bit with Fourze and the Chain Array Switch (just watch for it) that again showed how raw of a fighter he really is compared to past Kamen Riders.

So does this episode get a recommendation? Maybe. I would say this might be better off watched along with Episode 6 as one shot, as the Yuki moments might be a little bit much for those who like their Kamen Rider full of bromance and “We Know Drama”. Henshin!