Kamen Rider Fourze (2011) Episode 6 Review

The Kajin that you see here is the Unicorn Zodiarts, which is primarily known for it’s ability to remove its faceplate and transform it into a rapier for a concentrated ground/anti-air attack. This actually gives Fourze a great deal of trouble until he unlocks the full potential of the Elec Switch, as shown in Episode 6, which is nice because we do see a new form, but also kinda meh as we don’t really get too much of a good reason for JK’s issues with Gentaro’s pledge of friendship.

Where we last left off, Gentaro had his Elec Switch stolen by JK who simply wanted it as a source of power to use against the Unicorn Zodiarts. We continue with a conversation between the Scorpio Zodiarts and the Red-Eyed Principal Guy about the prospect of the Zodiarts evolving due to the appearance of Fourze, followed by a funny sequence in which Gentaro manages to go out of his way to avoid conversation with Kengo and Yuki throughout the day at school, followed by getting JK to help him try to track down where the switch could’ve gone. At one point Gentaro returns to the Karaoke Club to talk with the supervisors there while JK gloats to his friends about the situation, not knowing that the Unicorn had tracked them down. What follows is a meeting between Gentaro/JK and the Zodiarts in which Gentaro finds out about JK’s deception and is taken down by the Unicorn while distracted. JK himself tries to offer the Elec Switch as a means of escaping, but is captured by the Unicorn.

The next sequence is pretty hilarious as Nozama finds our knocked out hero and proceeds to “bury” him and give last rites before he manages to wake up enough to grab her leg. The Unicorn meanwhile has JK tied up at what I like to call the Toei-Pipeworks-Factory-So-We-Can-Get-Factory-Shots-Joint, where JK is told to call everyone he knows, with the promise that he’ll be let go if someone will come after him. Of course no one will due to JK’s personality towards others, so we begin the Gentaro rescue operation. After a fantastic wake-up by Miu and Yuki followed by a Kengo-Tough-Bro-Love Moment, Gentaro heads out to the Factory for the friendship. As the Unicorn never intended to let JK go, we naturally head into battle in which we finally see Elec States revealed, followed by Unicorn Defeat and Tossed Salad.

What I did like about this episode is that it showed how far Gentaro is willing to go for his friends, even taking in a snake like JK (yes I know I rhymed on that bit). What I wasn’t a fan of is the very-thin reasoning for JK’s issues with being friends, basically boiled down to “I like to use people.” I know this is a show intended for kids in Japan so you can’t really do complex themes of human psyches and relationships, but still, they should’ve come up with something better so that when he does get all friendly at the end of the episode, it doesn’t feel tacked on or forced.

I also want to give props to the End Fight itself, as this episode should show that Wire-Fu is here to stay, and I also like the debut of Elec States with Billy the Rod. The Rod itself kinda looks silly for a Sword-like weapon, so it’s nice that they added the projectile and net abilities to help compensate for that.

So, does this episode get my recommendation? To an extent. If I were you, I would skip to the battle scenes for Elec States and take in the knowledge that JK is part of the Kamen Rider Club. Now there’s only Shun and Nozama left to join. Henshin!