Kamen Rider Revice 13 Review: First Quarter Power-Up

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 13: Fenix's Close Call

An interesting episode? This one is mostly setup, though one that feels pretty impactful. We're about near the time where a huge December twist happens in these newer Rider shows, aren't we? The episode starts off relatively tame, establishing that Skybase is landing for refueling, talking about how there are prisoners held there for rehabilitation, and how both the Revice and Demons driver need to be taken in for maintenance. 

And this is the crux of this episode's theme -- Ikki is so accustomed at basically being, well, the main character that he's more than a bit antsy of not being able to transform. He says that he trusts Daiji and Sakura to take care of everything, but when he charges into battle without his belt later on in the episode, Ikki gets a bit of a realization that, yeah, he should really trust his younger siblings to take care of themselves. Later on the major conflict of the episode is Ikki's trust with Vice. While the resolution is a bit obvious, I feel like an episode like this where they work through their issues is pretty essential. We need it to properly go from the original 'the demon tries to eat Ikki's mom' from episode 1 to... well, the Momotaros-style dynamic the two now have. 

The Deadmen have their own plans, and at least for this week, it doesn't involve evil doctor Amahiko. Instead, a brand-new phase 2 Deadman, the Chameleon Deadman, show up, and they actually plan to hunt down more sacrifice candidates for Giff -- and they plan to spring the evil lawyer from a couple episodes back. Aguilera sics a bunch of goons as a distraction for Kamen Riders Live and Jeanne, before attacking Skybase itself. The Chameleon Deadman infiltrates and springs the lawyer, while Olteca and Julio stay behind to fight the two Kamen Riders. I don't have much to say here, but the lack of bad CGI remix forms does make the Live/Jeanne/Olteca/Julio fight feel pretty badass. Even moreso with the unexpected return of Kamen Rider Evil, causing a 3-v-1 against Jeanne. 

George tries to create a brand-new power-up device, but he can't get the Rex Vistamp to properly synchronize until the aforementioned Ikki/Vice bonding scene, which is... again, pretty par the course for a Tokusatsu show, but the reason behind Ikki's reluctance is at least extremely understandable. After a pretty well-acted scene, the two get this trust-bonding moment, Vice punches a demon behind Ikki, and this trust ends up powering the Barid Rex Vistamp. 

And... the Barid Rex form looks cool. It has ice powers! Although unfortunately, its special power is summoning those terrible-looking CGI Remix forms. Boo! At least the finisher -- freezing everything and then rider kicking it -- is cool. Jeanne also gets her own power-up, using the Kujaku Vistamp to turn Lovekov into war-fans. She totally gets to kick Kamen Rider Evil back into Daichi, while Ikki beats the two Deadmen generals... but they escape with the lawyer nonetheless. 

The episode ends with the realizing that there must be someone in Fenix that let the Deadmen in, and the only person that it could be is Yujiro Wakabayashi, who walks sinisterly as the episode closes... neat! He's going to be relevant too! Overall, it's mostly just debuting the Barid Rex form, but it's a relatively solid episode for Ikki's character, as well as to build up some other facets of the story. 

Random Notes:

• George reiterates to Karate GARRRL that her driver was one that's supposed to be scrapped a while back and is a prototype version of the Revice Driver's ability to manifest a demon. 
• You can just feel the cheekiness radiating off of Sakura with the line 'can't transform, can't help' towards Ikki. 
• The warning sign in George's lab has the drawing be someone snapping another person's neck. Okay, George, we get it, you're loco. 
• Hiromi spends most of the fight trying his best to protect Lovekov. He tries, god bless him.