Series Review: Kamen Rider Gaim

Kamen Rider Gaim [2013-2014]

I finished writing the reviews for Ex-Aid and Build recently, and this is the final show in the Heisei Kamen Rider series that I have yet to review. It's also the first Kamen Rider show I've watched. Which is why I know this review will be a bit shorter than the rest. 

Back when I first did full series reviews for the various Kamen Rider shows, it's also because I was thinking of picking one of the shows I really liked and doing episode-by-episode reviews. It was around the time that I was doing Kiva and Zero-One simultaneously, and I thought that once I was done with Kiva and the handful of other shows that I haven't watched at the time (Hibiki, Kuuga, Agito and I believe half of Blade) I could sit down and pick one of my favourite shows and really dig into it. On top of the contenders were Gaim, Ex-Aid, Build and Double, all of which being my favourites and having enough variety on an episode-to-episode basis that I felt would allow me to avoid the burnout that plagued me when I reviewed Kiva.

Kamen Rider Gaim is such a weird Kamen Rider show, though, when I sit down and think of all the other shows in the Heisei era. It was my first Kamen Rider show, so I just sat back and accepted everything that was tossed at me. I mean, I've seen other animes with concepts similar or weirder than this, so yeah. The main characters of the show are groups of street dancers. Zawame City has a gigantic tower called Yggdrasil Corporation that oversaw almost everything. People tune in on web videos to look at street gangs fight with monsters called Pokemon "Inves". There's this bizarre foray into godhood, and vague flashbacks to either an alternate universe, a possible future or the past. 

Basically, it didn't take me until my third or fourth Rider show to realize that for the most part, Kamen Rider tended to operate on a more 'Japan, but with monsters' quasi-urban-fantasy setting. All I'm saying is that when the show was pitched to me by my friends, it was basically "hey, look at this, it's like Power Rangers, but they transform into fruit samurai, while the belts scream English words". I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. And then I proceeded to finish the entire show in under a week. 

Written by famous anime writer Gen Urobuchi, even after giving Gaim several years of breathing time, I did feel like it's still ultimately a very solid show. As mentioned before, the setting is initially something rather simple -- youthful street gangs that call themselves 'Beat Riders' that roam the streets of Zawame City. Our hero Kazuraba Kouta is a former member of the group Team Gaim, and initially he tries his best to divorce himself from the dance group and find a proper job. But when the team's captain goes missing, Kouta helps out only to find himself face-to-face with bizarre monsters, and ends up in possession of a Sengoku Driver, allowing himself to transform into a fruit samurai. By, naturally, creating a giant zipper portal in the sky and summoning a giant CGI fruit to unfold into armour. And his finisher skill is called 'Orange Squash'. As you do. 

Thanks to a mysterious guy with a fancy hat called Lock Dealer Sid, the Sengoku Drivers quickly find themselves spread across the Beat Riders, who view them as basically the next big thing to compete with each other after the (still bizarre) quasi-Pokemon Inves game. It is violent, yes, but it's treated as basically just gang fighting with some extra steps. Kumon Kaito of Team Bravo becomes Armoured Rider Baron (he's a banana!), essentially becoming the abrasive rival to Kouta. One of the main members of Team Gaim, Kureshima "Micchy" Mitsuzane, who has a bit of a hero worship on Kouta, becomes Armoured Rider Ryugen (he's a grape!). There's also the enigmatic Armoured Rider Zangetsu (he's a melon!). And two minor characters become Armoured Riders Kurokage and Gridon (they're nuts!). Rounding up the initial cast is Oren Pierre Alfonso, an over-the-top flamboyant mercenary patisserie who becomes Armoured Rider Bravo (he's a durian!).

While the show initially seems to revolve around wacky dance teams and a mysterious organization Yggdrasil that's trying to get back their stolen devices (hence Oren the mercenary), the show quickly delves into a bit of a mystery in regards to the mysterious dimension later revealed to be called Helheim, an otherworldly forest where the Inves and Lockseeds come from. All of this is compounded to Kouta receiving enigmatic visions from a mysterious white-robed girl who looks like his good friend Mai. As the conflict escalates, so does Yggdrasil's role, where it's revealed that they're collecting data on the youth recklessly using the drivers. The middle part of the show revolves around well-meaning extremist Takatora (Zangetsu the melon), hammy mad scientist Sengoku Ryouma (Duke the lemon), badass lady bodyguard Minato Yoko (Marika the peach) and shifty hat-toting Sid (Sigurd the cherry) as a set of antagonists in the show. Every single one of these characters end up being developed to some degree, and while there's a lot of backstabbing and team-ups going on among the various organizations, all of them felt natural. 

Again, I'm trying to be as vague as possible, especially what happens in the second half of the show where we get fun characters like Demushu and Redyue tossed into the mix. Trying to condense the show into several short paragraphs would be an exercise in confusion, but suffice to say that in-between the colourful characters and the fruit-themed action scenes, the writers have crafted a great world with a rich backstory that didn't feel force-fed to the audience. And all the betrayals done by the characters -- both antagonists that decide to join up with the good guys for their own vague reasons, or good guys that take a turn for the sinister because of their personal circumstances... a lot of these felt organic and not blatantly telegraphed. 

And, yes, despite its large cast, the strength of the writing means that every single Rider (not counting the many, many epilogue and movie exclusive ones) does end up feeling like they are all characters. Each of these Riders end up feeling like they are important to the narrative, even more minor ones like Armoured Riders Knuckle (who debuted relatively late into the show). The show itself does focus primarily on Kouta/Gaim, Kaito/Baron and Micchy/Ryugen, but everybody else does have their own share in the spotlight. It's really a bit hard to talk about this show without being super-vague or spoiling about the admittedly somewhat convoluted backstory involving the characters, but I really did feel that by the end of the 47-episode run, all the main characters have had their share of character growth and side-plot. (There's also that rather random Kikaider-crossover episode in the middle of the show, and a bunch of interesting but ultimately unnecessary side-material.)

And, yes. The ending with the whole god thing is... a bit of a contentious one. But honestly, with the themes that Gaim explores, do you really expect anything less? 

Ultimately I feel like Gaim is a show that's special to me, but has something interesting for everyone. It breaks the mould of what a Kamen Rider show can do (I don't think the term 'Kamen Rider' even gets used anywhere in the show) and gives us a show with complex characters and a rather interestingly anime-esque plot. While some might describe Gaim as being a bit too cosmic or overwrought by the end, I did feel like I still enjoyed the show for what it is, and while it's different, it's at least very solid all the way to its conclusion. 

...and that does it for all my coverage of the Heisei Kamen Rider shows! Maybe next year I'll actually finally sit down and pick one of the older shows to do episodic reviews of? We'll see!