Series Review: Kamen Rider Build

Kamen Rider Build [2017-2018]

"Rabbit. Tank. Are you ready? Hagane no moonsault! RABBIT TANK!"

This was the second Kamen Rider show that I watched, and it's... it's kind of interesting because of how utterly different Kamen Rider Build is. Alongside Gaim and Ex-Aid, I had considered for the longest time of doing an episode-by-episode review of this show on this blog, but I just never quite had the energy to do so... hence why their series reviews were so late compared to every other Heisei-era Kamen Rider series. 

Build is perhaps a bit of an anomaly among the Kamen Rider shows at how strikingly serialized it feels. Throughout the Heisei era, every single one of the shows has a long-running plot of some kind, although some shows like Fourze, Wizard and especially Den-O didn't focus too heavily on their major plots. With Build, it seems like things ratcheted up to the opposite, where we don't quite have the standard two-parter formula that was so common in that period of time.

I was admittedly very taken in with Build's first episode, and since this was my second Kamen Rider show, it didn't take until quite some time to appreciate just how different it was. Unlike other Kamen Rider shows, Build doesn't take place in 'regular Japan, but with monsters and maybe a bit of magic'. No, the world of Build is established to have a completely different backstory. Ten years prior to the events of Build, an expedition to the planet Mars ended up returning with an enigmatic cube-like artifact called the Pandora's Box. The accidental activation of the relic ended up creating a gigantic wall called the 'Skywall', splitting Japan into three sub-nations -- Seito, Hokuto and Touto. And that's where we get to our present-day hero, the self-proclaimed genius physicist Kiryu Sento from Touto (the main 'nation' we're focusing at) who gets tapped by the government to unlock the secrets of the box. 

Kiryu Sento himself is an interesting protagonist. He's not our first amnesiac protagonist -- in Heisei alone that honour goes to Kamen Rider Agito, and that's not counting various other secondary characters over the years. But the way the show would handle the amnesia is an interesting one. Kiryu Sento has vague memories of his past -- he was experimented upon by a mysterious organization called Faust; and that ended up giving him the ability to transform into Kamen Rider Build. Oh, and he's also working as a vigilante in his Kamen Rider identity, giving us a rare Batman-esque Kamen Rider that's hunted down by both the villains and the authorities. 

I admit that the whole idea of a set of 'full bottles' that the hero has to shake is a bit bizarre as far as gimmicks go, but I absolutely love how this gets incorporated into Build's transformations and fighting scenes. I think Build still has my favourite slew of alternate forms shown to the audience in the first act of the show, with so many bizarre and odd combinations of two 'halves' of the Build suit. With each transformation involving an organic and an inorganic fullbottle, Kamen Rider Build's basic red-and-blue form of 'Rabbit Tank' is bizarre enough the first time I saw it... let alone when he does his finishing kick, where he summons and traces a giant physics graph of motion. Later on we get even more ridiculous forms as our heroes collect more and more of the gimmicks. Among my favourites include 'Rocket Panda', 'Ninja Comic', 'Tiger UFO', 'Lion Vacuum' and 'Wolf Smartphone'. Additionally, Build's belt has some of the most glorious sounds. 

The series basically starts off with Kiryu Sento encountering fugitive and ex-boxer Banjou Ryuuga, the first lead that Sento has to uncovering his past and unraveling the many conspiracies that the three nations of Japan has brewing under the surface. Rounding up the cast is the perpetually-tired and irritated Isurugi Misora, daughter of the cafe owner Soichi where Kiryu Sento works in. 

While its predecessor show Ex-Aid almost immediately starts off by introducing many other Kamen Riders, Build is a bit more content to take it a bit slower. Yes, by the time the show has concluded the amount of Kamen Riders does rival Ex-Aid, but unlike the former they really did keep it to mostly just Sento and Banjou in the beginning. The focus of the show's early stages is mostly on the growing relationship between Sento, Banjou and Misora, as well as the running themes of trying to figure out what the government and Faust are hiding. The fact that this is an 'alternate history' world means that the slow drip of exposition of the politics between Touto, Hokuto and Seito (and later on when we meet characters from there) ends up feeling earned. 

The side cast that slowly grows into main cast status is also quite great. Early on the cast is rounded out by Kiryu Sento's boss, the military-minded Himuro Gentoku; Misora's kooky dad Isurugi Soichi and intrepid reporter Takigawa Sawa. There are also two mysterious Kamen-Rider-esque figures called Blood Stalk and Night Rogue serving as the 'face' of Faust, and the first arc of Kamen Rider Build ends up revolving around the true identity of Night Rogue and Blood Stalk, the true identity of Kiryu Sento (and whether he's actually a villain in his previous persona) and the truth of what happened ten years ago in Mars.

And this show does feel like a truly arc-driven show that sets it apart from every other Kamen Rider show in Heisei. Without spoiling too much, the revelations in the first act end up with the stage for the second act leading to what's essentially an all-out war across the three Japanese nations, with the three top politicians of the nations having their own agendas for Pandora's Box and the collection of all the fullbottles. This leads us to the introduction of Sawatari Kazumi, or Kamen Rider Grease, and his three sidekicks, the 'Three Crows' of Hokuto. While it all devolves into a fight between Kamen Riders Build, Grease and Rogue, the fact that there are definitely parts of this show that involves a straight-up war and a fair amount of espionage and subterfuge does give Build a unique vibe that sets it apart from a lot of the other Rider shows. 

One of the running themes that I felt was done the most well is the idea of Kiryu Sento being an inventor who constantly improves on his combat capabilities... but when said weaponry is turned upon fellow humans, it's pretty damning for our poor protagonist. While earlier in the show Sento's inventions just mostly focus on wacky things like making a comic-book sword for his Ninja Comic form, things take a darker turn when Sento's prior title of "Devil Scientist" leads to him creating his Build Hazard form. A 'berserk' form is a bit of a tired trope in Kamen Rider, but perhaps I was so tired of it because my very first berserking Kamen Rider was Build's Hazard form... who straight-up kills one of the secondary cast members in his rage. This leads to a fair amount of angst not only revolving around Kiryu's status as a weapons inventor, but also the whole fact that, for a couple of episodes, the war escalated even more when the friends of the man Kiryu kills understandably seeks vengeance. 

Again, explaining every single character's motivations and character development would take a bit too much time, but while there are other side-characters that show up here like the (very flat and unmemorable) Hell Bros, the rather hilarious Utsumi "Kamen Rider Mad Rogue" Nariaki and one of my favourite recurring antagonists Juzaburou Namba, all the revelations and the eventual elevation of Gentoku, Sawa and Kazumi into main cast status end up with a whole slew of memorable characters. And it's the handling of these secondary characters that I feel deserves praise -- they start off as recurring aspects of the show that slowly get more and more screentime, and when they end up finally joining the main cast, they end up feel utterly right at home. None of them feel wasted, and while neither one of the girls ended up as riders, I do really feel like both of them added something significant to the show that many other Rider supporting cast members don't quite do. 

The final arc of Build does admittedly end up being mostly just tying up all the plot threads it had introduced, and as such I did feel like it's perhaps the least interesting part of the show... but don't let that statement fool you into thinking that Build didn't stick the landing. A lot of Kamen Rider shows really do have trouble sticking the landing, but Build isn't one of them -- after the true nature of Mars and Pandora's Box is revealed, our main villain Kamen Rider Evol (or just "Evolt") serves as a great and consistent threat throughout the final parts of the show. The in-fighting between the three nations also works in this favour as Evolt merrily manipulates the politicians around. Evolt himself is quite fun as an utterly charismatic villain that strides the line between likable and deplorable very, very well -- and in a rather refreshing twist, despite being such a major character, there was no moment in the show's run that Evolt was actually talked into becoming redeemable and an ally. (The New World spinoff is technically a different Evolt)

There are some revelations (which I am deliberately keeping vague) near the end that did make me raise my eyebrows, but it's honestly par the course for a Kamen Rider show. What I felt was important was that the show itself didn't feel like it forced any of these huge revelations. Hell, all this talking about Build really does get me somewhat interested to do an episodic review at some point. Oh well, maybe in the future. 

One thing that I do have to emphasize is that despite its seriousness and how dark it can get at times, Kamen Rider Build is still a Kamen Rider show, and for the most part it's still happy to have some moments of levity to not make the entire show a serious sci-fi show. The show's tongue-in-cheek and fourth-wall-breaking openings are one of the best features in a show I already really like, but Kiryu, Banjou and Misora all have their character quirks that make them lovable. Kiryu is arrogantly cocky, Banjou is a lovable dumb meathead, and while she does admittedly get a bit shafted in favour of the Kiryu/Banjou pair, the moments when Misora gets to say one of her funny lines are always memorable. When they join the main cast, both Kazumi and Gentoku also show that despite their super-serious first impression, they also do have a fair amount of hilarity to them. Admittedly somewhat forced in Gentoku's case, but by the time the show ends you don't really question it too much. 

With all the praise I'm heaping on Build, I'd be remiss not to mention Build's weaknesses as a show. As much as I did enjoy it, and as much as it did contribute to developing Kiryu and Banjou as characters, the first batch of episodes did feel particularly heavy in trying to aggressively market the many, many forms that Build's base belt can access. For every well-done side character, there are ones like the Hell Bros or Vernage that feel under-baked and when their story are done all they elicited from me is a 'huh'. And not all the revelations are to everyone's taste, particularly approaching the end. And I definitely felt like the post-show "NEW WORLD" spinoffs end up diminishing the impact of the show instead of enhancing it like Gaim, Ex-Aid or Zero-One's respective spinoffs did. 

Still, that's not enough to make me say that Build is anything but one of the better shows in the Kamen Rider franchise. I would wholeheartedly recommend this show to anyone checking out the franchise. If nothing else, it's a very solidly-paced show that's extremely entertaining from start to finish, and I really did feel like the story was told the way the storytellers wanted it to.