#amazon rider

[ungojirasapiente]

A new Kamen Rider drawing from me, and its of my personal favorite Showa-era Rider, Kamen Rider Amazon! ------ Un nuevo dibujo mio de Kamen Rider, y es de mi Rider de la era Showa favorito, Kamen Rider Amazon!

[vo-kopen]

So in other news I started another Kamen Rider season and it hits hard for an Autistic living in the States in 2025.

So back in like 2021 I watched the first two episodes of Amazon Rider since they were now on YouTube. It didn’t click back then. But times have changed, again, and I had heard folks on tumblr discuss the series in a light I hadn’t considered. So I started watching it, and six episodes in, it’s peak.

On the surface, Kamen Rider Amazon is basically “if Tarzan could turn into a lizard superhero.” Amazon’s parents died in a plane crash and he was raised among the beasts of the jungle. An iconic looking villain destroyed a nearby village of indigenous folks, and the survivor used his last acts to bond Amazon to an armlet. This lets him turn into Amazon Rider. He then swam to Japan (okay he got on a boat at some point, but he was swimming the last time we saw him before it cut to the docks, and proceeds to fight the villain’s forces, who are after his armlet.

That’s the synopsis. But by barely peeling the surface, the show seems to be about in-group out-group. Amazon cannot speak Japanese, he can’t really speak any language. He doesn’t understand Japanese society, the city’s noise and night lights overstimulated him, motorcycles are too loud and scary, and people distrust him because he seems “suspicious.” The female lead doesn’t like her younger brother seeing him because “all this weird stuff started happening when Amazon arrived,” the classic Rider ally Tachibana is frustrated that he’s not like the earlier Kamen Riders, police arrest him after he helped catch a murderer because he’s weird. (ACAB) In one episodes he’s left shouting “I hate humans,” and decides to return to the jungle.

There’s a heartbreaking scene where Amazon finds a corpse killed by the villains, and three civilians see him near the body. They demand an explanation, but he cannot speak Japanese, so he cannot articulate. They respond by grabbing sticks and beating him, calling him a “fool.” In the aftermath the narrator agrees that even if he could speak, they wouldn’t have listen, and frustration at being an outcast causes Amazon to have what I would describe as a meltdown, smashing a cabin he was hiding in. He begins chanting “fool,” and I’m not even sure if he understood what the word means. He just knows it “justified” their violence towards him.

Amazon comes across as outsider, someone who is good but is distrusted for not belonging. He’s an immigrant, but he also feels more kinship with the beasts, and finds human society overwhelming and confusing. He doesn’t belong in the human world, and he only stays because a boy who hasn’t had time to develop biases is his friend. Amazon resonates with me as an Autistic, he’s clearly a person, but people think he’s weird and thus dangerous. And their world in turn is a sensory nightmare for him.

Now, I haven’t seen every Showa Kamen Rider season, thus far I only finished the OG series and the nineties movies, and only seen the first six episodes of Amazon.* But Amazon Rider’s design doesn’t feel as much like a rider. He looks like a rubber suited lizard, with visible jaws with teeth. He’s got more of a monster design that a Toku hero’s but he s a hero, he just doesn’t fit the classic look. Which fits his outcast vibes. Likewise, in episode six he shows mercy to an actual monster who was being tortured by the villains for failing, and in turn the monster becomes his ally. A rubber suited creature who often would be the motw becomes his friend, helps recover secret information from the villains base for him, and I hear this guy will stick around for like fifteen episodes. This isn’t a throwaway guy, this is long term. In the OG series no monsters defected (because they were cyborgs brainwashed by a Nazi splinter group) and I cannot speak for other shows seasons, but in this season that really focuses on Amazon Rider’s alienation from humanity, of course there would be a monster who didn’t belong with the villains.

So yeah Amazon Rider is now one of my faves. I may have impulsively bought a dvd of him. Screw you Amazon the corporation, one volume is not worth $130+, I’m going to the Amazon as in a Brazilian seller on eBay .

Of course, I haven’t finish the series, so it could always end in a really bad way. I already know one major character will eventually die, but that’s not necessarily a mark against it. But gosh it’s wild having seen season one of Amazonz first. Amazon Rider might be violent, but it does not leave me remotely as emotionally vexed by its spiritual successor. Don’t get me wrong, I do love Armor Zone, but gosh season one exhausted me.

*I have completed more Rider than that though. Finished Kuuga and Fourze, and I am only one episode behind on Gavv, so I might finish that too. Likewise I finished the Shin Kamen Rider movie from two years back. Also saw like 37 episodes of Build, like 17 of Zero One, and 10 of Ryuki, but I didn’t finish those.

[jasonheichel]

Tokutember 2023 Day 26: "Prowl"

Kamen Rider Amazon Alpha

[omegahaunter]

Samus, with a suit based on Kamen rider Amazon Alpha

[nines82]

-- 𝑲𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝑹𝑿 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 -- Kamen Rider Black RX, the final frontier. RX is the end of Rider’s tenure to the Japanese television screens on weekly airings in the Showa period. For Rider would not get its shine once more in television until 2000 with Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000-2001). RX is direct sequel to the previous Kamen Rider Black (1987-1988), following Kotaro Minami in a new battle against the Crisis Empire with his newly gained form “RX” and later the forms of Bio and Robo Rider following suit. The show occasionally brings back cast from the previous season to further add onto a tighter sense of continuity. RX follows in Black’s footsteps by being essentially “Kamen Rider but with Sentai and Metal Heroes underneath”, a show that is so devoid of the typical Kamen Rider format that when it eventually does return to it with the final arc it feels fresh and new. From the well-crafted storyline to some really great scenes of character drama, RX seems to keep the ball rolling with Black’s strengths while putting it into a new setting and tone that still works. A problem Rider faces when doing a sequel series so direct (see Rider to V3), is that the sense of staleness coming from the similar tone and sometimes new takes on old plots. RX succeeds where V3 fails in this regard, where the more of the same types of moments don’t feel like they overstay their welcome and, arguably, show why those types of beats worked so well last season. Another issue they face is implementing the legacy cast into the story, and I think RX has the best approach to handling the return of the previous Riders compared to the many abrupt and rave-y attempts seen before. Instead of feeling like an attempt to garner higher viewership or ratings, they feel like they return for a reason that fits their characters. The show tackles its themes and ideas in ways not dissimilar to how Black did with its own, and even expands on many of the themes of Black. The two shows go hand-in-hand very well, as if they really do want you to also see how the writing team are able to strut their stuff.  RX has a few issues with pacing at times, and I feel as if the show can have one too many unnecessary scenes that could have been cut out. I feel like this duo both have a wonky middle section that kinda bring them down but not to the point that it wholly affects the show. RX is worth a shot if you track down a good quality version, my personal recommendation is the Bereke Scrubs RX release.  NEXT: Iron King

[bribaazul]

[epica-fantasia-ilustrada]

[bribaazul]