Saban's Masked Rider (Adapted from Kamen Rider Black RX) is regarded as one of the (IF NOT THE) WORST Kamen Rider show period! This was yet another show that was adapted by Saban using Stock Footage from a Tokusatsu show. But unlike those other shows by Saban, this one is notoriously for being the black sheep for (in every bad way you could imagine). In fact, this show is so bad that even the creator of Kamen Rider himself Shotaro Iishinomori HATES this show also.
Now, what made this show differently was it got its starts as the premiere of Mighty Morphin Season 3 and aired its own series 2-week latter. While that was a good to even a brilliant idea of expanding the world of Power Rangers, it failed...HARD! But because this show failed hard that episode is shown more as a dream by Kimberly (unless you count that little nod and reference in that Master Vile and the Metallic armor 3 parter that is, and his head gem looks like Trip's from Time Force). So exactly how Bad is Saban's Masked Rider? What Made it that Saban will never Do another Kamen Rider series ever gain? And also is this the worst Saban shows that there is out theirs? Well, then let's get into action with Saban's Mask Rider!
Episode 1: Escape From Edenoi Part 1
Now each episode of Saban's Masked Rider begins with a prolog about the show which is pretty bad and will get to later when we talk about the music of this show. The Show PROPERTY starts with The Main character of the show Dex on his planet Edenoi saying goodbye to all his friends. His Grandfather The Kind of Edenoi himself is sending him to earth to protect the Masked Rider Powers from the Shows villain Count Dregon.
Count Dregon and his suborned (I don't care about them and I already can tell you to don't either) at first seem to have some inspiring charter to him. He is after all the uncle of Dex and was cast out for his evil deeds, where he then tries rules over Edenoi as revenge (and maybe killing his brother). While yes there are most definitely interesting concepts here, it really doesn't amount to anything what so ever after the introduction to his charter starting at episode 9 on worse. Because after the episode 9 mark he will be a Saturday morning cartoon villain who has no charter and is just evil, for the sake of evil.
When Dex arrives on Earth in the city of Leawood he is introduced to... A sitcom family! I mean they are the Stewart family but they are basically A typical sitcom family! You have Dumb fat Dad, The Mom that is sweet and does her own thing, The the daughter that goes to high school, and of course the annoying young kid for the kids which is so annoying and is just frustrating to watch! They even have wacky next door neighbors Patsy and her friend Herbie who were supposed to be like Bulk and Skull but just turn out to be lame and not at all that important to the story at all. And also the family is all mix races, no other way I could write that in other than mix families, and the times.
In the morning Count Dregon sends one of his monsters the Insectivores to attack Leawood, So Dex then goes after one of Count Dregon's monster and transformers with his Ecto Accelerator and says the phrase, Ecto Phase Activate. Which for you people that think he is a Ghostbuster it is more like Ecto as in Exoskeleton: a rigid external covering for the body, Phase: a distinct period or stage in a process of change or forming part of something's development, Activate: Make. And YEAH I do have to admit I think that the transformation sequence is better than Black RX, I know people will hate but here me out. The belt and the 2 red gems from the belt become the eyes and the belt becomes the head which covers the body in an Exoskeleton armor. Compare to RX just has a bunch of sparks to recipients the sun and then POOF his suite is on... and also giving the audience a seizure.
Episode 2: Escape from Edenoi Part 2
So now we move on to the first fight of this show and... it's PRETTY TERRIBLE! The first and glaring fault in this whole fight scenes isn't even Black RX footage, this is from the Kamen Rider ZO Movie (YES REALLY)! This 1st fight scenes in the show best showcase how almost all of the fight scenes in this show are. A ton of short quick cuts from both American footage to stock Footage, stock footage just to use to burn stock footage, none of the American footage and Stock footage interacts with one another causing a great disconnect. Which then creates a confusing mess to keep track of and know what is going on at all (this is one of those things to see for yourself to know what I am talking about) and ends with a censored cop out of the monster getting destroyed. With the added disbenefit of your ears destroyed with Dex's sounding like Tommy with his own "EUAAAGH").
Now the first thing you are wondering why "WHY is the stock footage from Kamen Rider ZO like this in the first place?" and to that, I can answer with. The suits From Black RX were either too old and or damaged at that point where they could not be used at all. Hence why so much of this show is made up of stock footage whenever fights happen (but how and why they used ZO and J movie footage at all and in the first place is a question all in of its own?). It's also framed badly because this show, in general, is framed badly with Dex's finisher (The Electro Saber (with an awful green screen) which is then just used to shoot out a beam compared to RX just putting it in the enemy stones and killing him. This is another problem with the fights in this show because the are also edited heavily because Kamen Rider Black RX's fight scenes were more complex with hitting in the face and also could cut arm and limbs off compare to Sentai at that Point in time (just look at Amazon and the countless amount of blood in that show had).
But this also brings up a problem also when we see both the human character and the stock footage plays out (OK MMPR also had it that same problem they did work around, and at times also did have monster suits their to interact with the rangers themselves). And honestly, without the monsters themselves interacting with people, it is hard at points to even take the monster seriously themselves. But there was at least 1 set of American Made monster suits called the maggots... AND THEY JUST SUCK! They act just like the 3 stooges with their slapstick brand of humor and defeated by anyone... EVEN THE DAD OF THIS SHOW! But there was also another American made suit as well people and that suit were made for Ferbus.
Ferbus, Ferbus, Ferbus, Ferbus, FERBUS! Everyone hates Ferbus, and I so do mean everyone. This charter is just SO DAMN annoying and just makes this show even more of a chore to watch. The best way I can best describe this charter is Imagine every single annoying sidekick from every 80's cartoon and he still would not be annoying as them! But what makes Ferbus legitimately worse than them is that he causes more harm than good. On a weekly basis, he causes property damage to the town, or just being a dick to people.
And something people overlook is that Ferbus is not the dumb animal as you might think, BUT RATHER! He's intelligent with knowing how to use tools, knows how to use buttons on a game show, and can Drive a car, motorcycle, and finally an airplane. And all the while he is putting on this "CUTE" and dumb animal act the whole time when he is indeed a super intelligent being and he honestly does not care at all what happens since everything is just a game to Ferbus and he does not care about anyone else's feelings or if they are hurt or not. Ferbus is like the Abarekiller or even the Kamen Rider Genm levels of crazy evil!
I can tell now you are going like "Can you stop complaining and finally start with the real plot of the show already!" all I say to that THEIR IS NO DAMN PLOT IN THIS SHOW! This is basically MMPR season 1 ALL OVER AGAIN! But at this point, MMPR started to have more serialized storytelling compare to this show where it is episodic and just doing MMPR season 1 just because it has fighting and explosions like that and that is all you need (a lesson that Saban still has not learned apparently Neo Saban Era). Ass such, most of this show is made up of stupid 1 off filler episodes that are either cringe or just plain dumb, too bad PSA's or just reeks of the 90's looking back at it now!
This show should have had ended episode 1 all because of te Mask Rider Powers! Yeah, I haven't brought it up till now but the Mask Rider Powers can do anything that Dax wants. For example, his powers can allow Dex to put people to sleep, run super fast, summon a Car and motorcycle (that has the voice of Beelzemon From Digimon Tamers!) from his forehead, be TELEPORTING ANYWHERE HE WANTS (even count Dregon's SHIP), and most Damning of All turning people from stone to flesh! living I mean what can't his powers does I mean. Not to mention also his bike and the car can also take down Count Dregon ship with electricity and pull it down to earth Orbit! And for some reason, this show was 40 episodes LONG!
The Same can be said about the villains too since they can spy on Dex when and where ever they want to, even right in front of him. Rita could do the same on the rangers but there was also a limit on what she could do. I could again just list off and go into detail on why they are all dumb but all you need to know is this. They can teleport things into Dex's house, and instead of a bomb and kill his family they just sent a cupcake for ferbus to eat and make him grow and cause havoc. I know things should have had ended episode 1. So is there ANY good episodes remotely in this show at all? Well, actually there is at least 1 OK episode.
Episode 7 & 8 Super Gold
Back on the planet Edenoi, Dex's Grandfather asks Dex friend to go to earth and gives Dex a crystal which will increase his power to super Gold. But Count Dregon get his best friend (somehow since he use the maggots to capture him) his friend is on board Count Dregon's ship. Count Dregon then reveals that he too has been making his own Mask Rider Powers and with the help of the crystal Dex Friend is then brainwash by Count Dregon and he turns him into Robo Rider. Now the name Robo Rider is a reference to RX's form that is the Super Gold form in this show. Yes, they are using the Shadow Moon suite in this show and I will get to how I feel on that later (because you would be surprised by the answer).
Now Dex is then faced with fighting his friend who is brainwash and needs to try and make him snap out of it, So Dex reminds him good old times when they were apart Edenoi. Though really it was just a shot of both of them saying goodbye to one another when they send Dex to Earth. Which makes Dex Friend snap out of his brainwash which in return he gives Dex the Cryptical to make Dex go Super Gold. Which again another point on the American side of things with the transformation sequence with the light up glow effects. After that mess is all done with Dex's Friend then leaves Earth and goes back to Edenoi. But will be back to give Dex his Super Blue power (which that is a normal filler 1 off episode compare to this one).
Would you believe me that this is one of the better interpretations of Shadow Moon? I'm Serious, Shadow Moon suite appearance in the show is one of the better appearances of the Shadow Moon role. Don't get me wrong it's a mind control plot while nothing revolutionary, this is still acceptable compared to how Toei has represented the charter post-RX. Now originally I had a plethora of stuff listed out for this review on "Why is Shadow Moon treated poorly?" But that I then realize that it could become its own blog post one day so I decided to do that instead. So I guess we will move on to the final episode then shall we.
Episode 37: The Invasion of Leawood
Now, this is chronically the final episode of the show if we go by a plot. Otherwise, the last episode of the show is a dumb filler episode because this was a last minute ordeal. The episode begins with the Count Dregon attacking Leawood and pronouncing that Leawood will be destroyed by his newest monster Bronticon unless The Masked Rider comes and gives him the powers. Dex is worried about what to do but he asks his grandfather for some help and his grandfather then proceeds to have the help of the Mask Rider warriors.
YEAH, The Mask Rider Warriors AKA The Showa Riders Pre Black, AND they have excited this whole time and we are just learning about them now apparently! Yes, they are using the footage of the Showa Riders in this show from the Last episode of RX. I'll get to why this is bad in a bit. So When Dex fights Bronticon he's about to lose but that is when The Masked Rider Worriers help get Dex out of there. When Dex recovers he sees the other Mask Rider Warriors and they screw up on the naming.
Because Kamen Rider Nigo looks similar to Ichigo and also Riderman has a Japanese face which basically games the Meme of Kamen Rider Skyrider saying that he is Amazon (yet ZX was left intact HUH). After recovering Dex and the other Masked Rider Warriors go after Bronticon which they do defeat with Dex going Super Blue and also for some reason MAYBE Count Dregon is defeated (IDK the final scene with him was very hard to make out). So the show ends with Dex's Grandfather telling him he did a good job and he will have a son who will also Be a Masked Rider. But that will never happen because Shotaro Iishinomori hated this show so much he and Toei never wanted Saban to do another Kamen Rider adaption ever AGAIN! which is why Saban's Masked Rider has still not gotten a DVD yet and why all of the still images of this show are low quality.
The ending just OK but rather quick. I mean like with it comes to the Mask Rider Warriors just appear and no back story to them at all what so ever and really all that they do is just stand around in the background and just fight... which can also be said about Black RX . But editing review this and thinking about this now why didn't the Mask Rider Warriors help Edenoi against Count Dregon, which shows more that this show DID NOT NEED TO EXIST! Also more Masked Rider Warriors extic from outer space... hehehe
Best Episode: Episode 8 Super Gold
Worst Episode: Episode 13 Stranger from the North (you'll know next week)
Part 2
Come back for updates, Like me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, subscribe to the Otaku-Sentai Digiranger YouTube Channel, and have a nice day
Worst Episode: Episode 13 Stranger from the North (you'll know next week)
Part 2
Come back for updates, Like me on Facebook, Follow me on Twitter, subscribe to the Otaku-Sentai Digiranger YouTube Channel, and have a nice day
No comments:
Post a Comment