Aug 1, 2022
[SPOILERS]
For reference: I am reading the 50th Anniversary Edition. YMMV.
Good Lord what a mess. Where do I even start with this?
The art is good... when it is anything but the human body. And don't get me wrong I am not talking about the overly cartoony nature of some of the characters (although that was also very distracting at times). I mean that Ishinomori cannot draw the human form in a believable way. Looking at the panel on page 19: Kamen Rider's chest is comically large. He looks like Bob with bitch tits from Fight Club. If Kamen Rider wasn't wearing his outfit this wouldn't even
...
border on parody. It'd be a fucking full scale invasion parody.
However, credit where it is due: the drawings of architecture in this book is amazing. The background of the double page spread on pages 108 & 109 is a stunning example of what I mean. Every drawing of buildings in this book is either that good or better too. In fact one of the things I liked the most was the backgrounds. There are a lot of drawings of secret laboratories that are really fun to look around and imagine what all the buttons and screens are for. And Ishinomori's action staging is really something. There is never a doubt about what the characters are doing or how they are moving and it makes every fight flow naturally. Which is good because they are the meat of the series.
The story on the other hand... Well let's start with what I liked about it: I liked that Kamen Rider dies. It was genuinely the most surprising thing about the entire story. Like; who in their right mind would just kill off their main character and replace them with the villain that was introduced in that same chapter. That might seem like it happens fast but the whole story is at such a breakneck speed that it actually seems to play out... well "naturally" isn't he right word but it just works. His brain washing being undone by being shot in the head might be a bridge too far for some people's suspension of disbelief (there is a suspension bridge joke in here somewhere). But how the old Kamen Rider becomes a brain in a jar that basically serves as Alfred at the Bat-Computer for the next arc or 2 is so smart and cool. It made the consequences feel legitimate. The stakes just feel so much higher when you kill off the protagonist. I know that this only happened because the actor playing Kamen Rider in the show tie-in was injured and they needed to replace him, and the story in the manga needed to reflect that. But I thought it was a stroke of genius, accident or otherwise.
With that out of the way lets shit all over this: Ishinomori is clearly making this up as he goes and he does not have a good memory. Early on it is established Kamen Rider can recover from injury very quickly (page 45) but it never comes up again. In fact at one point he gets shot and seems to not recover at all for the rest of the scene. What is the point of setting up a power if you are never going to make use of it? I don't think Ishinomori was setting anything up at all. He just thought "oh yeah he should be able to do this.". If you are like me and enjoy fictional worlds with consistent rules; I think you will find a lot of this book very groan inducing.
Ishinomori breaks the rules of his own world all the time. He has absolutely no patience for the building of a his own narrative. And he introduces and discards characters so abruptly that it honestly made me feel like their were pages missing from my book (there were not I assure you). He draws a good book and no one can say that it is boring to read. But not only would I not revisit this; I also would not recommend it to anyone with the intention of reading an engaging story. Nor will I seeking anything else from the Kamen Rider franchise.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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