Written: Saturday. August 28, 2021.
I was about to start writing a review for the first Kamen Rider series ever made, but decided I would just do that tomorrow, since tomorrow is a Sunday.
Today was surprisingly a quick day. It felt like a quick day, even if I woke up at around 5:40 am in the morning. My stupid fucking brother decided to have a phone call with someone while someone else was still clearly sleeping in the same room with him. I went downstairs, knowing that I would never be able to sleep again until much later in the day, when my brother is back to being fucking asleep.
I played for a while on the computer. Just a little bit. I didn't play War of the Visions awhile ago, though. I just played Brawl Stars and Vanguard. It's getting hard to win matches in Vanguard. I didn't win a single game today, if I recall correctly. So I just gave up playing for the day.
After that, I suddenly had this urge to look up video game documentaries that I haven't watched yet. I found a few, but I settled on this one documentary called Video Game Invasion, which stars Tony Hawk as the host of the documentary. This documentary was made way back in 2004, so it's not as updated, but was still able to give a condensed summary of the history of video games. From Atari to PC, it was able to tell all the important stuff you needed to learn if you're starting out to research stuff regarding the video game industry. But I have to say, The King of Kong is still my most favorite video game documentary ever made. It's really the best I've seen so far.
I honestly don't know if I wanna really dive deep into the world of video game development. There have been waves where I am so interested in wanting to learn how to make a video game, but when I get down to actually trying to find where to start learning, I lose that interest. Mainly because there are so many routes to take when choosing what type of game or software you'd want to learn how to use. I think the most common thing that one can begin to learn how to use is the Unity software. If I want to have a bit easier experience in starting out with game development, I'd rather go with learning how to use GB Studio first.
I also just can't drop everything else that I'm doing for the sake of focusing up on game development. I don't think that being a game developer in the Philippines is ever gonna be a great thing, or an easy thing, to accomplish. People won't take you seriously, and they only ever will once you've been acknowledged outside of the country. Let's say the game that you built made it on the news. That is one example of when you'll be recognized by the Filipino people around you. Otherwise, they'll always think that you're wasting your time, cause the only "real" jobs that are worth their attention are Engineering jobs and/or Doctorate degrees. Yeah, that's toxic Filipino culture for ya'll.
I guess I should do a beta-review on Kamen Rider (1971-73). I definitely found the series quite enjoyable. I don't know yet if the 98 episodes was worth watching. I'm still sort of processing all that I've experienced from watching this long series. I would say that I really learned how to dial down my expectations for logic and reason when it came to watching any episode from this series in general. You really just have to go with the flow in everything that's being shown on the screen. If you see a new side-character doing something in the shot, you bet your ass that they're probably eavesdropping on the main characters, because they're secretly members from the evil corporation called Shocker. Or they're even the Monsters of the Episode, in disguise. It happens almost every episode. It's just so funny to me.
And the fact that good side-characters always find themselves in the presence of, or is affiliated with Hongou Takeshi/Ichimonji Hayato (Kamen Rider #1 & #2) and the Tachibana Racing Club, is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes what's considered "normal" in the world of this series. Also the fact that there are rarely any sightings of police officers in the streets of Japan is very convenient for the Kamen Riders of this show. If there were actually police officers surveying every area all the time, then the Kamen Riders wouldn't have went through half of the hard work they went through in the series. Police Supervision really does not exist here 99% of the time. And we're just there to accept that. If I didn't point that out, people wouldn't probably have noticed it at all, even.
I liked the episodes by the end that focused on the many Kamen Rider clones. I wish they could've done more of that, or at least introduced an evil Kamen Rider that would consistently show up in a bunch of episodes to rival the good Kamen Riders. We just had to settle for two dudes wearing commander or military outfits, an Egyptian cockroach cosplayer, and a creepy dried-up old bootleg Dracula. I honestly didn't enjoy seeing that old man, Period. He had a creepy smile.
The lack of a love interest, due to the absence of Ruriko Midorikawa, is definitely something to point out in this series. She was only there for 13 episodes. She left when Hongou Takeshi get injured in real life, and was temporarily replaced by Ichimonji Hayato. No qualms towards Ichimonji, but Taki would've been a great Kamen Rider on his own. He was already a recurring character even before Hongou left the series for the first time. It would've made sense if Hongou somehow turned him into another Kamen Rider, out of Taki's insistence to help out in defeating Shocker. But no. They had to hire a new actor to replace the role of Hongou Takeshi, but still have Taki be there as sort of a right-hand man to Kamen Rider.
And yeah, this series really lacked in girl power. The girl group from the Tachibana Racing Club were as good as wooden planks. They weren't really characters, they were just always in the way. The kids, who eventually became the Youth Rider Squad as the series progressed, were at least useful because they gave out information that would help Kamen Rider find where Shocker is hiding. They could've at least introduced a new love interest in the series, or maybe showed more feminine monsters-of-the-week. But no. This was really a male demographic-focused series.
To end it on a good note, I'm still interested in watching the next shows in the franchise. Although I am going to watch Himitsu Sentai Gorenger first, then Ultra Q, then Metal Hero, before going back to Kamen Rider.
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