I remember the very first time I was exposed to a tokusatsu show. Like many kids of my generation, it was Power Rangers. The US made series that took the Japanese footage from Super Sentai series and spliced in their own actors to create a new series that was so mismatched and broken at times that you had to see the delightfully weird and absurd side to the show. From then on, however, I was hooked on the format, and found myself watching anything Japanese made that I could, Kaiju movies, anime series, movies, whatever I could. And whilst my horizons for Japanese media were broadened, my love for tokusatsu was still at the core. As the years progressed I was able to get my hands on English translations for various Super Sentai shows, and some Ultraman, but one show that always seemed to elude me was Kamen Rider.
Kamen Rider Zero-One focuses on Aruto Hiden, a failing stand-up comic who became the head of a mega corporation when his grandfather passed away and left it to him in his will. As the CEO of Hiden Intelligence, Aruto has been thrown into a world that he knows next to nothing about, and is trying to do the best he can. This isn't the only thing that he's been left by his grandfather, however, as he has also become the latest wearer of the Kamen Rider Zero-One armour, and has been trying to be a hero by fighting against rogue Humagears.
As the book begins Aruto is defending himself and his actions to A.I.M.S., a military organisation with a couple of their own Kamen Riders. Aruto feels like he's doing a poor job as a Rider, and that his comedy career isn't going so well either. He begins the book at rock bottom. Unfortunately, he doesn't get much of a chance to pick himself up before things get a little worse for him, and he comes under attack from a mysterious new Kamen Rider calling himself Ragnarok. Ragnarok arrives on the scene and quickly overpowers Aruto, proving to be more powerful, and more brutal in his approach. He's there to kill any Kamen Rider he finds, and Aruto is squarely in his sights.
Following the initial confrontation with Ragnarok the book becomes one long mission to stop the monstrous new foe, one that sees Aruto being put down more and more, even being threatened with arrest for his actions, and having to learn to become the hero that's hidden deep inside himself. As someone who's not seen the show, I don't know how this fits into the character arc of the series, if it contradicts anything, or if it works perfectly; but as a book on its own it's a decent arc for the lead character to have to go through, and feels like the kind of journey a hero would go through pretty early on in their career.
I did also enjoy the character of Ragnarok. Once his true identity and origin were revealed the story suddenly made a lot more sense, and his relentless pursuit of Aruto suddenly felt more natural. For those who've read Chip Zdarsky's Batman: Failsafe there will be a sense of familiarity to this story. The fact that both stories were originally published in individual issues within six months of each other makes for one of those amusing cases of writers having similar ideas around the same time. Luckily, the two are still very distinct from each other, but it's cool to see a tokusatsu spin on that kind of tale.
The art on the book is decent throughout, with some fantastic splash pages and big action panels that really showcase how cool these kinds of characters look. Tokusatsu heroes have a unique feel to them. Whilst these characters live on the screen and the people involved in the shows produce some amazing content there are times where it feels that the comics can push further and harder. You're not constrained by budget or safety concerns, so you're able to throw these characters into situations and fights that the series just couldn't do; and this book does that in spades with fights and gags that you know the show couldn't replicate.
Perhaps the only complaint with the art is that there are times where the action on the page feels a bit choppy, and things seem to be happening either between the panels, or in ways that are not always easy to understand. I don't know if this is down to a scripting issue, or how the artist put the script to page, but there were a few times where the action did feel a little disjointed. But this wasn't a big enough issue to detract from the overall quality.
As someone who loves tokusatsu style stuff I had a lot of fun reading this book, it gave me a fun insight into the Kamen Rider Zero-One series, as well as being an enjoyable story that felt like it stood on its own feet. I can't judge it based on the feelings of a fan of the series, but I dare say those who love Kamen Rider will get a big kick out the book too,
Sorry to say as a Kamen Rider fan I gotta disagree with your final verdict about this book. Between the numerous amounts of errors in the artwork & text indicating a rush job, traced artwork & characterization that range from bland to completely out of character.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a good reperesenation of Kamen Rider Zero-One at all in my opinion. I'm glad ypu enjoyed the book and hope that one day you'll check out the show itself even if it not legally available sadly in the UK right now. But that a whole another can of worms.