Late to the Party: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid · 1:46am Jan 6th, 2017
I'm massively behind on tokusatsu for various reasons, and we're up to what, episode 13 of Ex-Aid having aired? I'm just now getting started on it. I dragged my feet on it because of the weird-ass Rider suit design(s). I should really know better by now.
Some brief thoughts follow. (Note: As of this blog post, I've watched through episode five of Ex-Aid. Please be mindful of posting spoilers in the comments.)
Right off the bat I can forgive this series for its bizarre main Rider suit because I like and respect the direction they go with the main character. At eight years old, our hero was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and almost died, but a doctor saved his life. When he was stable and awake, the same doctor gave him a handheld video game to keep him company during his recovery.
Having had his life saved by a doctor inspired him to become a doctor, and sixteen years later, he's an intern at a hospital. He's still addicted to video games, he's kind of a flake, and super clumsy--basically he's JD from Scrubs except without the daddy issues and the self-destructive sex addiction. Anyway, the director of the hospital where he works is also the director of a secret saving-the-world agency that's trying to protect mankind from a computer virus born from video games that can infect living beings.
And that's where things get silly. Like...ridiculously silly. It's seriously the silliest premise any Kamen Rider series has ever had. Hell, it's sillier than the silliest Super Sentai premise.
Like the previous year's Ghost, Ex-Aid's Driver spews silly little jingles which already annoyed me the first time they came out. Oh, and we've got our first ever live-action superdeformed Riders. Ex-Aid's first transformation reminds me of Fat Gogeta from DBZ movie 12.
Adding to the overall weirdness level of this very gimmicky Rider entry is that the Riders fight monsters in an augmented reality gaming environment--retro video game objects like floating blocks and platforms appear in the real world, and Ex-Aid and other Riders interact with them.
The formula for Ex-Aid goes something like this: A human infected with the virus reaches "Outbreak", turning into a giant video game monster. Ex-Aid transforms into the live-action SD version and fights in the AR gaming environment, defeating the monster. Then the "boss"--the true MotW--appears, and Ex-Aid transforms from the SD suit into the actual Rider suit, which would be less stupid-looking if it didn't have the exact same face only non-SD (and the face of the SD suit on the back as kibble).
Oh, and there's lots of little graphics that fly around, primarily the giant glowing "HIT!" sign every single time Ex-Aid attacks an enemy. (And there went all the respect I had for the protagonist's backstory.)
And then Asuna revealing her "real form" (and I am not even going to try to remember that stupid-ass name) ABSOLUTELY murdered any semblance of respect I had for this show. This is just...silly.
Not that there's anything wrong with silly, it's just...Kamen Rider isn't really made for silly.
Things get even more ridiculous in episode two when the uber-serious rival Rider shows up...and continues to be uber-serious in personality and tone even when he turns into a superdeformed RPG knight.
I do like that, fitting for a love letter to old-school gaming, one of the enemy Riders is a recolor of Ex-Aid.
And for all its silliness, it IS a Kamen Rider series--and one of the "multi-Rider pile-up" type series like Kabuto and Gaim, at that. By episode three, no fewer than FOUR Riders have been introduced! And by episode 4, it starts to show the signs of a true Kamen Rider series--a mystery, people who know about the mystery, people trying to hide the mystery, people trying to make amends for a mistake that caused a thing...yeah, it's all there.
All in all, I think I'll be sticking with this one for the duration, but I doubt I'll be watching it through more than once.
Where can you watch the different Kamen Rider shows? Does Chrunchyroll have them? I doubt it does since it doesn't look like an anime.
4370934 Crunchyroll has a few live action things on the site.
4370965 Oh, okay. I wonder if it has all the Kamen Rider shows?
We're only up to episode 12 with episode 13 airing on Sunday
4370934 Crunchyroll does not have any Toei tokusatsu series. They do have Ultraman. For Kamen Rider, your only option is fansubs. Site rules prohibit me from telling you where to find them, sorry.
4371035 Yeah, I know. Super Hero Time skipped a week due to New Year's.
Closest thing I'd say to a spoiler is this......toy sales will go through the roof.