Kamen Rider Amazons Talkback

[Herman the German]

Ya'd have to ask the responsible executive at Toei Company.

That being said, is it just my imagination or is this season much more brutal than I remember the last season being? @~@ I don't handle gore well and, well, I am handling Amazons less and less well each episode…

 

[lazycoconut]

Ya'd have to ask the responsible executive at Toei Company.

That being said, is it just my imagination or is this season much more brutal than I remember the last season being? @~@ I don't handle gore well and, well, I am handling Amazons less and less well each episode…

No, you're right, it is a lot gorier than season 1. Toei seems to have the idea that anything made for the periphery demographic needs to constantly "push boundaries" - you can see this in the V-Cinema releases too (especially Chase and Specter) and the recent Brave special. Personally, I don't think Amazons needs that.

Kurosaki is so hateable, I'm looking forward to finding out more about him. There are some intriguing moments that were shown in the S2 trailer relating to him (including him leading a large number of 4C troops and in another scene saying "my father ate my brother" - this would explain his obsession with Iyu.) I suspect his actions will lead to an alliance of the original exterminators and Mizuki + Haruka's band of Amazons against 4C. He hates Fukuda and wants to intimidate Mizuki, who both have close past or present alliances with Amazons

 

[Kamen Rider Kaixa]

I guess I'm immune to most gore since I've been watching Supernatural since the start of the series.

 

[Toku Prime]

Was it my imagination or is Iyu's dad played by the same actor that was the big bad from Fourze? I'm certainly not imagining that Time Fire plays the leader of the team that found the rose Amazon in the latest episode.

Anyway I must admit this show kinda fell by the wayside for me after only one episode, so I've watched an episode every evening this week in order to get caught up and have a few thoughts:-

First up, I like that characters actually do things this time. In the first season characters often fell into that early Heisei "I'm just going to stand here for a while and gaze into the middle distance while wallowing in my own misery" trap. And frankly that quickly gets boring, so I'm glad that they seem to be avoiding that this time.

On the downside, I don't care about the "romance" between Blue-mazon and his Corpse Bride. Actually scrap that; I don't really care about any of the new characters yet. I think the actor playing the leader of the new main team is going for a creepy vibe but talking quietly and slowly when your character has lots of lines about not caring about things means he comes across less creepy and more permanently bored. The show is way more interesting when it's catching up with the cast from last season.

I can't say I really noticed the gore more than last time, but then the CGI squid ink they squirt out doesn't squick me out in the same way that, for example, watching an operation in a medical drama would, so maybe it's just that it's not giving me the creeps?

What for, didn't they already bring this over to the west via Amazon Prime? =V Granted, no news of Season 2 yet, but… :v

Did the first season ever show up? I don't have Prime but I haven't heard anyone mention it being released outside of Japan.

 

[Herman the German]

Don't have Prime myself, so, can't comment on that, either.
As for gore, I was more talking about what happens to the human victims, really, like in that repeated flashback scene (especially the bit with the eye *shudder*).

 

[SamuraiEchidna]

Well, Amazons Season 2 is over. I honestly liked this show. I feel like the 2nd season was just what we needed. I think this series was always meant to be a dark tragedy, but you don't really feel it until season 2. At least, that's my experience. Chihiro and Iyu became an even more tragic story than Tackle's story from Stronger. Omega's faceless design made me think he would just be the secondary/side-kick Rider character, but he ended up being the main character and probably the most conflicted while having the best intentions. Alpha's design really impressed me and I wanted to like him as the main Rider, even his intentions could have been framed as righteous, but he ultimately became the villain that you love to hate just because of how powerful he is despite being driven by his own madness.

The ending of season 2 is... Should I love it or hate it? They don't show us, they just tell us that Chihiro/Neo is dead, which means his father and Haruka brought him down. On the one hand, I feel like his father should have been the one to be brought down; Jin did his part in the series but he's become a little 2-dimensional, he's practically killing all Amazons just for the sake of killing them. However, this show is meant to be an action-packed, dark tragedy. And the ending is tragic, so mission accomplished? But like I mentioned before, they told us Chihiro is dead, they did not show us. With two Amazons still alive and another unconfirmed, it's possible they're hinting at a 3rd season? Maybe one where Chihiro is alive after all? Maybe Amazons isn't truly over until there are no more Amazons left standing? Just a thought.

Over all, I like this show. I really do. It's dark, gritty, and gory. However, I feel this show justifies all of it. I've seen The First and The Next, and it felt like those movies (most of the time) were just being dark for the sake of being dark. But there was no edge-lord pretentiousness here, at least none that I could see. It was slow to start off in the first season, sticking mostly to a status quo, but the ending and season 2 is just what it needed to become something great.

(Also, props to Iyu's actress. Just standing still and being EXTREMELY deadpan nearly all the time could not have been easy. I could just tell that she wanted to stretch out and actually do some real acting, and thank goodness she got her chance near the finale.)

 

[Black Fang]

I can't really see a Season 3 being done with what they have. It would be like a Showa show where you have Nozama/4C sending Sigmas to hunt down our heroes. Can you do thirteen episodes of that after all they've done before? I think a movie might work better.

I wonder if Toei will try another series like this with a different Showa Rider. Maybe ZX, designed after the SIC figure?

Was it my imagination or is Iyu's dad played by the same actor that was the big bad from Fourze? I'm certainly not imagining that Time Fire plays the leader of the team that found the rose Amazon in the latest episode.

Iyu's dad was Houjou in Agito, Centipede Orphenoch in Faiz, and that cop that wanted to suppress Shinnosuke's investigation in Drive Type Tokujo.

 

[Toku Prime]

Now that I've had a while to digest season two, I feel kinda frustrated about it. None of the lingering plot threads from season one were really progressed, and the season one characters were pushed to the side in favour of a group of new characters who were nowhere near as compelling. I feel like if they made a third season you could just jump straight to it from the end of season one and probably not even notice.

Iyu's dad was Houjou in Agito, Centipede Orphenoch in Faiz, and that cop that wanted to suppress Shinnosuke's investigation in Drive Type Tokujo.

Ah yes I knew him from somewhere but got mixed up.

 

[Black Fang]

What's left unresolved though? And as mentioned before, can you do another 13 episodes when the only people left to do anything are Haruka, Jin and Nozama/4C? It's not like Garo where the war with Horrors has gone on for eternity. You can dish out a movie to tie up any loose ends, but that's it.

 

[SamuraiEchidna]

If tying up loose ends is the only way you want to approach it, then I agree there is barely enough material in there for a good movie. You could still come up with even more stuff to expand it into another season, even if it repeats some of the beats we've seen in season 2. (A new type of Amazon and Amazon cells. Haruka and/or Jin's DNA being used as the basis to create more Amazons. Maybe human DNA and Amazon DNA are becoming more and more interwoven and dependent. Etc.) However, unless it serves a purpose, it runs the risk of having Season 3 end the same was Season 2 did.

I think the only way to justify a 3rd season, without leaving things on a cliff hanger and tying up all the loose ends, is to make sure it's something tragic but worthwhile. Something bittersweet with the hope of a better future, but was still heart breaking to get there and it could still all be for nothing. Because of this, the ending we got for Season 2 is probably perfect the way it is. It's kind of like the ending of the Faiz TV show. We know there are still 2 Amazons around (Jin and Haruka), but if left alone, hopefully there won't be any other Amazons to worry about. Keyword: hopefully. Anything could happen, even worst case scenarios or the unpredictable. But for now, there is not enough Amazons in the world to really be too concerned about, and one of them will most likely defend the innocent in case any others go rogue. And I could spitball some ideas for how to make a movie or a 3rd season worthwhile, but I've often been surprised by what the Japanese story writers tend to come up with, so I'll just let myself be surprised for now and accept whatever we get. Even if Season 2 is the end of it all and there won't be any future productions for "Kamen Rider Amazons", I'm fine with that.