Kamen Rider Kabuto is the 7th entry of the Heisei Kamen Rider series and the 16th entry of the long-running Kamen Rider franchise. The series also commemorated the 35th anniversary of the Kamen Rider franchise that started on April 3, 1971.
Souji Tendou is a man who trained for seven years while waiting for the arrival of the Kabuto Zecter to fight Worms as Kamen Rider Kabuto. Making many enemies while at the same time meeting other Riders with mysterious origins of how they got there. His goal is to destroy all Worms that otherwise threaten humanity. He meets Arata Kagami, a member of the mysterious ZECT organization who later becomes Kamen Rider Gatack, the two worked together to save humanity from the alien Worms that arrived from a meteorite seven years ago.
For an anniversary Kamen Rider series, Kamen Rider Kabuto rarely did tributes or allusions to the Kamen Rider franchise. The closest thing we have for tributes is the arrival of the Natives, which takes place 35 years prior to the start of the series and that the Masked Rider Project began on April 3, 1971, the day the first episode of Kamen Rider aired on TV and that some past Rider actors made cameos in the series. Other tributes that I notice in the series is that there are some instances that they are poking fun on the current trend of the Heisei Kamen Rider franchise with having multiple rival Kamen Riders and my personal favorite, the extreme contrasts of drama and comedy.
Story wise, the series has a lot of mysteries that keeps viewers glued in to their TV sets. Mysteries such as the true motive of the ZECT organization and how Tendou got his Masked Rider Belt bothered me. As the series progressed, they slowly answered those questions with some of the answers boggled my mind while some of it made me frown on the writers. Unlike the case I had while watching Kamen Rider 555 (which I will review soon), the revelations that made me frown didn't make me scream in frustration or face palm out of how stupid that twist is.
One of my favorite twists in the series is the relationship between Souji Tendou and Hiyori Kusakabe, which I thought at first Tendou, has this crush on Hiyori and he is just trying his best to make a good impression on her. In Hiyori's case, she has this bad memory of a man that wore a belt that she thought killed her parents during the meteor incident in Shibuya seven years ago. Their fates are slowly intertwined as the series progressed that lead us to one revelation that summed up the series as a whole. This twist is that Hiyori is the Native clone of Tendou's younger sister.
The twist is probably, one of the best twists the series offered as I didn't see it coming. The only thing I saw is that for once, the egoistic Souji Tendou had a soft spot on someone who is not his sister! The said twist also made me ask another question on why the silent Natives attacked Tendou's parents that gave us the Native Hiyori and Tendou ending up getting adopted by his grandma. Just like this twist, it took a couple of episodes for them to answer it. Getting intertwined with Tendou's family problem is Arata Kagami who is slowly getting close to Hiyori and thinks that Tendou is one of his friends. It gets a bit complicated later on once I get into the characters.
Kagami is what most people think the true protagonist in the series since he is first introduced and second, he is quite an engaging support character and you can easily say a bro amongst others. At one point in the series, he was chosen by TheBee Zecter to become Kamen Rider TheBee but because he cares his friendship to Tendou more than the power of TheBee Zecter, even though Tendou thinks that they are not friends. For at least half of the series, we see him do his best in everything that he can do that seeing he using his whole strength to convince the Gatack Zecter to be his user is one of the strongest points in this series.
As the series draws closer to its conclusion, the relationship between the Kusakabe and the Kagami family is becoming clearer. As it turns out, the attack on Tendou's parents is sort of planned by the Natives since they are involved with the research of the Masked Rider System, which will be used to fight the Worms who are set to land on Earth in the near future. To make things a bit clearer, their parents (!) are aware about the destinies of their sons that someday, they will become Kamen Riders to fight these Worms. This twist is the pinnacle point of the series that made me think that the Natives are actually the good guys but I was proven wrong in the last minute.
To be honest, I didn't expect that after all the Worms are destroyed by the Riders (less Tadokoro who is one of those good Worms), the plan of the Natives is to turn their back on humanity with the help of the ZECT organization to turn everyone into Natives! I find this twist a bit rushed because they never foreshadowed this sort of thing in some episodes. But I guess that is the beauty of this twist, I didn't see it coming. The plot device used on turning humans into Natives is the one most humans least expect that will turn them into one. At the end, our heroes defeated the Natives, Tendou accepted Kagami as his friend and that Hiyori accepted that she is not just a Native, but she is also Souji Tendou's younger sister.
The support cast of the series is just fun to watch. Tsurugi's butler, Kagami and his pals in ZECT, Renge and heck, Juka are fun to watch. For the main cast who is not a Rider, Hiyori and Gon are my personal favorite. Gon is a kid who lost her memories because of a Worm attack and she found solace in the form of Daisuke, a make-up artist who later became Kamen Rider Drake. Their relationship is fun to watch and during one time that Gon had her memories back, seeing Daisuke letting Gon go is one sad moment in the series and that Daisuke is not anymore Daisuke after it.
That is why I just love that Gon later regained her memories and decided to once again, tag along with Daisuke. The only thing that bothered me with it is that what happened to Gon's mother after her daughter ran away to join some make-up artist? They didn't explain it even after the series ended as she continues to tag along with Daisuke as seen in the epilogue scene at the last episode of the series.
Hiyori is quite a complicated support character to watch, she is a type of person who just likes to draw, a bit cold towards other people before she ended up becoming open towards others. In this case, she is slowly opening up to Tendou, Kagami, Juka and the owner of the restaurant where she is working. After the revelation, she finally decides to finally become close to his older brother but because of some sudden turn of events, she ended up in some void where she meets the Worm clone of her older brother. This is when the series gets a bit complicated, Hiyori having a dilemma between Tendou's childish Worm clone and her older brother. At the end, she chose his older brother and left his Worm clone.
Tendou's Worm clone, Souji Kusakabe is childish and thinks of Hiyori as his older sister because he doesn't have any other adult figure to look up too. The contrast between Tendou and Kusakabe is well done that I started to like Kusakabe more as a character after they introduced his back story that he is just a result of an experiment conducted by ZECT during the development of the Rider System. His growth from a guy who just wanted someone to take care of him, he became a true hero of justice in the last moments of the series.
As for the other Riders in the series, they are all likable less Kageyama on his days as Kamen Rider TheBee. Each of the Riders have their own traits in which some of them remained fairly consistent on their character development while some of them having whacked up character growth. To be more specific, the character development of KickHopper and PunchHopper from badasses who decided to cast off to their past and become anti-heroes, they become comic relief characters if the plot demands and then back as badasses once again, if the plot demands it.
Finally, the show's Masked Rider System is really interesting as it gives the Rider a more insect-like feel in the suits. Though at first I hated that the Riders have two forms, the Masked Form and the Rider Form, I started to appreciate it as the series progressed since the suits grew on me. I thought the Masked Form is useless at first because it only made the Rider Form look cooler but because on how Tendou use the Masked Form, it made me realize that it is quite useful in battle after all for the sake of defense. The Rider Form grants the Riders the ability to access a skill called "Clock Up", which makes time slower for the Riders to chase enemy Worms.
In the naked eye, the Riders will appear like a blur and I like it. Because of the show's budget, the Clock Up function slowly disappeared in the series as they focused more on the amazing fight scenes and that they are running out of budget. If they will use the Clock Up ability, they will use it on a scene that makes them use less CGI or in some area where there are barely any people in it and just focus on the amazing fight scenes. To put it simply, this unique feature suffered because of budget constraints and I hate it as they weren't able to use this function to its full potential or have a Clock Up scene involving the Hoppers.
Overall, Kamen Rider Kabuto is one fun series to watch, writing wise, it went a bit bonkers and have some questions left unanswered but at least you don't need to watch a movie or think a lot just for the series to make sense to you. The Kamen Rider Kabuto suits are one of the best suits I have seen in the franchise next to the Kamen Rider 555 suits and OOO's full Combo forms. It didn't help that the Masked Rider System is something that the franchise has rarely done and has this really cool Clock Up feature!
In terms of characters, the show has an interesting bunch of characters and that Souji Tendou is a fantastic main protagonist. His quoting of his grandmother's words of wisdom added certain flair on the overall character. His large ego and his love for his sisters and respect for food is quite a rare mix for a main character and I really like it. Arata Kagami and his issues with his father and himself is about the main cast that I like. His slow growth from that ZECT member who tries his best to do something in battle into that reliable companion in battle is well done, something that Kamen Rider OOO did years later with Gotou though they did it when the show only has 15-17 episodes left.
After watching the series, I finally understand why this is one of the best shows to introduce someone to the Kamen Rider franchise because it has the best and the worse things that the Kamen Rider franchise has the offer. Best in terms of suit, the action and the character and worse in terms of some of the characters, the story-telling and on the direction the series is going. If there is one thing that I learned while watching the series, it would be that the show doesn't know when it will be serious or not. I mean, the Iron Chef story arc is so crazy that I don't know if I am watching a dark and grim Kamen Rider series that we are first introduced in the first few episodes!