Sunday, 11 November 2012

Kamen Rider W Hyper Battle Video Review

Allez cuisine!

In this special, the Fuumen Ramen Cart was attacked by a monster, which was later identified as a bowl Dopant whose powers rely on its fluffiness and juiciness. On their investigation, Shotaro had a suspicion that the daughter of the owner of the new Omelet Rice cart is the Dopant.


It's one of those Hyper Battle Videos that is a standalone and doesn't involve you to choose a decision that might affect the story. As for the special itself, the Dopant is seriously ridiculous and at the same time, seriously powerful thanks to its fluffiness and juiciness that our heroes will try to investigate... but first, they must feed Philip since he is hungry and they didn't invite him to eat with them!

Speaking of hunger, before that our heroes eat from an Omelet Rice cart and they deduce that the daughter is suspicious but since this is Kamen Rider W we are talking about, chances are that she might be a red herring and that the father is the culprit. But for now, all signs lead to the daughter since she wants that their Omelet Rice to be a Fuuto food specialty.


Back to feeding Philip, they decided to feed him by having an Iron Chef-esque setup. No seriously, that's what they did, complete with a color commentator (Frog), someone who played the role of the fabulous Chairman Kaga (Philip), the Iron Chef posters that are hanging around the "Kitchen Garage" and lastly, the extreme focus on the intense cooking battle that we all love. Speaking of the said intense cooking battle, they went a bit over the top and I seriously like it.

Now for the extremely over the top part of this cooking battle, we have Akiko cutting a radish in extreme speeds, Shotaro intensely staring at an egg and my personal favorite, the writers forgetting the weight of the Engine Blade and let Terui do some Engine Blade finisher just to cut a freakin' broccoli and proceed on cooking like it didn't happen! Now that they are done cooking, it's time for judging.


The food bowls the chefs prepared are really creative, Akiko did a Double Bowl, and Terui did an Accel Bowl while Shotaro did a Hard-boiled Bowl. If there is one thing that made it a little ridiculous is the mere fact that the Hard-boiled Bowl has extremely hard, hard-boiled eggs that according to what Philip described has a texture similar to metal. It caused me to wonder how did Shotaro cut the egg into two? Unlike Iron Chef, Philip didn't decide any winner in this cooking battle since the objective of this cooking battle is to feed Philip so that he can properly think and do a search in the Gaia Library.

After the search, it is time to face the bowl Dopant, on their second encounter with the bowl Dopant, they first disguise as customers of the Fuu-men Ramen Cart to attract the bowl Dopant's attention before attacking it. One thing I notice during their fight is that their aim is to make the bowl overheat for it to lose its fluffiness and juiciness. Because of this, the Dopant revert back to normal and as it turns out, the identity of the Dopant is the owner of the Omelet Rice cart and he uses the Egg-Chicken Memory to transform into a bowl Dopant! Like I didn't expect this to happen!


What happens next is something that made me chuckle a bit, her daughter appears out of nowhere and asks her father why he became a Dopant. The answer is basically he is just jealous that the Fuu-men Ramen Cart is more popular with its extremely ridiculous ramen and taste. Our heroes face the culprit with Kamen Rider Double CycloneJoker Xtreme. And after this, out of nowhere, the owner of the Fuu-men Ramen Cart appears and offered the culprit to work for him to pay for the damages and for him to learn from the owner of the cart.

To sum up the special, it is ridiculously fun and the fact that I can't help but notice sometimes that they use some manual effects in some scenes due to the budget given for this special and the later Televi-kun DVD special, which is a continuation of this Hyper Battle Video! The plot of the Televi-kun DVD is simply this: Philip had a temporary amnesia about the Gaia Memories and Shotaro helps him remember.


Its fun watching them do a review of all the Gaia Memories while at the same time, I learn something new about Double's abilities like the scarf found on the Cyclone half is called the "Windy Stabilizer" and that the abilities of the Luna Memory are not that properly defined in the series. Another thing that I can't help notice is that the Fang and Xtreme Memories are not CGI, which you might say are just toys in a string, something I miss seeing in the newer shows. At the end, they learned the reason why Philip got a temporary amnesia, it's because of the egg Shotaro threw during the cooking battle part!