This is awkward.
To save his step-brother Nobuhiko, Kotaro decides to retrace his steps on how he escaped from Gorgom's clutches. This is when we learn what happened to their 19th birthday, which marks the day when they were abducted by Gorgom.
To sum up the flashback, Kotaro and Nobuhiko are completely unaware what will happen next until an actress named Yukari Tsukikage slipped a bit about them being Gorgom's Chosen Ones though she later claimed that she is just tipsy. Speaking of which, I can't help but notice that the members of Gorgom are prominent personalities. It reminded me of the plot from the original Kamen Rider manga that Shocker has already full control of Japan from the beginning as one of its members is Japan's Prime Minister. This also reminded me of the crap about some underground secret organization taking control of the mass media. You know what that is.
What made Kotaro and Nobuhiko's birthday party more memorable is the appearance of a swarm of grasshoppers in their party. While Kotaro, Nobuhiko and the girls are busy buzzing off the grasshoppers, the guests who are part of Gorgom didn't mind at all and just proceed on eating, chatting and in the case of the professor, smoke. Kotaro and Nobuhiko find this strange and begin their investigation about it starting with their father's office.
Before they can arrive to their father's office, they were abducted by Gorgom to begin the operation. The operation doesn't feature any body parts or prosthetic make-up about them being internally operated. We only saw lasers coming from the fingers of one of the Gorgom Priest. This is then completed with the implant of the Kingstones to the both of them. One thing I notice is that the shadow of Nobuhiko's transformed form kinda looks like Black Sun. Now for the final touch, the brainwashing, this thankfully, was stopped by their father. This is the part of this operation that bothered me. I mean why not perform the brainwashing first then the operation? If they do that, the subject will not have any resistance to escape!
As I have expected, Kotaro escaped while Nobuhiko was left hanging as Kotaro failed to save him. His escape scene is fantastic though it bothered me for a bit since he is seen escaping in Gorgom's clutches with only a towel covering his bottom when he escaped them with the Battle Hopper. To those who remembered, he is wearing something when he is running away from Gorgom in the first episode. Heck, the brand of shoes that he is wearing is Converse for crying out loud! I'll just pretend that he found some clothes on the street and wear it before continuing his escape from Gorgom.
Because Gorgom is a dangerous organization or should I say, cult, Nobuhiko's sister, Kyoko was moved to the cafe owned by Kotaro and Nobuhiko's senior who decides to ditch them for some fun time! By the looks of it, he will not make an appearance after this episode. Nice knowing ya, "kind-hearted" senior, you will be remembered as the guy who ditched our heroes for some fun time!
Back to Gorgom, those important guys want to be operated into mutants as they want immortality and power. What bothered me about this is that according to the narrator, these creatures can last for 50,000 years, which means that they are not immortal; they just live longer than an average human that's all. As for Kotaro, he continues his investigation about the organization starting with that actress that he met during their birthday party. As expected, Gorgom got a chance to kill her before she can say anything.
The fight between Kotaro and the Mutant in this episode is fun to watch. Aside that we saw Kotaro transform into mid-air, the chase scene is really well done. The only thing that bothered me about it is that the even though the creature kinda looks like a cat-like monster, his transformed form looks more of a dog with polka dots or stripes to make it look like that he is a chasing a cheetah. Thankfully, they were able to cover this up by putting lines that indicates that he is running in a really fast pace on his face and some parts of the body.
The ground fights are really fantastic and well done. Just like the previous episode, I have a problem in terms of the show's explosions. Instead of the Mutant blowing up into smithereens, we see the explosion looked like it is absorbed. Hopefully, they can fix this because it ruins the impact of the death of the Mutant. The episode ends with Kotaro giving hope that Gorgom can be defeated at the end and that they can save Nobuhiko.
