Also, the debut of this sexy hero suit. Yep.
Yuji is having a wonderful life when all of a sudden, everything changed after a car accident. Two years later, he wakes up in a world that he barely understands because everything around him moved on after his supposed passing. Somewhere in the countryside, a girl is carrying a bag that one guy thought that it is his own bag! What are the contents of the bag and why he needs it?
To not confuse the readers, I will use their proper names in this review, which I will use once we get to their scenes. The problem I had when I first thought of doing a Kamen Rider 555 review is how can I approach this episode considering that there are two running plots going on simultaneously and write my comments about the episode in sequential order might ruin the way how this review is supposed to sound like. So I decided to review this episode in two parts, first part is about Yuji's death and resurrection and the second part is about the girl and her bag.
But before talking about those things, the series opened with a rather eerie scene that felt like it came straight from a horror movie. There are two things that I figured while watching this scene, they are developing something in that room and second is that the monster wants what they are developing. The scene is well done and has this sense of danger while watching it. The scene ends with all scientists dead and a scene that showed us a mysterious belt. Considering that there are two other objects inside the container. I will just assume that those two objects are belts.
We then shift to a scene that happened two years prior to the events of the series where we see a happy Yuji and his girlfriend, Chie. To sum up what happened, it is basically Yuji having a happy life and all of sudden; it changed thanks to some sleepy driver. He wakes up after the doctor declares him dead. But a lot has changed after two years and that includes the ones around him and much to his surprise, there are some changes in his body.
The sudden mood shift from something joyful to sudden depression is really great. Yuji wondering what is happening around him because he thinks that he just woke up after a few days only to discover that he considered "dead" by his relatives and the sad part, by his girlfriend. In the case of his relatives, we can assume that his parents are now dead. Second is that his close relatives lied to him about the property left by his parents because his uncle sold it without his knowledge. But what is more depressing about it is that we see him ride his bike and calls out a girl who is supposed to be his girlfriend so that they can have their bike date, which was postponed thanks to the car accident.
His ex-girlfriend's boyfriend arrives and tells him the cold truth about him. What's sad about it is that no one is there to support him in his current state. His relatives reject him and his girlfriend who is supposed to stay till the very end left him when she lost hope about Yuji's life. Even if that is the case, his body is changing, he can hear conversations meters away from the source and for some reason, he can transform into a monster after meeting his ex's current boyfriend. The first thing that came to my mind is that, he should accept the fact that his girlfriend left him for some other man. But considering his current state of mind, I guess the thought of moving is still not present as of this moment. Guess he is still processing what is happening around him.
Yuji transforms into a horse monster and all I can say is really impressive. The scene has this cool time stopping effect just for us to witness his first transformation into a horse monster is really fantastic. To make it more emotional and to add up the intensity is that his first transformation happened while it is raining in the city. Did I mention that I love those lines in his face before he transforms into this horse monster? The reason why I like it is that it gives this impression that Yuji is slowly turning into a monster and has this feeling of warming about it that we shouldn't mess with him or else you'll die.
In terms of monster design, I really liked it. It has this regal and classic feeling when I see the monster designs in this show. Some people find this design a bit bland because of its color but this is the reason why I like the monster designs in this series. It made the monsters stand out from other Rider monsters and that it gives this impression that they are supposed to be dead. It didn't help that they can transform into a creature related to their animal like a centaur in Yuji's case! Though the CGI for the legs looks a bit shabby if I will compare it to modern standards, it is quite impressive 10 years ago. Finally, how Yuji killed his ex's boyfriend. I think the best way to describe it is that he basically burned his heart internally.
Because this show is called Kamen Rider 555 and this episode has this major focus on Yuji, I am expecting that he will end up becoming Faiz by the end of the episode but nope, his part of this episode ends with him killing his ex's current boyfriend. The question is, who is Faiz and what happened to the belt that we saw earlier in the episode? This is when the girl with the bag comes in. To prevent confusion in this part, I will call them with their names even though they never revealed their names during the duration of the episode less the opening scene.
Mari is the girl with the bag that we saw in this episode and because she is travelling in the countryside, other travelers want her to join their group. You know, to have fun time. For most of the time, we see her ignore the guy until she leaves the diner. Speaking of which, one of the customers who entered the diner saw outside and thought that his bag is with Mari! The customer's name is Takumi and ends up leaving the diner just to follow Mari. Oh misunderstandings and how you can serve as a convenient plot device. Speaking of Mari, she ends up hanging around with the guy and his friends.
To sum up Mari's situation with the guys, she just wants to live and go somewhere in a place without these guys. And before she can leave them thanks to the lame excuse known as going to the toilet, she spots their comrade's corpse in the ground. Before she can show them the corpse, it suddenly disappears for no reason. Because of the sudden disappearance and he was attacked earlier by a monster, I guess this case has something to do with it. It made more sense later in the episode after we saw the return of this comrade and he looks like he is asking for help from them.
Based on how I see it, the death of a person in the hands of some monster in this series varies per person. Some lasted for hours in the case of one of the guys and for some, it's only seconds like the scientists earlier in the episode. So how the heck the belt comes into picture? It is all thanks to Takumi. Thinking that Mari's bag is his, he runs after Mari only to end up meeting the true culprit and him finally discovering the true contents of the bag. It's just a brief case containing a cellphone, a pointer, a camera and a belt strap manufactured by Smart Brain.
All of a sudden, Mari just grabs the belt strap and the phone and dials 555 in the phone, attempting to transform into Kamen Rider Faiz... only to fail at the end. This made me wonder at first if the belt is just sexist or there is some deeper reason why the belt didn't work on Mari. Now that they are cornered, Mari has no choice but to use the stranger that she meet by forcing him to transform into Faiz! Takumi's first transformation is amazing. Aside from the cool Tron-esque lines during the transformation sequence, his crude fighting style made Takumi look like a total amateur in terms of fighting as it made the fight more realistic.
Slowly, we see him get the hang of using the Faiz Belt until at the end, he defeats the monster. What's impressive is that for his first fight, he didn't use any special or flashy finishing move, just a regular kick after a few punches and that's about it. The only thing flashy is the blue flames that incinerate the body of the monster. Now that we saw the power of the belt, the question is how the heck it end up in Mari's hands? Second is that why Takumi can transform into Faiz? Finally, where is Takumi's bag?
