About time.
A new Gate appears in Wizard's city and he likes to eat stuff with mayonnaise on it. Who is this man and why he thinks Wizard interfered with his meal even though it is the fault of the Phantom why his meal time is interrupted.
I know, this mysterious man is named Kousuke Nitou aka Kamen Rider Beast but for the entire duration of the episode, Haruto and co. are not aware about his name nor his ability to become Kamen Rider Beast! To prevent confusion in the entire duration of this review, I will call him Kousuke. For starters, Kousuke is quite eccentric as he prefers to eat his meals with mayonnaise. Though there is nothing with it, it is a weird sight watching a guy eats his donuts with it. But for whatever reason, he likes mayo in his food the same way Haruto likes his plain sugar donuts.
To make his debut as Kamen Rider Beast a bit more memorable, Haruto is poisoned by the Phantom and by the looks of it, he is about to die if no one cures him fast. The Phantom in this episode is a fortune teller and by the looks of it, he is the type of fortune teller whose fortunes are more or less accurate unless someone interferes and changes their fortune. Kousuke later meets this fortune teller and if there is one thing to note about this scene is how Kousuke predicted the exact words the fortune teller will tell him. The way Kousuke said it reminded me a bit of how JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Joseph Joestar say the next line his opponent will say and he is my favorite JoJo! Guess I will like Kousuke a bit more aside from his love for mayo.
This scene also showed us Kousuke's motto in life, that danger is equals to opportunity or in other words, turning despair into hope. With that, the Phantom can't take it anymore because he can't force him to tell what makes him fall into despair! Haruto arrives only to see Kousuke complain about stopping him take his meals. At first, I didn't get what he is trying to say but after a second watching of this episode, I noticed that earlier in the episode, he is looking for something in his bag and by the looks of it, it is something small.
In this scene, after Haruto can't transform due to the lack of mana, in the background, we saw Kousuke touch his body like he is looking for something. Until finally, he found the two rings needed for him to transform into Kamen Rider Beast! His transformation pose is really cool and the way he opened his Beast Driver reminded me of Power Rangers Samurai's Shogun Buckle. Now we know why the Wiseman took an interest in Kousuke, Kamen Rider Beast is a primitive wizard! Because of this, I became a bit curious on why the Wiseman call him a primitive wizard... till he starts fighting.
His fighting style is too rough, it's animalistic and he likes to roar a lot! Heck, he reminded me of a Gaoranger or Final Fantasy VI's Gao only with more armor! Same goes with his sword style with the Dice Saber. After he is done with the Ghouls, it is time to show off his other skills. First is his ability to absorb a Phantom's mana or in this case, an army of Ghouls mana as its own, filling up his body in the process. Well that explains why he is angry at Haruto earlier in the episode! He thought that Haruto ruined his chance to eat some mana! If only Kousuke is wise enough to wear his rings for most of the time.
Second, he used the Chameleo Mant and as the name suggest, it grants him invisibility in battle. Even though Kousuke doesn't look like who is smart enough to beat the Phantom, he used the Chameleo Mant by using its abilities to fight the Phantom in the shadows. After beating the crap out of the Phantom, as expected, the Phantom stings his opponent with poison. Because he got poisoned, it is expected that it will drain his mana but nope, he has the Dolphi Ring that he used to heal him and Haruto in the process.
To finish the Phantom, he uses the Falco Ring and punches one side of the Dice Saber for the Dice inside to roll. Until now, I still don't get what is the relation of the number rolled in the dice in terms of finishing the opponent. Based on what I can figure out is that maybe the number of the dice determines the power of the attack... or it might be some useless gimmick for the DX Dice Saber to look cool. After finishing the Phantom, he absorbs its mana and finally, talked to Haruto and learned a couple of things. He thinks that Haruto is his rival as he thought that he can absorb Phantom mana!
But before Haruto can properly explain his abilities, Beast leaves them. All I can say is, for a secondary Rider intro, it feels more like a Super Sentai Sixth Ranger introduction. If there is one thing I learned from these introductions, the next episode has something to do with trying to convince Kousuke to join them.
