Young Kouta Kazuraba is a former member of a dance group called Team Gaim and is now living an ordinary life. But everything changed when his former teammate, Yuuya showed him something that will help the team. Along with Mai, they discovered the Sengoku Driver and thus begin the start of a new era.
But before talking about what happened to Kouta and Mai, let's first talk about the episode from the very beginning. The show opens with a scene that looks like a war of the Riders. There are a couple of things to note in this scene, first is that both Baron and Gaim have their own armies of Inves, next is that Gridon is siding with Baron and that Ryugen is siding with Zangetsu. If I will base it on promotional material, Ryugen is a member of Team Gaim, so why the heck he teamed up with his brother, Zangetsu? Is it because blood is thicker than water or is it something else?
Another thing worth noting is the mysterious woman that woke up. There is something mystical about her and likely be the source of this mess. In addition, the narration for this scene has something to do with fate that I might play a bigger role later in the series. As for the Rider war scene itself, it's kinda underwhelming since we only saw two parties charge in battle before the opening credits starts to roll. Speaking of which, I have this feeling that the opening sequence is one big foreshadowing of things to come in this series.
Now to the episode proper, the first thing I noticed is the fact that the series started the same way like how Kamen Rider Kuuga started. Both shows have a sort of opening prologue that will play a larger role later in the series and our heroes help a kid look for his mommy. The next part is basically more world building and I like it. I like it because it sets up the proper atmosphere for the show, that it takes place in some fictional city and not some generic Tokyo City. Heck, they even have some large tower that looks like a tree that is basically the town's landmark!
Another thing they established is that there is one mega corporation running this city and that kids love to dance and form their own crews called Beat Riders. Speaking of dancing, the songs they use are not energetic; the dance steps are not that "cool" and most importantly, the crowd sucks. Seriously, I can't get into the dance gimmick especially if the crowd sucks when it comes to cheering.
Next is the Inves Games, which is basically a Pokémon battle featuring Lock Seeds and zippers that opens a gateway from another dimension to summon these creatures called Inves. What's interesting about the battle is that the creatures themselves are kinda "digital" but at the same time, they are not digital. Not digital in a sense that it looks like they can attack humans once there is no human holding the Lock Seed. Guess this is one dangerous game then if there is no proper supervision. Thankfully, Kouta arrives just in time to save Mai and the rest of the crowd from the Inves.
After this scene, we are introduced to Yuuya, the leader of Team Gaim and that's it. That's all we know about him, aside from the fact that he has enough money to buy a Lock Seed and got offered by a Lock Seed dealer some belt that can help them win the Inves Games. We are also introduced to the leader of Team Baron, Kaito who's philosophy is basically the survival of the fittest. There is nothing much to talk about these two and hopefully, later episodes of the show will expand the personalities of these two characters.
Now to some more interesting stuff, I can't help but notice that the ad for the mega corporation running the city, Ygdrasill Corporation's ad is similar to the TV ad of Kamen Rider 555's Smart Brain Corporation less the Engrish. That being said, I think it is safe to conclude that the Ygdrasill Corporation is one shady corporation. Another thing worth noting is that Kouta still lives with his sister and still can't figure out what it means to be an adult. Based on this scene, it looks like that even though Kouta works to pay for his own bills, he doesn't know what to do with his life. In short, he is kinda restless.
But everything changed after receiving a message from Yuuya that he has something interesting to show the group. What's interesting about it is that Yuuya only invited Mai and Kouta to meet him and not the entire group. Considering that Kouta is a former of the team, it doesn't make sense why he needs to invite him if this belt has something to do to help Team Gaim win more Inves Games to raise their ranks. Things get more interesting when they discovered that Yuuya is missing and that there's a forest in a middle of the city and what connects it is some pocket dimension.
This is when they learned that the Inves that they summon came from this world and same thing goes with the Lock Seeds they use. Kouta picks up the Sengoku Driver lying around and wears and the fruits he picked earlier are now transformed into Lock Seeds. But because of some wild Inves attacking, they left the pocket dimension and Kouta figured out that he must attach the Lock Seed on the belt and thus, he transforms into an armored warrior, which according to the promotional material is named Kamen Rider Gaim because the show hasn't referred him in this name yet.
As for Kouta's first transformation into Gaim, it's seriously ridiculous that a giant orange just fell from the sky and is now stuck in your head will later fold into your armor. Granted it looks ridiculous but it's ridiculously cool. I love that the orange folds into a cool looking samurai armor and after the transformation process is done, some juices fly out, kinda like what happens if you squish a fruit. When it comes to his first fight, I love the fact that he is discovering how his weapons work rather than be an instant expert after holding the weapons.
Things become more interesting when the mysterious woman in the show's opening appeared and tells him about stuff related to choosing your own fate. To make more interesting is that Gaim thinks that she is Mai, just wearing a different costume but unlike Mai, she knows how to use the Sengoku Driver and its related weapons and just aided Gaim in battle. As for the naginata finisher, it's ridiculous, blame the fact that orange slices fly after he defeats the Inves. At the end of the day, Mai is unaware on what happened to Kouta and how he defeated the monster by transforming into Gaim.
Overall, Kamen Rider Gaim's first episode started with a bang, it then went into some world building where it becomes slow and quite a task to watch in some instances and it ended really well and left with a lot of mysteries for us viewers to think. Guess I can't wait to see what will happen in the next episode!
