All right then, been a little while since I did one of these and I was given proper motivation upon learning that my boy Momotaros has been associated with someone some of my mutuals don't care for. That's a flimsy enough excuse for me to dig into it. KR Den-O Episode 1!

We begin this series about teenage bug super-heroes with... a train!

This CG train is hot on the trail of some magical fireflies that make a random portal and pop out over modern (Well, modern in 2007) Japan and randomly sprinkle themselves over a city. Some random kid that I'm sure won't have any larger role may or may not have noticed them.

The kid may or may not have some bigger problems going on than the magic fireflies, though.

Why yes, ladies and gentlemen, this IS our protagonist. Say hello to Ryotaro Nogami, everyone. A fated hero so good at riding a bike that he managed to get himself lodged in a tree to give us our initial impression of him.

You ever get the feeling that you're just plain cursed and the world's out to get you? If so, you might be a Ryotaro Nogami. Ask your doctor for help finding an exorcist near you because this shit is hazardous to your health.

Now, I'm as big a fan of the bumbling hero trope as anyone, but dude! How are you not wearing a helmet if you're this unlucky. Also, how were you not paying attention to the damn road? Half the Kamen Rider Protagonists seem interested in embarrassing me for rooting for them.

I mean... good of you to worry about the safety of others, Ryotaro, but maybe don't open yourself up to potential liabilities right out the gate. Remember, if you've been in an accident, the first rule is to exchange insurance information and practice shutting up!

After nearly an hour of tinkering to deal with technical issues that were absolutely not based around Mr. Grift being bad about occasionally restarting his computer, we are back. Oh hey, it's the train again and this time we get to see inside. It's an old man with a cane!

He and another character look meaningfully at each other for a few seconds then we get to the important stuff: The Intro. It's not really my favorite, but it's not the worst.

You see, Ryoto, you give local toughs reason to believe you a pushover and they're gonna take advantage. Oh, nevermind, you're used to this happening and have come up with a clever contingency plan. Well, if you're gonna be a pushover, at least be innovative, I suppose.

On the bright side, you've successfully deemed unworthy of attention. Still, downright unfortunate to be so pathetic you're not even worth the generic thugs bothering to beat up. I tell ya, at least there's no way a poor choice in the next few seconds costs you dearly.

You see kids, this is why you don't pick up litter. Otherwise you might discover that you're really bad at throwing it and end up ricocheting it off the garbage can and into the back of the guy who just decided you were too pathetic to beat up.

Narrator: It was at this moment that Ryotaro knew that he'd done fucked up.

Yeah, that all goes about like you'd expect.

An indeterminate amount of time later, our boy wakes up and dusts off a truly impressive amount of sand that seems almost, dare I say, unnatural in quantity. Or they just dumped a bag of sand out on him after the beating, suppose that's possible given how annoyed they were.

Having discovered a random plastic accessory that might be at a store near you, kids! Ryotaro wanders towards a train station and time seems to slow down right at Make a Wish O'clock.

Always a good sign when moments after waking up from a beating you start experiencing random things like walking through a doorway and finding yourself in an entirely different place. Definitely not a sign of brain damage and you in no way should waste your time on a doctor.

So this girl hops out, pays no mind to the fact that someone's right next to her magic CGI train, and then runs through a door in time and/or space. Meanwhile, another door opens and a very confused Ryotaro is offered... coffee? Who can say no to that?

Yeah, it's definitely normal to have a lady offer you coffee from a CGI train in the middle of a desert with a rainbow sky and then you just walk it off. You're not suffering from any head trauma at all, relax.

Ryotaro remains dazed and confused, which is probably fair given recent events, but meanwhile our unnamed likely female lead is looking for something where he woke up and comes across some sort of charm that the leader of the toughs had had on him before knocking out our protag.

She runs off with the charm (a keychain, actually) right before the tough shows up looking for his property. There are no actual keys on it, but he's pretty desperate to find it. Taking bets now, folks: is it a memento from a long-dead sister or is it from a long-dead girlfriend?

While our helpful police officer who is probably a bastard if you get to know him doesn't know where the keychain might be, he's happy to give our aggressive youth with anger issues and a missing token a new target to direct his attention towards.

Our tough guy runs off in search of Ryotaro but gets distracted by the fact that a gallon of sand just exploded out of his shirt, getting attacked by a giant firefly, and then whatever the hell this is showing up. Odd days all around, it seems.

Ryarto walks out of what looks suspiciously like a bike shop with a new bike (how that works if he was broke and lost his wallet, I can't tell you) and likewise gets struck by one of those fireflies. He doesn't seem to notice, though.

Sand likewise explodes beneath our boy but, as might have been indicated by his getting stuck in a tree, riding over broken glass, and the whole train thing... our boy is a bit slow on the uptake and manages to ignore that nasty itching sensation in his pants. Also this:

Cut to an interestingly-named cafe where a bunch of guys are totally there for the coffee and have no other interests at all for being here...

Totally normal things ensue with one guy working up the courage to try and make a move on her? The rest of the crowd quickly moves to cockblock him and she's... talking to her coffee friends. Yeah, that's not worrisome. She also has a bodyguard apparently.

Under normal circumstances, I'd assume she was exaggerating for dramatic effect, but given what we've learned about Ryota, he almost certainly has fallen into a manhole recently, and probably run over by a tricycle too, Likely an adult-sized one somehow.

Airi brings him a plate of... seaweed salad? Can't say I've heard of that one but I'd probably give it a shot, but he realizes he still has the toy wallet that's still in stores near you kids! and runs off to return it, leaving that interesting and carefully prepared dish behind.

Seriously, my dude. Now that the train is appearing on the street and not just in strange fever-dreams brought about by walking through random doors... yeah, it might be time to schedule that appointment with a doctor. Meanwhile, just take a nap, I'm sure that'd be fine.

Oh thank goodness, other people can see it too. Maybe you're not having a break from reality. Meanwhile, given your concern for finding the owner of that thing, this is kinda douchey. Still, you're under a lot of pressure today, so we'll give you a pass.

Panicking and running away, our boy leaves another concerning puff of sand while riding away to the safety of a nearby subway entrance occupied by some familiar friends.

These considerate fellows lecture him on the terrible sin of stealing because they're under the impression that he has the keychain. Meanwhile, more sand gets everywhere. I want to throw my shoes out on instinct after seeing this shot.

Definitely convenient to have a bike handy when you're running away from a second beating of the day. Less convenient to have your self-pitying half-joke about being haunted get answered by a voice in your head, though. And we're back to the concussion theory.

Upon realizing he's haunted, Ryotaro crashes his bike again. Also, protip: If you ever find yourself surrounded by a bunch of angry dudes ready to beat your ass, don't say 'What keychain?' when they ask you where the keychain is. Even if you've no clue what they're on about.

After receiving the maximum allowable PG violence on screen for a bit, Ryotaro finally snaps and launches a dude into a tree. Wait, what?! This isn't the sweet pushover boy I've been watching for the last thirteen minutes of runtime, what the hell is going on here?

That's right, boys and girls, Ryotaro was getting his ass beat so badly that he transformed into the Legendary Super Saiyan. With fucking terrifying red eyes. Jesus, I would not want someone with eyes like that staring me down.

You'll have to excuse Mr. Grift, he screamed like a girl and ran out of the room. We're not saying this reaction was related to the pot candy he'd taken a couple hours ago, but we're not not saying it, either.

I get that it's supposed to be a dramatic scene with a pompous braggart declaring how awesome he is... but my 14-year-old brain kicks in every time and I'm embarrassed. Then I remember that that's exactly the target audience of this show and I feel less bad.

It's definitely the pot that's making all of this nightmare fuel and not several years of Catholic Sunday School rearing its head at an unfortunate time, I swear.

Possessed Ryota proceeds to live out every bullied kid's fantasy and wreck the shit out of the goons. Fairly delicious fare given the shit we've seen Ryota go through but he probably could've de-escalated the situation a bit better here.

Like, I joke about the Dragonball, but yeah...

Thankfully (or sadly, depending on your investment in the fates of these two punks who've been abusing our protagonist all day) Ryota manages to get control of himself and downgrade his crimes from double homicide to a mere destruction of city property.

Ryota, trying his best to figure out what's going on does not get very prompt answers. Alas, these two seem to have irreconcilable differences on the question of whether or not blatant murder is an acceptable 'best part'. Ah well, these things come up.

By the power of manly grunts of constipation, Ryota reclaims control of his body. Much to the astonishment of our female lead. Queue up another well-worn trope. Look, I'm not saying Den-O has a breathtakingly original plot, but it was it was 14 years ago, Isekai wasn't as big.

Here we get our first proper conversation with Momotaros. He doesn't look exactly like @semperfitrex has seen him, but he's getting there. I'll admit that I always found the bizarre cut in half thing they do with these creatures pretty creepy.

Seriously, Ryota, you might have just wanted to stay home with your seaweed salad instead of doing all this running around. Also, lady, that thing is CLEARLY not in side him. Jeez.

"That's right, Ryota, you're actually a black hole, destined to suck the world into you, then the entire solar system. Wait, what's that? Oh, sorry, I thought this was Fourze, silly me. Right right... ahem. 'You're uniquely special, former bullied kid, have some superpowers'."

Whatever this singularity point is, it seems to mean bad news for the not a demon. Also: don't appear behind me and declare this, personal space is all I'm asking for here, yeesh.

All this exposition about a chosen hero is nice and all, but we haven't sold a toy in hours so let's have this guy pop into existence, we're running low on time for the episode and need to have the hero transform.

Our monster also recognizes this singularity point thing as an issue to be dealt with, but now our sand ghost thing has decided he has to protect our hero. It's about as effective as you'd expect.

Our hero tries to do the sensible thing and pass out right now, but she's not having that. Instead she's talking some nonsense about transforming.

Lady, I've been bludgeoned repeatedly today, left seaweed salad over a kid's toy, and I'm pretty sure broke my arm. Let me rest.

I'm just saying, putting all your faith in a dedicated pacifist might not be the best idea. I say you trust the sand demon thing instead. He seems like a standup fellow.

On second thought, maybe don't put your faith in the creature that's just a bit of sand dashing around. Guess you're right, the only option is the kid that's spent the entire episode getting bullied by life. We are definitely not doing wish-fulfillment, we swear.

Okay, not the manliest first transformation ever, but at least there are these new toys for you to buy, kids. They're great. They come with flashing lights and sound effects and will forever cement your status as the cool kid in class who would never get bullied ever.

Behold! The glorious hero of time is born, a champion who will save countless lives from destruction and will ascend to phenomenal heights.

He is definitely not a Daft Punk reject, we swear.

Behold! The glorious hero of time. Heroically he runs away from battle as everything gets to be to much for him. In all honesty, this is a far more realistic reaction than the typical Rider discovering his greatness. Doesn't make for the best character introduction, though.

I'll be honest, our hero isn't heroing very well so far. Props to whoever decided to have our rider try to sweep his enemy to death with a broom, though. Surprisingly enough, the Broom Gambit does not work out that well.

So you mean to tell me that this pass you dropped by complete accident fell into the hands of the only person who could use it and has a button specifically designed to let you change out consciousnesses with a creature that you're possessed by? Whole lot of coincidences there...

We now get a secondary transformation that's the main gimmick of Den-O: Swapping out 'forms'. He doesn't really spend much time in that base form unless something's gone horribly wrong. Still three more buttons to discover, kids! (In stores now)

Nothing but the best of one-liners from our dude Momotaros. And look! another nifty toy you can buy. Better yet, it's modular and can be assembled in different ways. That miiiight come up as a useful detail as he gets more of these sand demons.

And now Momotaros officially defects to our side. He's not down here on any sort of grand mission. All he cares about is having something to fight, He's totally cool with turning on his own kind as long as there's a good brawl to be had.

Yeah... that line will never stop getting a chuckle out of me. Granted, that's the child in my head doing the laughing, but we've established who this show is for already. On the bright side: this guy's a lot better at fighting than the guy with absolutely no talent for it.

You know, given all the trouble that went into tracking that pass down, maybe you shouldn't just toss it away for your dramatic finishing move, just a thought. Ah well, rule of cool, I suppose.

Enemy goes boom and our hero tries to relax for one goddamn second before the plot come grabbing him back but no such peace is to be had for him.

"Fight with you? Are you kidding me?!? I just got possessed by a psychopath, nearly beaten to death three times today, and changed into a knock-off Cyberman. I'm going home to my seaweed salad and that's the end of all of this, thank you very much."

Really, Ryotaro, getting beat up because you're a carelessly naïve fellow, but there have to be limits. Maybe don't get on the magic train that goes wherever it wants just because a pretty girl told you to? Just a thought, no reason.

Meanwhile, our possessed goon with a keychain fetish continues to have a very normal day and it looks like, true to the typical two-episode arcs, our monster of the week has survived exploding and continues to latch onto this guy. Fun!

We fade out with a shot of the magic train continuing its journey across a landscape that looks suspiciously like Utah to me.

I may have given it a lot of shit, but I generally enjoy the first episode of Den-O. Ryotaro's a pretty relatable guy at the end of the day, no confidence in himself and a series of misfortunes that are mostly brought about through his own carelessness.

He's a character that, more than a lot of Riders, really has to grow as a person throughout the series. Lots of Riders start out as mostly formed awesome individuals who have stuff HAPPEN to them throughout their run, but aren't really changed by the journey, just revealed.

That's not a BAD thing, and most of my favorite riders fall into exactly that category, but Ryota remains up there with them due to his overall arc throughout the series. A lot of the tropes he goes through are well-worn, but they're tropes for a reason and it's fun to watch.

That's all I have to say about this episode of Kamen Rider Den-O. I'll probably do a second one soon to properly show off Momotaros, since it does more of his intro and that was the excuse I gave for starting this thread. For now, though, I'm going to bed. Safe dreams, folks.