QuaranTV: Amazon Riders

So the good news is I have a new martial arts fantasy book coming out Wednesday, November 25 (you can pre-order on your favorite ebook retailer, unless that is Barnes and Noble, here). White Tiger, Black Leopard is technically a sequel to but you can reader in any order. There are no rules.

And the bad news is I am under house lockdown awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test. I feel semi-crappy but not terrible. In the old world, you know, back in the day, I would consider this a minor annoyance and probably have gone to work. In this modern world, though… I am stuck at home. Luckily, though, the freezer is full and I have pretty much every streaming service known to man (except Disney+, which I recently cancelled, but that is a different story).

So what to watch while laying on the couch when you are cut off from the world with the 850,000 TV shows and movies on various streaming services your only source of entertainment? For me it was Amazon Riders on Amazon Prime. Why? I have been meaning to watch it. I had knocked out the first few episodes on plane flights but the problem with Japanese language stuff for me is that I need to read the subtitles (dubs blow) so that means I can’t type up or read or play with Lego sets while I watch. So this little Covid scare fever thing is the perfect time for me to watch this little slice of tokusatasu.

Amazon Riders is an installment of the Kamen Rider meta-series set in its own alternate universe. From what I understand it was produced to stream on Japanese Amazon Prime hence the working in of the term Amazon. One of the great things Amazon Riders has going for it (besides being easy to stream if you have Prime) is the alternate universe thing means you don’t have to be super familiar with other Kamen Rider series. I have seen a handful of episodes over the years and vaguely remember the American version (Masked Rider) in the post-Power Ranger boom of US tokusatsu kid programming but I am really not down with my Kamen Rider mythos.

The quick review: I am not really sure how Amazon Riders ranks among the rest of Kamen Rider but all in all I liked it. It is dark, violent and it does not always feature the tightest story telling. But it is interesting, violent and feels like grown up tokusatsu, especially compared to the Ultraman I grew up with and the various Sentai series I have been catching on Tubi.

Set more or less in the modern time, Japan is plagued by 4000 test subjects loose who eventually turn into cannibalistic armored bug people (after all, insects are kind of the Kamen Rider motif). The big, bad company behind all this has a group of mercenaries to hunt’em down with electrified knives, machine guns and a friendly (possibly mentally impaired) Amazon. When times get tough and the team is outclassed a mysterious Amazon shows up and kicks the crap out of everyone. Will the team survive? What the hell is the story with these cannibals? Who is the mysterious Amazon? Why is the big, bag company exec so over-protective of her children? That is basically what is going on with Amazon Riders and every episode brings everyone one step closer to an answer after beating the baddie of the week to death. And not a there is a fight and then the bad guys explodes kind of beating, either.

If you like your tokusatsu light, Amazon Riders is not for you. It is excessively violent with lots of CGI enhanced splatter. I am not sure how other incarnation of Kamen Rider get through their battles but in Amazon Riders you get a pretty healthy amount of severed limbs and removed organs. The good guys have giant forearm spines that cut their opponents to shreds (and have moves with names like Violent Punish) and the bad guys literally eat their victims in grand zombie movie style.

I am not sure if it is sloppy storytelling or poor translation but there is not a whole lot of subtlety in Amazon Riders. The mercenaries, who are a pretty major focus of the story, barely have backstories. How the test subjects got out into the population at large is kind of nebulous and where the trademark Kamen Rider motorcycle came from is not exactly fully defined. The second season, which is set five years after the first, actually has a little more going for it in terms of plot and story… it just takes you like 13 episodes to get there. I am not saying that all your season one questions will be answered in season two, but the important ones will be!

Bloody tokusatsu action pretty much sums up Amazon Riders. And I am getting a bit worn out. Check in again soon… I have been watching plenty of television lately so maybe I’ll check in with my thoughts on Sukeban Deka the movie or Ninja Sentai Kakuranger.