Kamen Rider Amazons Season Two Review

Yeah you knew this was coming. I despised season one so I was really hoping this would be better. Normally I'd wait until the end to say this but...this was brutal, it was rough to get through. I literally only watched this season because a friend was willing to riff it with me. With that being said, what do I think about it in detail? Just how bad do I think it is? Read on and find out. Its only 13 episodes so...MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD.

Five years have passed since the season one finale. In that time a strange outbreak has been occurring: Humans are now becoming Amazons. We're thrown right into things and introduced to a blue Amazon...Amazon Neo. Yeah thats basically all the setup we get in the first episode. I was legitimately confused at what was going on for the first two episodes because of the time-skip. There are a lot of plots going on this season so I'll just cover the major ones.

Lets get right down to it...I HATE this season. Its worse than season one for me. It took what little I liked about season one and ripped it to pieces. It flat-out ruined the happiness I got from the extermination squad's plot in season one. Mamoru turns evil during the time-skip. He has actively helped in cultivating a new species of Amazons. At first the show plays it up like he is just doing to it to swell his group's numbers so they can defend themselves. Thats understandable given the situation even if it puts the character in a bad light. However, then the show outright admits that Mamoru turned out like this because the extermination squad let him leave. Thats about as cynical as you can get as far as I'm concerned. To top it all of, the end of his plot-line is pretty anti-climactic. Instead of this big dramatic fight with the rest of the squad, the squad ends up killing him accidentally while trying to shoot another Amazon. The show even telegraphs his heel-turn because his first appearance in season two has him wearing all black. I should be heartbroken seeing my favorite character in the show die but all this did was make me angry. This is worse than Kiba's heel-turn in Faiz for me. At least I sort of understood why Kiba turned evil and got to see the transformation on-screen.

I'm gonna come right out and say it, I don't like Jin. However, he did not deserve a single thing that happened to him this season. This was the equivalent of kicking someone in the stomach while they're already laying on the ground. His entire plot this season just has this air of cruelty around it. The man has to butcher his own family in order to stop this outbreak. It would've been merciful if Jin died at the end of this season but sadly, this show does not know the meaning of the word mercy. Jin's actor is also way too good for this show. The show isn't very well written but both Jin and Hiroki's actors give it their all when they're on-screen. I honestly wish the show was better because it feels like the show wasted their performances. Haruka himself really doesn't add much to this season so I can't really say much about him other than that he is back to just hunting Amazons that harm humans. He just kind of shows up to help hunt down the sources of the outbreak. He feels like he was included just because he is supposed to be the overall hero of Amazons...granted I'm using the word hero loosely.

I really don't care about Chihiro and Iyu's plot-line. It doesn't feel like it adds much to me. Not to mention once the show reveals that Chihiro is not only Jin's son but also one of the sources of the new Amazon outbreaks, this plot-line becomes irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. At the end of the day, they both HAVE to die to end this outbreak. Both leads of season two absolutely cannot survive because if they do, more people will die. I know I said Jin didn't deserve what happened to him but neither does Chihiro...he has to die simply because he exists. I don't even like Chihiro and this bugs me. This and the Mamoru stuff makes this entire season even more cynical than season one for me. However, I do get it, both this and Mamoru's plot-line are trying to be complex and offer no easy answer, I just wish the show had handled these two plots better. There isn't a single ounce of happiness in this season to make up for it as far as I'm concerned. Even the final battle of this show just feels like a cruel joke. I'll get to that in a little bit...but for now, lets talk about the visuals.

This season does actually have some practical effects but there honestly isn't enough of them compared to the CGI. The CGI is even more awful than season one. There is a five minute massacre where Chihiro goes berserk and butchers an entire squad. There is so much bad CGI in that scene that it took me and a friend of mine more than 15 minutes to watch it because we kept pausing and laughing at the CGI. My favorite bad effect though is that there is a weapon that can obliterate any Amazon that it hits. The effect is so bad that it looks like it turns them into orange juice. These effects are so bad that I legitimately have to ask who on the staff looked at them and said "thats good enough, use it".

The Amazon Neo suit is meh. Its a nice shade of blue and I do like the contrast with the red highlights but thats about it. It looks slightly like a mix of of Alpha and Omega but it still looks a bit too cybernetic so it doesn't read as an Amazon suit at first glance. I also don't care for how the driver looks. Sadly Neo also relies on a sword to cut and slash when he should be using his claws so the cybernetic aspect kind of takes away from the impact of the show for me.

The New Omega suit is just awful. You know what I think when I think Amazon? Cybernetics and machines...no...just no. This takes my problem with the default Omega suit and just doubles down on it. The silver, green, red, yellow, and black don't blend very well. The driver also looks a little distracting on this suit to me. It might look better if the driver was a shade of green or silver. The form itself is also utterly useless to the show's story. I'd understand it if the belt makes him stronger but it doesn't feel like it. I don't even understand why Omega is the one to get the new form when its not even remotely his story this season. This is the worst design in all of Amazons as far as I'm concerned.

Despite all my complaining, I do have one positive for this season other than the hilariously awful CGI. Its the Rose Amazon. His design is actually pretty good and his story is pretty solid as well. He fights solely by decapitating people. I like his story because he was having his girlfriend bring him victims so he could control his urge to eat her. Its actually pretty heartbreaking for me because for one moment, we see the full extent of this effect from the Amazon's point-of-view. His girlfriend gets mortally wounded and she lets him eat her before she dies. We do actually get some interesting tactics used by some of the Amazons this season in general.

The action in the show is underwhelming to say the least. I don't actually remember very many of the moves in most of the fights. Its also not edited very well. In one fight scene there are legitimately 10-12 different cuts of Omega throwing a single punch. I do not envy the editor for this show. The fight physics are also kind of iffy during one of Chihiro's rampages...blood spatter doesn't line up with the angle of how he cut them. In one instant, a soldier he slashes also flies in a direction thats physically impossible given how he hit them. Though I will give the show a bit of credit. Jin got blinded by Haruka during the time-skip so he sort of fights like a blind man. Now for the final battle in the show...

Hope you like that picture cuz thats seriously all you get from that fight. The final battle of the season, the showdown its been building to...happens off-screen. We don't even get to see Chihiro die despite him being the main character this season. I sat through this season thinking that at the very least I might enjoy the final battle and nope...off-screen. This was beyond disappointing and its the most anti-climactic thing I've ever seen.

This season...it was even less fun than season one. I just...felt sad, angry, and empty after watching it. I shouldn't feel like this after watching tokusatsu. I went into this season expecting it to be bad and cynical...but not this bad. It doubled down on the depressing tone of season one. If I wasn't riffing it with a friend, I probably wouldn't have even watched it. The friend who was riffing it with me sounded like I did when I finished Megaforce. This season had so many plot-lines that I couldn't even cover them all in this review. Now, all my complaining aside, I am up for seeing the movie for two reasons: 1. I'm always up for shredding horribly written cynical shows and 2. I've seen the first two parts so I might as well see how it ends. Overall, this is still my least favorite rider show and I still dislike it more than Faiz.

My Updated Kamen Rider Rankings

Since I did an updated list for Sentai, I figured its time to do an updated one for Kamen Rider. Keep in mind that I've been more into Sentai than rider. So there probably isn't gonna be as many new series on this list. With that being said, there has been a slight shift since last time so I guess a new list is warranted. Since the last one, I've finished Gaim and Amazons. Drive and Ghost will not be talked about because I dropped both of them before the 25 episode mark. Den-O will not be mentioned even though I saw half of it since I haven't seen any more of it since the last list. With that out of the way, lets get right down to it.

7. Kamen Rider Amazons:

It took a while but I finally found a series I dislike more than Faiz. Yes, that is a big statement to make since only season one is done and its only 13 episodes. It tries so hard to be dark, edgy, and serious that it ends up being overly angst-y. I don't tend to like the "Life sucks, deal with it!" mentality in superhero shows unless its done really well. It got to the point where I was only watching it to riff it with a friend. Pretty much the main positive I have for this series so far is Alpha's suit. Omega's bike is the most irritating bike I've seen so far. It will not stop roaring whenever its on screen. After a while, my friend and I were constantly telling it to shut up whenever it showed up. Its also this extremely generic lion roar even though the bike is lizard themed. The fight scenes were outright boring and lacked any sense of brutality which is pretty bad for a modern take on Amazon. It doesn't really feel like the show has any weight to it. I legitimately don't expect Mamoru to survive season two and I'm honestly a bit surprised he survived season one given how bleak the tone was.

6. Kamen Rider Faiz, Decade, and Kiva:

Yeah, all three share the same spot but I'll start with Faiz. I've actually softened up a bit on it this series since the last list. It does have some good ideas but the execution makes some of them frustrating. The drama built around misunderstandings or mis-communications still annoys me because it can be solved so easily. I still love the rider suit and monster designs. I love all the little gadgets that the belts have. I get what they were trying to do with Kiba's heel-turn near the end but it really could've been handled better. It comes off as a bit annoying and its placed at a bit of a bad spot for me given everything that happens near the end. I like the Orphenocs in concept but the execution was kind of lacking. I also kind of wish they had a little more variety in their color scheme.

I still don't like Decade and my thoughts on it haven't changed much from last time. I still think it gets lost in all the world hopping to the point where it forgets the driving force of the show. It also doesn't help that the show doesn't have a concrete ending. Due to that, it left so many questions unanswered. In a way, thats good because it means an infinite number of stories to tell and its a way to always bring Tsukasa back for cameos. However, the downside is that those stories can be kinda tainted because well its Decade. Any questions that the Decade movie and the crossover with W answer vary between the two. So we really don't get to know a lot regarding Decade. I still have no idea what Narutaki is.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Kiva. So why is it being ranked? Its because I don't think the last third is going to be able to change my opinion of the show all that much, especially given what I've heard happens near the end. It falls into a lot of the same pitfalls as Faiz. So much so that an entire love triangle is built on miscommunication. I can't stand Otoya and he is probably going to end up on my least favorite rider character list whenever I redo it. Pretty much the only things I like about it at this point are the suits and the music. With that being said, Kiva's default suit should've been sent back to the drawing board. I like its design but its the weight thats the problem. It apparently caused the suit actor to have back problems because most of the weight is in the chest. I absolutely love the stained glass look for the Fangires.

5. Kamen Rider Wizard:

I'm still very mixed on this series. I liked the aesthetics, particularly the designs for most of Wizard's forms, and some of the background music. The battle music sounds, for lack of a better phrase, like a magical symphony. The main form I don't like design-wise is Infinity due to it looking too plastic-y. There are some nice ideas in the show but the execution is questionable. Its one of the few shows I've seen where a villain reveal has shattered one of the fundamental rules of its universe and nearly made the plot collapse in on itself. I don't really remember much action-wise outside of some sword-play. Also if you notice, Wizard never actually throws a punch in his fight scenes. I'm guessing its because they didn't want to break the rings on his hands.

4. Kamen Rider Gaim:

I like this show, not as much as I did when I first finished it but I enjoyed it for what was. I'm indifferent on the suits with the exception of Pineapple Arms. The flopping shoulder pads can get distracting. Other suits have that problem as well but it is a lot more noticeable on pineapple arms. At one point, Pineapple Arms shoulder pads swung and bounced off the chest-plate of the suit. With that being said, I think the shoulder pads for Ryugen Grape Arms look good. The dueling philosophies are a nice touch but unfortunately, some don't get touched on much. The other downside is that due to the number of riders, some get shoved to the side. I'm actually one of the people in the fandom who is glad Micchi didn't die. In my opinion, it would've been him getting off too easy. He has to live with what he has done and with his friends no longer trusting him. The show flat out admits that he burned a few bridges that he might never be able to repair.

3. Kamen Rider W:

I enjoyed this show a lot and my opinions of it haven't actually changed much from the last list. I love the detective style it has to it. The Dopant designs are great and they are able to capture some of the more abstract concepts will in their designs. Some of them have a nice of nightmare fuel to them. The action is absolutely fantastic. I still love the mix and match ability for the form changes. Luna Trigger is still my favorite out of all W's forms. Museum is probably one of my favorite villain organizations. Weather Dopant is probably my favorite villain in the show. The dude manages to hit Long levels of creepy for me. Shotarou and Philip play off of each other rather well and I liked Accel's subplot. Philip's search pose has actually become my thinking pose. The rider suits for the show look great, especially all of W's forms. They really made sure the colors for all W's forms worked regardless of combination.

2. Kamen Rider Ryuki:

One of the more divisive early heisei series but I like it. I will admit its a heavily flawed show and I don't really defend its flaws that much. So why is it ranked this high for me despite being so flawed? Honestly, I can't put my finger on why I like it that much. Something about the show just speaks to me. I just can't help but look back on it fondly even knowing all its problems. I like the mirror beasts designs. I like that it shows what happens when people the wrong people get a hold of this kind of power which is honestly an interesting idea even if it likely wasn't the show's goal. I still like how each episode ends on a cliff hanger and leads directly into the next episode. Granted it does making marathon-ing it rather difficult since there really isn't a clear point to take a break from it. I'm still indifferent to the ending. I like all the rider suits except for Zolda's which is hilarious because he is actually my favorite rider in Ryuki.

1. Kamen Rider Fourze:

Yeah this one has over-taken Ryuki since last time. This show just hits that sweet spot for me and it really makes me happy. I know a lot of people in the fandom will say that it lays on the friendship stuff too thick. At its core however, I see it as a show about how one person can help people through their problems. I think the high school setting works well with that as well. The Kamen Rider Club is probably my favorite group of characters out of all the rider series I've seen so far. I love the designs for the Zodiarts with Sagittarius being my favorite of them. I like the rider suits in the show with Meteor Storm being the main exception. The helmet looks so weird to me that while watching the show I began referring to Meteor Storm as "Pikachu States". Cosmic States is still my favorite rider final form because I like how it ties all the switches together and sums up Gentaro's personality.

Kamen Rider Amazons Season One Review (Episodes 1-13)

When this was first announced, I was hyped because I loved what I saw of the Showa Amazon. I thought Alpha's suit was awesome when it was revealed but didn't care at all for Omega's suit. Then I saw the trailer and my first thought was "This feels like Kamen Rider The First and The Next". Not a good first impression. How did the show actually turn out for me? Read on and find out. Since its only 13 episodes, I will have to do spoilers. So with that said: SPOILERS INCOMING!

This show lacks color. Everything looks so muted because of the grey filter they put on the footage. I get that the filter is supposed to make it look like an early heisei series but even in those early series we had lots of bright color. Its makes the show sort of uninteresting to look at. The color palette is also too limited, mostly featuring red, green, grey, and black. I can't tell you how happy I was to see some blue because of how badly the filter muted everything. It also mutes certain details on the Amazons because of the color of the suits in certain shots. The picture below is the best example I could find. The Amazons in the background are missing a lot of details compared to the ones in the foreground because of the way the filter shows the color black. The Amazon in the middle of the picture actually has purple on her chest-plate but you can't see it outside of close-ups because of the filter.

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across some magazine scans of the show. The difference between those scans and the show is astounding. The scans made the show look so bright and lively. This is a tokusatsu and I expect to see lots of colors like that.

The show itself is depressing, more depressing than Faiz for me. The show is also so edgy its not even funny. It feels like its so wrapped up in trying to be dark and mature that it actually ends up being kind of childishly angst-y. Early on it kept repeating that its impossible for Haruka to live without killing someone. This is despite the fact Haruka's own backstory shows that is possible. Its just done to reinforce that fighting is the only logical thing to do in this show. It also really doesn't help that the show takes every chance to throw Haruka's naive outlook back in his face. To make matters worse, in the season finale, Haruka basically admits that Jin is right about needing to kill to survive. Then he immediately says that Jin might be wrong and there might be another way. So he basically went right back to where he was when he first got his powers. I can handle a dark show if its done well and gives me some moments of happiness and admittedly, Amazons did indeed give me a couple. It gave me one in episode 11 but then it snatched it away from me at the very end of the episode. Mamoru basically goes feral because of an accident that happened in episode 9 and its only revealed via flashback after a legitimately happy moment. I'll get more into that in a bit. The finale did give me a nice moment of the extermination squad being brought back together but I've got a feeling season two is going to snatch that moment away as well. Its far too cynical of a show in my opinion. I get that its trying to be realistic but the lack of optimism is staggering. Its essentially ignoring that not everyone in the real world is so cynical and beaten down.

The show has brought up a comparison between the humans and amazons quite a bit and well the comparison doesn't exactly work. It outright fails in episodes 7 and 8 because they draw the comparison with a human who is a serial killer and an Amazon who merely can't control himself. The Amazon even regrets that he is starting to lose control of himself while the human takes joy in outright murdering people. It falls apart when they kill the Amazon but let the human serial killer get away with no consequences whatsoever. They outright say that the only reason he gets to live is because he is human. This was after he nearly beat a member of their team to death. If that is the justification for letting him live then there was no point in contrasting the two characters in my opinion. The show is trying to sound much more deep and profound than it actually is. Its particularly evident whenever the show brings up the aquarium metaphor in regards to Haruka.

I can't get into the action of the show. Not only is the fight choreography sub-par but it doesn't feel like there is any power behind the hits. Most of the fights in the show just look off because of that. There are also spots where the timing for the impact sound effects is off. At certain points it doesn't even look like a hit connects. If you've got an eye for fights, noticing stuff like that can get distracting. Normally the camera work is supposed to hide stuff like this. It doesn't help that the show isn't even that brutal and it actually avoids a lot of the gore. It goes out of its way to hide the brutality a lot of times by having the camera cut somewhere else or zoom out so you can't see it. Even worse though, what gore it does show is done in unconvincing CGI so I can't really count it as gore because it doesn't feel or look like its really there. Its effectively based on the Showa Amazon, one of the most brutal shows I've seen and yet Amazons lacks the bite the original show had to it. I get that its not a show made as a tv production but I was expecting more practical effects in the fights.

The Sigma stuff pretty much amounts to nothing in my opinion other than just to be there for a twist. The show tries to play up how important he was to the team when he was alive without actually showing how important he was to the team. It really doesn't help that the scene they keep showing in flashbacks is his death in episode 2. Sigma's whole chess metaphor didn't work for me either. The metaphor would've worked out better if he was out-thinking his opponent instead of just over-powering them imo. I like Mamoru but he started annoying me during the Sigma stuff. Granted, it did lead to a legitimately happy moment of Mamoru using the teams motto of working for whoever pays them to get them to fight alongside Omega again. It was a rather nice moment in my opinion. Then they undercut that with the flashback I mentioned earlier. He basically ate a burger made of human meat during a fight at an Amazon restaurant in episode 9 thinking it was a regular burger. It felt like a really forced way to add more drama. It would've worked a little better in my opinion to have his armlet run out.

This season felt padded and I honestly don't think the corporate side of things added all that much. Even though it was half the show, it felt like it was there just to provide a justification for the Amazons existence. It plays out almost exactly like you'd expect, right down to Haruka's backstory and it essentially being revealed that its not an accident that the Amazons got released into the city. I'd have personally down-played the corporate aspect and focused more on the extermination squad. The season's run time also diminished drastically going from around 45 minutes to roughly 30 minutes over the course of 13 episodes. Granted it went back to 40 minutes in the season finale. Even with the cuts to the run-time, it still felt padded. I really don't think they knew what to do with all that time.

Now for the visuals. I find most of the Amazons suits uninteresting to look at. They do capture their animals decently but again, the filter and lack of variety in the color palette hurt the look of the suits. Lots of red, green, brown, and black. As I said before, the filter they're using really doesn't do this color palette many favors. As for the rider's suits, I don't care for Omega or Sigma that much.

My main problem with Omega's suit is that it looks too sleek and robotic. It feels too much like a modern rider design. It doesn't look animalistic enough for me which is kind of a problem. It lacks that whole "be afraid" vibe. I think they over-shot the mark while to modernize the Amazon suit. I get the in-story reason why it looks like that and I get that its supposed to show the personality contrast between him and Alpha. It just doesn't feel like an updated Amazon. It feels more like a current Heisei rider.

Alpha's look is probably the best of the three rider suits. I can easily look at this and immediately get that its an updated Amazon. It has this nice savage and scarred appearance. Using the SIC design was a great idea. I particularly like the green scars and they compliment the red scales nicely and so do the green eyes.

Sigma's suit is meh overall. The bone-y scales are an ok touch and I do like the purple eyes. My major problem with it though is the color scheme. The silver would be nice on its own but the way it fades into the red looks off to me and I can't quite figure out why. I do like that it has a visible mouth on it and it may have been slightly move-able. With that being said, I don't care for it being a repainted version of Omega's original Amazon form. I've got this weird feeling that Sigma wasn't actually planned from the beginning. Not shown in the picture but the filter reacts weirdly with his suit as it makes the silver look green-ish in some shots.

This season was not fun. It was boring, annoying, and depressing. Its one of those times where I probably should've listened to my gut feeling. I'm not even kidding when I say that the only reason I kept watching was because I had friends who were willing to watch with me. I was also able to call most of the twists by episode 3. Its a problem for me because I'm kinda dense when it comes to tv shows. If I can figure it out that soon, it means the show isn't hiding its mysteries that well. If other people enjoy it, more power to them, I just can't stand the show as it stands right now and I hope it improves during season two. I also hope they drop the grey filter next season. My overall verdict for this season: Predictable, boring, depressing, and overly cynical. With season one having ended, I think I might actually dislike this show more than Faiz.