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.