REVIEW: Amazons 11
So the end is clearly nigh and with this week’s Kamen Rider Amazons, we are firmly within the beginning of the end. This week was quite action heavy, but in a manner which I felt quite satisfied with since the action scenes served to further the story, rather than the usual fight at the end for the sake of having a fight. The episode works by itself, which is always a plus for me, but it also sets up the end of this season really well. So yeah, this episode was great!
So thinking it over, I think this episode’s strength really comes from having one single unified plot rather than two or three. By having this single focus, well it seems more focused and planned, as obvious as that sounds. Usually with Kamen Rider, as much as I love it, the week by week episodes usually has way too many plots which means that those said plots don’t get the focus and attention they need to really sing and do well. By having this one single plot, episode 11 of Amazons can really just focus on this one sequence of events and so give it all the emotional weight and time that it needs to really succeed.
So what does the episode do with this focus and time? Well we saw how everyone is reacting/preparing for Tlaloc. Normally this seems quite commonplace within a show, but with this extra time and focus from having one plot, Amazons is able to show everyone’s human and three-dimensional reactions to it. For example we see Jin and Nanahana-san discussing what they should do to get away from town and end up deciding to go to an onsen. Its small moments like these that can be done due to the focus of the plot which, because it fleshes out the characters and shows them being three-dimensional and reacting as realistically as a person can in that sort of situation, makes this episode good in my eyes.
Earlier I said that the large amount of action is not a negative thing but rather a point in the episode’s favour and that’s because it benefits the plot, is a nice emotionally satisfying moment and thus doesn’t feel forced in like a lot of Kamen Rider action scenes tend to be. So for benefiting the plot, the reason why I feel this way is because this half-the-episode-long action scene deals with Amazon Sigma. By getting rid of him, this allows for the frankly more interesting plot of Haruka against Jin to move forward, without a greater threat for them to deal with. As much as I like those kinds of plots, here I feel the conflict between the two protagonist Amazons would be far more fascinating to watch. On top of that, by removing Sigma, Tachibana has no ace-in-the-hole to use, thus presumably becoming more desperate and so possibly doing something more dangerous which could easily lead to more interesting conflicts.
But what I personally got more out of this fight scene was what it did for character development, which frankly to me is just as important plot development. Basically what this did for the characters is bring the extermination team closer together, give some pathos/develop Mamoru and get Jin to fight with the extermination team. For that first point I think it is a bit annoying to see the team distrust Haruka, bring him in, kick him out and bring him back in again; but I will fully admit it was still a very emotionally satisfying and moving moment when the whole team was brought together by Mamoru paying them all to be a team. It was a genuinely sweet moment and kinda shows that Mamoru is the heart and soul of the team, despite his childishness; which makes the ending of this episode (and some of the events to follow) even more devastating and potentially effective.
With regards to Jin, it was nice seeing him getting beaten by Sigma and then teaming up with the extermination team. For me this develops his character since, firstly, by having him fail it gives him room and reason to grow (presumably in season two) and it also shows he isn’t stupid or foolish enough to not accept help from the extermination team. Plus it’s just really satisfying to see him fighting with Haruka against a common enemy; but again I feel this is certainly something which I think doesn’t necessarily fit within the harsher world of Amazons, at least at this moment in time. Maybe at the end of the series after both Riders have been through a lot of shit and have fought each other a lot, that I think having them team up would have true emotional significance and satisfaction.
The last thing I want to talk about is how the show utilises rain really well. What I mean by this is that because rain is so integral to the Tlaloc plan, this uncontrollable force of nature becomes this constant threat for the protagonists. Additionally the irony of the life giving rain becoming a tool of death is also quite interesting. This all leads to a sense of dread of this oncoming doom which I think is quite good for the end of this season; it raises the stakes in a way that seems insurmountable for our heroes which means that if they surpass and survive it, it makes them more triumphant; but if they can’t, it makes sense why. It’s difficult to express why I find the programme’s use of rain so interesting and good, but I can say it is those things for definite and I really like the show’s use of it.
So yeah episode 12 was a really strong episode that I really enjoyed and I certainly suggest you should go and watch it. It honestly is my favourite episode of Amazons so far, apart from the first few opening episodes, and shows that it can be really good when it focused on one thing and doesn’t try to be too edgy or shocking. I’m really looking forward to how the show is going to wrap up its first season and also what’s going to happen with Mamoru now that he might be starting to hunger for human flesh; but I’ll discuss how good a cliff-hanger/twist that is once we see it actually happen in next week’s episode.
