Kamen Rider Amazon (1974)

Kamen Rider Amazon is surprisingly one of the least talked about Rider seasons despite being one of the more experimental and short lived tokusatsu shows from the early Showa era. It currently exists as the shortest Kamen Rider show due to its early cancellation due to an over-amount of gore/violence for the time it was aired. With the Kamen Rider Amazons (2016) reboot bringing back attention the the once forgotten rider, lets take a look at his show and how its quality stands so many years later.

The story revolves around Amazon (Yes this is his actual name) surviving a plane crash as a young child and being adopted by an Incan tribe. After living his early years as a wild child in the woods, his tribe is massacred by the newly resurrected Gorgos, the "Ten Faced Demon". Amazon becomes in possesion of the "Gigi Armlet" which is one of two powerful artifacts wielding a secret power, the other being owned by Gorgos. He flees to Japan to escape Gorgos but is followed and begins to get attacked by various minions of the Ten Faced Demon. He meets Tachibana (The mentor of all Showa Era Kamen Riders) as well as a Brother and Sister who he becomes close friends with. The cast are all pretty lovable and Amazon's friendship with the Brother becomes important later on as its this friendship that allows Amazon to start learning Japanese. Every episode follows the standard Showa era formula for tokusatsu: Enemy appears to steal/mess with children, Amazon shows up and saves the day after facing a small hardship. The amount of gore present surprised even me in the current day, wondering how this was allowed on a kids show from the early 70's. As for the soundtrack, its nothing amazing or memorable. At the same time it does its job well and doesn't have any noticeably bad tracks. Though the shows episode count was cut from 48 to 24 during production, the story's quality doesn't take too much of a hit from it. The only noticeable setback this caused was the final episode had noticeable pacing issues and the ending left a lot of things feeling rushed. Overall it was a pretty entertaining watch despise the obvious tropes, cliches, and low budget feel of the era this show was from. I would heartily recommend this show to anyone looking for some early 70's cheesy action with Karate Bugmen.

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More than what you expect from the time period!

I watched this short series after I watching the reboot Kamen Rider Amazons, which is a show filled with gore and body horror and I was told that this series was the same (There is some and I can see how it’s shocking for the times but it’s not bad if your used to todays stuff). I myself am not a person who likes too much gore, I even heard the series had been cut in half due to the studio switching broadcast companies. So I was not wholly looking forward to this one when it came time to cross it off my list. I expected it to be terrible but boy was I wrong! I enjoyed every minute!

Before we get into the review I want to recommend that if you do watch this series and want to watch the spin-off I would watch the spin-off first and then come back to this series. It was fun to see what (even though it was little) inspiration they took from the older series to put into the reboot.

Now I will say that the series does follow the early Kamen Rider episode formula of- new monster shows up, kids and friends are kidnapped, Amazon fights, he wins, everyone celebrates the victory. There is though somewhat of an overarching plot to this though it comes secondary to the action. Amazon himself is a man who was raised far from the reaches of civilization , he can’t communicate, he reacts like an animal, and he’s practically naked 24/7. So what happens when suddenly he has to run around Tokyo to fight these monsters? There’s conflicts and he struggles to understand how to do and say the things the people who surround him are used to. He becomes frustrated and angry with the situation he’s been forced into and yearns to return home but he can’t, not until the bad guys are defeated. The most compelling thing about his character though is his kindness. The first human he meets in Japan is a young boy and he’s so gentle and kind to him it’s as if the boy if his own. He even treats the boy’s older sister, who initially looks down on him and blames Amazon for all the danger they’ve gone through, with respect and forgiveness for her misunderstandings. Then Tachibana enters the story and though their relationship is a bit rocky at the beginning they eventually share such a bond that I dare say rivals the one Tachibana has with Takeshi Hongo (Ichigo). The best friendship Amazon carries however is that with his former enemy Mole Beastman. Now Mole wasn’t always the most reliable character he was a downright coward most of the time, but towards the end however he was actually helping to fight the monsters with Amazon! He became such an integral part of the story and his sacrifice hit hard. Up to that point I had not gotten anywhere near emotional towards the Showa era shows but this death had me sobbing! ???

Overall it’s not a bad watch and only 24 episodes so it’s a short one too in case you can’t bring yourself to sit through the Showa era of Kamen Rider. I highly recommend it! Happy Watching!

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