Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider

Episode 5

It begins with our heroes just beating the living crap out of a squad of Shocker combatants—and honestly, it's Yukarisu's reactions that make the most sense. The Shocker combatants have literal super strength. In this world without Kamen Riders, they're basically unmatched. It's unlikely any of them has ever lost a fight, much less been taken out with a single attack each. Yet here comes this group of randos—a pair of 20-something guys and a girl and a 40-year-old man—and it's over in an instant.

It's also notable that, without the surprise factor of finding out that Shocker is real to distract them, our heroes do much better than in their first combatant encounter. Of course, once the literal monster shows up on the field of battle, they are right back in their half-terrified, half-reverent stupor—even as they try and fight it.

This, in turn, allows for the reveal of our final Kamen Rider hero, Mitsuba as Riderman. He gets both his “Big Damn Hero Moment” and the return of his running joke—i.e., while he's able to immobilize the monster, instead of attacking it or running away to regroup, he decides this is the perfect time to tell part three of his and his brother's combined origin story. Through it, we learn that he's every bit the fighter his brother is—and likely the more talented of the two. Unfortunately, the five-year gap in age has always left him at a slight disadvantage.

We also learn that Ichiyo is a bit crazier than even Tojima and Yuriko. After all, while they've transformed themselves to be closer to their idolized characters, they've never tried to force a role onto someone else, much less breaking someone's arm to make them more “lore accurate.”

Of course, taking a five-minute break for exposition dialogue has the expected result as the Spider Man monster gets free and uses his powers to force Yukarisu to kill Mitsuba. And so the restaurant manager asks his high schooler girlfriend to marry him—breaking the spell. Obvious issues aside, it's nice to see the Power of Love could overcome all odds, even in this crazy world.

So in the end, we're left with our already outmatched heroes facing off against the fully transformed Spider Man. Do they have what it takes to take out a creature with raw strength greater than two tanks? We'll have to see next week.

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Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.