Kamen Rider Amazon: The Rider That's Ripping Apart Rubber Monsters That Bleed Paint!

With the problem that I feel a generation gap with Tokusatsu every now and then, Kamen Rider Amazon is one of those series I really had that strange feeling because it's a decade older than I am. This is from someone who's seen Kamen Rider Black as his first Kamen Rider series and has been more focused on the Heisei Era Kamen Rider than anything. It's time for me to discuss on Kamen Rider Amazon which is already 40 years old. I've heard Amazon was "pretty violent". But after watching it with all the super old school special effects, the violence ends up laughable for me. It ends up getting summarized as a Kamen Rider that rips apart rubber monsters that bleed... paint? Yes, they bleed paint. I guess it's because the show was so 70s. The very first episode of the very first Kamen Rider had a lot of good action with people bleeding obviously fake blood. Amazon tried to innovate the way monsters are defeated by becoming "more violent". Instead, I find it that it became more and more laughable. 

After I finished Kamen Rider Amazon, part of me felt I was glad it was only for 26 episodes while part of me wished for more of it due to the amazing choreography it had. While the idea was pretty good on paper but the execution ends up laughable. What's supposed to be scary because of issues like monsters eating up people inadvertently ends up not being scary. The poor special effects where blood is paint and the monsters being so fake gives me a mixed experience. I could praise the choreography and I think ripping apart monsters can work but Amazon like every other 70s show shared that problem of laughably poor special effects. While it was good to try something new but sometimes innovation fails the first time round. When that happens, there's the need to go back and check what's wrong with it and fix it! 

If you really want Kamen Rider with real nightmare fuel and more mature feel then there's a few I could recommend. Kamen Rider Black itself has real nightmare fuel with realistic monsters. Kamen Rider Kuuga may not be ripping apart Grongi but the nightmare fuel is really there. Kamen Rider Agito's murder mysteries are a unique scare experience. Kamen Rider Kabuto's Worms may be a reimagined version of the Xenomorphs. One may also watch the spin-off called Amazons if they want a more mature experience. Amazons is done for the first season and it's been a different experience for adult fans.