This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work
at MJMunoz.com. I happen to have a car full of kids right now. Hopefully they won't be
too noisy, but we'll see what happens. I am here, or this is a Rider Tears. I'm here to
talk about the Kamen Rider manga part 2 of 6, which means I'll come back at least four
more times to talk about the rest of this manga. And I gotta say, this manga was delight,
or this chapter, this second chapter, was an absolute delight to read. It was a lot
of fun. There was so much good, like, emotional dynamics, and that's not only personal stuff
between, like, Hongo and Tachibana and Ruriko, and then, like, also someone with her friend,
but then also the evil of Shocker and their desire to control mankind's minds is revealed
in a more profound way through Manbat and his virus. And then also the desperate fight
that Hongo has with Manbat. Oh, and by the way, Man-Spider, who comes back and begs to
be... Oh man. He begs to be given a second chance by Shocker's leader, and he gets four
new arms, somehow, I guess? I mean, if they gave him four additional arms... Wait. Two...
Yeah, two additional arms. Anyway, he has four arms total plus two legs for six, so
he's not a full, you know, fully representative Spider-Guy, but whatever. But he gets two
more, so he has total four arms, and he tries to kill Hongo, and when he fails, he, I don't
know, takes a cyanide capsule, he poisons himself. I don't know what he does, but he
does something, and then he falls dead, and then melts away as Shocker, Cyborg are meant
to do, or want to do, and that's too bad for him. Anyway, before Man-Spider dies, we get
to see him swinging on his web, which is really weird looking, and I was gonna say Eldritch.
I feel like I'm gonna use that too much talking about this manga, but I'm just gonna say it.
It's Eldritch. It's really weird, and yeah, it's funky looking, but pretty cool, too.
So anyway, so that happens, and Manbat ends up coming along and taking Hongo out of the
fight, and it's funny, one of the things that he does is he flies him up real high and he
drops him, and Hongo gains all his power because his turbine turns the wind power into power
for his body, and he's able to counter Manbat in a very significant way, so that was cool.
But then, of course, the plot gets a little crazier, and Manbat basically has all these
people he's controlling in Ruriko's friend's building? Yeah, because like I said, there
was a moment, or an emotional thing with Ruriko's friend, can't remember her name, Glasses Girl.
Just call her that, because she had glasses and they got broken, and well, anyway, there's
a really interesting cinematic shot where her glasses fall to the ground and one of
the lenses breaks and the other one captures her becoming infected by Manbat biting her,
and it's pretty grisly, but very cool, you know, in that horror type of way, and then
she goes and tries to attack, no, she does effectively, no, they save her. Well, let's
pass them up some more. Anyway, so Tobi ends up saving Ruriko at that time in Hongo's mansion,
or in the, yeah, I guess in Hongo's mansion. If you pause to think about it, it's really
sad because Ruriko loses her father first, and then her friend dies, and it seemed like
she was her best friend, and you know, this woman that she wanted to confide in after
the death of her father, and she's having to stay in the house of the man she believes
murdered her father too, so it's a very emotionally fraught situation, and anyway, I think that's
cool, it's very good drama, very intense, and I love, you know, there's a little bit
of emotional stuff, and oh, later on, so the Man-Bats virus can control people with ultrasonic
waves, and he tries to control Hongo, it's a little unclear, it seems as if Hongo maybe
injected himself with the serum to dull or mitigate the harm done by Man-Bats virus,
so he's able, like he basically fakes that he's being controlled, and he's not, and it
enables him to injure Man-Bats wing, which ultimately is the thing, it's like the keystone
that brings him to victory over Man-Bat, because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to beat
him, at least not as quickly and easily as he did here, so, and it was still a desperate
fight, but I mean, it would have been way more difficult had he not, you know, stabbed
through his wing, so that was pretty cool.
There's an emotional beat though, where Hongo ends up in Ruriko's friend's apartment, I
believe, trying to save her, it's really sweet in a, you know, odd kind of way, because Hongo
is desperate to get away from the people who are being controlled by Man-Bat, because he
will kill them if he has to, but he doesn't want to, because they are innocent bystanders,
and later some guy shoots him, I don't know if it was a rifle or a shotgun, it was a little
unclear, it was dark, it was night, I couldn't tell, anyway, he cracks the guy, gives him
like a rider chop to the clavicle, and the guy collapses, and it looks like he's, by
his face you can tell he's controlled by the virus, and it kind of looks like he starts
to turn into foam, but it's not shown at that point, but he's very ginger, he's as ginger
as he can be with all of the controlled people, because it seems like he calls it a side effect,
that they'll melt, like the other shocker, you know, kaijin type people, if he's too
rough with them while he's trying to evade them, and it's, I don't know if I said it
specifically, but he says something along the lines of like, I don't want to hurt you,
please stay away from me, and they're controlled, so they can't understand that, and they keep
coming after him, and then interestingly enough, when he learns that the cure for the virus
is in man bats, like thumb talons or whatever on his wings, first of all, he rips off his
wings in one of the most awesome, crazy things I've ever seen in a manga, you know, it reminded
me of Giver with like the hyperviolence, right?
I mean, because he, anyway, what's great about it is the way it's laid out on one page, he's
grabbing it, Ryder's jumping up and grabbing his wings, and as you turn the page, you get
the reveal of the wings being torn off, and there's, you know, a little spray of blood,
and man bat is not happy, and then he lays on the floor, and this is like really what
gets me about Hongo.
Man bat's lying there on the floor, and he says something along the lines of, I know
you're a victim of shocker too, and I pity you for that, but you were too dangerous to
be left alive, and then because of course, each and every time we put them in a graveyard
for this fight, he grabs a cross and impales him through the gut or the heart, I'm not
sure, it's like a, it looks like a metal cross for some reason, even though it should be
like stone, but anyway, he steps with this thing, and like that is the end of that chapter,
or that, yeah, yeah, it's the end of chapter two, and it's amazing, and I think the, I
want to pick, as I'm going through reading manga, I want to pick a favorite, like emotional
panel that captures something, well, emotional about the story, emotional slash story panel,
and I want to pick an art panel, and I got to say, if I had to pick one panel, it's the
panel where he's ripping off the wings.
If I could pick two panels or pages really, it would be the setup where he's, you can
see the energy, the momentum, the posture as he's grabbing onto the wings, and then
as you make that turn, it's just, it's incredible.
The guy had, each and every one had an amazing cinematic eye, and it just looked fabulous,
so as horrible as that might sound, but then the emotional panel is definitely him telling
all those people as he's leaping away from them dramatically that he doesn't want to
kill them or hurt them, so that was fabulous.
Anyway, the manga continues to be great, and there were no crazy jumps in logic like in
the last chapter, and to clarify, in chapter one, there was this weird thing that happened
at the docks when Ryder, when Kamen Rider and Midori Kawa escaped Professor Midori Kawa,
and it didn't make any sense because it just stopped going and stuff happened, and then
they were somewhere else, and it was like a new scene entirely, there was no transition,
no anything like that.
Yeah, I know, it's a big truck.
Cool, right?
And that was weird, but this one, it was perfect.
Ironically, it was a longer chapter, but it was way, and I know it took probably the same
amount of, you know, eight pages a week or whatever to publish, and it was just, it ran
for longer weeks until the chapter was over.
Come on, this way.
But it was fabulous.
It was like a masterpiece, like oops, are you okay?
Come on, get up.
Let me help you.
If he'd started with that man bat chapter as the first one, that would have been better,
and it could have been really cool.
You tough guy, come on.
So I don't think I'll be doing another recording like that because it was a little bit of a
disaster, and I hope it wasn't a too difficult experience for you.
Let's see how well my noise cancellation aspect of my editing software works to mitigate some
of the yelling and stuff from the kids.
You're 10 minutes from home and they have to complain as you're taking dinner home.
It's unbelievable.
Anyway, or maybe it's very believable.
So yeah, anyway, I liked that manga, that chapter of the manga.
I thought it was fabulous.
There was so much good in it.
One thing that confused me at first, and then as I thought about it more and more, it made
sense, and it wasn't actually that I kept meditating on it or anything like that.
It just came to me.
There were two figures who carried a coffin into the Hongo mansion, and I'm pretty sure
it was Tachibana and Midori Kawa, and I don't remember who was in the coffin.
Was it Manbat?
That would sort of make sense, but also I don't remember seeing him actually come out
of the coffin there, but I did read it a couple days ago, most of it.
I finished the last 20 or so pages today, and the rest of it I read a couple days ago.
So anyway, but it was fast paced.
It was longer, but it felt like it took less to read than the other one.
And there was a lot more action.
Like I said, it was very cinematographic.
It just flowed visually, and it was very well composed and very exciting, and there's a
lot of great shots in there.
So anyway, I told you what my favorite story panel or page is.
Really it's going to be page.
And I also showed you or told you what my favorite visual page was, and I'll have those
in the... you can find the link to the full show notes in the show notes on your pod feeder,
which will take you over to mjmunoz.com, and you can see the images there.
I'll post them there.
I don't know if I'll stamp them with like story and art, or art on one and then story
on the other, or what I'll do, but I will post those up there for you to see them so
you can see exactly what I'm talking about.
And if you're reading this, if you have read it, if you remember anything from it in particular
that you want to share, like what your favorite story panel or page was, or your favorite
art page, I'd love to hear from you, you know, from this chapter specifically, what did you
love in the Kamen Rider manga, chapter two, the flying man bat.
I'd be very curious to hear that.
So anyway, without much more delay, I'm going to go ahead and let you go.
I thank you for your time and attention, and until next time, be well.
This is MJ signing out.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have.
There you can find all of my analysis, art and fiction.
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Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a story over everything production.