M.D. Seester

In this episode, Ichimonji pulls another masterful trolling of Taki and the gang; we learn some questionable facts about the anatomical makeup of a living fossil, and Mari prances around in short shorts while singing the Japanese knock-off of My Darling Clementine.
It's getting harder and harder to dislike her with each new episode...

This is a fun episode.  I always love these secret base infiltration missions.  Plus, the noises that the monster makes are absolutely terrifying.  I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Japanese band Dir en Grey...  but imagine if one of their songs turned into a monster and started chasing you around.  Yikes!
Also, the end fight scene at the waterfall is particularly impressive.  I always enjoy these older fight scenes, because they weren't afraid of getting rough and tumble in unpleasant terrain.

Kamen Rider episode 18:
MKV
Script
AVI

And SPEAKING of that monster... (JeegRant after the cut)
His name is StarFenger...  and even I have to admit that one is a bit of a stretch.  See, since we started KITsubs, we've been trying to get the monster names to convey the intent of the original Japanese name, without deviating too far from what the name really is.  But sometimes, like we had with GeckoGelas, we have a name that doesn't translate so well...

HitoDenja is one of those names.  It's a mashup of the Japanese word for "Starfish," and "Danger" in English.  And after struggling with names like "StarFishanger" and "StarDangerFish" I finally let myself go a little crazy, and name it StarFenger.  So it's like the word FISH and DANGER crashed together like two early 2000's era Amtrak trains.

But, that left me feeling uneasy.  So with this episode, we're changing the way we do episode title-cards.  In a move inspired by Skaro Hunting Society's INCREDIBLY informative opening credits translations, we're including the original episode title in romanized Japanese, and the original air date.  Having the date right there at the beginning of the episode really helps put the show's storytelling and effects into perspective, I feel.  I know it's easy to look back on these shows and laugh at how silly they look, but in a lot of ways they were really impressive for their time.  And the stunts really hold up well.  As a matter of fact, I would say that they're more impressive than today's special effects riddled fight scenes!

Ah, well...  ranted again.  Anyway, thanks for watching.  Next week is more Skyrider, and also keep an eye out for more Hibiki releases, as well as V2s and AVI encodes of Super-1!

Special credit goes to UK Windom for TL checking this episode, and EXTRA special credit for coming up with "M.D. Starfish." Or the funnier M.D. Seester, which I should have stolen outright.