Kamen Rider Dragon Knight revolves around Xaviax's attempts at kidnapping the people of Earth and sending them back to his home dimension. Len, a man from the same dimension as Xaviax, and Kit, a regular guy from Earth, attempt to stop Xaviax and the various Kamen Riders they face throughout the series in their various personal quests that would lead to the enslavement of the human race.
The biggest draw of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight to me was its serial story. You actually needed to watch just about every episode save for the clip shows to really get a strong feel for the story and character development. I originally found it hard to get into the show because I could never catch it at a decent time and only saw the odd episodes here and there in its initial run and was really turned off because it was a serial format show. I decided to download the first couple of episodes again on a whim a few weeks ago and I suppose because I had more time to sit around and watch the episodes now, the serial format worked out incredibly well to capture one more viewer.
Once I found myself watching more and more episodes, I was able to get a better feel for the show and what it was about. On a good day, it was about the growing bond between Kit and Len, at other times, it was about one-off Kamen Riders that did very little to contribute to the overall plot of the show. Because of a DNA-lock placed on the Advent Decks that allow people to become Kamen Riders, only the human counterparts to the Ventarian Riders are able to become Kamen Rider, thus leaving Xaviax with next to no choice concerning who he employs for his tasks, so he often resorts to trickery to get his way.
The show that Dragon Knight was based on came with 12 Kamen Riders, and this show ported all of them over. 12 independent characters definitely works within the confines of a 50 episode series, a movie, and a TV special, but it's a lot harder to really work with in a 40 episode series where these guys can easily fall victim to becoming glorified monsters of the week. For the most part, the show was able to get away without turning these characters into pointless space fillers and I applaud it for that.
When all was said and done, I felt like Incisor, Camo, and Thrust were really the only Kamen Riders I didn't care for. Oddly enough, Incisor himself seemed just as scantly used as his Ryuki counterpart. I particularly just didn't care for Thrust's story or his character, who was basically like Richie/Incisor, but a bit more masculine in his portrayal...and probably not nearly as spoiled. But from his slogan "Brad Barret always wins", one can assume he's used to things going his way and gets a little antsy when things aren't. He could have been an interesting character, but there just wasn't much there to work with and his venting scene seemed so last moment. Once he was gone, he was gone and it didn't really matter.
Kamen Rider Camo was the last of the three Riders I felt were terribly underused and the one that upsets me the most because I generally liked everything about this character. A cocky fighter looking to prove himself and be the best on two worlds, slowly learning how serious the situation he's been tossed into is. The character had a very interesting actor as well; I personally think he was the strongest actor of the entire series, so it was definitely a shame to see him there for all of two or three episodes. I can see why a lot of people would have bigger worries about this series when it comes to this character, if a second Kamen Rider can be marginalized within ten episodes, what will be of the rest?
Weeeell, thankfully the other Kamen Riders weren't nearly as poorly handled. We had the not-so-interesting-but-still-useful Drew as Torque, JTC as Strike, a coward and paranormal buff who basically wants to be on the winning side, the side that will let him learn "the truth"; the comatose Wrath, with Xaviax using his body as a puppet; Siren, Len's girlfriend and the only other remaining Rider from Ventara, and my personal favorite Riders, Chris and the Cho brothers.
Chris as Kamen Rider Sting was pretty much fated to always be the tragic character. A member of a family that has always served in the marines, Chris was basically a disappointment to his father, who could not stand the fact that he was being discharged from the services because of something as simple as asthma. Xaviax sees this and takes this chance to trick him into fighting Kit and Len as Kamen Rider Sting, making him believe them to be aliens out to take over his country. Chris jumps on this chance as he sees it to be his one hope of ever being something truly great.
Throughout his stay in the series, Chris is pulled from the extremes of fighting for Xaviax to joining up with Kit and Len. He was always a character looking to be a hero and thought he was one under Xaviax, so I found it rather interesting that once he joined the good side, he actually began to think that he really isn't a hero. He learns that all of his prior successes were manufactured by Xaviax and that he was nothing but a puppet, sparking a chain of self-doubt that would last for more or less the rest of his time on the series. Chris faced a lot of self-doubt in learning the truth, often questioning whether he should be fighting or not. He already had a hard enough time learning to trust Kit and Len and this just threw another wrench into the picture.
His asthma got in the way of battles constantly and made it almost impossible for Chris to be anything too useful in battle and prompting his “make everything count” attitude in those battles, which would eventually end up to be his demise as he is vented in an attempt to save Len. The episode following Chris's venting does a lot to cement this as a pretty great American tokusatsu in my mind. A good portion of the episode is spent following the reactions of the other main character's to the venting of Chris and we see Kit find a painful letter addressed to Chris's we saw him writing in many of the previous episodes. The letter that Kit reads perfectly shows how helpless Chris felt, admitting that he could never be the hero his father wanted him to be, but that he still had the need to be resolute and never leave a friend behind. I would hope this does a lot to show other viewers that, while Chris couldn't be the hero his father wanted him to be, he was still very much a hero.
In the end, Chris was pretty much the personification of every self-doubt people have about themselves, “What if I'm not good enough?” “What if I fail?” “What if I let others down?”, brought to extremes because of the situation that he's placed in. And, I believe that his exit from the show pretty much shows that, at the core, all humans are worth fighting for. And, this is something I think Kit picked up on as well and will definitely come back to haunt him because of a decision he'll make in a few episodes.
...and that decision has to do with the Cho brothers! The Cho brothers are a pair of siblings that are crooks out of the necessity of money. Neither of them has anyone else, no friends or other family apart from each other, so they've grown up looking out for one another. Xaviax easily manages to lure them into his game as Kamen Rider Spear and Kamen Rider Axe. The two are whipped in their first battle by Len, not even managing to transform before he beats them and leaving them bitter. They come very close to breaking Xaviax's “No one vents Dragon Knight until Wing Knight is gone.” rule because of more defeats and the fact that they're partly to thank for Chris's venting.
The pivotal stage for the Cho brothers comes when Kit vents Albert, the younger of the brothers, because of his fate for what happened to Chris. Danny is helpless as he was kicked through a mirror that broke and could only look on as his little brother is vented by Kit, finally leaving no doubt in his mind as to what he must do. The final episodes for Danny involve him constantly getting in the way of Xaviax's plans as he tries to get rid of Kit and get revenge for his younger brother.
Xaviax is not someone that you should go against all alone, yet Danny was foolish enough to do this because of how much he loves his little brother, and his love turns into hate for Kit. Xaviax knows this will only make things worse and chillingly commands JTC to “Vent him. Vent him now.” JTC is apprehensive as we're shown that he has some sort of sentiment for what Danny is going through, telling him that he lost a brother in jail. Despite him wanting to avoid it, JTC ends up venting Danny in the end and this sparks a bit of a rivalry between him and Kit when it's later revealed that JTC saw Danny as a friend and admired him as a fighter and would have rather vented Kit, a worthless kid, instead.
The final episode for Danny is rather calm-before-the-stormish as it doesn't totally focus on him, but I think his scenes speak the most about any character in that episode. Danny basically has no one left, his only family member is gone and he's all alone. There is no way Danny will ever want to work with Kit and Len, so he's basically out for revenge, on a suicide mission of sorts. It seems like Danny just doesn't care what will happen to him as long as he can get rid of Kit. This really shows the bond between the Cho brothers and just how much they needed each other. Neither one of them had anything else going for them, and when one is taken out of the picture, they essentially becoming living weapons whose way you should get the heck out of soon as possible.
Kit himself was an interesting character in that, though he was always trying to save his father, the mental messages he received from him proved to be just another trick from Xaviax. For the longest time, I thought Kit's father was someone involved with the entire war and had something greater for Kit planned, but to see him just another pawn of Xaviax was truly one of the biggest shockers in the entire series. Granted, it's rather obvious in retrospect, but on the first viewing, it was definitely a big moment for the series. Rather than being a special chosen one, much like Chris, Kit ended up being just another puppet.
In the end, Kit is able to rise above the situation and not let it define him as a character. There were no wasted episodes spent watching him angst or question his mission. I'm actually rather happy that things played out this way as it meant there really was no lull time so late into the series, it was definitely a big development, but Kit was resolute in his goals by this point. It probably would have had a much bigger impact on him earlier on in the series, but it shows the level of growth that Kit has undergone.
One aspect I hear criticized in this show a lot is that there really aren't consequences for the characters because in the end, everyone but Kit, Len, Maya, and Kase forget the entire war. The human counterparts to the Ventara Riders are brought out of the Advent Void and allowed to live their life again without remembering what happened. I've seen this stated as a way of saying that these people were basically allowed to be d-bags and get off without having to pay for anything they did and while that is partially true, I think this can be looked at different.
It's true that, except for a handful of them, the Kamen Riders were tricked into working for Xaviax and they did end up doing some pretty nasty things. But, I feel this was basically a result of circumstances they couldn't control. The characters were placed into desperate situations or had their last hopes dangled in front of them and often times they just had to take it. This doesn't justify what they did, but I think it does show that they deserve a second chance at living a life where the consequences of their choices aren't based on extreme circumstances. Sure, a lot of them would still likely be bad people in the end, but that's a choice that they need to make for themselves rather than be tricked into.
Dragon Knight as a show wasn't always the strongest narrative in this genre but it certainly did hold up when it needed to. Sure, there were things like that clip show final episode that just don't sit right with me and while I can blame the crew for not tossing that clip show somewhere else, I'm under the understanding that they just were not given enough money for the series. I think it would have been great if the last episode was a straight exposition piece like the final episode of Kamen Rider Kuuga, but I really don't think that would work on American television for something like this, not to mention, with what little money it seemed the show had at this point, I don't believe they could really get back a satisfying amount of characters to really make it worthwhile.
To be brutally honest, I don't see this show to be as bad as it's been made out to be, at least not in terms of narrative. A lot of what bothered me about this story had to do with the editing and I'm looking at it from a different perspective right now, so it's not something I weigh into my opinion on this area of the show. There are definitely places I would have done things differently or just paced a little better. At times, it felt like an entire episode was spent on action that didn't do much and this really would have been a great place to shed some more light on characters we weren't fully exposed to. Despite the faults, I really found Dragon Knight to be an enjoyable series and do think it's a shame we won't be seeing another American Kamen Rider series for quite some time because it didn't do that well in the one area where in mattered. It's not the perfect show, but definitely a lot better than other things that have come out on this side of the globe...which isn't totally hard to do, but for some reason we just haven't seen anything too great and I do applaud the show and its crew for trying something grand in scale and at least managing to pull most of it off narratively with all of the outside forces they had going against them.
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