Kamen Rider Sigma Episode #4 Production Notes

Kamen Rider Sigma Episode #4 Production Notes *Updated and Revised as of 3/20/07

- The title for this episode comes from the name of Sigma’s motorcycle, Tsunami, which of course is meant to evoke the same kind of “named after some powerful weather condition” feel of such Rider Machines like Cyclone, Hurricane, Machine Tornader, etc.

- This is where Kamen Rider Sigma really takes off from how it may have once gone, since the second version of this episode was basically 100% new from the original #4. It didn’t using any prior story ideas from the original eight episode drafts, save for Sigma finally getting her motorcycle. For the third, final version, I just made a few aesthetic changes, but the overall story is the same.

- Maya’s borderline hatred of Tobidashi-Kumo is something that developed over the course of the rewrites. It felt natural (and slightly unsettling) to have the main character really develop a grudge against someone who had wronged them, and this is far from the only time it happens, too.

- This episode marks the first real use of a “Flashback” sequence that the Rider series love so much. Of course, there will be a couple of these throughout the course of the series, by different characters, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide how they would look: color, black and white, sepia-toned, negative, like the ones in Den-O, etc.

- Kôhei has a few more of his patented groan-inducing lines in this episode, and a colorful array of nicknames for poor Maya. Conversely, she comes up with a few for him.

- Maya pretty much constantly refers to Kôhei as Kôhei-kun now. He’s still trying to settle on one demeaning name for her.

- “Well, last I checked, the Kamen Riders were the stuff of Sunday morning cartoons.” : a little self-referential humor. Originally it was “Saturday morning cartoons”, but Sunday felt more right since that’s the day the Riders & Toei’s big “morning block” have been on for the past few years.

- Kôhei’s revelation that he once saw a Kamen Rider and ensuing explanation for his initial skepticism are points that are brought up a lot in the series. There is a definite dichotomy to the “urban legend” reputation of the Kamen Riders, and the fact that many, many people have seen them over the years and some have had very public displays. The reasons behind why some of the bigger, more public Rider adventures are virtually forgotten or denied will be explored, and the answers might not always be pretty…

- Maya tells Kôhei to call her “Maya” : prior to the final launch of Sigma, Mikoto and Kôhei almost always called Maya “Ryûsaki-san”, but I felt that it would be better to have them all on a first name basis. Also, given that Maya is probably the most polite and formal of the three, it just felt more natural.

- The hidden switch bit in the cave comes right out of Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla.

- The entire secret hidden base idea is an obvious throwback to older Rider series, aside from having already been featured in episodes #1 & 2 of Sigma. The Geier bases themselves were designed in my mind to be somewhat like that of the huge Shocker base found in Kamen Rider: Genealogy of Justice PS2 game, right down to the general layout of the staircase leading to the Main Control Room.

- The “weird writing” is of course that strange, indecipherable secret text used by Shocker, Gelshocker, Destron, etc. If you look closely, you can see it in many of the early Rider shows on the enemy groups’ computers, maps, plans, antidote bottles, license plates, etc.

- I was initially uneasy with the idea of having Kôhei fire on someone just like that, because the way I wrote the character was that even though he’s a got a major trigger-happy streak, he would have a lot of trouble actually bringing himself to shoot someone (also, he’s like a one-man A-Team, unable to hit anything.) Ultimately I figured that since he did fire at Kômori-Kamisori in the last episode, he would have less reservations about shooting at a monster/non-human (which the Geier Combatants clearly are). Even still, I had him aim for the arm, which in other cases would not have resulted in a fatal blow.

- “I think we’re going to have to split up if we want to get out of here in… one piece.” : an amusingly ironic line.

- An Akhkharu is an ancient blood-sucking spirit/demon from Sumerian mythology, and is sort of an ancient precursor to the modern vampire archetype. I thought it made for a cool name for an evil plan, plus “Akhkharu Project” really does sound like a rock band name, as Maya points out.

- People who can recall the original 2001 version of Kamen Rider Sigma (and good memory if you do!) might remember a particular villain obsessively referred to Sigma as “The Little Rider”. While that detail has been more or less dropped, it sort of unintentionally survived here via the Geier Leader.

- How does Maya magically know how to set the dynamite and blow up the Geier base, while allowing enough time for herself to escape? Who knows? The old Riders did stuff like that all the time.

- Kôhei’s mangling of Kômori-Kamisori into “Kômorigasa-Kamisan” basically comes out to mean “Umbrella-Wife”.

- When the details of Geier’s plan finally start coming together: This was actually harder to pull of than I thought it would be, because it’s basically an old-style Rider plot wrapped up in a newer-style Rider mystery. Such will be the case for a lot of later episodes.

- “American Gashapon for you!” : Yes, Gashapon machines are now in the States. Of course Kôhei is commenting on how they have a long way to go before they catch up to the Japanese ones in terms of quality prizes…

- “Well I know some giant fruit bats that come out during the day!” : He’s referring to bats of the genus Pteropus, more commonly known as Fruit Bats or Flying Foxes. I’ve seen a few in person, although they really didn’t do much aside from hang around (literally, they hang upside down almost all the time) and eat fruit. Kômori-Kamisori is based more on the smaller, nocturnal, blood-sucking variety of bat.

- Maya almost slips up again and tells Kôhei her secret. Whether or not she wants him to know depends on the situation, as you may notice. When she didn’t want to explain how she knew about the cave, she made it seem like Sigma was someone else. Thankfully for her, Kôhei has been clueless enough that he hasn’t quite figured it out yet.

- Kôhei has Arachnophobia! Another character tidbit.

- The scene with all the spiders coming down is an especially creepy moment, based off of a similar scene in the original Ishinomori comic.

- While I generally like the standard “Do the Henshin & jump in the air” shtick of the old Riders, which so far Maya has done (aside from that lying-down Henshin), I do try to throw in a little diversity now and then, as seen here, where the transformation actually occurs as she’s literally being pulled through the air.

- Kumonosu = “Spider Web”

- Jigoku = “Hell”

- “This is going to hurt… but it’s better than the alternative.” : Maya (and I) unknowingly paraphrase Winston Churchill.

- Sigma appearing to explode is a trick right out of V3's book!

- “I know she’s more than able to take care of herself, but after what happened to Shigeru…” : This is confirmation for the oft-mentioned significant detail of episode #3, that something has happened to Jô Shigeru, aka Kamen Rider Stronger.

- Kôhei reveals that he’s done his homework, and someone else knows of Tachibana’s involvement with the Riders. I had to have Tachibana participate in the final scenes of this episode, so this seemed like the best way to get him involved.

- Kôhei’s response for “what exactly they’ll do” is one of my favorite parts of this episode.

- The inclusion of Vampire Humans was mostly thrown in to establish that Geier was doing something. I originally had planned a larger role for them, but so much else was already going on in this episode, so they really became a much smaller part of it.

- “When your dad is like mine, you have to learn more than few forms of self-defense” : I always imagined Mikoto and her father’s relationship as being a bit like Jin Keisuke (Kamen Rider X) and his father’s, i.e., randomly attacking each other with martial arts runs in the family.

- Mikoto reveals to Maya that she knows her secret. At one point, I thought about having her watch Maya turn into Sigma in the previous episode, or not find out until later, but I think having her just kind of realize it (she is related to Taki after all) was befitting of the character. Also, for the final draft I added in the “Cool!” line because I thought, how often does someone in the story itself find out the main protagonist is a hero and think it’s really neat? It’s almost sort-of breaking the fourth wall, even.

- “Then again, lately, I’ve been more of a Kamen Walker...” : I really did agonize (well, okay, maybe “agonize” is a little strong, but you know what I mean) over when Sigma should get her motorcycle, and from whom. The Triple Riders? Tachibana? Geier? All of the above? Ultimately, I followed suit with Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider AgitΩ in first featuring the main hero (or in this case, heroine’s) motorcycle in episode #4. And I decided, in true New Cyclone and Jungler style, to have our favorite Oyassan be responsible for its creation (with some posthumous help from the Triple Riders.)

- Maya’s initial reaction to the Tsunami: Prior to the final draft, she walks in an is all starry-eyed, etc. While this is probably more true to form… as I will probably say a lot, I like to do things in Kamen Rider Sigma a little differently than you’d expect. In going back over this scene, I thought about it a lot more. How would you react if someone took your ride and pimped it out, but made just one change that noticeably bothered you above all else? In this case, the fact that she now has a Rider Machine, or that her motorcycle is back period, is overshadowed by Maya’s own feelings on the paintjob. It’s a silly little moment, but of the kind that I think really flesh out Maya’s character, as up until now we know very little about her and she’s been purposefully trying to emulate Hongô & company. So it’s moments like this that really make her stand out on her own.

- When Maya reads the letter : This was an emotional (and incredibly difficult) moment to write. Hopefully, I pulled it off again.

- The entire “launch” of the Tsunami bit was inspired, of course, by episode #4 of Kamen Rider Kuuga, and acts as a homage to that right down to Mikoto opening the garage door. I debated whether or not she should Henshin after she’s already driving off, early Rider 1-style. But I settled on doing things as I did because, while I do emphasize the use of the Typhoon fans in her Henshin Belt (hence the usual jumping antics), the belt itself is actually releasing power more than it is drawing it in really, so I can afford to mix it up a bit like this.

- Mikoto simply refers to Sigma as “Rider”, very much like her father once did to Rider 1 & 2.

- Kamen Rider Kuuga episode #2 had a big impact on the end of this episode, since Ichijô did almost the same thing (Bursting into an abandoned church with a shotgun, and getting attacked by a vampire bat creature, only to get saved by a Kamen Rider.)

- “Looks like Mother Superior just jumped the gun on us.” now here was an amusing line to come up with. Of course, it’s a play on part of the Beatles song “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”.

- “Certainly not human… after all, I could never pull a gun on a lady. That’s just Kôhei’s Rule #1.” : Another of Kôhei’s “rules”. I actually conceived this idea before Kamen Rider Kabuto was even a glimmer in Toei’s eyes, but I suppose you could say it’s a bit like Tendô’s grannie-quoting. Except Kôhei always refers to it as “Rule #1” regardless.

- Kôhei is packing heat! I originally thought about him pulling out a lot more weapons, but that probably would have made what was supposed to be a serious scene a little too goofy.

- Sigma and Tsunami making their literally smashing entrance is probably my favorite moment from the episode. Just the image of a motorcycle crashing through a stain-glass window is cool. It’s of course a nod to one of my favorite Rider maneuvers, the Rider Break (often used by Skyrider, BLACK, Blade & Garren.)

- That other bit with Tachibana was hard as hell to write, but I really like it. Hopefully, you did too.

- The big fight at the end owes something to both the final battle in Kamen Rider Kuuga episode #2 as well as in Ishinomori’s original Kamen Rider comic, which I’m pretty sure influenced the Kuuga episode itself. In all three, both a Spider and Bat Kaijin fight with the Rider, and in all three cases the Spider doesn’t walk away from the fight. And only in the Kuuga version does the Bat Kaijin escape!

- “Sorry, but the script just got changed!” : there are two points in this episode (the other being Kôhei’s “Show on the road" line) in which the events are referred to in theatrical terms. (“Show” and “script”.) I do this every so often as a sort of running joke, where the characters unintentionally acknowledge they’re in a fantasy story.

- The Dragon Fang Rider Kick is Sigma’s signature killing move. Hopefully the description made some sense, but basically think of it like Kabuto’s early roundhouse kick-style Rider Kick coupled with a high-speed version of Rider 1’s Rider Hanten Kick.

- Tobidashi-Kumo and Kômori-Kamisori both have very grisly demises, but considering all the awful things they’ve done (Tobidashi-Kumo especially), I think they have it coming. And trust me, if you thought they were evil, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

- Having Tachibana & Kôhei show up at the end of the fight to help out was a last-minute addition, but I needed some way for Maya to figure out the trick behind the Vampire Humans. Admittedly, the resolution to that particular subplot is rather quick, but I didn’t make it so nonsensical without purpose…

- Once again, Ishinomori’s Rider comic influenced the end of this episode, with the fight in the graveyard, horde of vampires, and driving the cross through the Bat Kaijin. Talk about a finisher!

- There’s some creepy foreshadowing in Kômori-Kamisori’s last words. It has indeed only begun…

- And the episode ending. Originally, Kôhei was pretty clueless about Sigma and it ended with one of those “I’ll figure out who she is yet!” sort of things. But let’s be honest: as much of a dim bulb as he can be, I think even Kôhei could put two and two together between hearing Sigma and Maya’s voices, noting their character similarities, and (next episode) seeing Maya riding around on the Tsunami, which doubles as her regular bike. Besides, having him figure it out earlier will end up making things a bit more fun, as you’ll soon see.

- Thus the first four episodes of Kamen Rider Sigma come to a close. I consider all of them to make up the “first episode” in a sense, as after this the larger, more over-arching plots begin to surface, and things get progressively less… “safe”. Mwahahahaha!

I hope you enjoyed the first four episodes of Kamen Rider Sigma, as it only gets better from here!

"Dragon Fang Rider Kick!!"

~Igadevil

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This page owned and operated by Paul Sullivan.