Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider Episode 4
Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider Episode 4: The Phantom Frequency: A Crisis of Identity and Sound The Teaser: A Crisis of Unseen Danger The neon-lit streets of Shinjuku have become a sound stage for an invisible horror.
Tojima Kenji, the brash, self-proclaimed hero, has always charged headfirst into danger, believing his Rider Aspire armor makes him invincible.
But in The Phantom Frequency, his enemy isn't one he can punch, kick, or even see.
A new, terrifying Chiropteran Kaijin is paralyzing civilians with a sonic attack so potent it vibrates the very molecules of the air, rendering the monster intangible and its victims helpless.
The fight is no longer about strength; it’s about frequency.
Tojima’s signature move, the Aspire Strike, phase-shifts right through the opponent, leaving him exposed to crippling sonic bursts that threaten to shatter his armor and his resolve.
As he scrambles for a defense, the grim, unblinking truth is whispered into his ear by his partner: the supposed hero organization he fights for, The Aegis Foundation, is the source of the danger, and his own Rider system isn't a weapon it's a beacon.
The enemy isn't just the monster of the week; it's the stark betrayal of his own beliefs, forcing Tojima to choose between the glory he craves and the truth that could cost him his life.
Important Characters: Roles and Motivations This episode pivots sharply, revealing the true nature of several key players and fundamentally redefining their roles.
1.
Tojima Kenji / Kamen Rider Aspire Role: The Protagonist, a high school student and current Kamen Rider.
Motivation: Initially driven by a simple, naive desire for justice and the glory associated with the classic Kamen Riders he idolized.
In this episode, his motivation warps into a desperate need for self-validation.
The realization that his Aspire Driver might be compromised shatters his confidence.
He is now fighting not just to save people, but to prove that his Rider existence, the very identity he built his life around, is real and meaningful, rather than a pawn of a sinister organization.
His overconfidence quickly collapses into existential dread.
2.
Aoi Shiori Role: The Handler, Tojima's cynical childhood friend and technical support.
Motivation: Aoi is the true intelligence backbone.
She is motivated by a deep-seated protection instinct toward Tojima, which supersedes her loyalty to The Aegis Foundation.
She has been secretly analyzing the Kaijin emergence patterns and the operational data of the Aspire Driver.
In this episode, she goes rogue, providing Tojima with clandestine information that contradicts Professor Kageyama's directives, driven by the belief that the truth is the only thing that can keep him alive.
3.
Professor Kageyama (The Aegis Foundation Director) Role: The Mentor and Director of the Aegis Foundation.
Motivation: Ostensibly, his motivation is to protect humanity.
However, his true, chilling motivation is data acquisition and weaponization.
He views the Riders and the Kaijin not as people or monsters, but as field-test subjects for his Harmonic Energy (HE) conversion technology.
The Chiropteran Kaijin is a crucial test subject, and Kageyama is willing to sacrifice any Rider to observe how his systems (like Tojima's Driver) react to extreme sonic pressure.
His detached, scientific ambition makes him a far more dangerous antagonist than any monster.
4.
The Chiropteran Kaijin (Subject 104) Role: The primary antagonist of the episode.
Motivation: Unlike previous mindless Kaijin, Subject 104 is driven by desperation and communication.
Its sonic attacks are not intended purely as weapons, but as screams for help a chaotic effort to broadcast a disruptive frequency signal outside of the Aegis Foundation’s suppression field.
It is trying to escape and convey a message about its true, unwilling identity.
Its extreme intelligence allows it to adapt to Tojima’s attacks almost instantaneously.
5.
The White Rider (Kamen Rider Zenith) Role: The Mysterious Anti-Hero/Rival.
Motivation: Disruption and exposure.
Zenith is a former, high-ranking operative of the Aegis Foundation who defected upon discovering Kageyama's true purpose.
Zenith operates outside the system, specifically targeting key Kaijin test subjects not to destroy them, but to extract them before Aegis can wipe their data.
Zenith views Tojima as a misguided threat a loyal dog to a tyrannical master and his motivation is to stop the Aspire Rider at any cost to protect the integrity of the truth.
Important Scenes in Sequence: The Descent into Betrayal 1.
The Shinjuku Ambush and The Void of Impact (5:00 AM) The episode opens with the Chiropteran Kaijin launching its attack near a major metropolitan power hub.
Tojima, transforming into Kamen Rider Aspire, dives in.
The initial fight is a disaster.
Every physical attack phase-shifts through the Kaijin's body, which is vibrating at an ultra-high frequency, rendering it semi-corporeal.
Aspire's energy attacks are scattered by the resulting sonic disruption.
The Kaijin counters, not with a blow, but with a massive, focused Sonic Pulse.
The attack hits Tojima, not breaking his armor, but paralyzing his central nervous system for a critical few seconds, leaving him helpless as the Kaijin uses its sonic power to teleport away, leaving behind a wake of stunned, incapacitated security guards.
2.
The Backdoor Revelation (11:00 AM) Back in their clandestine, makeshift hideout (a derelict arcade), Aoi ignores Kageyama's official report, which labels the Kaijin a Tier-3 Threat, immediate destruction authorized.
Instead, she accesses the Aspire Driver’s internal diagnostic logs.
The data is damning: the Driver's latest upgrade didn't boost attack power; it amplified its Harmonic Energy (HE) Signature.
Aoi reveals her findings to a frustrated Tojima: Your Driver, Kenji, it's not a weapon.
It's a tracking beacon, and when it powers up, it forces the Kaijin to respond to its frequency.
They aren't hunting us; they're being pulled to us.
We’re the bait.
This scene is punctuated by the gut-wrenching realization on Tojima’s part that his hero status is built on a lie.
3.
The Reverse-Frequency Strategy (4:00 PM) The second half of the episode is dedicated to Aoi and Tojima formulating a desperate countermeasure.
Aoi realizes the Chiropteran's invisibility is an accidental side-effect of its distress signal frequency.
If Tojima can reverse the polarity of the Aspire Driver's HE output and broadcast a counter-frequency essentially turning his Driver into a massive, targeted sonic disrupter he can force the Kaijin out of its intangible state and overwhelm its nervous system.
The plan is highly risky: if the timing is off by a millisecond, the Driver will overload, vaporizing Tojima in the process.
He chooses to proceed, motivated by anger at Kageyama’s manipulation.
4.
The Final Stand and Zenith's Interference (7:00 PM) Tojima confronts the Chiropteran Kaijin at an abandoned geothermal plant, the source of the high-frequency vibrations that sustain its state.
He executes Aoi's plan perfectly.
The Aspire Driver screams with a dangerous, unstable energy field, broadcasting the counter-frequency.
The Chiropteran shudders, its body flickering as it's painfully dragged back into corporeal form.
Tojima charges for the final Aspire Finisher a devastating energy kick.
But just as the kick connects, the White Rider, Zenith, drops from above, intercepting the blow with a shimmering, ethereal shield.
Zenith isn't trying to defeat Tojima; he’s trying to protect the Kaijin.
Do not destroy the data source, Aspire! You don't understand what you're doing! Zenith’s cryptic warning forces Tojima to hesitate.
The Dramatic Conclusion and Ultimate Twist The confrontation between the two Riders is brief but brutal.
Tojima, blinded by his desperate need to destroy the Kaijin and justify his identity, pushes past Zenith's defense.
The Aspire Finisher connects, but Tojima intentionally alters its trajectory at the last second, aiming for the Kaijin's conversion module instead of its core.
The resulting explosion is not one of destruction, but of reversion.
The Chiropteran Kaijin doesn't dissolve into energy dust; its armored shell cracks open, and a figure tumbles out.
It is revealed to be a terrified, gaunt man in a tattered lab coat: Dr.
Sato, Professor Kageyama’s former lead researcher and closest colleague, who had supposedly died in a lab accident three years prior.
The Chiropteran Kaijin was never a monster created from an external source; it was a human experiment a failed Rider prototype transformed by Kageyama's own HE technology.
