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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider 555
Hi. My name’s Kamen Rider Die, and this is a thread where I watch Kamen Rider Faiz for the first time and talk about it.
I usually try and keep a bit of space between one show and another, try to take decent-sized breaks. (Oh! I’ve done a few of these before, I forgot to mention that. I’ve got threads where I watch and talk about Ghost, the Ex-Aid movies, Build, Kuuga, Agito, and Ryuki. Check ‘em out if you’re interested!) A week or so of no Kamen Rider, decompress, live a little, whatever. But boy howdy is now a time where I 100% want to be losing myself in a great big TV show, so here we are watching Faiz already. (Also, hey, how are you all doing? I know this ain’t the How Is Everyone Today thread, but if anyone needs someone to talk to right now, aside from the Kamen Rider stuff, I’m happy to help. I want to protect your smiles, which is a thing I learned on a TV show I can’t remember the name of right now!) If you’ve never read one of these Kamen Rider Die Watches threads, uh, thanks for reading this one! I’ve only got a couple few guidelines, just to make this a smooth, fun experience for everyone. First, PLEASE DON’T TALK ABOUT ANY FAIZ EPISODES BEYOND THE ONES I’VE POSTED ABOUT. This is my first viewing of Faiz, and I’d like to experience it as cleanly as possible. Please, if you can, don’t spoil anything. Even little bits of teases about where the story’s going to go, little Oh If You Liked Character X Because They Did Thing Y, Wait Until Episode Z things, please don’t. Even those tiny morsels get my head expecting things, and that makes it less fun for me. Thanks in advance! Second, PLEASE DON’T TALK ABOUT SERIES I HAVEN’T WATCHED YET. If y’all could keep mum about Blade through Decade, and Zi-O up, I’d be super grateful. Third, I’LL PROBABLY TALK ABOUT SHOWS I’VE SEEN AND MAYBE SPOIL THEM. Sort-of a dick move, I know, but… I don’t know, no “but”, I guess. Just a dick move, and I’m sorry. I’ll try not to be egregious with it, but if I see a similarity to another Kamen Rider series, I’ll point it out. For those who are trying to stay unspoiled on certain series, the following are what I consider up for grabs: Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki, and Double through Build. Fourth, EXPECT A RAMBLING, DIGRESSIVE THREAD THAT’S LARGELY ABOUT HOW I FEEL WATCHING THESE EPISODES AT THE EXPENSE OF A TIGHT RECAP OR LEGIBLE SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION. This is not a Wiki substitute. I’m not going to necessarily touch on everything in an episode. I might forget to talk about new suits or powers. I’m more concerned with the emotional impact of stories than debating plot mechanics. I’m also writing these to have fun, and I’m pretty much just going to be talking about whatever’s fun for me to talk about. I’ll make jokes, I’ll make up names, I’ll generally screw around when it’s fun to do so. I take these shows seriously, but I’m not serious about them, if that makes any sense. If it doesn’t, hey, sneak preview of what this thread is going to read like! Finally, most importantly (actually that No Spoiler thing is most important, please don’t screw me on this people), I’M ONLY DOING THIS BECAUSE I LOVE GETTING TO TALK ABOUT KAMEN RIDER WITH OTHER FANS. This is all very much a discussion to me. I’m excited to hear the thoughts, memories, theories, emotions, rants and raves of Kamen Rider fans. This TokuNation community has been unbelievably generous to me, giving me a little corner to be exceptionally weird and occasionally insightful about Kamen Rider, but the biggest gift it's given me is the chance to hear from passionate, knowledgeable fans. Anything you folks have to say about Faiz (except spoilers, please please please), I want to hear it. I don’t even give a shit if it’s just to disagree with me. I love dissenting opinions as much as I do consensus. I just like talking about this stuff, you know? The more, the merrier. Okay, that’s all of the warnings and disclaimers out of the way. It’s time to watch Kamen Rider Faiz! I’ve got 555 problems and hopefully a Kamen Rider ain’t one! https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz00.png EPISODE 01 EPISODE 02 EPISODE 03 EPISODE 04 EPISODE 05 EPISODE 06 EPISODE 07 EPISODE 08 EPISODE 09 EPISODE 10 EPISODE 11 EPISODE 12 EPISODE 13 EPISODE 14 EPISODE 15 EPISODE 16 EPISODE 17 EPISODE 18 EPISODE 19 EPISODE 20 EPISODE 21 EPISODE 22 EPISODE 23 EPISODE 24 EPISODE 25 EPISODE 26 EPISODE 27 EPISODE 28 EPISODE 29 EPISODE 30 EPISODE 31 HYPER BATTLE VIDEO EPISODE 32 EPISODE 33 EPISODE 34 EPISODE 35 EPISODE 36 EPISODE 37 EPISODE 38 EPISODE 39 EPISODE 40 EPISODE 41 EPISODE 42 EPISODE 43 EPISODE 44 EPISODE 45 EPISODE 46 EPISODE 47 EPISODE 48 EPISODE 49 EPISODE 50 SERIES OVERVIEW MOVIE: PARADISE LOST |
KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 01
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Two things: 1. faiz is a show you will likely be fustrated by and confused by; but will enjoy the suit designs immensely. 2. I hope this thread gets a "recap" version where its just the episode posts as I kinda lost track of them in ryuki. WAY too many pages to dig through! Faiz has a lot of great design elements in its suits; but handed it to the washed out hack of inoue
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Yeah Faiz speaking of thescene with Mari(the girl) and the Faiz himself the reason alot of the first and and you'll see alot in the show is shot in the afternoon and at night and that because the main actor Kento Handa was still in high school at the time so they had to wait till after school to start shooting everyday. This loosens up once the vacations start happening. Oh one more I know you like to watch the movies and specials as when they are made in production order but Faiz movie Paradise Lost has a HUGE spoiler for the show that at time was 1 month before it was revealed in the actual show. So keep that in mind when your going to watch that.
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What do you mean by "recap"? If these are tough to navigate/comprehend, I can definitely try and address it. Also, man, I'm not that against Inoue these days. I don't know, that'll probably come back to bite me in the ass, but I thought this was a super solid first episode. Quote:
Yeah, I think I've got the movie slotted for after episode 28. I guess I'm just going to have see how mad I'd've been if I was a Faiz fan from sixteen years ago! |
Justifaiz or however you spell it miiiiight be my favourite Rider opening song ever? It's opening sequence is pretty great too. I just wanna put it out there because it came blasting back to me as I read your post.
Hope you enjoy Faiz! I also selfishly hope Fish Sandwich will be around to clear up any oddities the subs might bring because I remember them being plain not-competent in quite a few places. Open your eyes for the next- I'm sorry, that line is permanently etched into my mind and I feel compelled to say it whenever I reach the end of Faiz-related thoughts. |
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The subs on at least the first episode (I've got the TV-Nihon ones) seemed decent? I can't ever speak to accuracy, but they seemed to have a good flow to them. The things people were saying to each other seemed like things people would normally say to each other, which a) is not a given in a Kamen Rider sub, and b) is not a given in an Inoue episode, so I'm calling this one a tentative success. |
Not even the theme song?! The premiere was more avant-garde than I remembered. Also I totally get not wanting to watch the previews. If anything, I might be the weird one because some of my fondest memories of watching tokusatsu was how excited I got over certain previews.
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It's going to be super weird to eventually be watching these shows brand-new, week to week. Now it's all No Spoilers, in a couple years it's going to be front page articles showing off upcoming suits, upcoming cast members, whatever. It's going to be an adjustment! |
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Whoohoo, super glad your first impression was great, this first ep is very much an either-you-love-it-or-you-hate-it thing as I discovered. While I finished this series relatively recently, I actually watched the first episode as a teen and my thought process at that time was basically “sweet, our main rider seems very likable, Shinji-esque, dude… uh he some sort of undead I guess…. that’s also interesting suit design, but maybe it’s just alternate form… uh we murder people now… okay, I guess he’s not the guy.” It hit me way harder upon rewatch, for some reason. That has to be the most depressing first Kamen Rider episode, right. Not just in terms of what happened, but also the way they’re framing it—although I haven’t seen Amazons, is it the similar brand of ‘dark’? I personally loved it; it established a certain mood, an undercurrent of sorrow and longing that’s really the furthest thing I’d normally seek from a toku show, but somehow appealed to me. And yeah, I also liked Mari immediately, just something very endearing and authentic with her ‘no-time-for-the-stupids’ vibe and overall demeanor as you noted. In general, they really did a good job in making the core characters likable and worth the emotional investment, at least to me. About the sub, IIRC Fish Sandwich pointed out several lines that may seem okay at first glance, but either actually meant something rather different or over-simplified what the characters actually wanted to convey. But yeah, I hope he chimes in here too from time to time, I was looking for that explanation but couldn't remember where I saw it (it kinda makes me wish the forum has show-specific threads). Quote:
On a brighter note, viewing-wise I'm about to wrap up Blade and Hibiki this weekend, then move on to some Netflix shows and a Ryuki re-watch, which I'm very much looking forward to after the recent discussion! |
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But, I don't know, people kept talking up Faiz in a Hoo Boy kind of way, as in Hoo Boy Wait Until You Get To Faiz, and I didn't find it especially weird or off-putting? So far? The things it's doing with backgrounding Faiz, it's maybe new to Kamen Rider but, like I said, pretty standard in other series. Even the tone doesn't feel a million miles away from parts of Kuuga or Agito. Like, it all still reads as Kamen Rider to me? Quote:
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It's a great attitude you've got, to be able to prep as much as possible and just wait to see if it's sufficient. A hard thing to keep to, knowing that you can't plan for the unplannable and that you need to be flexible. Hopefully everything'll work out for the best! Quote:
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Don't hold me to this because I break promises a lot - I had a lot more good to say about Ryuki than I thought, which is nice! - but I definitely think this is the point I'm gonna konk out aside from when there's a funny good toy. I'm afraid Faiz is a show I don't have much good to say about -- it's a very marmite show, I find. You either completely vibe with what it's going for; you love what it's doing; or you really, really don't. It's probably one of if not the most polarising Riders I've seen, and you can probably tell which 'side' I'm on.
Still! ... I like the belt! Come to think of it actually, there's a couple early merch things I gotta talk about as they happen. And the Faiz Belt is one of them -- a lot of people love how simple and realistic it is and I really gotta agree. Even if it's not something I want to totally see a return to (if we stuck to this we'd never have Taka Kujaku Condoru, like; come on), it's really nice for what it is. Just a good ol' flip-phone that reminds me of when I used to play Snake when bored sitting in the car and then it takes a step-up over your usual Sentai changer by shoving it into a belt. Epic. |
Oh geez this popped out of nowhere! Uh, let my try to catch up real quick:
- So, obviously, because it's come up a few times, I'm extremely fond of Faiz, for starters. It's another show I've rewatched fairly recently and even wrote all about it, so I should be in a good place to discuss whatever about it. - When I was doing that, the subs were driving me so completely insane, I did indeed make correcting them a regular feature of my posts about it. Faiz's subs are bad. I know you don't like spoilers, but since you're using TV-N, I'll just say, get ready to find out who carries magazines around while intentionally going soon enough. I may be on standby to defend this show, but I'm also just on standby to play translation cop for a series that relies heavily on dialogue to carry its story. - I've also been so absorbed with Kuuga lately for obvious reasons that I may have pushed a lot of this stuff out of my head, but I don't actually remember that much wrong about the premiere. - I also really love this first episode, of course. Faiz was one of the earlier Rider shows I watched, and it was mindblowing to see how downplayed the actual Rider stuff is here. Really strong characterization, too, even for characters that aren't truly in the spotlight yet. It was worlds away from something like OOO tonally, and I think the way Faiz highlights the variety of this franchise is one of the things I love most about it to this day. I kind of see Faiz like, after Ryuki kicked the door open for what "Kamen Rider" could mean, it was the show that got to really enjoy that newfound freedom. |
After a good year of trading cards and then getting a rider who uses a cellphone to suit up was pretty wild at the time. I mean cellphones were already done twice in Super Sentai but this was next level. The Faiz Driver was just an amazing piece of hardware itself and while somewhat expected, inputting the code to transform and then docking it to the belt was just satisfying to see every time.
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Ah we’re finally onto a good show (by my standards, I prefer it to Kuuga and Ryuki. Havent seen Agito yet).
Anyway, if you think Faiz looking older than his actual age is crazy, I’ll point out that the girl was only FIFTEEN when they shot this episode. (Which is still younger than the youngest actor to play a main rider [which is currently a tie between Gjost and Zi-O, both of whom were 17].) Also, I kind of like that after 3 seasons of straight up nice guys with magic powers, we go to a slightly more aloof individual who’s entirely grounded in technology. But then again, this show is going for a more “Showa” vibe than the previous three. I’ll explain what I mean at various points when they come up. |
Standing by....
Complete. I've been looking forward to this. Faiz is a show that I have... let's say "mixed feelings" on. It has great suits and the sexiest belt voice ever, it has some good characters, it has some cool ideas, but it also... Okay, let me put it this way for the sake of avoiding spoilers: what Faiz does well it does really well, and what it does badly it does a lot. Compared to the other early Heisei era shows so far, you're going to see this one skew a lot more towards melodrama. This is the Kamen Rider soap opera and I'm curious to see how much that works for you. For me, it often crossed the line into unintentional self parody. I liked it a lot when I first watched it, but I hit a point where I started realizing how its storytelling engine worked and from that moment on I found the show increasingly frustrating. It's also a show that has soured a lot more in my memory as the years have gone by. I've considered rewatching it a few times to see how much of it matches up with my recollections (and may still do so alongside this thread; we'll see). Quote:
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*musical note* Catch-ing Up On Faaaiiiiizzzz Posts 'Cause I Don't Want To Wo-ork *musical note*
I had weirdly vivid dreams about watching Faiz last night. Like, not about Faiz, but about watching Faiz. It was a weird thing where I'd written about a couple episodes, but then I watched another few and things happened that changed the context of the earlier episodes (one of the Riders was a double-agent?) and that was screwing with my head to not be able to talk about that stuff yet? It was weird. I feel like talking about Faiz is going to get real weird for me. Quote:
The belt is great. One of my favorite things in Amazons was that the belts didn't just show up out of nowhere, which was an Ex-Aid staple I always found hilarious. (The Gamer Driver was the size of a toaster. Where the hell were these doctors hiding it?) Having to drag the belts around (sometimes literally!) gave things a different flavor, less wish-fulfillment and more This Terrible Responsibility. I really like that for Faiz, in this episode. That the belt was precious to Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza, and became something to battle over at the climax. It's neat! And, yeah, god, it takes me back to my first cellphone, a Motorola Razr that I got because I was last-minute working the San Diego Comic-Con (2005?) and I needed to be able to coordinate with people. I love that the most about Kamen Rider, I think, the way they incorporate semi-recent technology in magical ways. Can cellphones turn you into a superhero? Why not! Quote:
It's a really strong premiere, I thought. It covers a ton of ground in a really smooth way. The writing's real on-point, so a bunch of short scenes manage to give you everything you need to know about Yuuji and (to a less complete degree) Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza, so you get why they behave the way they do and why they make the choices they make. Like, that little bit with Yuuji and his mom and his girlfriend in the beginning, it's sweet without being saccharine, and the performance has a warmth without being cloying. It's pitched just right, and I felt like every short scene had that same balanced feeling. Quote:
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I really like the ambiguity of the first Faiz episode, how it feels like Yuuji's the star until NOPE Horsepower, and how Faiz is this weird creeper in the background until NOPE Kamen Rider. It's a really fun choice for the show to make. Quote:
[youtube]WqQ8MExTc-c[/youtube] It's perfectly sinister. It's not just powerful, but scary. It is a Driver sound that is working overtime to be intimidating, and I love it. Faiz's Standing By thing, I didn't really get a great listen to it yet, but it definitely reminded me of Necrom's, and that's the highest praise I can give a Driver. I can see the melodrama criticism. Yuuji's story is so bleak in just one episode, in just a few minutes, that I can see it not working for some folks. I'm generally pretty okay with melodrama in my Kamen Rider. It's a superhero show, and that's always going to mean Heightened Emotions to me. It's a genre that's about expressing universal themes as punchable villains, and encoding emotional arcs into deaths and explosions and superpowers. There's... I think that whole genre works less good without melodrama. Trying to do Realistic Emotions while also having monsters and transformations and some number of villainous schemes, it's working against the grain of the genre. You can do it, but it's always going to feel slightly unnatural. Still! You can definitely push it too far, and I'm not surprised that Inoue maybe did for some viewers. (I mean, he's the man that brought us DOUBLE SURGERIES.) There was at least one, like, Yuuji-kun or something in the subs for the first episode, and I do not love the font they're using on this show at all. The content's been mostly fine (and I've got the Fifth Anniversary version, which might be improved from what other people had), but it's not going to be my favorite subbing. Couldn't find another version, though! |
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Probably I won't be as invested for Faiz from what I heard about it (well, I don't want to watch in order, but I also want to share my thoughts for KR so I will follow). But for surely good things (design and action above, I'm not into Faiz' design that much, but other Riders are), Orphnochs are one of the good monsters of KR series no matter what Faiz is. And I can't talk about it yet, but there's something I really like here that hasn't been shown yet.
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Let's put it like this at least you aren't using the TV-Nihon subs for the broadcast versions of the episodes as hoo-boy were they bad (excluding one thing)
but yeah while I think they're more recent stuff is decent boy howdy is their early stuff before Gaim or so pretty rough |
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(I love Drive to pieces, but you're telling me Go deserved it more than Kiriko?) Quote:
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Oh, also, I gotta ask, because I'm pretty sure nobody else would care or even notice: What made you give up on going with "Masked Rider" for the pre-Double thread titles? Did you just see the logo calling him "Φ's" and go "well, f*** this then"? :lol
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But a) nowhere else seems to parse it like that, that I saw, b) I realized I'd have ten of these threads called Masked Rider and that didn't feel right, c) honestly, you were calling your Kuuga thread Kamen Rider and I thought, "Well, shit, if that guy thinks it's Kamen Rider, what in the hell am I even doing", and d) I miss the symmetry of a thread being titled Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Whatever. Basically, 75% of it was me feeling like I'd overthought the Masked Rider thing, and 25% was for aesthetics. (Also, Faiz, come on, aren't we just giving up on words having any meaning?) Still, good eye! Thanks for noticing! |
KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 02
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz02b.png 1. Hey, guess who got the bad subs after all? Yeah, did not dodge that bullet! Got Takumi saying "Thanks to you I was put through a bad situation.” Got Mari saying Nekojita a few times. Got just a bunch of clunky-ass dialogue. This thing needs a great big fix, and I don't expect one will be available in the next few weeks, so, yeah, probably going to be grumpier and more skeptical about some of the storytelling in this show. Man, last episode was silky-smooth compared to this one. Really shocked here. I feel like y'all should've warned me! Seems like it would've been the responsible thing to do. 2. Responsibility is a fun word, one that comes up a couple times in this episode. I'm interested in a show exploring that, rather than heroism, since I just saw a yearlong exploration of heroism. Responsibility has a different connotation to me, where it's less about the personal choice of sacrifice or involvement, and more about the obligation of a person in society. Not to get all The Good Place, but I was definitely getting a What We Owe To Each Other vibe from this episode. It's refreshing to see a Kamen Rider who isn't a good person forced to be better, but a bad person forced to be good. I like the struggle of getting Takumi to just not be awful. That's fresh ground for a Kamen Rider show, I think. 3. All of the Takumi/Mari stuff was fantastic. The way her closed-off, guarded nature becomes hyper-verbal and intrusive with Takumi, where his lack of personality and disinterest forces her personality to fill that void in the dynamic, it's so good. They're both irritating in opposing ways, so they can be frustrating to one another but effective as a team. And, my god, they are so frustrating to one another. If this whole series is them having to track down a bag they just lost, every single episode, I'd be thrilled. It's such a dumb plot, but I loved it. So many fun little details, like Takumi endlessly blowing on his hot drink, Mari laughing at his bright underwear, the two of them having to rustle up enough business through Mari cutting kids' hair at a theme park to buy back the goddamn Driver for the hero (5000 yen, though, that's dirt cheap for a CSM Driver), just terrific chemistry from those two actors and something that, again, feels incredibly fresh. 4. Yuuji's still on his own this episode, dealing with his Horsepowered vengeance. It's shocking to me that, immediately after killing his cousin, he's like Oh I Should Not Have Come Back and jumps off of a building. That...? isn't this a kids show? Like, he jumps, and you see him hit the ground. Exclamation marks!!! That feels like an endpoint for any story of guilt and shame, and this is only his second episode. But, since it's only the second episode, he's not dead, and there's a little bit of business with Live Action Hatsune Miku, who basically is there to remind us that Smart Brain is going to be a huge part of this story, and drop some exposition on Orphnochs (which is what Yuuji is) and that Live Action Hatsune Miku is very excited for Yuuji to start doing the Orphnoch thing of killing people. Which he does at the end, heart-murdering Chie. I...? the Chie thing was weird. I guess we're supposed to read her emotional state as Severely Traumatised, since between Yuuji showing up after being declared dead and her partner (husband? boyfriend?) dropping dead right in front of her, plus the cops hanging around just enough for her to be screaming an awful lot about how she isn't responsible (!), it's been a rough 24 hours. But she's written as being psychotically manipulative, where she's throwing herself at Yuuji to get his protection, then throwing Yuuji at the cops to get away. It's a swing that either the actor can't figure out or the writing can't nail down, so it plays a little too overheated. Still, the Yuuji part of it lands, with him realizing that his past is truly gone, no matter how much he misses it. It's a sweet moment, and it makes his heart-murdering feel as partially justified as it was last episode. They're building a weirdly sympathetic portrait of this heart-murdering horse monster! 5. Hey, the Faiz suit's pretty cool, right? Those red lines building out of the Henshin. The big central lens of the face mask getting bisected by the antenna, how it forms the Phi, the concentric circles in the yellow. The segmented chest. I like the color scheme the most, black and silver with red highlights. The big yellow face. It's a real strong visual. Great suit. The fight he has at the end is great, too, with Mari an integral part of Faiz being able to defeat Elephant Orphnoch. (My favorite touch is the excited noise the Orphnoch makes as he causes damage. It's very human sounding, which is hilarious. Dude is having a pretty great afternoon at the docks!) I really like the idea of Mari being, like, a coach to Faiz. She's the one who knows how all this stuff works, he's just the instrument. Honestly, the Grumpy Poorly-Motivated Asshole who's overseen and managed by The More Level-Headed Girl Who's Got The Big Picture, that's what I thought the Yui/Ren stuff was going to be in Ryuki when it started, and, uh, it really wasn't. This dynamic, I get it a lot more. I get what they mean to each other as people, and I get how they're each valuable in fighting monsters. I like that she's got the motivation, and he's got the power. I like the burgeoning friendship, and the start of a discussion on responsibility. I just like this show, man! https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz02c.png |
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WAIT. https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/...madabrian2.png WHAT. Oh man, I'd've never gotten that. Thanks! On the one hand, it's ballsy to take an actor who'd just had a prominent role on the last series and give them a different prominent role in the next series, but I didn't even recognize her so I guess they're in the clear? So crazy! |
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And she’s not going to be the last familiar face you’ll be seeing. |
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I love shit like that, when actors get reused on Kamen Rider. (It blew my mind when I saw that Poppy from Ex-Aid had been in a Ghost Net Movie or whatever as a sleepy hostage.) It keeps these shows feeling scrappy, the Let's Put On A Show of it, just a bunch of kids making a superhero program. They could hire another actor, but Shimada needs a job, and she's great, and who cares if someone recognizes her, we're just having fun. I love it. |
Fun fact while the Greek alphabet Phi is the main motif, Faiz's hidden motif is a shark as evident on his mouthguard and antennas.
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No, but seriously, I've been dreading you getting to this show for exactly this reason. This episode has one of the first errors I remember really getting under my skin. It's when Mari is trying to find out why Takumi is traveling, so she goes "can I ask you something?" Takumi's response to that, if you believe TV-Nihon, was "It'll need an answer, right?" I'm still trying to figure out what that even means. The actual line is a blunt, avoidant "Depends on the question", which is a way more Takumi thing to say, and also makes sense. I don't know, that might seem pretty minor? Like, it's not an entire plot point being completely mangled or anything, but it's also more than just a clunky sentence. Faiz is a character-driven show with lots of snappy dialogue, and that error to me represents how pretty much all that nuance just gets sucked right out by the subs and replaced with a lot of nothing. You get the broad beats of the story without the little things that really make it click together. I think the reason the premiere came out okay is because a lot of that stuff is non-verbal there, like Takumi being introduced tapping on a menu instead of saying what he wants, or Mari scarfing down a meal in like five seconds. |
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Because, hot take... I LIKE this. I genuinely really like this line as it's translated. To me it gets across the same meaning as "depends on the question", but way more sarcastic; way more snarky. Like Takumi wants as little to do with a conversation as possible that he's making giving an answer sound like a huge burden. And, heck, it's a lot more original and sticks in my mind more. This sub sure is something, but this is one of those times I didn't mind. |
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Also, I wasn't really making fun of the Nekojita thing. (I really like that there's a Japanese word for that kind of behavior?) It's mostly that someone else used it as a warning sign for The Bad Subs, so I wanted to call it out. I appreciated that they left a complex word untranslated, because I've got no idea how you'd translate such a specific insult. Quote:
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The two lines of clunky dialogue in this one where I could not figure out what they were trying to say were: https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/subs02a.png This is from Live Action Hatsune Miku's Orphnoch Orientation. I think she's trying to say that Yuuji needs to do more than just kill humans, like maybe fight a Kamen Rider, but it's phrased like he needs to form a Contract with a Monster. "You haven't made an enemy with your strength." God, what a garbled mess. https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/subs02b.png This is after the I Hate Responsibility exchange. I think he's saying something like "I don't want to be tied down," but maybe not? The rest of it was stuff that was just a little clunkier than I'd like. Those two were like speed bumps, where I had to the pause the episode after reading them. |
Your sig or Mari just being completely over it is perfect.
Faiz is a great for how it manages to be as dark and serious as Kuuga at times, but can get nearly as light and hopeful as Agito. I'm really glad you're enjoying it so far. |
I only started rewatching Faiz a few weeks ago, which means I can talk about this with a fresh perspective. First time was 2015 which lined up pretty nicely for Kamen Rider 4. You might find it surprising to hear, it's actually my favorite KR show! :p
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It's not just the suit though, but the way Takumi fights. Every punch and kick feels forceful and that kick in Episode 1 wasn't even his finisher. Most Riders escalate their attacks depending on how much effort the fight requires. Faiz doesn't hold back. From the moment he flicks his right wrist, you know he's about to do some serious damage to an Orphenoch! I speculate that this is why Takaiwa Seiji enjoyed being Faiz. They have a lot of the same energy and movement. Smartphones may have surpassed cellphones in popularity and functionality but cellphones are still dynamic and cool and Faiz takes that concept to the next level. I totally didn't recognize Smart Lady as Shimada from Kamen Rider Ryuki. It's the glasses. It's like Clark Kent all over again. There's a serious contrast with their characters as well which may have contributed to the dissociation. Speaking of Smart Lady, I like how cheerful and upbeat she is about advocating genocide of humanity. I think this is the first time the villains had their own mascot and it's definitely a good publicity move for Smart Brain. I've always considered Faiz the Jetman of Kamen Rider. Inoue's a talented writer who really understands how to strike the perfect balance between drama and comedy and this show is his masterpiece, being written entirely by him as head writer which was a first for the franchise. A good example of this tonal balance is the juxtaposition between the comedic scenes with Takumi and Mari as they begrudgingly work together to find their constantly missing identical bags and the dramatic scenes with Kiba like when he was chasing the scarf representing his longing to return to a past that no longer exists. Thanks for making this thread and attracting so much active discussion. A show as groundbreaking as this warrants it. Even though it's been 17 years, it doesn't feel like it's aged at all! Quote:
"It'll need an answer, right?" sounds like Takumi is reluctant to answer but knows it's pointless to refuse since Mari will just keep pushing him. "Depends on the question." sounds more evasive and I figure he already knows he's not going to want to answer any of her questions considering how long it takes him to even tell her name, indirectly! I think it's humorous that Mari switches roles between 2 episodes from trying to get away from some guys to Takumi trying to get away from her. So in this case, while TV-Nihon surely has some controversial decisions, I thought this one was okay. |
A heads-up.... there probably will be a Kamen Rider that I won't watch while you're watching, like Decade or Zi-O. Besides, well, one of my favorite opening songs of Kamen Rider "Justifaiz" comes here (and has memorized the lyrics too)
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And about the Ryuki comparison, yeah not because (oh well sorry for bringing this up... also I won't move on from any other Rider series) Ren's guide isn't about the big picture or level-head, but about moral. Both Yui and Ren got as much of the big picture (and Ren is far from "poorly-motivated"), but there has to be a moral balance for Ren, to prevent him being unnecessarily violent or outright evil before he softens later. The one who doesn't get the big picture at the beginning (and poorly-motivated, as Ren attested) was actually Shinji. |
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I thought I'd find something super representative about my Faiz feelings in the first half-dozen episodes, but I wanted something right off the bat, so I grabbed that Mari shot in the first episode. (My favorite shot in the premiere, incidentally.) It was supposed to be temporary, but I'll be goddamned if I don't laugh at it every time I see it. It doesn't really say anything about my feelings for Faiz, but her sour expression sandwiched been two smiling, pushy dudes, I love it. And, yeah, I find the tone to be... pretty unique? Like, the second episode is both one where two of the main characters have a charming Dude Where's My Driver comedy plot, and one where the other main character feels a deep, irrevocable existential despair and throws himself off of a building. And yet it all works! Quote:
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Having the villainous (?) group be more public is a nice switch-up from Ryuki's hidden battles. I like sci-fi stories where the villains have a public powerbase, where they have a more insidious way of achieving their goals than just defeating the hero or attacking with monsters. I like that they've got a diverse toolset, you know? I didn't mention it before, but I like the semi-subtle touch of putting Mari's bike, the one her dad sent along with the Driver, in the Smart Brain commercial. It's a good way to keep tying together these plot threads. Quote:
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Of course, that's far from the only problem in this episode, apparently, so let me see what I can do here. 「でも、あなたはその力にまだ適用できていません」 I'm doing this by ear myself (man do I wish old Rider shows had transcripts on the internet), so I'm not too confident in this one, but I believe this is more along the lines of simply (and this is going to be a little loose) "But you still haven't accepted that power yet". Yuuji still thinks of himself as some boring human, and that's what she's upset about. The "enemy" bit, I think is a result of TV-N mishearing the word I have as "accepted" here (it's technically more like "applied"? translation is tricky!), tekiyou, and thinking it was teki, which means enemy. There's nothing that specific in the line, unless, again, I have this one wrong too. This is just one of those "technically accurate" bad lines. Takumi's telling Mari not to say s*** that makes him feel like he's got obligations. I really don't even know what else to tell you. It sounds terrible, but there's no misinformation here, and you deciphered it well enough. So, uh, one thing I've corrected nobody else seems to consider an issue, one thing I'm only kind of sure about, and one thing you have an issue with I don't see the big deal about. Not doing great at this translation cop thing so far! Assuming you consider any of this helpful, Die, feel free to keep bringing up things you have questions about, and I'll at least try to clear things up, if I can. I'm seriously not very good at this though. |
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First, it's an excuse for the two of them to be stuck with each other, getting some chemistry shown off. Them arguing and irritating each other is, like, the secret weapon of this show for me, and it really spelled out what Faiz is going to be like as a show. It's a low-stakes-ish plot (there's no immediate danger) and it lets both characters work together while still really hating it. They're dragging their feet, but still moving forward, which is maybe the best way I can describe the Takumi/Mari energy. Second, them constantly losing the Driver to dump mistakes and regular thieves is a nice swerve into the Orphnoch attack. If the bag was a target for Monster Reasons the entire time, it'd get tiresome. Having the bag get lost thanks to mutual dislike, happenstance, and incompetence, that makes the monster showing up feel more organic. It's one more thing, not the only thing. I don't know, I think the pacing of it, the comedy into character building into comedy into action, it was good way to tell that story. Quote:
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