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Kamen Rider Zi-O Episode 35- "First Love, Wake Up 2008!" Discussion
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05-17-2019, 01:28 AM
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Xtreme RX
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 345
It seems they took a different approach for this tribute - instead of focusing on the returning actors and continuing the story of the original show, they instead opted to bring back the original series writer and emulate the unique style and tone that made Kiva what it is. It's mostly successful - it definitely felt like I was transported back to 2008: The use of overly epic stock music, Otoya's violin solo and the visual cues depicting changing timelines come straight from the source.
Yuko is definitely the kind of over-the-top character you'd expect from Inoue. She's fun, but the drama behind her story appears to be fairly heavy. The romance subplot is heavy-handed and honestly kind of ridiculous, but again, it's reminiscent of Kiva's schlocky romance scenes so it fits right in. The comedy in this episode, both intentional (the reactions to Sougo's recollection of "first-love") and unintentional (Yuko's use of a man-hole cover as a shield not once, but TWICE) made this go beyond the sappy and edgy style of Inoue's writing to feeling a little more like self-parody.
In terms of actual Kiva references, I was happy to see Jiro being his womanizing self and the Arms Monsters again. Though Dogga and Bassha's actors don't return, their mannerisms in suit paired with the archived voice clips make it feel like they are part of the returning cast as well. Since Jiro (as Garulu) reacts to the appearance of Ginga, it implies that these are the original Arms Monsters under the control of Another Kiva. I like how they cycle through their weapon forms and it only makes me wish the use of said armaments were as seamless in the original show. Another Kiva looks great too, blending the Fangire motif and Kiva's original look extraordinarily well.
The only real problem here is Kamen Rider Ginga, and it's kind of a glaring one. They try to connect it with Jiro warning the audience that it is impending (using a reference to the door to the future, so props for the callback) but man it still feels super out of place. He literally appears just to derail the main focus and it doesn't work in the slightest. He looks alright as a kitbash I guess, but like, why is he evil? What is his goal and why did he come to Earth now of all times? The lack of build-up really hurts his overpowered demeanor. It almost feels cheap and it's hard to chew.
I think a huge problem is the pacing. This episode in particular was paced pretty well but with Ginga being a major focus next episode, I am worried we won't have the time to sufficiently wrap up everything this tribute is teasing without pacing issues. We don't really know why Yuko ended up in jail, we still haven't seen Yuri, and Woz is supposed to gain Ginga's power-up and defeat Another Kiva despite having little to no presence in this week's episode.
Another interesting thing I noticed was that Yuri is already credited on the TV-Asahi page despite not appearing this week and moreover, she is listed as being Kamen Rider Ixa. Additionally, Tomokazu Sugita is listed as Kivat Bat the 3rd, despite his voice role going solely to Ginga. I guess they might just be referring to Sugita as a legend actor who provided the voice for Kivat in the past, but it seems a little misleading. But this does make me wonder if there will be more surprises on the Kiva front next week.
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