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05-07-2021, 02:21 AM | #21 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,556
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Quote:
So, here's maybe a good place to talk about this.
My biggest regret from the Hibiki thread was putting in song lyrics. Wish I'd saved it for a show like this one. See, I went into Hibiki expecting a show About Music. The main Rider's a drummer, the other Riders all play musical instruments, there's that opening scene, Asumu dreams of joining his school's band... it's going to be a show About Music! I should lean into that! |
05-07-2021, 03:03 AM | #22 |
Yodonna oshi
Join Date: Jan 2021
Posts: 748
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Quote:
I never watched Kiva at the original time of airing because I was folding my arms and looking sternly at Toei in regards to what happened with Hibiki, but when I did watch it late last year, I remember thinking that the early episodes, despite neither Wataru nor his father especially being my cup of tea, were really quite enjoyable. I think Koike Rina's blustering, matronly teenager character was great, and there is a character introduced later who I really grew attached to, so whilst I am the author of an entire post about why I don't like the show as a whole, it would be insincere for me to claim that it does not have its moments, and I really hope you enjoy it and find your own things to latch onto as you work your way through it! Have fun!! |
05-07-2021, 08:38 AM | #23 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,119
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Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be rewatching along with the thread like I did for Faiz and Hibiki, since it's been a few years since I watched Kiva and I'm excited to watch it again. For now, I'd like to mention something cool about the insert themes. They're performed by a band called Tetra Fang that was started to promote the show and Wataru's actor, Seto Koji, is the lead singer! Which means he is a very talented person who can act and sing, similar to Miyauchi Hiroshi who sung the theme song to his own show, also titled Kamen Rider V3.
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05-07-2021, 11:13 AM | #24 |
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Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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I don't know how it will be taxing for me here, as regarding the series writer here can feel like if a degenerate company gets free pass for their questionable choices due to clinging to something good the company has made...
Kiva's also one of a series I don't know much other than the Riders (as I've played Climax Heroes), so I may say less things here. Quote:
KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 01 - “FATE - WAKE UP!”
Kiva’s a show that is both densely packed with incident (it introduces a hundred named characters across two timelines and has about four hundred fight scenes), as well as one that I never felt overwhelmed by. There’s a rhythm to the progression, which is maybe appropriate for a show that feels informed by music and performance. They keep throwing new information at you (or, data, at least), but there’s a flow to the episode that makes it easy to not focus too much on the details that are clearly there for later exploration. (Like Kamen Rider Grease being Wataru’s dad! That feels like it’s going to be important! Wild guess! Also, holy shit, Zanki is in the credits!!!) It’s smoothly constructed, which is what I’m most looking for in a premiere. Quote:
Also fucking indirect disrespect to Inoue here, his father's a writer for Showa Kamen Rider, and his father is iirc the reason of his feud with Kobayashi. Quote:
And, like, thematically, such an Inoue show. Wataru’s inability to express himself is, like, an Inoue hallmark. It’s present in not just the literal sense, with his adorable notebook of apologies and cries for help, but in his need to use music as an emotional outlet. That’s a thing that comes up in a lot of Inoue’s writing, the value of self-expression through art, and it gets a little coverage in the first installment of Kiva despite tons of other ground to cover.
Wataru’s ambivalence about his own humanity marks him as another questing Inoue lead. He feels a separation from the world he’s protecting, and at this point it’s tough to see if he’s longing for a connection or wishing for isolation. (I mean, almost definitely the former, but I like that there’s some ambiguity here.) He’s a sweetly sad boy, and that little scene where Kivat offers some role-play toy psychoanalysis in the bathtub (from a floating violin-shaped soap caddy!) is a nice window into a character who spends the whole episode being weird around three-dimensional women. Quote:
And, shit, I don’t know where these women are going to go in the narrative, but I love how they all kicked-off. Opening the series with Yuri throwing down with the Spider Fangire, hitting the midpoint with Megumi laughing at the gullibility of the Horse Fangire, and having Shizuka around to gently nudge Wataru away from being descended upon by angry villagers… just great, great characters. I loved each of the performances for their unique energies. Yuri is closed off, tentative, but intensely focused. Megumi is flippant, energetic, and never one to hold her tongue. Shizuka is perplexed, indignant, and loyal. With Wataru being a cypher for most of this episode (but an effective and charismatic one, somehow!), it leaves way more space for the various women of Kiva to make an impact, and they totally did for me.
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This whole episode did it for me. I loved the inexplicable debut aspects, the insanity of some of the world-building (Kiva’s Rider Kick causes a lunar eclipse that makes a Dinosaur Cathedral eat the soul of a decorative vampire monster???), all of that premiere shit that you take for granted on subsequent viewings. But I also loved the cleanliness of the delivery, the way plots and details rhyme across decades (Yuri and Megumi’s God Has Erred declaration, Megumi and Wataru’s fish obsessions, Yuri and Wataru’s weirdness around tiny animals), how this blenderized inaugural episode was fun and charming and... and weird, in all of the most engaging ways. I’m not quite at the point where I know what story Inoue’s telling yet (The Perils Of A Life Unlived would be an early guess), but I like the way he’s started to tell it.
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The most complete non-wiki encyclopedias for Kamen Rider series (currently only found Ryuki and OOO's). Last edited by DreadBringer; 05-07-2021 at 11:15 AM.. |
05-07-2021, 11:18 AM | #25 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
That's an interesting take. I suppose for me I just felt like lots of what I didn't like in Den-O the way Kiva did them was more my cup of tea and at least on quality I've always found Kabuto and Kiva quite close (Kabuto got me into Kamen Rider too), but on a general/real life note I suppose given I turned 16 in 2008 and I preferred the first half of the 2000s and back to 2009 onwards I can see how different age groups might view different time periods differently!
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So, funny story. I was actually considering making my regular “thing” for this thread just sharing the various songs for characters and riders/forms. But since I have no guarantee there’ll be a YouTube video that doesn’t get taken down and I don’t know if you have Spotify, I decided to go with (basically) the same thing I did for Blade.
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I've always felt that Kiva was very thematically attached to Faiz. Granted, less people fall in the river, but there's definitely a similar approach in the way that Inoue told these two stories.
I never watched Kiva at the original time of airing because I was folding my arms and looking sternly at Toei in regards to what happened with Hibiki, but when I did watch it late last year, I remember thinking that the early episodes, despite neither Wataru nor his father especially being my cup of tea, were really quite enjoyable. I think Koike Rina's blustering, matronly teenager character was great, and there is a character introduced later who I really grew attached to, so whilst I am the author of an entire post about why I don't like the show as a whole, it would be insincere for me to claim that it does not have its moments, and I really hope you enjoy it and find your own things to latch onto as you work your way through it! Have fun!! Quote:
Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be rewatching along with the thread like I did for Faiz and Hibiki, since it's been a few years since I watched Kiva and I'm excited to watch it again. For now, I'd like to mention something cool about the insert themes. They're performed by a band called Tetra Fang that was started to promote the show and Wataru's actor, Seto Koji, is the lead singer! Which means he is a very talented person who can act and sing, similar to Miyauchi Hiroshi who sung the theme song to his own show, also titled Kamen Rider V3.
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05-07-2021, 11:31 AM | #26 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
And true that, I think that phase 1 is more experimental of the era, though it can result in controversial stuff, and that it won't likely happen anymore for phase 2 as phase 2 has been swimming in success with mostly similar formula for each series, or probably the experimental era does lead to a conclusion, where Den-O style is the one get chosen.
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But between the actor Koji Seto and suit actor Seiji Takaiwa, there would be such a contrast between the portrayal as Kiva, where as Wataru he's painfully asocial, but Seiji Takaiwa fighting as Kiva would seem to have Wataru's character issues completely thrown out of window due to different people.
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05-07-2021, 11:42 AM | #27 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Funny thing is that it was pretty normal for people to wear masks in Japan before 2020; especially in metropolitan areas -- I don't know the history behind it or anything and it's not like a thing you'd see an overwhelming majority of people doing, but it wasn't really uncommon to see people wearing masks in Japan. Wataru isn't really doing anything weird here, but... hm... I guess I'd say it's analogous to how you'd use a hoodie to represent a shy or closed off character? Not something exclusive to shy people but one that's more associated with them
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05-07-2021, 11:56 AM | #28 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
Funny thing is that it was pretty normal for people to wear masks in Japan before 2020; especially in metropolitan areas -- I don't know the history behind it or anything and it's not like a thing you'd see an overwhelming majority of people doing, but it wasn't really uncommon to see people wearing masks in Japan. Wataru isn't really doing anything weird here, but... hm... I guess I'd say it's analogous to how you'd use a hoodie to represent a shy or closed off character? Not something exclusive to shy people but one that's more associated with them
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05-07-2021, 11:58 AM | #29 |
Yodonna oshi
Join Date: Jan 2021
Posts: 748
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Quote:
Thanks! It's been a surprisingly fun start to this series, and I'm already finding myself invested in a few of the folks. Megumi and Shizuka are pretty great friends/foils to Wataru, and the premise is an agreeable mix of mystery and character drama. I'm looking forward to more of it!
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05-07-2021, 12:03 PM | #30 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
Aww, I'm glad you're having a good time with it. I'm going to sit patiently now and wait to talk to you about the character I like most, but I will say I really liked Megumi and Shizuka both in regards to their relationship with Wataru. I also remember really liking the theme of mothers and daughters in the series being just as strong as the focus on Wataru and his relationship with his father.
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