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10-10-2021, 09:26 PM | #481 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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I recently done a rewatch of Amazon and actually just finished it last week so it's kinda fun seeing it here. Extremely lovely show with a heart where it counts; I think the best way I can put it is that having him in Fourze's HBV was an extremely good choice!
World of Amazon felt... to me at the time, it felt like it was basically a random choice. Like, they needed a vehicle to highlight Dai-Shocker's invasion of the worlds and so they picked a random rider -- and with all of Heisei done and Black/RX last episode, I guess they felt Amazon would be the most fun? Unlike Black/RX I had actually seen Amazon before this, pretty early into me watching Rider; and I never quite found myself attached to this arc. I guess it's a mix of it feeling like a 'random' choice and Amazon's actor being, uh, yeah. Relatively fun time though! I like how they did their spin on Amazon's friendship with Masahiko through the lens of his being ingrained into a fascist society. Their bond is the highlight of Amazon and... given previous worlds have had things like Kagami not being important at all in Kabuto; it's pretty surprising to see this preserved. I feel this one's way more accurate to the original Amazon than any other world aside from of course Den-O and Shinkenger.
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10-10-2021, 09:32 PM | #482 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,420
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KAMEN RIDER DIE: It's funny as hell, though. We'd eventually come back to Dai-Shocker Took Over The World in a few Phase 2 movies, and I honestly love it as a gimmick. I love the juxtaposition of the mundane and the fantastic, which is what you get when Dai-Shocker has to, like, have an award ceremony for children.
These episodes always felt a lot more like time-filler to me than the Black arc, but I'm probably biased because I like Black so much more than this relatively anemic version of Amazon. I also cannot forgive it for having a chance to update the most bonkers Rider monster design ever and doing something so boring with it. |
10-10-2021, 09:36 PM | #483 |
Reiei
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 3,691
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I remember the Amazon arc for one thing and one thing only.
When Amazon said: "Amazon has not touched a person in a long time" And I laughed my ass off. |
10-10-2021, 09:42 PM | #484 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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These episodes always felt a lot more like time-filler to me than the Black arc, but I'm probably biased because I like Black so much more than this relatively anemic version of Amazon. I also cannot forgive it for having a chance to update the most bonkers Rider monster design ever and doing something so boring with it.
I thought this one had a clearer emotional arc for the Legend Rider, which puts it ahead of the Black/RX stuff for me. It was leveraging Amazon's specific worldview in a way that was easy to invest in, even if the actor was a massive obstacle. I got what was happening, why it was happening, and why the characters cared about it. That may sound like a pathetically low bar to clear, but not every Decade story has managed to clear it!
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10-10-2021, 10:04 PM | #485 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,578
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This was a fun set of episodes. I always dig the insanity of delving into a Shocker infested society. EEEE!
I do not like this actor for Amazon in the slightest, just like I didn't back then. His battle grunts are weak, and his A-ma-zon is even weaker. He works in some instances but he really looks like he's ready to just fall asleep of boredom. Jyumenki was really cool though, like I know he's a redesign of an old monster but I love that his gimmick is countering the as of now 10 Heisei Riders. Kind of a shame it's just for a one-off guy like him too since that would have made a really cool multi-episode threat for Tsukasa. He was my highlight of these particular episodes cause I just dig concepts like that. |
10-10-2021, 10:47 PM | #486 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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But, a world run by Shocker! Pretty great! I like how it's all about how miserable it is to live in a world where everyone is out to get you, something both Amazon and Decade can viscerally relate to... but then it's sort of about how soothing it can be to let an organization fill that void of trust? How it's easy to get suckered in by an organization when you don't feel like it's worth putting your trust in people, and the organization provides the fulfillment you used to find in others. Like, this episode doesn't do a ton with it, but it still manages to touch on the cult-like seduction of misinformation and conspiracy theories, and how the gravitational pull of peer pressure can make people work against their own self-interest. The fascist elements of Shocker are long-standing, but this arc hits a little closer to home in the age of COVID.
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10-11-2021, 01:47 AM | #487 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,551
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Yeah, that episode title you point out is unfortunate? Amazon proper had an actual episode with a similar title (The Strong, Naked Speedster), which incidentally enough was co-written by this episode’s director.
For other Amazons references, all of the monster Jyumenki has battling for him have the same motifs as the Beastmen, Amazon’s monsters of the week. Also, he Mole Beastman that Grandpa claims to be is an actual character from the show, as are those two kids that are so important (in the show, they were the children of a professor Amazon’s as sent all the way from Brazil to find by his village elder). As for the episode, I do like Jyumenki’s gimmick, like Zero. But I do have to wonder what’s going to happen now that he’s gone. He wasn’t the only villain in that world, right? Also between this episode and the last, there was a spin-off story featuring Decade visiting the World of Stronger, though I won’t bore you with the details here. |
10-11-2021, 01:48 AM | #488 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,551
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Yeah, that episode title you point out is unfortunate? Amazon proper had an actual episode with a similar title (The Strong, Naked Speedster), which incidentally enough was co-written by this episode’s director.
For other Amazons references, all of the monster Jyumenki has battling for him have the same motifs as the Beastmen, Amazon’s monsters of the week. Also, he Mole Beastman that Grandpa claims to be is an actual character from the show, as are those two kids that are so important (in the show, they were the children of a professor Amazon’s as sent all the way from Brazil to find by his village elder). As for the episode, I do like Jyumenki’s gimmick, like Zero. But I do have to wonder what’s going to happen now that he’s gone. He wasn’t the only villain in that world, right? Also between this episode and the last, there was a spin-off story featuring Decade visiting the World of Stronger, though I won’t bore you with the details here. |
10-11-2021, 04:01 PM | #489 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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SWITCHBLADE: So the core premise of Black is that a cult captures Kotaro and his brother, Nobuhiko, to turn them into a pair of cyborgs - Black Sun and Shadow Moon - who will fight to the death in order to become the next leader.
Kotaro escapes in what is, for my money, the best opening scene of any Rider series ever (dude running through the nighttime streets of Tokyo from ghostly pursuers). Nobuhiko does not. The show's main plot, when not interspersed with standalone episodes, is about Kotaro trying to save his brother. Long story short, he completely fails. Kamen Rider Black ends with the hero sitting alone in a cafe having flashbacks to better times with the brother he killed and the friends who fled to America to escape the cult. Quote:
KAMEN RIDER DIE: It's bizarre. It's a distracting choice, and it smacks of the weird storytelling choices that are all over this story for me.
I don't know that this tribute did a great job illuminating what made Black/RX special? I mostly just bounced off the non-Decade parts of this story. Black/RX mostly just read as SHOWA to me, all masculine nobility and regrettable chivalry (he won't fight Femme, which, UGH), and the show doesn't really spend enough time defining his character. The early RX scenes spend more time setting up the new threat of Dai Shocker, and then the early Black scenes are just riffing on the similarities of the two Kotaros. There's a big RX scene at the end of the first part where Kotaro acts like he's been around for the entire episode, when he has not, and so his heartfelt speech to Tsukasa plays like a parody of the kind of speeches Tsukasa gives to outsiders. This whole story uses its tribute characters as things you're already assumed to care about, which is a mistake that I don't feel like this show has made before? It felt way more insider-y to me than I recall feeling. Even the Sentai one made a pretty good case for caring about the Sentai cast! SWITCHBLADE: I think part of it is that the show was banking on the "holy crap, it's Tetsuo Kurata" factor, definitely. Not only the first actual past headlining Kamen Rider to appear on the show in that capacity, but it was again one of the most popular characters that they could have brought in. The other thing is that, as you may have guessed from the clips after the credits, we are in full-on movie set up mode. Quote:
KAMEN RIDER DIE: It's such a disappointment to have a clever, cathartic Kobayashi story -- one with evocative subtext -- and then follow it with a ham-fisted version of a very similar emotional arc.
WE JUST DID A STORY WHERE TSUKASA FINDS STRENGTH AND SUPPORT IN HIS FRIENDS. LITERALLY JUST DID IT. NATSUMI WAS THE LYNCHPIN FOR THAT STORY, TOO! This one was a huge bummer for me. SWITCHBLADE: So from what I've heard, the original writer quit the show because he didn't want to do all of this stuff with Dai Shocker and/or the Showa era. The new writer was brought in and it often feels like he didn't really know what Tsukasa's deal was meant to be or just didn't care. It's part of why he ends up feeling like a really inconsistent character from story to story. I'm not sure when it sets in, but there definitely feels like there was a point where a lot of people involved just threw up their hands and gave up on ever trying to put all of these disparate pieces together into something cohesive. (The "oh fuck it, just do something" point is very obvious, but I feel like there was a middle ground in between) Quote:
KAMEN RIDER DIE: I would be way more into Narutaki if this show realized he was a joke, but this story very specifically does not do that. It's a story all about how terrible Tsukasa is for his friends' safety and emotional well-being, something it dealt with more thoughtfully last goddamn week.
SWITCHBLADE: Again, there was a point where the show just completely gave up on Narutaki as a concept and we are definitely well past that mark. He literally exists just to show up for his scene, blame Decade, and collect his pay check. Quote:
KAMEN RIDER DIE: Oh, agreed. The only parts of this story that worked for me were the Tsukasa/Kaitou scenes. Kaitou's so pissy whenever Tsukasa brings up his other relationships!
Like he doesn't know which one Natsumi is! It's cute and funny, that whole thread, but it's also proving the story's thesis that everyone needs someone in their lives, or life isn't worth protecting/living. Kaitou needs Tsukasa, even if it's just to infuriate. (It is NOT just to infuriate.)
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10-11-2021, 04:33 PM | #490 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Amazon's just a great concept, you know? His design and character are so immediately endearing, there was basically no way I was ever going to be as interested in any of those other guys right out of the gate, when I was first learning about the franchise. I remember reading stuff like that he was friends with a mole monster or how he was initially scared of motorcycles(!), and even without those details, the basic premise of this wild yet gentle guy fighting evil while struggling to fit into the strange civilized world around him was inherently intriguing to me. I believe I had seen a few episodes of Amazon before going into Decade, which would slot it right alongside Ryuki and Kuuga as the only ones I had watched any of prior, and, yeah, I think this two-parter captures that inherent appeal of Amazon pretty well. Again, it's sort of a hard concept to get wrong? The actor's performance feels like a directing choice that didn't ~quite~ pan out in the end (the original Amazon had WAY more range than this, rest assured), but the character is as lovable as ever, and wrapped around all this, we've got a world that's sort of Yonemura's prototype for what I feel are the most fun crossover movies he's written, plus some continuing development for Tsukasa and Kaitou's impossibly unhealthy relationship (that last scene!), which is fun in its own right. I guess maybe that's where Decade is at in this last stretch? It's a little crazy to think that these are the penultimate episodes of the series, considering how relatively thin the drama is, but man, when they're still busting out standalone story concepts this enjoyable, it's a lot harder to be upset.
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