[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

But Gentaro proves that he means it to become her friend that he's prioritizing Miu's well-being despite her confusion, that he wants her to win despite the potential disadvanage Gentaro puts himself into due to their deal, which should prove Miu that not everyone is a threat (which can lead to being mean as defensive mechanism).

Gentarou definitely treats Miu differently than anyone else in school, which makes their dynamic in the KRC so fun. They wouldn't be as effective without her leadership!

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 17 - “IMPACT OF A METEOR”



Ha ha, boy am I looking forward to talking about Meteor now!

I honestly loved this one? The trick, for me, is that I don’t really care about Kamen Riders, if I really tried to analyze it; I care about characters. Meeting a Rider without knowing the character to me is just slightly more mystery than an average Zodiart storyline, and I don’t really think too hard about that stuff. (I almost never theorize about mysteries, for anything, anywhere. I’m just not a Puzzle Box guy?) It’s when you give me details about the character inside the suit that I really get invested, and that’s what this episode offered. Like, Meteor showing up to do his Meteor thing last episode is both technically thrilling and emotionally empty for me – it’s suits fighting suits, and my brain can’t add a value to that exchange any greater than a stunt show. But Ryuusei? That is a guy can spend an episode getting to know and feel like I instantly want to watch more.

A lot of it’s the way this episode’s constructed, kind of doing an Episode 1 riff, but entirely from Ryuusei’s perspective, and full of misapprehensions and bad-faith judgments. Ryuusei sees Gentarou’s need to be friends with everyone as a pathetic need for validation that results in an ineffective superhero, and he spends the episode cataloging everything that occurs as either wasteful or ridiculous. We’re walked through the basics of Fourze – Gen interacting with other students, the KRC meeting up, how the Switches work, Ohsugi being cartoonishly annoyed – but it’s constantly undercut by Ryuusei adding his reductive and dismissive two cents about how it all fits together for the characters and the show. It somehow manages to layer in his snide disapproval in a way that still preserves the brightness of the core concept – it’s judgment that always floats above the story enough to not interfere or derail it – while giving you his snarky eyeroll of a rebuttal.

But this is still very much a Fourze episode, front to back. Ryuusei exists as this new piece, but it’s still the same puzzle. (I guess I like some puzzles?) But, y’know, it’s actually not the same puzzle, in ways that help push back on Ryuusei’s view of things. This is Episode 17, not Episode 1, and it shows throughout the episode. Ryuusei sees the nonsense in the cafeteria as a sign that Gentarou’s a clown, but it’s actually a sign that his desire to make friends has had a positive impact on the student body, transforming isolated cliques and disaffected students into vital, engaged members of the student body; it’s heroism, not narcissism. Ryuusei sees fair-weather friendship in the KRC, but the viewer sees hard-won camaraderie and the intense bond of months in the trenches against the Zodiarts. (Kengo defends Gentarou from Ryuusei's criticism, albeit in a typically backhanded way!) Ryuusei sees Kengo as the lynchpin of Fourze’s effectiveness, but he misses the inherent value of JK, of Miu, of Tomoko. (Tomoko, naturally, does not miss the value of the new Black Kamen Rider, who is not as a gothic as she might hope, but I think there’s still something there for her.) It’s a Fourze episode where a dedicated viewer gets a completely different experience than Ryuusei, and that makes Ryuusei’s running commentary so much more enjoyable than it might ordinarily be. This isn’t the Motoyama arc where Gen and Yuuki are extra Gen and Yuuki in order to explain a negative reaction; this is Ryuusei coming into Act 2 and thinking it’s Act 1, which isn’t worth his time.

And then we get the Meteor action.

I really liked this, too? I like the Meteor suit a lot, and how it communicates different ideas than the Fourze suit. Fourze’s a space shuttle: travel, exploration, teamwork. Meteor’s the solar system: isolation, emptiness, coldness, but still something that can be bright and warm if you find the right parts. They each feel like parts of the same concept, even as they approach it from different angles and at different scales. Meteor’s physicality is nicely unique from Fourze’s, as folks pointed out previously. He’s Bruce Lee smoothness and style, as opposed to Fourze’s brash exuberance. It makes Meteor feel like he’s outclassing Fourze without really doing much, and that fits Ryuusei’s disdain for Gentarou perfectly. (There’s also the disco soundtrack to Ryuusei’s Henshin, and I’ve never really liked it. I can’t find a way that it fits him! Maybe eventually! But right now I don’t like it! My headcanon is that he also doesn’t like it, but Tachibana refuses to change it.)

The cliffhanger at the end? Also great! Meteor needs to find Aries, and Aries doesn’t exist yet, so he needs the various Zodiarts to evolve until one of them is Aries. It’s a personal mission, but not necessarily a heroic mission – it certainly looks like other students could be harmed if Lynx is powered-up and on the loose – and it nicely creates a break with the KRC. It’s directly opposing them in a way that feels more like an unfinished negotiation than anything intrinsic or immovable. (Kengo, mirroring Gentarou’s approach to the Switcher, just outright asks Meteor what he wants and why he’s doing what he’s doing, yielding immediate and tantalizing results. And to think, I once didn’t like Kengo!) It’s a philosophical and moral conundrum, and it’s incredibly fun to think about.

Just like this whole episode! I loved it, from front to back, without a single bum note. Unless you count that little disco rhythm from the Meteor Henshin!

[Androzani84]

So our new guy Ryusei breaks from the theme naming of the other protagonists (if he followed it, it would be some play on Hiroshi Tsukuba logically). And as pointed out last time, his forename literally translates as “meteor” (which no-one notices in universe due to them exclusively using other Japanese words for it, like “inseki” or “nagareboshi”.

And we also meet Tachibana, who is the show’s narrator as a character in universe. He originally had a different alias, but then the writers figured it would make a later reveal too obvious, so they went with another naming reference.

[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

(There’s also the disco soundtrack to Ryuusei’s Henshin, and I’ve never really liked it. I can’t find a way that it fits him! Maybe eventually! But right now I don’t like it! My headcanon is that he also doesn’t like it, but Tachibana refuses to change it.)

As well as Tachibana shouldn't! Meteor's belt looks like a disco ball, so it blasts disco music when he transforms! It may not help the covert agent thing, but the theming has gotta take priority sometimes, you know?

And Meteor's theming in general, I'm quite fond of. It's actually the one other thing I bothered to write something about in the middle of rewatching Fourze, which I think says a lot:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

I just got done rewatching Meteor's debut two-parter in Fourze, and the contrast between the two characters is another thing I feel the need to properly gush about. I've probably mentioned before how much I liked the whole era of shows with just two completely different Riders, and Meteor is a fantastic example of that. Literally everything about him flips Fourze's shticks on their head. A white Rider against a black one. A Rider representing manmade space stuff against one representing the stuff naturally in space. A clumsy Rider who relies on a huge arsenal of tools against a skilled one who needs only his bare hands to fight. A Rider who couldn't hide his emotions if he tried against one actively putting up a front when he isn't transformed.

...And probably some other things I'm not even immediately thinking of. Meteor is so good. This show is so good.

Like I mention a bit in there, I'm really fond of that run of secondary Riders to begin with -- guys like Accel and Birth too, who have to look like they belong in the same show as the first while also having a wildly different concept, as opposed to duos like Ghost and Specter, or Blade and Ch-- Garren, where part of what defines the secondary guy as being secondary is how similar they are instead.

Meteor though, he might be THE guy who goes the most out of his way to make literally everything about him as opposite as possible from the main guy? And it's not just his suit and his shticks, too, but even the whole character of Ryuusei and frankly, like you quickly realized watching this one, it just adds *so* much spice to the show in a super fun way. One of the things that makes it work especially well, and one of the reasons you can't not have the embarrassing disco belt, is that Meteor's coolness, in the full context of the kind of guy Ryuusei is, always seems just a little... tryhard, in a way that feels entirely deliberate on the part of the show? It's this gray area where you can buy into the dude's hype or not and the show still works either way.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

And we also meet Tachibana, who is the show?s narrator as a character in universe. He originally had a different alias, but then the writers figured it would make a later reveal too obvious, so they went with another naming reference.

But now it completely gives away that he's secretly the principal of the school!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

One of the things that makes it work especially well, and one of the reasons you can't not have the embarrassing disco belt, is that Meteor's coolness, in the full context of the kind of guy Ryuusei is, always seems just a little... tryhard, in a way that feels entirely deliberate on the part of the show?

The thing that makes Ryuusei work for me -- and hopefully continue to work for me this go around -- is that the actor nails the performative aspect of the character, which is incredibly hard to do. Not in the usual This Guy's A Liar thing, like the parts where Ryuusei chums it up with the KRC or Aw Shucks his way into saving Gen from Ohsugi, but the parts where no one else is watching and you can see in his eyes that he's being a little too cruel, a little too dismissive, and he doesn't like where he's ended up. Even when Ryuusei's being himself, you can tell that he's not being himself, and that's so much fun to watch on a pure acting level.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

As well as Tachibana shouldn't! Meteor's belt looks like a disco ball, so it blasts disco music when he transforms! It may not help the covert agent thing, but the theming has gotta take priority sometimes, you know?

I just started watching Episode 18, and there's a close-up on the Meteor Driver, and I never noticed this before, but the central ball is the projector at a planetarium. It's got all these little lenses, like you'd have to view constellations and the night sky!

(I... don't know why it makes disco music, but sometimes there are parties at planetariums, I guess?)

[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I just started watching Episode 18, and there's a close-up on the Meteor Driver, and I never noticed this before, but the central ball is the projector at a planetarium. It's got all these little lenses, like you'd have to view constellations and the night sky!

(I... don't know why it makes disco music, but sometimes there are parties at planetariums, I guess?)

Probably too expensive to do things properly and license some Pink Floyd.

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 18 - “THE GEN RYU BATTLE”



I’ve always liked the setup for Ryuusei’s role in the series, but mostly for how it deepens Gentarou’s character. We’ve seen Gen completely and utterly dedicated to befriending every single person he’s met, even if – especially if – they hate him. To Gentarou, disliking him is just the first step towards liking him, and people who dislike him are more interesting to get to know. (Also, most people dislike Gentarou as soon as they meet him, so it’s not like he’s got a lot of options to pass up haters.) Positioning the new character not as a new Kengo, someone who refuses to be friends with Gen, but as someone who too willingly wants to be friends, that’s really clever. Hearing Gen say that he can’t be friends with someone he can’t trust (and say it in such a heroic, wistful way) is a new side to his character. He isn’t (just) some gregarious and hot-tempered buffoon, he’s a guy that genuinely wants to get to know every person he meets, find what makes them unique and special, and celebrate that part of them. Ryu isn’t that guy to him for most of this episode, because he’s clearly not showing himself to Gen – too quick to smile, but in a way that never quite reaches his eyes; too obsequious; too desperate to be a part of a group he doesn’t even know yet – but, hilariously, Meteor is.

That’s the beat in Gen’s story I love the most from Fourze. He’d rather have an honest enemy than a fake friend. Meteor’s a danger to others and violently imposing his own sense of justice, but he’s 100% honest and forthright about it. He has passion and dedication, which is laudable; he has the strength of his convictions, which Gen can relate to. The specifics of what he’s doing is something Fourze has to oppose, but he still wants to find a way to make Meteor his friend. It’s not until Ryu punches him in the face that Gen can see some of what Ryu’s been hiding, and think that he can get that guy to open up at some point and be a real friend.

And, like, that’s the other thing about Ryu that’s a nice alternative to the more-obvious character type of A Guy Who Thinks Friendship Is Dumb: Ryu is doing everything he’s doing for friendship. He’s fighting the Horoscopes because they left his best friend in a coma. He’s letting the Zodiarts evolve until he can get at the one he needs to save his best friend. The circus of Amanogawa High is a distraction from the friendship he’s trying to sustain and revive. Like, he’s a good guy, Ryuusei. He’s a good friend, and a principled warrior, but narrowed down into a point of light, instead of a starry sky. Because he doesn’t have friends, he has a friend.

Which is the fun distinction through this episode, and it comes up right in the first scene. Both the KRC and Meteor are pursuing Justice, but they happen to define that differently. It’s the same thing with friendship, and we see that through Ryu’s flashbacks, Gen’s monologues about the Club, and Fourze’s surrender to save JK from last time. Ryu and Gen would both do whatever they have to do to protect their friends; the problem is that Gen has way more friends than Ryu. Ryu has one guy he needs to save, so everyone else is expendable. Gen has an entire school full of friends, so no one’s expendable. The tension there, as they each try to follow the north star of their friendship, is such a fun engine for this story.

Which was overall another winner! The main thing that didn’t work for me was sending Sonoda to the Dark Nebula, which reeks of This Actor Wasn’t Working Out. Sonoda’s presence in the show was nothing for a while, then something for a couple episodes, then not much for another couple episodes, and now she’s whisked away without really having an impact on the KRC with her identity. It’s like the show just gave up on her, and I can’t be too mad about that, because I never cared about her to begin with. (She was mostly there to be creeped on by Ohsugi, and now with her gone he’s a weirdly nihilistic clown, and that’s at least more socially-agreeable?)

But the Meteor stuff continues to be great, and I like the duality of telling this story about honesty, trust, and friendship over both the Teen Dramedy and Tokusatsu parts of the show. This is basically what I think about when I think about Kamen Rider Fourze!

[Androzani84]

Tomoko: Kamen Riders are supposed to be heroes of justice.

Toei since 2001 (at most, 1988): It’s funny you think you can dictate that

[Switchblade]

So, I'm going to start with a realization that I had watching these episodes after seeing the comment about the music Ryusei's belt makes: he literally transforms into a disco ball. I love that both for him and for myself as the viewer.

There's a moment in 18 where Tomoko breaks up the fight between Fourze and Meteor by shouting that this isn't how Kamen Riders act that always, without fail, makes me think "Oh honey, you didn't watch Kabuto."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Fourze 17-18

Meteor, ready? Okay, Meteor!

And now the gang really is all here with the arrival of Ryusei Sakuta. Ryusei got a lot of focus in this arc, almost taking over the entire story from Gentaro. It's a good way to bring in the character, but it feels a little weird getting such an abrupt switch in focus (especially in 17; 18 felt more like normal Fourze). I'm not sure if the show was playing up the differences in the characters or what, but Gentaro felt a little extra goofy at first. I like that he saw through Ryusei's friendly act, though. He didn't piece together the whole "new Rider and new classmate show up at the exact same time" thing, but no one else did so I can't fault him for that. Gentaro really strikes me as, in D&D terms, a high WIS, low INT character. He can be really perceptive about people, but is still kind of a dumbass a lot of the time.

I remember eventually getting tired of Ryusei pretending not toe be Meteor, so we'll see how that goes this time. I did like that he at least partially explained why he has a different goal thant Gentaro and how Tomoko called him out for trying to fight Gentaro, though. It felt like a direct slap in the face to all of the times that Heisei Riders ended up fighting each other.

Finally, we have the fairly abrupt end of Sonoda's story as she gets sucked into a wormhole, never to return. I'm still not sure how I feel about that, but it's definitely hard not to argue that she got way less interesting as a villain after her identity was compromised. Also, Ohsugi is going to start being way less creepy now, which is a big plus.

Has Yuki gone crazy yet? No. Honestly, she was barely even in this arc. She was less sidelined than most of the others, but anyone who wasn't Gentaro or Ryusei was mostly overlooked this time.

I still think the POV shift to Ryusei makes these episodes one of the more interesting introductions for the secondary Rider (especially during this "there are only two Riders" phase of the Neo Heisei era). We usually get to see the existing cast reacting to the new arrival more than the other way around, but this is framed far more from Ryusei's perspective, giving us a greater understanding of both who he is and why he's such a dick. It also adds a bunch of dramatic irony to his interactions with Gentarou since we, as the audience, know a lot more about what's going on than he does (and not just about basic math and world history this time). Part of me wants to think that he figures out who Meteor really is after Ryusei punches him, but I'm pretty sure the show directly refutes that idea after this.