[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 07 - “A REALLY CRUEL KING”

The bulk of the cast is off doing a low-stakes Breakfast Club, so lemme first talk about the bit with JK and Miu – my least-favorite KRC member teaming with my (current?) favorite KRC member. It’s incredibly fun, and a great early example of the toolbox this show has at its disposal. Miu’s the hardest working member of the club, and JK’s sort of got nothing else going on (see last episode’s nearly-fatal abandonment!), so while the rest of the cast is stuck in a John Hughes homage, Miu and JK have to handle the various superhero confrontations and investigations. Really think about that for a second: the self-centered party animal and the terrifyingly-motivated princess are responsible for the main tokusatsu storytelling for this episode. But, it works, and it works great. Just seeing Miu try to tell off a dog-shaped cosmic monstrosity before JK lets his unwavering self-preservation wind things down to a more survivable level is worth the price of admission, but the two of them genuinely carry the connective tissue necessary to keep this thing in the realm of Action/Adventure through multiple scenes. And this is the most random possible combination of club members!

As Miu said, JK's advantage for the club is about how broad his connection is, he knows everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Meanwhile the remaining active KRC members – Gentarou, Kengo, and Yuuki – are forced to spend a Sunday doing remedial work alongside a scene-stealing Tomoko and a permanently-enraged Shun. We’re in a story that’s trying to reveal what makes Shun tick so that the audience and the KRC members can try to see him with a little more empathy, so of course Shun is fighting that tooth and nail through his performance. He’s traded Miu for Reiko after Miu expresses interests he doesn’t like (as well as not making him the center of her world), and he views the world as his birthright, thanks to his supportive but enabling father. The disobedient chaos and easy charm of the KRC drives him up the wall, and he becomes more and more unhinged until a climactic sequence where he throws a football at Fourze’s head and basically screams NNNEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDDDSSSSS until the screen says To Be Continued. He’s angry and entitled, for the whole episode.

Despite Kengo being cold, Kengo has standards where he feels Shun is too much of an asshole in his eyes. Like how Ren called out Kitaoka in Ryuki for being the worst kind of person (despite best lawyer). Guess it can seem like a coincidence again after how both Kengo and Miu discarded gifts from others, Shun's philosophy is also about taking advantage of others, like JK before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Which is maybe the only slightly bum note? Maybe? Shun’s adamant that things work out the way he wants them to, but we’re kind of missing the psychology that explains why he’s losing his mind over Kengo going off to fight a dog-shaped cosmic monstrosity in a suit of power armor. (That’s, like, in one of the main equipment sheds! Have other students seen this thing behind racks of athletic gear and next to the groundskeeping machinery? Is anyone asking questions about why a high school has a mech?) Shun is going bonkers in this episode, and what we’re told is clearly half the story, so we’re just randomly watching him be more of a disciplinarian than the actual teacher, who wanders off constantly. It’s antagonism that’s waiting for explanation, beyond just Shun Is Mean, and it makes Shun’s scenes not as effective as they could’ve been.

As Androzani said, the teacher was Kagawa in Ryuki. Kagawa in Ryuki was an university professor as well. I guess Gentaro does fit being a delinquent despite being a nice guy, as he did constantly break rules, like not wearing an uniform or wandering off constantly. He's also a student with bad grades, which in teacher's eyes, means being naughty. And to outsiders, Gentaro would be the one looking problematic for picking up a fight with Shun, despite Shun being the one who provoked him.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

True that people are likely to care more about their friends than those outside their circle. Bullies' friends are often other bullies though, which becomes an echochamber to support their bullying behavior. Miu is friends with Jun though, who is just a happy person who loves to eat, so I think we can better perceive people by observing the company they keep.

And I guess this applies more as I reach ep. 7, it's seen that Shun and his father are loving and supporting of each other, but this'd be also about screwing over anyone that isn't them. In my case though, personal bully was friends with the person who accepts everyone and isn't enemies with anyone. I'm friends with them as well, but have a hard time hanging out as the bully was always present. Basically any group has bullies that prevents hanging out despite me being ok or friends with the ones that aren't nasty there individually.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

For guys like Heure, Horobi and Lakia, we get to see how they became like that, which presents the possibility to help them see the error of their ways. JK's introduction is concerning, as the show leaves it to the imagination to figure out why he's like that, even if he's not the life-threatening type. Turns out he is actually a good person after all, but the uncertainty is what makes it problematic until we see his reassuring helpful contributions to KRC in the following episodes.

True, but I guess as I said in my above comment, I feel Gentaro's ideal can be stronger to be applied on someone that seems thriving in JK about dog eat dog environment, rather than if it's done on someone who has been visibly a victim and resorts to taking advantage of others because others did it first, as it may have the audience view them as innocent and only blame whole society/their so-called friends that time.