[Androzani84]

My most vivid memory of this last episode is Gamou telling the seemingly defeated heroes to come and listen to his big evil speech… and try the soup on the menu.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

My most vivid memory of this last episode is Gamou telling the seemingly defeated heroes to come and listen to his big evil speech? and try the soup on the menu.

It seemed like a pretty good last meal!

[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Otherwise, after Ran got some tolerable showing before, this may re-ignite the hatedom for her for being short-sighted to take the Switch to save Haru without a plan, handing herself over to Gamou's plan, while others (an athlete in Shun and a girl in Miu being another one who got thrown by her) including Haru himself is screaming at her not to do it. I don't know about Gamou not caring about Hayami, as for below, Tendou looks out for people like Kagami while dismissing friendship.

For Ran to flip Shun like that though, she could succeed him as the future Power Dizer pilot. While her action was brash and ironically about Protecting Haru, a flaw she'd acknowledged, I personally wouldn't say this is on the same or worse level as before, like, Haru did actually need to be protected this time, as he was still in recovery. Ran probably felt like she needed to atone for driving him to that point of vulnerability in the first place, even though she's too young and dumb to help like she wanted. Wouldn't be the first time a KRC member did something detrimental to the team.

Regarding your Gamou and Tendo comparison, while they both have ambitions to be an ultimate example to others and are called the sun, Tendo is a true hero and wouldn't expect his satellites to sacrifice themselves for him. When he scorches, it's only when he knows somebody's ozone layer is strong enough to take it, which makes it a sign of his respect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 47 - ?BEST FRIENDS PART WAYS?

I wanna talk about the Rabbit Hatch part first; not because it?s the best part (it isn?t), but because I like how it lets the other KRC members chime in on a plot that that not only doesn?t include them, but doesn?t really require them.

As a fan of the Rabbit Hatch, it certainly hurts to see it destroyed. A moon base isn't the kind of thing you can just rebuild when you no longer have a dimensional portal to get there. I'd say inviting Hayami was a terrible idea, but then, it was around that time that his Eye of Laplace had advanced enough to track other Horoscopes, which would include Gemini and Pisces, so maybe Rabbit Hatch would've been compromised no matter what. Don't even need to know where to find the gate when Tatsugami can use Virgo for teleportation.

Of course, Rabbit Hatch's destruction is secondary to what happened to Kengo, dying on the moon just like his father did, just like he had feared back in Episode 12, but this time he faced it with the conviction he gained from his friends. Like his father who entrusted his mission to him, he died confident in the belief that their mission would be continued by those who lived after him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 48 - ?THE GALAXY OF YOUTH?

Kengo?s letter was very sweet, even if you knew that Kengo would 10000000% be appearing again in the episode. (I once again forgot how: Gamou saved him via Aquarius?s power, and Kengo just woke up at home and didn?t tell anyone.) I like the contents of the letter, and how it addressed all of the characters, even the ones you don?t associate with Kengo. I like him saying that the show forgot to do a major Kengo/Ryuusei story, which is a wasted opportunity; also, I think he outed JK? I like that he used his words from beyond the grave to rip on Yuuki?s normally-atrocious cooking. I like that it?s Kengo getting the final word on what everyone means to the show, because Kengo fought the hardest of anyone to become the guy who could get the final word on what everyone means to the show ? his journey was the longest, and the hardest, and ended the saddest, because of what the KRC represented to him. I like him coming back in a redo of Episode 1, chiding Gentarou for having the gall to throw away a letter that someone put their heart into, because symmetry is always nice in a finale.

The Kengo letter scene is one that hits me everytime. While the old Kengo was somebody who cynically looked down on the idea that people could change or be more than what they appeared on the surface, now he's the one who posthumously convinces Gentarou to not give up on Gamou, which totally shows how much Kengo changed thanks to the friendship of KRC and how much he ended up meaning to them despite his cold exterior. Even though he's not Gentarou, the heart of the team, or Miu, the reliable chairman/ex-president, the KRC functionally had always revolved around Kengo in a way that mattered beyond what he could initially see. Not only the basic good of saving the world from evil destruction by Dark Nebula (which is real!), but also contributing to the future prosperity of humanity, not advancement for its own sake, but rather as a way to move forward together. I'm glad he revived, so he could move forward with them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Like I hadn't really been giving it the space in my mind it deserved, but all of a sudden, yeah, that whole Leo/Meteor rivalry really had a great payoff, didn't it? This show had a really great payoff.

Maybe the reason why this scene might get overlooked is due to it occurring in the same space as Fourze VS Sagittarius, but hey, you know I'm a Ryusei fan, so of course I was satisfied with his climactic moment. I kind of forgot to talk more about Tatsugami like I said I was going to, like how his obsession with Gamou led him to lose his cool in the Aquarius arc, not wanting others like Gentarou to steal his special spot beside him. Ryusei was like that once, when he saw a threat to his mission to save Jirou. Meteor VS Leo works for how Leo is a symbol of Meteor's biggest failure, so Meteor's victory is a symbol of his strength in how he overcame his past self to become a true Kamen Rider who fights for justice. I totally love that payoff!

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Even though he's not Gentarou, the heart of the team, or Miu, the reliable chairman/ex-president, the KRC functionally had always revolved around Kengo in a way that mattered beyond what he could initially see.

Yeah, I like that Kengo is basically the proof-of-concept for the KRC -- the first friend Gentarou tried to make when he came to AGHS (Yuuki doesn't count, they were already friends) and the last one in the KRC to shake his hand in friendship. Kengo's living (oops!) proof that Gentarou can get through to anyone if he believes in them, and he shouldn't forget that just because Gamou, y'know, executed him on the moon. Kengo's the best guy to tell Gentarou that he can make friends with anyone, because basically no one wanted to make friends with Kengo, and Kengo sneered at the concept of friendship, but Kengo died being a friend to the entire world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Not only the basic good of saving the world from evil destruction by Dark Nebula (which is real!)

Allegedly! We never saw what was on the other side of that portal! For all we know, the Presenter is in, like, Iowa. Maybe Gamou was blowing up Japan just to go to Iowa!

[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 48 - “THE GALAXY OF YOUTH”\

Any finale that tries to put the villain into an emotional context with the rest of the cast is a winner for me, and Fourze’s maybe the best example. (Also: Saber, Ghost, Drive, maybe Kiva if you’re feeling generous.) Gamou was part of the same system as the kids, doing his part in their story, and that’s lovely to acknowledge. For all the ways the Zodiarts were using the KRC to power up, the KRC were learning and growing because of the Zodiarts. Everyone’s in the same space (sorry) in high school, for good or ill, and the struggles and conflicts help us learn who we want to be, and how we want to become that person. Gamou wasn’t some outside force of evil, he was a guy who helped them as part of their daily lives, even as he was doing it for the wrong reasons. From a top-level view, he was the leader of a celestial death cult that preyed on the youth entrusted to him, in order to reach the stars by obliterating a nation; from the KRC’s view, he was a misguided man who couldn’t see the value in the community his experiment accidentally fostered. The idea of imparting the same grace and forgiveness that the KRC would give to a student to the Chairman of the school, that’s something special.

Finally the AGHS as something led by Gamou as well as Gamou's motivation related to it is acknowledged here. Gamou thinks what would be good for humanity is them becoming Zodiarts, as he was baffled that Ran would discard her Zodiart power with the human shell before. Like Orphnochs in Smart Brain before, Gamou was still a social darwinist and thinks lowly of regular humans, so he disregards achievements that are done as humans like what the students can do due to studying there, but the KRC are convincing him about human potential, so that humans are good enough as what they're, with Gamou also realizing that forcing evolution can be bad with his body overloading at the end, again, like how Orphnochs have short lifespan. If Gamou has realized the errors of his ways by knowing that humans are fine enough as they're, and that he suffers the consequences of his evolution, what'd be the reason for Gamou to still want to see the Presenters via the KRC? He wanted to visit the Presenters to force evolution on humanity, which plan is abandoned now, settling to follow Rokuro's mindset in passing their creations to the next generation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Kengo’s letter was very sweet, even if you knew that Kengo would 10000000% be appearing again in the episode. (I once again forgot how: Gamou saved him via Aquarius’s power, and Kengo just woke up at home and didn’t tell anyone.) I like the contents of the letter, and how it addressed all of the characters, even the ones you don’t associate with Kengo. I like him saying that the show forgot to do a major Kengo/Ryuusei story, which is a wasted opportunity; also, I think he outed JK? I like that he used his words from beyond the grave to rip on Yuuki’s normally-atrocious cooking. I like that it’s Kengo getting the final word on what everyone means to the show, because Kengo fought the hardest of anyone to become the guy who could get the final word on what everyone means to the show – his journey was the longest, and the hardest, and ended the saddest, because of what the KRC represented to him. I like him coming back in a redo of Episode 1, chiding Gentarou for having the gall to throw away a letter that someone put their heart into, because symmetry is always nice in a finale.

Dunno if it's about different sub, but in mine, he talked about JK where both of them hide their true feelings, but convinces JK that he's strong enough? Otherwise, guess it also can happen that, while usually, the main Riders are the moral compasses of the others, like how Gentaro convinces others to bury the hatchet with Ryusei, with Kengo being the one who got the angriest at Ryusei for his murder, here, Kengo convinces the KRC to not hate Gamou, his own murderer, while still stopping him, while also being the one to stop Gentaro for throwing his letter later. This should be clearly a change for Kengo character, of which you'd like if the characters stay true to their original character, for being influenced by the main Rider. Though, Gamou was never the utterly depraved type of villain (e.g. Isaka, Dr. Maki, Gai, Glion), which can be easy and expected for him to make peace with the main cast and got redemption.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The middle of the episode… again, it didn’t get in the way. Fourze was about kids and school and friendship, sure, but it was equally about the Sakamoto Stunt Show Spectacular, so we get some explosions and sick bike jumps at Kamen Rider Quarry, plus all the major upgrade suits for Fourze and Meteor. It’s a fight that doesn’t mean a ton to me story-wise – trying to give Meteor a moral victory over Leo in a final speech felt forced, but whatever – but it genuinely wouldn’t feel like the end of Fourze without a half-dozen form changes and too many explosions. I think of it as ceremonial, befitting the graduation theme.

I do feel that, as usual I guess for Fourze or many Kamen Rider series, the final fight is lacking, and though it may be satisfying for some, it doesn't feel much of a payoff for how early on, everyone was worried about how Gamou can be stopped, but the final fight just have both Leo and Sagitarius, who were completely invincible before (with Leo being able to beat both Fourze and Meteor in their final forms), got beaten straight up like regular MOTW by both Meteor and Fourze, even if there's a moral victory for Meteor in him having a drive to survive for his friends unlike Leo who is an empty shell other than serving Gamou. It's only the movies that put good showings for Fourze in his multiple Switch uses against Dustards, when it should be shown against the final boss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Regarding your Gamou and Tendo comparison, while they both have ambitions to be an ultimate example to others and are called the sun, Tendo is a true hero and wouldn't expect his satellites to sacrifice themselves for him. When he scorches, it's only when he knows somebody's ozone layer is strong enough to take it, which makes it a sign of his respect.

You aren't viewing Tsukasa the same way as this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

As a fan of the Rabbit Hatch, it certainly hurts to see it destroyed. A moon base isn't the kind of thing you can just rebuild when you no longer have a dimensional portal to get there. I'd say inviting Hayami was a terrible idea, but then, it was around that time that his Eye of Laplace had advanced enough to track other Horoscopes, which would include Gemini and Pisces, so maybe Rabbit Hatch would've been compromised no matter what. Don't even need to know where to find the gate when Tatsugami can use Virgo for teleportation.

Which is why, it's still unknown that what are the heroes supposed to do against villains who seem to reform, regardless if it's genuine or not, where it'd be inherently risky, thus it's better to just ditch them as the usually safest route. And that, while you might be biased for Gentaro's case, if it's not Gentaro doing this, do-gooder characters would be mocked and criticized as being naive and a proof that virtue is weakness if Gentaro and Hayami stuff happens to them.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Like Orphnochs in Smart Brain before, Gamou was still a social darwinist and thinks lowly of regular humans, so he disregards achievements that are done as humans like what the students can do due to studying there, but the KRC are convincing him about human potential, so that humans are good enough as what they're, with Gamou also realizing that forcing evolution can be bad with his body overloading at the end, again, like how Orphnochs have short lifespan.

Sure, but it's also a metaphor for how adults can ignore the potential and drive of kids because they're just kids, despite that formative period being something every adult has experienced; Gamou thinks the dreams of the KRC are childish, but it's that same type of childish dream that set him on his path in the first place.

[Switchblade]

Fourze's finale is always a weird one for me. I didn't care for the emotional final showdown with Gamou on my first viewing because I was wrong. A lot of it worked better the second time around and most of my opinions on it still hold true after time three. I still have some issues with it, though, and a lot of them are because I just cannot divorce Fourze from its context. The one-on-one between Gantarou and Gamou? Fantastic. The other big action sequence? Very familiar to someone who watched Power Rangers during the Disney era and was thereby exposed to dozens of action sequences involving slow motion explosions and motorcycles. Everything about Kengo's death and return? See below. This was my third year of watching the shows as they aired and this finale, in particular, is the moment when I started to become very aware of how formulaic Kamen Rider was at the time. This would become more of an issue during Wizard, but it absolutely started here.

On the upside, it was great to see Ran and Haru properly included with the KRC in the final group shot. Also love that Haruto cameo at the end (I like to think that Shun is still fruitlessly pursuing Miu now, 14 years later, and it's really weirding out her husband and their kids).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Fourze 47-48

Not technically the end of my rewatch - still have a movie and a cameo to go - but the end of the main series, at least.

For all that they feel like a last minute addition of some backstory, I do like the idea behind the Presenters: a highly evolved alien intelligence that reaches out to other lifeforms via gaudy plastic doodads in order to learn more about the universe. It's a neat concept and it's generally execute well, although I wish it had been brought up at least a little earlier.

The show ends with two major emotional story beats. One of them works for me, other one not so much.

I like how Gentarou defeats Gamou. I'm not sure if I did so much at the time, but going back there's nothing more fitting than for Gentarou to defeat the villain by befriending him. The mini graduation ceremony/beatdown was a good scene that worked so well that even the Rider Girls couldn't ruin it with their bland ballad from the prom episode. I really did feel for Gamou at the end, realizing that he was misguided and that he had inadvertently created a much stronger legacy. It was touching and the show didn't try to oversell it. I used to hate a lot on this ending, but I actually liked it a lot more on a repeat viewing.

Now on the topic of overselling, we get to the other emotional aspect: the death of Kengo. Pretty much everything about Kengo's arc has never worked for me. Obviously it's not going to work now, already knowing how it's going to end, but it didn't work on the first watch either. Sota Fukushi can ugly cry with the best of them, but the show went way too hard into overplaying Kengo's departure and it just fell flat for me as a result. And then the death itself, that part never really affected me. Kengo, Fourze's non-human friend and main support partner, died just a year after the death of Ankh, OOO's non-human friend and main support partner. And Ankh's death, in turn, came a year after the death of Philip, W's non-human friend and main support partner. Philip's death hit me really hard; I actively cried at that scene. Ankh's death hit me hard, especially since there was no immediate reversal. By the time we got to Kengo, all the show got out of me was a "seriously, are we really doing this again?" Hell, if you want a blast from the past, I posted this in the discussion thread for episode 5 of Wizard:

[Inserted in the original post is a quote wherein I am half right about an event from the end of Kamen Rider Wizard]

So yeah, Kengo's death felt like a rerun at the time and it still feels like one now. I know other people find it way more affecting, but for me it's always just an example of the iron grip that status quo had on early-10s Kamen Rider.

I do like the ending overall, though. It's not the strongest in the franchise's history, but it ends in a way that's very uniquely Fourze (when it's not straight ripping off W).

Oh, and before I forget, there is some very Koichi Sakamoto motorcycle jumping in slow motion in front of explosions in episode 48. I got some very bad Kalish-era Power Rangers flashbacks during that scene.

Up next, we jump ahead a few months to five years in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

As a fan of the Rabbit Hatch, it certainly hurts to see it destroyed. A moon base isn't the kind of thing you can just rebuild when you no longer have a dimensional portal to get there.

As someone whose gateway to tokusatsu was Power Rangers, I always think it's fun to see a good end-of-season base destruction. That's incredibly rare in Kamen Rider, too, so I always have fun with this part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Allegedly! We never saw what was on the other side of that portal! For all we know, the Presenter is in, like, Iowa. Maybe Gamou was blowing up Japan just to go to Iowa!

As a lifelong resident, I promise you this place is not worth blowing up Japan to come visit, even back in 2012 before the drinking water was carcinogenic.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

On the upside, it was great to see Ran and Haru properly included with the KRC in the final group shot.

It was nice of the KRC to formally induct Ran in by using Gamou's need for validation and gratitude against, in the style of aikido. I hope she appreciated the gesture!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

As a lifelong resident, I promise you this place is not worth blowing up Japan to come visit, even back in 2012 before the drinking water was carcinogenic.

Man, you really owe Kengo for averting Gamou's first attempt to visit Iowa, then! Show some of that KRC gratitude to your enemy!

[Kamen Rider Die]

SERIES WRAP-UP



I feel like talking about this show is really just talking about the characters, maybe more so than any show outside of Saber. The cast is massive, and… like, what is high school except the kids you went to school with, the teachers you had, and the administrators who disregarded your individuality in their pursuit of cosmic ascension? Because of that, as teased/threatened near the beginning of this thread, I am doing my definitive*, unchanging, deeply considered, locked-in POWER RANKING for the Kamen Rider Club. And we’re doing it in countdown order, to make it extra thematic:

*for the duration of this post only, subject to change afterwards

NOT RANKED: THE HOROSCOPES



Considering how the show massively ramps up the Horoscopes in the back half, it felt weird to not include them, even if as a group I don’t really love them enough to consider them my favorite characters, collectively or individually. You can kind of see the show wincing at the We Have Twelve Lieutenants thing as the series goes on, seemingly learning nothing since the time Ryuki was on the air. We get Scorpion for a long time, then Libra for a slight overlap and then a long time, then Cancer and Virgo and Leo for a while, and then nearly everyone else sort of gets crammed into a series of quick two-part stories, give or take a Pisces. As much as they seemed like a mirror to the KRC by design, they’re too dispersed and siloed to feel like a group; they’re just more powerful Zodiarts for a bunch of the time, and then a couple extra guys that have a connection to the team. There’s a thematic arrangement to them as the Anti-KRC, but I don’t know that they have enough interplay as a whole team to actually deliver on that potential.

But if we’re talking about just the main ‘Scopes – Sagittarius, Virgo, Leo, Libra – I think they worked pretty well. The Sagittarius/Virgo thing of letting the conflict power itself, where winning and losing are both delivering the same step along a path, is one of my favorite stratagems, and one we’ll be revisiting in the very next Kamen Rider series. Having the school’s hierarchy be the main threat, especially in the Scorpion/Libra/Sagittarius period, is a perfect scale of threat for a bunch of schoolkids. I don’t usually think too much about villain groups, but I like this one for Fourze. I didn’t like how they were paced, and I think they left a lot of meat on the bone for that result, but in general they worked okay.

9: JK



Someone’s got to be the least-loved member of any group, and for me and the KRC, it’s JK. Partly, it’s an Embarrassment Of Riches thing, where JK would probably be one of my favorites in a show with a less-accomplished ensemble. (He would’ve killed on Zi-O!) JK’s couple of spotlight episodes were thoughtful and nuanced, and his little bits of big-hearted cowardice added a fun element to rowdy fight scenes. I like JK, despite ranking him so low.

But he’s a character that the show frequently neglected to utilize – there’re at least a couple two-parters where he’s chilling out with Miu and Shun, despite every single other Amanogawa High student being involved in the main plot. He’s useful for maybe eight episodes in the beginning, helping Gentarou (and the viewer) navigate the social stratas of AGHS, but once the full team is assembled and Meteor is streaking in, JK just doesn’t have a place to exist, or a role to play – he’s just around, and you can tell that no one on the production staff figured out what his next move should be. I like him, and I think he has potential, but he’s clearly the character that got most usurped by Ryuusei and the Horoscopes.

8: Ryuusei



Speaking of! Ryuusei, now and forever, not my guy.

After hearing plenty from Meteor fans, I will readily and wholeheartedly acknowledge that Meteor isn’t a bad character, or has a mistake made in his storytelling, but there’s just a vibe to him that doesn’t work for me. After thinking on it for a bit, I’ve come up with two reasons: one that’s fairly grounded in the text, and one that people are probably going to find rude and mean-spirited.

The one in the text… like, it’s Ryuusei’s demeanor, and how it fits into the final third of the show? He’s the guy that Doesn’t Want To Be There, and I never really enjoy watching that long-term. (I dug some of the comedic aspects to Ryuusei’s ruse in the beginning, but it did not last long.) Even after he sheds his deception and fully joins the KRC as Gentarou’s friend, he’s always grumpy, and an ill-fit for a collection of outgoing weirdos. I get that that’s the point, but I don’t have to like watching it. I don’t like that guy! Go back to your old school already!

The other reason is so dumb. Basically, I feel like Ryo Yoshizawa – much like his character – does not want to be there.

While the non-canon Quizzes and Net Movies gave me a deeper appreciation for the actors behind characters like Kengo and Shun, every time Ryuusei shows up there’s this, like, wave of discomfort coming off of him. Watching him try and host the Quizzes made my skin crawl. I am basing this on nothing more than vibes – I haven’t read an interview with Yoshizawa, you don’t gotta love a show to do a great job on it, and I don’t know if maybe Miu hated this show with the fire of a thousand suns – but the more I saw of him, the more I was bringing that dislike back into the show. It’s petty, and it’s projecting, but it’s seriously how I took this guy over the course of the series. Not my guy!

That said, he ranks higher than JK just out of basic narrative utility – he’s the Secondary Rider, so the show never loses track of him, or forgets what he’s there to accomplish. His arc is basically the middle-third of the series, and even in the aftermath of it he’s got plenty to add to the superheroic side of things. He’s valuable, even to someone like me who isn’t craving additional minutes of screentime for him.

7: Shun



Arguably less notable than JK in the long run – once Meteor renders the Power Dizer irrelevant, Shun’s basically just Miu’s accessory – but a combination of fun initial arc (he tackles Fourze!!!), the unbeatable conception of “sweetheart himbo that’s colossally full of himself”, and proximity to Miu render him a fairly likable member of the KRC, even at his least essential. (More or less once he and Miu graduate.)

But the thing that made Shun so fun for me this time is exactly the same thing that made me like Ryuusei less this time – he’s so good in the ancillary, non-canon content! This guy is completely fine playing the entertaining buffoon, because he is an entertaining buffoon; there are hard edits in the Quizzes where the producers had to drop some weird, unfunny gag or bit that Shun just decided to do. It’s charming and dopey, which is 100% Shun.

6: Ohsugi



I know. I know! I still find the Scorpion-era Ohsugi to be both repellent and nearly anti-comedy in his leering, obsessive workplace harassment. But there’s a stretch of this show – post-Scorpion, pre-summer movie – where Ohsugi is such a reliable burst of goofy energy, and the secret ingredient to the KRC as a school-adjacent concept, that I totally get why they bring him back more often as a Legend Rider(-friend) than any other character on the show. He grounds the KRC back into the school ecosystem, and having to navigate his lack of genre savvy is always good for a laugh.

He also… man, there are some incredibly sweet moments of drama when Ohsugi drops the clown act and implores these kids to come back safe and sound from one of their world-saving missions, and it, again, grounds the show into a world with actual normal parents and guardians, to reinforce that these are still children, and they shouldn’t have to deal with any of this nonsense. Ohsugi is a crucial additional viewpoint for a show that lacks much sense (especially late in the run) of how the adults of Amanogawa might view the KRC, and he gets some good bursts of comedy and drama.

(But, man, those Sonoda episodes! Horrifying! In poor taste 15 years ago, and did not age well!)

5: Yuuki



Yuuki’s like an oscillating wave with Ohsugi, where her best period is his weakest, and her prominence is matched with his irrelevance, and vice versa. (This show is sort of not great on a series level with juggling its massive ensemble!) Yuuki starts off incredibly strong, with a flustered but forthright attitude that’s capable of acting as the interpreter between Gentarou’s boisterous lack of forethought and Kengo’s grumpy overcaution. She’s an integral part of the core dynamic of the show; if Gentarou’s the heart and Kengo is the brain, then Yuuki is the spirit. The KRC fundamentally doesn’t exist without Yuuki as one of its founders. I love this version of the character enough to rank her this high based on those episodes alone.

But that’s Act 1 Yuuki – it’s in Act 2 and Act 3 that the wheels start to come off.

Act 2, the post-winter movie version, is still plenty likable, even if her counseling attributes go underutilized in a group full of so many different personalities. Yuuki is great with Kengo and Gentarou, but she becomes more of a – if you’ll pardon the expression – space cadet once the KRC ramps up to full power. She’s more comedy relief, and borderline-parodic when asked to take things serious and/or sad. (She does this Sad Cartoon Animal thing when she’s supposed to be reacting to most serious developments, and it’s… a choice.) When given something related to Gentarou or Kengo, her Act 2 stuff still works; when given something to do in the larger group or story, she’s the new Ohsugi (derogatory).

But, boy, Act 3 Yuuki! Not my favorite! Definitely too broad in her performance, and her Gemini spotlight story was one that I found to be a huge misfire, narratively. I think she gets it back in the finale, but there’s a string of episodes here – Aquarius, Gemini – that really tainted my opinion of Yuuki.

Real good to start, though!

4: Kengo



Kengo is the character I most came around on with this rewatch. I never really liked him on my initial view, but I’m struggling to remember why. I think I just found him too petulant and whiny in the beginning, or just not a great actor. (I still think he’s… solid, maybe not the guy in the cast you see having a long and celebrated career in the industry.)

So imagine my surprise on this rewatch when the Kengo/Gentarou dynamic immediately locked in for me, providing the nucleus around which the entire show orbited. I know I just said that the KRC couldn’t exist without Yuuki, but that’s only because she facilitated the epic and heartwarming friendship between Gentarou and Kengo. It’s a bond that never feels like a foregone conclusion, or permanently resolved – every time Kengo loses his shit at some insane assertion from Gentarou re: Making Friends, I bought the tension and friction that kept them trying to understand each other, over and over, all season long, because that’s what friendship is. Without Kengo’s arc, you’ve got no show. The Ryuusei stuff doesn’t work without Kengo’s story to provide a template that Meteor could play off of; the Gamou stuff doesn’t work without Kengo’s example; the friendship between Gen and Kengo is the show.

And I think Kengo carries his side of things beautifully? The high point for me (non-47/48 category) has to be Cosmic States, where Kengo has to devise and fulfill a Gentarou plan to revive Gentarou, and the ability for Kengo to do that was such a brilliant example of how these two knuckleheads impacted each other for the better. If I like Fourze, it’s because of this friendship.

3: Gentarou



And yet, for all the ways Kengo changes from being Gentarou’s friend, I like that Gentarou himself doesn’t fundamentally change between Episode 1 and Episode 48. He’s tested, and he refines his worldview, but his methodology and goals are consistent throughout. Because Gen’s role in the story isn’t to change, but to facilitate the change in others.

Gentarou is high school.

He’s the constant that guides others, brings them together, and helps them become the best versions of themselves through attention and support. He’s unwavering, and he doesn’t change along with the characters. He’s reliable and dependable and lots of other ables (to quote Dave Lister), and that’s the perfect lead Rider for this show. Not every show needs the lead Rider to be a POV character that resolves their own traumas or learns something new about themselves. (I love that there’s literally one mention of Gen’s parents’ having a mysterious job before their mysterious death, and it never comes up again, and Gen is smiling the whole time he recounts this part of his past.) There are shows like Gavv and Gotchard that are all about growing up and figuring out your shit, as seen through the lens of the title character; then there are shows like Kabuto, or Geats, or Fourze, where the title Rider is one that largely exists as a port in a storm, an idealized figure that we can trust to show us the way forward. Gen was that Rider, despite his youth and naivete. He was steady, and an exemplar of the power of friendship. He didn’t need to change or grow, because he was more concerned about making sure all of his friends got the chance to change and grow. That’s a hero.

2: Tomoko



I wish I had something deep to say about Tomoko, but I just think she’s adorable. I enjoyed everything that actor did, even if 90% of it is just categorized in my brain as Is Adorable. In any other year, Tomoko is the best character for being the best Amazon in going-on 55 years of Kamen Rider history, and then being the most adorable member of the KRC.

1: Miu



But we are in the year 2026, and I just finished rewatching the Kamen Rider Fourze series, and Miu is my favorite character.

It’s such a fun character, the haughty mean girl who basically becomes the leader of a superhero team through her indomitable will and unshakable self-belief, while reframing her haughtiness as hard-earned pride, and her meanness as motivating steel. Whenever the show needed to quickly and smartly establish the stakes – comedy or drama – a line from Miu would get the job done. My favorite actor on the show, and the one who I always, always believed. I wish the show had kept her as central to the storytelling post-graduation, but even in the aftermath of her presidency, she usually got a good scene every other episode. (I don’t love that string of four episodes or so where it’s just her and Shun and whomever hanging out in the Rabbit Hatch while the story happened elsewhere, but she even made that work.)

In a better version of this show, Miu would’ve been the secondary or tertiary Rider, but she’ll always be the leader of the KRC to me. If this rewatch gave me nothing but a chance to appreciate Miu again, it’d’ve been more than worth it; to give me that AND a chance to befriend the rest of her team again, that was a real joy.