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10-02-2020, 03:47 PM | #131 |
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KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 8 - “HOWLING WIND”
One of my favorite things about the Akirasumu stuff in this episode is how it never disrespects Akira’s viewpoint, even as it chides here for sort-of being an asshole about the situation. This is an episode about recognizing that this whole world isn’t your story, and sometimes you need to take a backseat. Asamu has trudged all over a mountain because he wants to see Hibiki, worrying his mother; putting his life in jeopardy for monster reasons; putting his life in jeopardy for non-monster, being-trapped-on-a-mountain-in-the-dark reasons; and potentially distracting Akira and Ibuki when they’re trying to find a monster. He’s being a little selfish here. It’s nice that the show never really treats Akira’s comments as inaccurate, letting the story be more about her losing her temper than her being cruel. Ibuki calls her out for being too forceful in her criticisms, but he never tells her that she’s out of place in reprimanding Asumu. Hibiki tells Asumu not to beat himself up for a well-intentioned screw-up, but makes it clear he did screw up. I much prefer a story about two people who are trying to figure out how to talk to each other, rather than some angry person being cruel to some unfortunate soul. Here, Asumu has it coming, but Akira’s still too aggressive about it. Quote:
But as Hibiki puts it, he’s not trying to be selfish, which means that he doesn’t need to be so down about his screw-up. Like Hibiki’s doing by sitting at camp so Ibuki can go fight, Asamu needs to learn when he can do the most good by not being a drain on others. It’s good to be aware of when you can support others, and it’s okay to address their needs instead of your own. It’s that thing on the train again, with Akira in this episode. He was so blinded by what he needed that he never thought about what he was costing others, which is what drove Akira so crazy.
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They could learn something from Hibiki and Ibuki, who have a harmonious (word play!) partnership on lock. It’s another fun subversion of the typical Kamen Rider formula, with Hibiki deferring to Ibuki’s expertise (he is the one who’s supposed to take out flyers) and hanging back at base camp to drink some tea. It allows for a little bit more world building, as Hibiki clarifies things that have been pretty well hinted at.
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Sure, that's true. I think there's value in telling stories about people failing despite their best efforts, but that's not this show. (It would be Kamen Rider Blade, as a matter of fact!) This show is one where the only thing keeping Asumu from achieving his goal was being too scared to apply himself. I was never really expecting him to not get into Jounan. Could've made for a fun twist if he hadn't though.
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10-02-2020, 03:52 PM | #132 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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HOUJOU WAS IN DRIVE???
Your incredible obsession with this man has taught me things I never knew I wanted. This is great
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10-02-2020, 04:58 PM | #133 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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The Blu-ray miniseries spinoff of Drive, specifically, but still! Die is right; everybody really is in everything. Part of me still doesn't believe that Dr Maki was a main character in Ultraman X!
And on the subject of actor trivia, since Magiranger just came up a bit ago: has anyone mentioned that Seiji Takaiwa was off playing Magi Red during Hibiki yet? Hibiki was instead played by Makoto Itou, stepping up from previously doing the suit acting for every single secondary Rider to that point, from G3 all the way to, er... Chalice. That debate really is never going to end, is it? Anyway, I've always kind of assumed Takaiwa going back to being a Sentai Red (something he was doing a lot of before Agito) had something to do with that period of preproduction where nobody was sure if Kamen Rider was still going to continue, but that's totally baseless, and if there's any hard facts behind how that happened, I've never heard them. Whatever the case, Hibiki remains the one break in Takaiwa's otherwise uninterrupted streak of playing Heisei leads after Kuuga.
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10-02-2020, 05:39 PM | #134 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wait, you dont know either?
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And then he got to play Hibiki anyway when Decade rolled around. And Kuuga, I guess.
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10-02-2020, 05:47 PM | #135 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,490
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1. Akira Shinmei aka Aorenger from Gorenger, played by Hiroshi Miyauchi who we also love as Kamen Rider V3, Kaiketsu Zubat, Miura from Ohranger, Masaki from Winspector to Exceedraft, and Tobei Tachibana from Kamen Rider The First 2. Akira Momoi aka Denzi Pink from Denziman, a tennis player 3. Akira aka Blue Mask from Maskman, the wushu expert(actor is a legit wushu practitioner too, used to be in tournaments during his prime and I think he is an instructor these days) 4. Akira Dentsuin aka Sazer Remls from Gransazer, the surgeon
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Last edited by Sunred; 10-02-2020 at 05:53 PM.. |
10-02-2020, 06:41 PM | #136 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,157
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I did that thing where I took a quick nap and woke up more tired than I was before, so let's see how this goes.
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But the worst part is that he's right. Still, even if someone like Akira is right, this is taken too the extreme like others and eventually she admits. But unfortunately, others also can give free pass to this kind of foul act, no matter how someone takes it too the extreme just because they're right.
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And on the subject of actor trivia, since Magiranger just came up a bit ago: has anyone mentioned that Seiji Takaiwa was off playing Magi Red during Hibiki yet? Hibiki was instead played by Makoto Itou, stepping up from previously doing the suit acting for every single secondary Rider to that point, from G3 all the way to, er... Chalice. That debate really is never going to end, is it?
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10-02-2020, 09:15 PM | #137 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,403
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The Blu-ray miniseries spinoff of Drive, specifically, but still! Die is right; everybody really is in everything. Part of me still doesn't believe that Dr Maki was a main character in Ultraman X!
Dr. Maki was all over the toku shows for awhile. He was also Yuuki's dad on Fourze and a guy who ran a Sentai store on Akibaranger. |
10-02-2020, 09:26 PM | #138 |
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10-02-2020, 10:07 PM | #139 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 9 - “WRITHING MALICE”
“And hey, it’ll be nice To be see-through for a while And hey, it’ll be cool To be feather-light for a while” -Say Hi, “I Think I’ll Be A Good Ghost” This one… not sure it 100% worked? I’m likely to be initially skeptical of any episode of Hibiki that foregrounds the monster plot, even upgrading it to a legit Monster Mystery, but I think this episode had problems beyond that. But, hey, let's start with the Monster Mystery. It’s a very standard Kamen Rider plot, where what seems like an open-and-shut monster plot suddenly takes a few unexpected turns, leaving the heroes playing catch-up. Ibuki and Akira are out looking for a flying Makamou that Hinaka can’t quite narrow down (probably some form of giant bee), which ends up probably not being a flying Makamou after it crushes a car and maybe strips two dudes (???) before fleeing down a mountain. Meanwhile, Hibiki is putting his recent training to good use by detonating a giant ant with his newest maneuver, Unified Burst Fire Style. It’s an episode with a whole lot of monster tracking and fighting. Which, I’ll just say it: I super don’t give a shit. In general, I don’t care that much about the monster stuff in Hibiki, but here I just found it incredibly dull. The biggest problem is how isolated everything in this story feels, including the two monster plots. Hibiki fighting the ant is a fun visual, but there’s zero setup for it in the episode (his first scene is him defeating the Douji and Hime) and it never really connects with anything else in this one narratively. Even Unified Burst Fire Style is just him saying Unified Burst Fire Style a few times before simultaneously hitting the ant until it explodes. (Again, cool visual! Not disputing that!) It’s Hibiki stuck in a dull and formulaic plot, with next to none of the style that usually makes those parts of the story more palatable to me. (He does make a dumb pun after fighting the giant ant, to absolutely no one, and I sort-of respect that.) We don’t really see any of the cool minutiae that Kasumi and Hibiki get up to, or the funny camaraderie they share. It’s just him as an action hero, and that’s just not enough for me. (Also, going back to that first Hibiki scene, it's the third time in a row this episode where they play the Hibiki theme. Once for the actual intro; then for Asumu's dream sequence, where it's got more of a lullaby tone; and then again, done straight, for Hibiki's fight. A) it's too many times in a row for any song, and B) it's a little lazy for the first fight to not have any cool, unique music. That's this show's brand!) The Ibuki stuff isn’t so bad, but it’s mostly just setting up the next episode, and it eats up a ton of time to do it. It’s another plot in isolation, with Ibuki not interacting with Hibiki and Akira not interacting with Asumu. We get to see Team Ibuki working to defeat a monster, but it really doesn’t tell us anything new about them, which a plot like this really should be doing so soon after their introduction. It’s, like the Hibiki plot, pretty basic and not that unique. All of that would’ve been less important to me if the Asumu plot (also completely in isolation, this episode was like watching three different shows) had delivered and… I guess there’s such a thing as being too opaque? You can read a lot into Asumu’s dilemma with the shoplifters here, but there’re no definitive answers to be found. He’s got no one to talk to or confide in, so we’re left with what looks to be a continuation of Asumu’s tendency to choke when he needs to be decisive, but, y’know, maybe it’s not? He’s all internal in this one, which I’d normally praise a show for, but there’s enough ambiguity to what’s motivating Asumu here that I really need someone to clarify what’s happening with him. Does it have anything to do with him being aimless over Spring Break? Or Hibiki not being around? Or Akira? Or his friends finding him unreliable? Or the sheep in his dream? There’s a bunch of things happening to/with Asumu in this one, but very little that’s being said about him, at least for me. So, yeah, didn’t really work for me. Everything was too isolated to feel like I was watching one story, and the individual pieces were either too straightforward or too vague. I feel like this script needed a few more passes to be a Hibiki-level story. P.S. Please don’t shoplift from bookstores! You’re more likely to be taking money directly out of the owner’s (very meager) pockets, rather than committing a “victimless” crime. Replacing stolen stock is not cheap, and stores can lose sales due to inaccurate inventory. Please don’t steal from bookstores!
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10-03-2020, 03:31 AM | #140 |
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Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,546
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I promised to comment on the debut of major or recurring characters and one shows up here in the form of the bully who steals from Asumu in his episode (since he makes appearances in two later episodes, before being dropped after the retool)
He’s definitely my least favourite character on the show, mostly for a) how one-note he is as a character, b) he offers little that couldn’t be taken out with no trouble and c) he never receives any comeuppance or redemption for his actions. |
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