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03-14-2022, 12:52 PM | #11 |
Henshin Heaven
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Inside a Hyper Battle Video, help.
Posts: 1,238
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Yeaaaaah, I like the concept of this one but it didn't really work in execution. Fundamentally the problem isn't with what the episode itself did, but with how incredibly underdeveloped Daiji and Kagerou are. It is hard to have any emotional investment in what is otherwise a very well done fight when the previous episodes could barely be bothered to do anything besides a few minor scenes with each of them. I don't want to sound too harsh, but Daiji and Kagerou really remind me of Makoto from Ghost in how mishandled a secondary Rider they are.
On the other hand, Holy Live is very cool looking and the fights were great. I feel like I sound like a broken record, but Sakura and Aquilera's untransformed brawl and discussion was absolutely the highlight of the episode for me, and it worked because both of them have had lots of screen time to let the viewers get to know them and their dynamic! I'm telling you all, Sakura is the real secondary Rider in my book, she really steals the show!
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03-14-2022, 01:05 PM | #12 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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The secondary Rider getting upgrade and an episode centered around the heroes getting stronger while the villains getting weaker....
I too felt like the Daiji/Kagerou plot here wasn't as well executed as the Genta/Vail twist previously, because of the previous events preceding it. For Vail part, the buildup is consistent and smooth, with Hiromi becoming a Rider despite him failing to henshin as Revice before, then Hiromi's physique deteriorating, then the Demons Driver revealing that he's devouring his life force, then the Demons Driver showed to have more independence as he lent Olteca more of his power, prefering a sociopathic bastard using Demons, then the Demons Driver revealed as Vail and even Olteca wasn't his first choice at that time and he only wants Genta, revealed to be his former partner who had yandere-ish obsession to him to reunite. For Daiji/Kagerou here? The events in this episode seem to contradict the previous episodes, as the minor scenes that featured Wataru Hyuga had Kagerou's influence growing stronger and stronger and Daiji worrying about it. But the fight here had it being 180 that it's Daiji blatantly stronger, Live having constant upper hand, not even using finisher attack to dispatch Evil (also cracking his helmet before), with the problem that he's shaking instead. The turnabout here is quite sudden, like this should be extended first before the eventual Livevil showdown like how Daiji prefers for peace between them (even giving more Kagerou other than just gag scenes), or had different setting altogether before.... like Kagerou whining about Daiji's power before (though this'd upset Kagerou's fans). Otherwise, Kagerou's demise here reminds me of the previous dark clone, like Ghost's Makoto Copy, which died 'making peace' with the original version (but only at that time they 'get along'). I don't know if Kagerou knows that killing the human host would kill the demon too or not as he claims to fight Daiji for his freedom, but if he knows then yeah it's a cruel to be kind approach to make Daiji stronger then. Still shows that cruel to be kind approach only prolongs the problem; all of the previous Daiji and Kagerou feud in instance, though of course other than to Sakura or eventually Daiji, Kagerou is still overall cruel and tried to corrupt Daiji in the name of making him stronger, as someone who prides being evil and looking down on virtue. Regarding how Daiji and Kagerou can be separated like that, it's further shown that Akaishi for some reason wants to groom up Daiji by letting George give what Kagerou needs, though he shows more vileness of not caring if its Daiji or Kagerou who survives, he treats his men as tools, like how he views Hiromi before. While George here showed clear concern to Daiji, trying to stop both Kagerou and Akaishi on getting the Crow ViStamp and the 2nd Two SiDriver ('two side'). It seems that both Akaishi and George value Daiji more than Hiromi here, though in twisted way for Akaishi, I wonder if the reason of Daiji being somewhat 'precious' here would be shown later, so far he's been criticized for lacking presence in the series, and Daiji's conflict with Fenix hasn't been touched yet. And Akemi appeared again here, but she's here acted as sorta of damsel-in-distress for Kagerou. So she's not a combatant. So what Buu-san told Ikki was that Genta also had even different identity back then, Junpei Shiranami. And more origin for something in the series, that the Deadmans originated from a military research organization called Noah that tried to weaponized demons, where Buu-san and Junpei met, and Junpei worked as Noah's executioner against failed demon experiments. So Genta was the one in control and he truly fought as a Rider back then, not Vail (or that it's both of them), and (I don't know yet about the spin-off) he didn't act as a super soldier or such. Junpei/Genta didn't seem to do morally questionable thing there by fighting off rogue demons but he still felt hollow (he was still pretty much a killing machine but against deserving target) until he met Yukimi and decided to escape, helped by Masumi to atone. Guess while Masumi is still an extremist, he had limits and he did have remorse for Junpei/Genta. Of course as Sakura noted, it wasn't enough to compensate for Masumi's deeds. But what happened had happened and, Masumi's still gotta be given a chance to atone even if it's not enough (like Rolling ViStamp) especially with his scientific abilities, just like George at ep. 23 before. After Junpei/Genta left Deadman was formed by the group stealing Giff coffin to create said cult. Well, Noah seemed already evil anyway before, being a warmonger. Buu-san does tell about Genta here, but, what did Buu-san do that time? Said Vail chose to go back to Olteca's Demons Driver again due to him wanting to have fun by helping Olteca for now. Vail still values sociopathic bastards like Olteca much better than Hiromi even if Genta is his first choice. Or that Olteca wants to fight off Igarashi family thus it served Vail's desire too. But like Sh Ranger said before, Olteca can't find a way to get him out of the trouble before despite being self-proclaimed genius other than Vail choosing to come back... Olteca had clear shortcoming here (and the next episode preview is about his schemes again). Missed chance for Aguilera before tbh, who's still a Giftex, to put Olteca down for good. Olteca's role here is smaller but in-line, he'd cause trouble for the heck of it and to test Demons' power as Vail complies. Here, the main focus is instead the weaker Evilive, and the side troublemaker is the much stronger Demons (as well as Ikki fighting as Jack Revice); again no wonder Hiromi's debut as Demons almost upstaged Evil despite Vail not liking Hiromi, Demons was the real top dog. Other than that, this shows further that Ikki's growing out of his busybodiness to not interfere despite that Vice insisted him to help Daiji. So that'd mean, while Ikki and Vice are buddies now, Ikki shouldn't comply to Vice's rather corrupting ad-vice to stay the way he is; Ikki's busybodiness can cause trouble instead of helping, and Ikki's growing out of it here. Now unfortunately for Aguilera (well she's despairing already), Sakura now surpassed her even when they're fighting in human form, shown that while both are still standing, Aguilera's the one that was bleeding from the mouth. I guess this episode had Sakura overall losing her patience that she wasn't angered (for understandable reasons) only at Masumi but also at Aguilera here who she had symphatized. Though obviously she won't know anything about Aguilera and that she doesn't know her weakness, she claims Aguilera had her reasons of fighting in front of her eyes already that she pretended to be blind of. This probably shows Sakura knows Aguilera more than she thinks... I'd look forward into this on more Aguilera depth that isn't figured out yet, or probably to make it more convincing about her redemption or such. About Sakura herself claiming Aguilera made her stronger.... technically it did came from Aguilera owning her and mocking her weakness that finally had Sakura accepting that she's not the strongest which made her able to henshin into Jeanne, which had Aguilera being proud later. She wanted to use Sakura as a sacrifice though and likely she wanted strong sacrifices, but of course... making one of the heroes stronger as a method can backfire like this that they're out of the villain's grasp now.
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03-14-2022, 01:27 PM | #13 |
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The entire idea of duality like that is so utterly central to everything Revice is about as a series, and it would've been very very odd to suddenly have Daiji simply defeat his other half, so I massively appreciated the writing making it more complex than that. I like the idea that Daiji has to learn from Kagerou's personality to become even stronger. The idea that there's something of value in there, like a refusal to hesitate, that Daiji can apply to his own much more moral goals.
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The secondary rider is what I feel is Revice's weakness. After Daiji got his Rider form, he hasn't really done anything substantial, instead it went to Sakura. The same goes for Kagero, if this is really the end for him, then it's disappointing. Now that he has his standard secondary rider upgrade form, I fear this is it for his development.
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Daiji stating he was thinking he and Kagerou could live like Ikki and Vice when Kagerou's only heroic act was saving Sakura once. The montage of moments involving him as he died. Kagerou having any sense of interest in Daiji growing stronger. The waffling on whether Kagerou was getting weaker or stronger? Like, I honestly feel there was another Kagerou story arc that we just...Didn't get.
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03-14-2022, 10:01 PM | #14 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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Daiji's never been super great for me and he's going to be even less so now that Kagerou is gone (for now). I'm going to be looking at Holy Live with annoyance until Evil gets something too, and I mean in the show proper and not some v-cin or extra thing. I'm aware that could never happen and I'll just be annoyed with Holy Live forever, but that's just how it is!
Though personally, what I think bothers me more is seeing people (not just on this forum but elsewhere) harp on him because of his status as 'secondary rider'. Not only is that, and always has been, totally arbitrary, but like... is the implication that it'd be better if Sakura was the one completely lacking in screen time and development instead? (The answer is 'probably' because it'd have been expected, I guess...) |
03-14-2022, 11:26 PM | #15 |
Precure enthusiast
Join Date: Dec 2021
Location: Amongst the Cosmos
Posts: 304
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Quote:
Though personally, what I think bothers me more is seeing people (not just on this forum but elsewhere) harp on him because of his status as 'secondary rider'. Not only is that, and always has been, totally arbitrary, but like... is the implication that it'd be better if Sakura was the one completely lacking in screen time and development instead? (The answer is 'probably' because it'd have been expected, I guess...)
I don't think people mean ill will towards Sakura or any other Rider in Revice when talk about Daiji's lack of......everything(??), they just want better things for Daiji. I think it's fine to talk about how Daiji feels underutilized or straight up ignored in the story, regardless of his status as a secondary Rider. |
03-14-2022, 11:47 PM | #16 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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I mean on one hand, "secondary" was only ever a fan term derived from Rider #2....But at the same time, I feel like things like *waves at Geiz Majesty* cements them as Toei aknowledging that theyre a beloved and important aspect of what Modern Rider is, so you'd expect an anniversary show to respect that, yknow?
I think it ticks me off the most in shows like a lot of Riders (so like, all of them as of late) because I feel like every year there's always numerous discussion along the lines of 'why hasn't the guy who i've arbitrarily decide is the second most important guy done anything for five minutes and why is the guy who i didn't assign that role on screen instead or talking to the main character?'. Didn't mean to suddenly rant at you, sorry! it's just been something bubbling in me for a while now... |
03-15-2022, 01:46 AM | #17 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: Belgium
Posts: 345
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Honestly, I like Daiji but I prefer Sakura?s storyline and I wouldn?t mind to have more Sakura x)
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03-15-2022, 11:45 PM | #18 |
WONDER RIDER
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 2,713
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I'm honestly so confused by Kagero's motives here that the drama kind of falls flat for me. Is he attempting suicide by Kamen Rider or something? A final desperate ploy to defeat Daiji and take control of his body before he disappears? A bit of a shame as Kagero was an interesting character that didn't get too much screen time.
Honestly, the real drama I got out of this was that Kagero disappeared without a chance to eat Sakura's curry again. The part where Evil bleeds paint was a nice touch though.
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03-16-2022, 01:49 AM | #19 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 169
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Ok. I suppose I need to get back to this series given the backstory of Dad.
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03-17-2022, 08:28 PM | #20 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,397
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I'm back! Now if only I could find Zenkaiger's finale...
Vail seriously reminds me of Yongo, from the military style suit (mainly the pants) to the coloration, and the helmet looks like a gas mask, it's really cool! I also see from the flashbacks (or maybe I'm going crazy) that this isn't even his final form? Even better, if so! Once again, this show proves me wrong on everything. Sure, I was on the right track with the dad, but just about everything else is not what I expect, and that's great, for the most part. I'm still wondering exactly what was with Ikki disappearing from the photos (maybe he's not in those photos because he wasn't actually there for them? I don't know, I don't want to keep speculating when I've been proven wrong at every juncture, so I'm just going to sit back and enjoy), but I like how Papa-San is like an alternate version of Ichigo, and Buu-San (what do you know, I was half-right on him as well!) being a secret support was great. However, I do feel like the Live Vs. Evil fight could have been maybe better? I mean, it was good, had some great cinematography, lighting, and action, but it is a shame Kagerou is likely gone for good, as he made for one of the most interesting arcs of the Reiwa seasons so far. That's not to say I don't like Daiji, I love him, but I also liked the Two-Face dynamic he had with Kagerou. Holy Live is a massive improvement from regular Live (Jin, is that you?), but I can't unhear "Wings ready to fry!" another instance where the standby is not something I want to hear on loop. On an unrelated note, I just can't stop loving Demons' Genomix gimmick, and can't help but imagine a videogame (probably based off Revice and its Riders) where you could just mix and match the Genomes to plow through enemies. Olteca may be a despicably twisted villain (which I love), but I honestly like his dad less. And now it's official Aguilera wants to be the Igarashi siblings' new mom, and I hate that I had to be the one to make this joke... Anyway, Next Episode: More wings to fry! |
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