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10-29-2022, 02:01 PM | #11 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,532
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Finished it. I'm aware I'm biased at the moment, but this was the best Kamen Rider-entity I have ever seen. Yes, it profits from a lot of factors: No toys to advertise, no creative restrictions to appeal to a certain audience, and a lot of runtime to develop the world, characters and story.
But it's not like all of this automatically guarantees a success. No, they worked hard for this, and it paid off big time. I'm blown away by how fantastic this was. Everything worked for me. And for how much one could critique this for being very much not Kamen Rider Black, I felt like the spirit was carried on and evolved to a new saga. All of the references were just icing on the cake, the opening to the last episode especially. My jaw dropped when that happened. It never once felt tacky or weird to me, like so many other "adult"-oriented Kamen Rider projects do, this was a fantastic experience from start to finish. I did not expect much out of Black Sun to be perfectly honest, so witnessing this made me feel happy. Happy to be a Kamen Rider fan, happy to see Ishinomori's messages still very much intact and worth holding up. This is where it's at, this is where kamen Rider truly shines, amazing stuff! |
10-29-2022, 02:21 PM | #12 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Aug 2021
Posts: 1,961
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Quote:
It never once felt tacky or weird to me, like so many other "adult"-oriented Kamen Rider projects do, this was a fantastic experience from start to finish.
I did not expect much out of Black Sun to be perfectly honest, so witnessing this made me feel happy. Happy to be a Kamen Rider fan, happy to see Ishinomori's messages still very much intact and worth holding up. This is where it's at, this is where kamen Rider truly shines, amazing stuff! I think the reason is that the people working on Black Sun have never dealt with riders before and, if I'm not mistaken, tokusatsu in general. Fresh blood is always useful, especially if their talented. |
10-29-2022, 02:34 PM | #13 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,532
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Quote:
Heck, the name "Kamen Rider" isn't even dropped once. Although that's something a few of the main shows do as well IIRC, I think Wizard was one example who only got the title in the crossover movies and other like Gaim get different ones, like "Armored Riders". |
10-29-2022, 09:23 PM | #14 |
I'm an agile cat.
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 6,021
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The beginning of episode 10 was pure, shameless, absolutely filthy fanwank and I loved every second.
Also I may have my reservations about Black Sun's design, but I'd totally get the Figuart of that end of episode 9 version. |
10-29-2022, 10:40 PM | #15 |
I'm an agile cat.
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 6,021
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So now that I've finished it I have some... real mixed opinions.
I thought it was told very well but the ending... fuck man, if that isn't one hell of a "bad ending." I genuinely don't know what it was trying to say. The idealistic young revolutionary becomes a radical terrorist indoctrinating children to build bombs. She claims to take after Kotaro but ends up doing exactly what Nobuhiko did. Is this series trying to say that politically motivated violence is the right solution? Yet the framing is entirely sinister, and I think the idea is that Aoi learned the wrong lesson. There's also rather very tasteless parallels to real life at the end. Shockingly so, and not in a "open my eyes" shocking but "Jesus, have you no tact" shocking. I felt the social commentary, while no doubt overbearing, was handled quite respectably up till then. It was presented almost indifferently, showing the cycle of hate perpetuating and feeding itself. It kinda went off the rails at the end and went from all the subtlety of a Styrofoam bat to an iron cudgel. On a technical and character level some things didn't really jive. The main point of contention being just how the hell do the King Stones work? They're the stones that turned Kotaro and Nobuhiko into Kaijin, yet they can remove them and spend the whole series without them. So what's in their belts? Why do they have belts? Why did Aoi get a belt? Why did she not get a "Rider" form and just turned into her usual mantis kaijin form? If every Kaijin has a stone inside them does that mean they can be born with stones or that they were all experiments? How has the Kaijin race persisted if they're all created? Or is that just some not all? Why was that distinction never a factor or facet of the discrimination? Why did Nobuhiko die after removing his stone? Why did he remove his stone? Was it just to die? I don't see what the hell this had to do with Black. It really could've been just a generic Rider series. Gorgom could've been Shocker, Black and Shadow Moon could've been Rider 1 and 2, etc. The Creation King is a plot point but it's not like he's at all similar to the original. The show is dressed in vague Black iconography but entirely it's own story. I also found the music quite repetitive. The slow key note version of the theme is used to irritating excess. It should've been reserved for Black Sun's important moments. By the end it stopped feeling dramatic and started being annoying. They "Mandalorian theme'd" it. Also, as amazing as the Black opening recreation was... it was hilariously tonally mismatched, especially knowing the lyrics. This Kotaro is nowhere near the fiery man of justice the original was. He's a battered husk with hardly a will of his own. This is not a man who "loves being alive in this great blue cosmos." Also I found it pretty weak how after Nobuhiko gets beat up a bit he just... abandons his big plan. Like he doesn't even mention the Kaijin future he was just preaching about and just kinda starts crying about his friends and how he wants to go back. What? He never even implied that was close to something he was thinking of. His righteous fury just evaporates after a fist fight and it's like it all meant nothing. Which I think is the point? That this is all meaningless? Hatred will continue, radicals will fight it, those radicals will be consumed and destroyed, and the hatred will go on. How will Aoi be at all different from Nobuhiko? How did she so badly misunderstand Kotaro's will? Speaking of, he just dies for nothing. He becomes the new Creation King, somehow, and then despite them just establishing that the Creation King can have a will of his own he's just a husk begging for death because he became the thing he tried to destroy. Kotaro has zero agency in this whole show. He has no moral compass, no vested interest, besides committing to a fifty year old proposition. It's amazing that a character so central to the proceedings feels entirely removed from them. Long story short: this is a good show that completely shits itself at the end. I'm still processing how I feel because it genuinely comes across like it changed gears at the last second. That ending feels like it's meant to imply the entire story and struggles were not only in vain but will continue to be in vain going forward. Really not a fan of how this all concluded. I was waiting for some big payoff and it was just nothing. Last edited by SPLIT LIP; 10-29-2022 at 10:43 PM.. |
10-30-2022, 03:00 AM | #16 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,532
|
The ending makes sense to me personally. Is it the ending I wanted? No. But it works. Sadly.
It was said multiple times that Kotaro and Nobuhiko's struggle and fate would never bring immediate change. It only paved the way for decisions to be made in the future, good or bad. Which makes sense, killing the Creation King and making the origin of the Kaijin public has no positive effect on the general racism debate. In fact it makes it worse, because humans now know Kaijin were created as living weapons. Your average citizen will not try to understand Kaijin after learning their inherited fate; they will fear them more because now they know Kaijin were bred to kill. Meanwhile, nothing changes in politics because the corrupt asshole politician is just followed up by another who will sweep all of this scandal in its entirety under the rug. And Bishum is still there with her own agenda. So what is Aoi to do? She's not a heroine; she is very much a scarred individual now. She learned the hard way that holding up signs and chanting words changes nothing in her world. She organizes an armed force to fight what she deems "evil" and thus the wheel continues to turn. To what outcome? We don't know. She is however different from Nobuhiko in the sense that she doesn't deem Kaijin as superior; she brings humans and Kaijin together in an organized effort to stand up as she thinks they are one and the same. Could they potentially have made some sort of "flashback into the future Aoi is president now we're all happy"-kind of ending? Sure. But that would've pissed me off royally because then I would've felt cheated out of seeing how they got there. Personally I wanted Aoi to "free" Kotaro out of the Creation King's shell, walk home with him and end the series in a way that they live happily as a family and organize another stand against the Kaijin hate together with the remaining survivors. End it on a positive note while acknowledging that there is work to be done still. But that's the ending I as an old softy want, it doesn't thematically fit this world. And about the Creation King-thing specifically, I believe what they said could've come true, that someone could keep their free will as Creation King, and Black Sun could've pulled it off, but it was the old Creation King's heart that meddled with the sequence and ruined it. Obviously an attempt to bring back the heart as the final boss from the OG Black. So it's the old Creation King who somehow usurped the process and created another incarnation of himself. If not for the heart, maybe Black Sun, Shadow Moon or Aoi could've been a Creation King with free will. Aoi getting a belt without changing her form was weird, yeah, I expected her to have a Rider form, but Black Sun and Shadow Moon also had belts without Rider forms, they emerged later through their intense feelings, so I just assume they wanted to visualize the concept that Aoi follows Kotaro's footsteps so she magically has a belt now too and will someday get her own Rider form. Weird but I get the idea. But I agree on multiple of your points, some things like the Kingstones made no real sense whatsoever. Last edited by Kiwami; 10-30-2022 at 03:03 AM.. |
10-30-2022, 06:26 AM | #17 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 1,270
|
Quote:
So now that I've finished it I have some... real mixed opinions.
I thought it was told very well but the ending... fuck man, if that isn't one hell of a "bad ending." I genuinely don't know what it was trying to say. The idealistic young revolutionary becomes a radical terrorist indoctrinating children to build bombs. She claims to take after Kotaro but ends up doing exactly what Nobuhiko did. Is this series trying to say that politically motivated violence is the right solution? Yet the framing is entirely sinister, and I think the idea is that Aoi learned the wrong lesson. There's also rather very tasteless parallels to real life at the end. Shockingly so, and not in a "open my eyes" shocking but "Jesus, have you no tact" shocking. I felt the social commentary, while no doubt overbearing, was handled quite respectably up till then. It was presented almost indifferently, showing the cycle of hate perpetuating and feeding itself. It kinda went off the rails at the end and went from all the subtlety of a Styrofoam bat to an iron cudgel. On a technical and character level some things didn't really jive. The main point of contention being just how the hell do the King Stones work? They're the stones that turned Kotaro and Nobuhiko into Kaijin, yet they can remove them and spend the whole series without them. So what's in their belts? Why do they have belts? Why did Aoi get a belt? Why did she not get a "Rider" form and just turned into her usual mantis kaijin form? If every Kaijin has a stone inside them does that mean they can be born with stones or that they were all experiments? How has the Kaijin race persisted if they're all created? Or is that just some not all? Why was that distinction never a factor or facet of the discrimination? Why did Nobuhiko die after removing his stone? Why did he remove his stone? Was it just to die? I don't see what the hell this had to do with Black. It really could've been just a generic Rider series. Gorgom could've been Shocker, Black and Shadow Moon could've been Rider 1 and 2, etc. The Creation King is a plot point but it's not like he's at all similar to the original. The show is dressed in vague Black iconography but entirely it's own story. I also found the music quite repetitive. The slow key note version of the theme is used to irritating excess. It should've been reserved for Black Sun's important moments. By the end it stopped feeling dramatic and started being annoying. They "Mandalorian theme'd" it. Also, as amazing as the Black opening recreation was... it was hilariously tonally mismatched, especially knowing the lyrics. This Kotaro is nowhere near the fiery man of justice the original was. He's a battered husk with hardly a will of his own. This is not a man who "loves being alive in this great blue cosmos." Also I found it pretty weak how after Nobuhiko gets beat up a bit he just... abandons his big plan. Like he doesn't even mention the Kaijin future he was just preaching about and just kinda starts crying about his friends and how he wants to go back. What? He never even implied that was close to something he was thinking of. His righteous fury just evaporates after a fist fight and it's like it all meant nothing. Which I think is the point? That this is all meaningless? Hatred will continue, radicals will fight it, those radicals will be consumed and destroyed, and the hatred will go on. How will Aoi be at all different from Nobuhiko? How did she so badly misunderstand Kotaro's will? Speaking of, he just dies for nothing. He becomes the new Creation King, somehow, and then despite them just establishing that the Creation King can have a will of his own he's just a husk begging for death because he became the thing he tried to destroy. Kotaro has zero agency in this whole show. He has no moral compass, no vested interest, besides committing to a fifty year old proposition. It's amazing that a character so central to the proceedings feels entirely removed from them. Long story short: this is a good show that completely shits itself at the end. I'm still processing how I feel because it genuinely comes across like it changed gears at the last second. That ending feels like it's meant to imply the entire story and struggles were not only in vain but will continue to be in vain going forward. Really not a fan of how this all concluded. I was waiting for some big payoff and it was just nothing. |
10-30-2022, 06:46 AM | #18 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 320
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I actually think the ending is hopeful.
Also, an ending that nails the quintessence essence of Rider. No matter what, whenever evil rises, those who stand up to it will rise as well and oppose them. That's what the ending is trying to convey, while the world may not have magically changed and fixed itself, and there is still evil to inherit older evils, the fact that people will fight endlessly to oppose them hasn't changed either. In this instance, Aoi carries on the torch of resistance and handing it off to the next generation.
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10-30-2022, 06:50 AM | #19 |
Avi by @CSarracenian
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 4,186
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I just finished the first episode and goddamn does it ooze with what I expect of a modern day Ishinomori show. I never saw Black but I very much enjoyed this
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10-30-2022, 07:21 AM | #20 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,532
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