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05-10-2021, 09:15 PM | #111 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 05 - "DUET: STALKER PANIC”
A story where a group of men are shown to be patronizing and mostly useless, while a variety of women try their level-headed best to do their jobs? Don't mind if I do! I feel like Malcolm, the owner of Mal d'Amour, is maybe the only respectable man in this episode. Every other guy is either controlling, or confrontational, or gullible, or a Fangire. They're all pretty worthless this episode, which is kind of an unusual choice. It's a great choice, though? It's the most testosterone-soaked episode I can imagine, where every man in it is locked into bizarre approximations of masculinity, vainly trying to fit into some shape that literally no one is asking them to fit into. Nago is ostensibly keeping an eye on Megumi because he thinks Kiva will rescue her again (he's right, very genre savvy), but it's mostly just so he can crush her spirit and prove his superiority. Wataru is so blinded by the need to channel Nago's Big Dad Energy that he agrees to stalk Megumi. Otoya's limitless pride is wounded by Zanki's leather-clad beatdown, so the two of them engage in an epic street fight that Yuri leaves halfway through. And then there are multiple Fangires abducting our heroines, and they are (hilariously) the least-regrettable elements of this story. It's funny as hell, don't get me wrong. Nearly every gag in this thing kills, and the soundtrack is so heavy on plussing up the comedy that it's almost impossible not to grin throughout this thing. I genuinely enjoyed this episode for what it was doing. It's just... I don't know. I laughed a lot at this episode, but it's doing a really weird thing with its male cast. It's pushing all the men super far out into Creep territory, but only so it can (I assume/pray) pull them back into Misguided But Basically Good territory for the conclusion of the story. Like, it's not a story where they're growing from Good to Better; it's a story where they're pushed to Awful so they can grow to Good. If that makes any sense? I don't know that anyone is specifically out of character, weirdly, which is maybe a damning thing to say about this episode. (An episode I liked! I feel like I'm going to have to keep saying that!) Nago trying to control Megumi is pretty much expected from him at this point, but the whole gaslighting thing about her not really disliking him, she's just jealous of his greatness, that is a new wrinkle. Wataru being easily misled (and way too trusting of confident men) is also well-established. I don't know if I love him never once saying Hey Is Megumi Actually Okay With This while he monitors her in a pool or rifles through her belongings, but again: way too trusting of confident men. (Even ones who look like Ryotaro being possessed by Urataros, the least-trustworthy look imaginable.) Even Otoya's newfound love of fisticuffs feels likely from someone who thinks that highly of himself and works that hard on his presentation. It's all... everyone here is just 10% more themselves than usual, which is both alarming (they are already very themselves!) and also not big of a deal (it's only 10%). This one's calibrated a little heavier towards comedy, and that means a world of lunatics is going to get even crazier. Except for Megumi and Yuri, who are pretty much the voices of reason for this episode. (Shizuka's only in one scene, because if she continued in the Wataru plot she'd shut it down in about two seconds.) It's up to them to constantly reframe what's happening as horrible decisions men are making, not anything for their benefit. Megumi gets the scene of the episode, when Nago tries to blame Wataru for spying poorly on Megumi when Nago told him to, and Megumi just goes No One Should Have Been Spying On Me You Idiots. The things these dudes are doing in this episode... they are all terrible. They all have this idea on what a man should do, and how a woman should be grateful for that decisiveness, and it's all pathetic. Wataru is the only one who realizes his mistake, feeling equally bad for disappointing Work Dad and Work Mom. That scene, with Wataru moping in the tub, it actually leads into a scene that felt disconnected to me at first, but now I think it's the key to Wataru's arc in this story. Out of nowhere, Kivat asks Wataru why he even fights as Kiva. After all, Wataru's spent an episode being utterly complicit in awful behavior, while also loudly declaring his various personality flaws to anyone in his orbit. Why does this pushover fight monsters? It's his father's violin, he says. There's a message it puts out, to Fight, and he feels it in his soul. He feels the music so deeply that he can't second-guess it, can't run away from it. There's a version of him that knows what to do, but it's usually so covered up by What I'm Not that he gets confused, follows the wrong examples. It's what saves him from being as bad as Nago or Otoya in this episode. Wataru is someone who feels incomplete. He looks for other people to give him purpose, or direction. He's enamored of Nago's self-confidence, so he abandons his own decision-making. But if he stopped for a second, listened to what's inside of him, maybe he wouldn't be like every other dude in this story. Maybe he'd be comfortable inside of himself, and stop trying to be something he isn't. Anyway, I did enjoy this episode. It's not perfect. It's a story about misbehaving men and sensible women, but it gives itself over almost entirely to the misbehaving men. (There's a couple sweet scenes of Megumi and Yuri that helped drive home their invisible bond. The way they both twirled their keychains in the parking garage was touching.) It's funny from front to back, but a lot of that humor is from the show stretching its cast into mostly unheroic shapes. It's critiquing performative masculinity while also painting the walls with testosterone. It's as likely to offend as it is to entertain, which is a very Kiva way of telling a story. Worked for me, though!
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05-10-2021, 09:38 PM | #112 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
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There's probably no better track to sum this episode up than the peppy one that plays while Otoya and Jirou are childishly duking it out, which is literally titled The Rock and Roll of Lonely Men, as if hanging a lampshade on the entire plot.
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05-11-2021, 02:22 AM | #113 |
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Join Date: May 2019
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And here we are, with the full debut of Jiro in the 86 scenes (he’s basically going to be an Ankh/Genm character, in terms of morality if nothing else).
And back to the present, here’s this week’s bloodsucker. Sheep Fangire True name: The Clown Dances with a Turkey at a Fireplace (道化師は暖炉で七面鳥と踊る Dōkeshi wa Danro de Shichimenchō to Odoru) Human identity: Noboru Kurumae Class: Beast Rank: Pawn Actors: Mitsuyoshi Shinoda, Katsumi Shiono (voice in Fangire form) And no, in case you’re confused, you’re not seeing a mistranslation/ hearing things when Nago says “henshin”. TV-N even gives him his own background (a stylised crucifix). Though you’ll have to wait to see Kamen Rider Van Helsing in action. |
05-11-2021, 08:45 AM | #114 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,105
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Quote:
Anyway, Jirou, he's very cool. Characters portrayed by Matsuda Kenji are always cool. However, in contrast to the experienced mentor type Zanki, Jirou/Garulu is a flawed antihero type who acts as a rival towards Otoya, as they are both in opposition to prove themselves to Yuri. If Kiva has a Kusaka like some people are saying, I'd say it's Jirou. Quote:
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Except for Megumi and Yuri, who are pretty much the voices of reason for this episode. (Shizuka’s only in one scene, because if she continued in the Wataru plot she’d shut it down in about two seconds.) It’s up to them to constantly reframe what’s happening as horrible decisions men are making, not anything for their benefit. Megumi gets the scene of the episode, when Nago tries to blame Wataru for spying poorly on Megumi when Nago told him to, and Megumi just goes No One Should Have Been Spying On Me You Idiots.
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05-11-2021, 02:30 PM | #115 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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There's a thing the show is doing, where the 86 and 08 stuff is constantly Awful Men, but there's a way that the 08 dudes dress it up in Concern For Women that... it sort of feels like the show is trying to say something about how men didn't get better over the decades, they just got better at obscuring their awfulness. Dunno. Definitely going to need a couple more episodes to say for sure.
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05-11-2021, 02:59 PM | #116 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,424
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Favorite gag of the episode goes to Wataru's extended "wtf man?" stare when his new partner starts getting alarmingly specific on describing Megumi.
Close second place to the Jiro/Otoya fight for reminding me more than anything of Hugh Grant and Collin Firth awkwardly duking it out in Bridget Jones's Diary. Bonus points for Yuri's immediate disinterest. D&D geek speak incoming: Nago is a paladin. Specifically he's the kind of paladin that can be good to have in your adventuring party, but sometimes you just get into situations where the stick in his ass starts getting in the way of things. There is a definite arrogance to him that's not as obnoxious as Otoya's... anything, really - but that absolutely makes it harder to like him. He's like that guy that's really cool to hang out with until someone mentions The Last Jedi. Quote:
There's a thing the show is doing, where the 86 and 08 stuff is constantly Awful Men, but there's a way that the 08 dudes dress it up in Concern For Women that... it sort of feels like the show is trying to say something about how men didn't get better over the decades, they just got better at obscuring their awfulness. Dunno. Definitely going to need a couple more episodes to say for sure.
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05-11-2021, 09:25 PM | #117 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Yeah, Kiva's sexual politics is... well, I'll say that I wouldn't argue with Kurona that the show has serious problems with women. There are a lot of different shades of toxic masculinity on Kiva and I don't remember how many of them get refuted and how many get reinforced. I know that the show definitely doesn't play it all up as the correct way to treat women, but I would never call the show feminist.
Like, for me, I kind of love that the show is bringing up this sort of stuff? Having a huge thread on the show be Navigating A Mixed-Gender Workplace... like, that is an interesting thing for a kids show to bring up! That is pretty fresh narrative ground for a Kamen Rider show! But, boy, really need the show to have some more awareness of how it's using some of these tropes to keep it all from feeling regressive and exploitative.
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05-12-2021, 03:50 AM | #118 |
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I've tried to wait and see before posting this, and I don't want to pick on one particular member or sound like a broken record by criticising the US, but I feel like I have to say I am not entirely happy with some of the assumptions some people in this thread have appeared to make. It's not like I love 2008 all that much to be fair being as admittedly I've generally always preferred 2004 and previous whereas 05-08 was more just retrospectively not too bad, but I don't think you can assume that 2021 is automatically morally superior on every issue in an absolute landslide, or that if parts of the world that might be sympathetic to the US like for example Europe or East Asia aren't taking perhaps a more ''American'' approach to gender equality then that makes that country wrong to do so. I personally think constantly separating genders is less likely to help either men or women, I found the lumping in of Wataru with more stereotypically macho men on gender alone particularly wrong considering I did relate to him at the time and also technically (although brief, especially where I live) the emo trend of 2008 was also at least challenging male gender roles a bit more than for example whatever bland 2009 onwards year.
Again sorry if I've gone in too hard too soon but I just sometimes feel like people are assuming that everybody has somehow automatically had some sort of cut and dry life almost like in a film, when actually around that sort of time there were some things in my personal life that were not great for either a 15/16-year old boy or also young people with autism, you can debate things like how common my experiences are but you can't debate whether or not they actually happened. Last edited by tomos; 05-12-2021 at 03:53 AM.. |
05-12-2021, 04:18 AM | #119 |
Yodonna oshi
Join Date: Jan 2021
Posts: 748
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Quote:
I just sometimes feel like people are assuming that everybody has somehow automatically had some sort of cut and dry life almost like in a film, when actually around that sort of time there were some things in my personal life that were not great for either a 15/16-year old boy or also young people with autism, you can debate things like how common my experiences are but you can't debate whether or not they actually happened.
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05-12-2021, 06:28 AM | #120 |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2019
Posts: 462
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Sorry, I may have just taken some comments the wrong way.
For what it's worth I do at least like now better than 2009-12 because in my personal life that was terrible, but then if I was going on personal life not a lot of years would be that up there I suppose! I suppose 2008 was semi-memorable being my last full year of school and where I live Facebook and Twitter probably did take till 2009 to catch on (they are my main problem with today whereas Bebo at least seemed marginally better!) but I admit I did find this thing yesterday about someone who planned to live in the 2000s for the rest of his life and I've got to admit maybe that is taking nostalgia just a bit too far(!), plus arguably some people on the internet seem to say they miss 90s things that are actually readily accessible to buy like Hey Arnold and Toy Story, but don't actually spend less time on computers! |
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