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09-13-2019, 06:35 PM | #11 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 5 - 8
It's interesting to me that Build would dive so quickly into clearing up some of its initial mysteries, or at the very least, confirm viewers' suspicions. That's not what I expected! I thought we'd get the usual Just Show Off The Gimmicks early-season plots, along with some fun character moments, but nope: we are all in on Sento's mysterious origin, the nature of Sento and Banjou's abilities, where Hipster Dad got the Pandora panel, even some clues to who Sento was before he was Sento. That's a lot! Maybe too much too fast! It's not such a bad thing, at least in episodes 5 and 6. It helps that, first off, the revelations about various mysteries are there to reaffirm some of the growth and introspection we saw in the last few episodes. The show does an excellent job feeding these answers (or, possibly, "answers") to Sento and Banjou as not just exposition and Plot, but to test the characters' beliefs and give the audience a clear sense of who each character is. Sento is, we're told, a character who worries about others, who tries to help people because he wants to think of himself as someone who helps others. Banjou is, we're shown, someone who can be ruthless about clearing his name and getting answers for why his life is a nightmare. So, the smartest thing to do as a story is to force the two of them into opposite roles. Sento is driven into a myopic rage by Blood Stalk, ignoring victims to get to the truth about his missing memories. Banjou has to abandon the one person so far who seems to know what's going on to save a bunch of strangers and help Build see that getting revenge isn't the answer. It's smart, you guys. It's so, so smart. The other, maybe bigger reason I don't mind so much Revelation this early in the show is that I'm sure there's bigger bombshells to come, plus I don't know how much I beleive a lot of what we're being told. Hipster Dad in particular, man. I feel like a lot is being left out. I don't think it's lies per se, but there is clearly More To Come with that dude. Oh, one other thing about this two-parter I loved is the noir-ish moral complexity to the characters and mysteries. (There's that W influence again...) The few victims that Build has rescued are, one mom aside, kind-of unknowingly/reluctantly complicit in kidnapping, assault, and framing someone for murder. No one's a saint in this show, is what I'm getting at. Even Banjou setting Nightmare Teeth loose to track down the Faust base is something that is sort-of defensible, and the show doesn't treat it like anything more than a dick move. It's a lot more mature than I'm used to from a franchise that exists to get children to ask their parents to buy them toys. So, uh, I didn't love how episodes 7 and 8 turned out? I still liked them, there's fun stuff in there, but, yeah, maybe this story is the downside of having a lot of mysteries bubbling in the series. It's a lot of people telling us things that I don't totally trust. On any other Rider show, a villain saying Here's What Happened, you can usually trust them. I don't think the producers want to confuse kids that much, so any reveal can be taken at face value. With Build, it's a smart enough show that, short of actual proof, you're smart to be skeptical of who's saying something, and why. The downside, narratively, is that you can eat up a lot of time dropping plot bombs that provoke a reaction roughly along the lines of "jerk-off motion". That is maybe not the desired reaction? The thing that keeps those plot decisions from doing any real damage is that the show doesn't assume viewers are morons. It's a very tough line to put forward information that seems true, but has the ability to be expanded later into something different. Not lies, but, like, stuff that's true from a certain point of view. You don't want to cheat an audience, but you need to give them a plausible enough answer that they maybe won't ask so many questions for a few episodes. Build does an admirable job having every character act like they aren't suffering from a concussion, and can think clearly. (Well, except Banjou, who may actually be suffering from one or more concussions.) No one really thinks Sento killed Takumi. Like, Banjou's super suspicious, but he doesn't actually have any proof, so he's willing to just investigate until they know more. Sento's concerned, but he's not, like, turning himself in. In general, when presented with information that could rock them to their core, everybody in Team Build is like, "Let's take a step back and really consider not just the information, but the source of that information. Maybe there's more going on here." That is some smart plotting! It gives the characters something, but keeps them from feeling like they can stop working. Similarly, the audience gets to see a part of the puzzle, without the show trying to tell them they've seen the whole picture. I never felt like the show was wasting my time or dragging things out, so that's appreciated. I just didn't feel like the actual story was as engaging as they'd been previously. The villains and their conflicts are great, but the supporting cast was basically nowhere for this story, and too much information was just someone telling us a long story. Just, you know, not that kinetic for a superhero program! Oh, and so you can mock my inevitable wrongness, here's a couple theories: Sento is Takumi's knowledge/brain in Punk Rocker's body (Build is all about combinations! It's a motif!), and Hipster Dad is Blood Stalk. Please laugh at these in private. Thanks!
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09-13-2019, 06:38 PM | #12 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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And, yeah, I think comparisons to Fourze's awesome cast are totally earned. I cared about all of these wisecracking nerds so fast!
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09-13-2019, 07:04 PM | #13 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,426
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I will say this: you are either correct or incorrect in one or both of those assumptions.
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09-13-2019, 07:04 PM | #14 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Episode 6 is one of my favorites from the entirety of Build. All the insane amounts of legwork the show was doing to build up (this show really lends itself to accidental puns, by the way) Sento and Ryuuga in a relatively short span of time considering both the overall length of a Rider show, and, as you've pointed out, the demands being a merchandise-driven action series puts on plot real estate, payed off beautifully, and it really made for a memorable conclusion to the first "chapter" of the story.
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Wait...
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09-13-2019, 07:20 PM | #15 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Episode 6 is one of my favorites from the entirety of Build. All the insane amounts of legwork the show was doing to build up (this show really lends itself to accidental puns, by the way) Sento and Ryuuga in a relatively short span of time considering both the overall length of a Rider show, and, as you've pointed out, the demands being a merchandise-driven action series puts on plot real estate, payed off beautifully, and it really made for a memorable conclusion to the first "chapter" of the story.
Send the message and let it ring: STOP IT.
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09-13-2019, 11:26 PM | #16 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 9 - 12
A really good two-parter, but one I'm having a tough time evaluating thematically. Like, there's sort-of two good things happening across this story, and they don't seem to really be saying anything together. That's not a failure or anything, but it makes for two episodes that really nail Plot but kind-of shrug at Theme. The first thing I loved was that Banjou/Misora date. Just in general, they're two characters I like to see just hanging out. The performers are stellar, and the amount of feeling that comes out is next level. It's a very sweet, very nuanced sequence about two people whose lives are insane, who feel disconnected from the world, trying to find a little happiness. There's a, I don't know, kindness to that idea. A little tranquility. There's an understated (for Banjou and Misora!) progression where each of them opens up, without it feeling like we're getting, like, a thesis statement on Who They Are. Just some character stuff, necessary to flesh them out, but delivered in a very entertaining way. Then there's the other 3/4s of the story, which is just The Villains Win Big. Night Rogue and Blood Stalk just totally run the table, even when they're fighting each other. Sento and Banjou score a largely symbolic victory in, uh, finally being friends officially? And not getting murdered? They didn't do great, basically. Pretty much totally lost. But the villains had a great plan, Blood Stalk is incredibly charismatic in his double-crosses and taunting, Night Rogue still manages to be one step ahead of everyone, and now the bad guys have Pandora's Box and run the country. Also, Sawa is informing on our heroes to the military-industrial complex. Things are going great for Team Build! These were two good episodes, and the second one in particular is pretty much an A+ battle episode, but it's weird how disconnected the Banjou/Misora stuff was from what would turn out to be the rest of the story. Maybe there's some theme running through it all that I'm missing? If so, let me know what you think. Okay, I thought about it for, like, another minute, and I can see how it connects, plot-wise and theme-wise. Misora needs to open up with Banjou, and Banjou with Misora, so she can tell him that Sento blames himself for Kasumi's death. Eventually, during the rooftop fight, Banjou has to forgive Sento by literally entrusting his girlfriend's spirit to Sento, leading to a near-victory with KeyDragon. All of the Banjou/Misora stuff isn't so much there for Misora, it's to explore through Misora how Sento feels. That's the thread, that's why those two sequences are in one story, I get that now. I think I was just focussing too much on the start of that sequence, and forgot some about the end. Really, I should rework the beginning of this write-up, but, y'know, that first paragraph is how I initially felt, so why not be honest. I feel a lot better about this story now, though. So, obviously, this is The One Where Cross-Z Happens. (How am I meant to be saying that, anyway? I can't tell. "Cross"? "Cross Zee"? Help!) And, sure, it's a solid, emotional moment, the suit looks good, it's great to see Banjou taking a more active role in the fights, all good things. High fives all around. Also, Blood Stalk seems to be living his best life, bounding into and out of scenes with the sort of joie de vivre that'd make Kamen Rider Birth swoon. He's a treasure. That's not what I want to talk about, though. I want to talk about the Sawa/Utsumi stuff. That's, to me, the meat of this story, and I thought it was really something special. It's a gamble for a series like Kamen Rider to try and pull a background player up to the main stage for a story. Frankly, few of them are built for that kind of scrutiny. They're gag recipients, or exposition deliverers, or just plain victims. You're not supposed to, like, care about them. So when a show decides This Is The Week Where You Care About Them, y'know, we'll see! Easier said than done. So you can imagine my surprise that I actually cared about Utsumi's sudden, previously unmentioned existential struggle. What had mostly been a smirking lackey, perpetually in Night Rogue's shadow, is now this fleshed-out character, grappling with the way his once-noble goals have been twisted by the compromises of ideological survival. The needs of Faust as an organization are greater than the hopes of its servants, and Utsumi gets ground up by the machine he admired. It's tragic, and the show doesn't flinch at portraying it as such. Even more interesting is the way the show weaves in Sawa's backstory, and how it thematically supports Utsumi's. Sawa is another person who started down a road with noble intentions, but now she doesn't know where it all went wrong. What should've been justice for her father, the downfall of evil men, is now a betrayal of good people and life as a fugitive. Except, no, because Team Build doesn't stand for that sort of thinking. Sawa's a friend, and she was trying to do good, and that matters more than the mistakes she made while trying to do good. It's more of that moral complexity I'm loving, where choices aren't judged, they're weighed against goals and intentions. Good people can do bad things for good reasons, and bad people can do good things for bad reasons. It's linked thematically with Sento's view of science as not inherently good or evil, but subject to choices and goals and intentions. Trying to do good is maybe more important than actually doing good. The world's a complicated place, but maybe with a group of friends and some good intentions you can get through. It's sad that Utsumi never got that chance.
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09-14-2019, 12:01 AM | #17 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Okay, one other thing from episode 12. This is driving me crazy, and I need your help with this. I almost made a poll about it, I'm so conflicted.
Okay, early in the series, in Faust's Sky Wall base, Night Rogue has this swank chair: That base is destroyed in an explosion, everything buried under tons of rubble. BUT. Later, when Touto forces storm a different Faust base (located at scenic Kamen Rider Dam), the counterfeit Night Rogue is sitting in the exact same chair: So! My question to you is, a) did Night Rogue dig that first chair out of the rubble because he was so attached to it, b) did Night Rogue rebuy the exact same chair because he's so attached to it, or c) does every Faust base have the exact same chair just in case Night Rogue shows up? Gimme that headcanon!
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Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 10-13-2023 at 10:04 PM.. |
09-14-2019, 02:28 AM | #18 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,530
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I'm Kiwami and this is my favorite thread on the citadel. Also, I want to watch Kamen Rider Build again.
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These were two good episodes, and the second one in particular is pretty much an A+ battle episode, but it's weird how disconnected the Banjou/Misora stuff was from what would turn out to be the rest of the story. Maybe there's some theme running through it all that I'm missing? If so, let me know what you think.
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So! My question to you is, a) did Night Rogue dig that first chair out of the rubble because he was so attached to it, b) did Night Rogue rebuy the exact same chair because he's so attached to it, or c) does every Faust base have the exact same chair just in case Night Rogue shows up?
Gimme that headcanon! |
09-14-2019, 07:43 AM | #19 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wait, you dont know either?
Posts: 5,826
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Considering my amazing future knowledge, I'm gonna say B). Night Rogue just has the tackiest taste, ya know?
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Check out my occasional ramblings! https://akibamusings.blogspot.com/
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09-14-2019, 09:44 AM | #20 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,426
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