|
Community Links |
Members List |
Search Forums |
Advanced Search |
Go to Page... |
|
Thread Tools |
02-25-2021, 12:14 AM | #181 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 6 - "A SWINDLER'S DIGNITY”
Well, this story ended better than it began, I'll give it that. I still didn't really care for it, though. Even once Ryotaro gets involved, a lot of the details feel fuzzy, and the attempt at a moral feels incredibly forced. There's a bunch of stuff, but not much ever feels like it's escalating consistently, and there end up being a weird amount of unnecessary elements. It's a story that seems to value ambiguity over clarity, and I don't love that trade this early in a series. It's sloppy, and only a few beats really landed with me. I think my favorite thing from this whole story is how much it rests on the shoulders of Hana, and how she could basically solve this whole case by herself. There's that scene where she's yelling at Daiki, and he's like I Only Know How To Get Yelled At and she's like I Only Know How To Yell At People and they're both like Oh Wait This Isn't Good. It's a scene that a worse version of this show would have Ryotaro step into, with him connecting with Daiki while Hana learns from his example. Instead, Ryotaro just smiles as he sees the other two figure out how they're communicating badly: Hana, with her aggressive need to chastise children who are misbehaving (see also Momotaros and Urataros); and Daiki, with his lies to keep from facing the truth. It's a very sweet scene, and I loved how it was just two people apologizing for being real bad at responding to people. It just... it feels like the show is trying to make the story about Daiki being a liar, and I don't know if that really lands? It's not like he believed the monster was real until a few minutes before Hana confronted him (so it's not like he's been hiding this from everyone all along), and him being a liar isn't really connected to his failure in the soccer game. It's like they wanted to do something with Urataros being a liar, but this kid is so tertiary to everything happening in the story that they take one lie (partially told because of Hana being an angry stranger) and try to turn this into A Story About Lying. Which, man, maybe if you squint real hard (the Airimirers help support this read), but not in any way that feels like they're telling that story well. The Urataros story is of a cloth with the unevenness of the Daiki story, where his core trait of lying renders any arc with him one that's kept at a distance. If I don't believe anything Urataros says (I don't! I was laughing very hard at Momo and Naomi in the scene where Ura starts crying!), then what's in this episode isn't some Hooker With A Heart Of Gold thing, like Ryotaro assumes, but some duplicitous hedonist existing only to manipulate. Is there more to him? Maybe! I don't know! As it is, I think he's funny enough, but I don't really feel much enthusiasm for seeing him in solo-ish action. I didn't really care about his story by the end, which doesn't feel like a successful couple of episodes for this show? THE BAGGAGE CAR -Hana, though! I really dug how central she was in this, and it's the one purely positive thing to come from these episodes. She just has zero time for problematic children, a trait that's simultaneously invigorating (she's had it with these mother******* Imagin on this mother******* train!), and a huge handicap for a show that's largely about teaching lessons to children. Seeing her be just terrible with Daiki was, no joke, amazing to watch. It's rare to see a hero on a Kamen Rider show be shit with kids, so that moment where she could see herself making this kid more withdrawn, and how mad she got at herself... I loved it. It's the smartest scene in this whole story, by miles. -The Airimirers are only in one short scene, a decision that is both welcome, because they suck, and retroactively infuriating, because they are irrelevant to the story while factoring heavily into the first part. The previous episode wastes so much time on guys that, at best, minorly support a theme about lying being bad but also sometimes okay if you can use it to help people which they don't do. Just... just some not great plotting in these two episodes, you guys. -Rod Form! I don't love the red Sword Form chest on the back! The rest of it is neat, though, and I love the finisher. Who can say a bad thing about impaling a monster and then Rider Kicking the impaling tool through it? -I don't completely love the ambiguity the show tacks onto Urataros' intentions (just, let me think this dude has some heroic potential!), but I appreciate that Ryotaro wants to see something in him that might not be there. It's that whole thing about Ryotaro not wanting to introduce pain into the world, so he'd rather give Urataros a chance than punish him needlessly. And Ryotaro seeing Ura's lies as a gambit to guilt Daiki... yeah, that's exactly what I thought Ura was doing, so I see why Ryotaro would make that assumption as well. It was a lazy, obvious lie, and pretty much beneath Urataros. (Hana has been very clear that she sees through him!) I think there's room in there for Urataros to feel slightly offended that Ryotaro twigged to the altruistic failure, and so Ura needs to double-down on appearing selfish, but I think the ending would've been better if Urataros would've just shrugged off Ryotaro's theory instead of flatly denying it. Think they went a little too far in trying to walk back Urataros' teamwork. Some clever bits in there, though!
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 09-11-2023 at 09:51 PM.. |
02-25-2021, 12:35 AM | #182 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,503
|
So now that you have seen Rod Form:
Quote:
Urataros is based off the Japanese folklore Urashima Taro, a story of a fisherman who saved a turtle from a bunch of brats that was being mean to it. Turns out that turtle was Otohime, the daughter of the Ryujin(aka ruler of the Ryugujyo or Dragon Palace) in disguise. Taro went down there and spend the next few days with her. However he got homesick and wished to return to the surface world. Allowing him to go back, Otohime presented him with a box that must never be opened. Upon reaching the surface world, to his surprise what seemed like days were centuries later. Saddened that everyone and everything he knew were gone, he opened the box given by Otohime. The box let out a puff of smoke and Taro became old, the end.
Rod Form is based off the sea turtle imagery common in the Urashima Taro story as explained above. The DenGasher in Rod Form is by default a fishing spear type polearm that can also at times double as a fishing rod. And while nothing to do with the lore, visually it shares elements of Kamen Rider G3 and to an extent Kamen Rider Gatack being blue with orange eyes for starters. Simply put it's basically the same idea as the DenGasher. You will know what I mean after a few more eps. Last edited by Sunred; 02-25-2021 at 12:43 AM.. |
02-25-2021, 12:39 AM | #183 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
Quote:
So now that you have seen Rod Form:
Addendum. Rod Form is based off the sea turtle imagery common in the Urashima Taro story as explained above. The DenGasher in Rod Form is by default a fishing spear type polearm that can also at times double as a fishing rod. And while nothing to do with the lore, visually it shares elements of Kamen Rider G3 and to an extent Kamen Rider Gatack being blue with orange eyes for starters. -Rod Form! I don’t love the red Sword Form chest on the back! The rest of it is neat, though, and I love the finisher. Who can say a bad thing about impaling a monster and then Rider Kicking the impaling tool through it? Simply put it's basically the same idea as the DenGasher.
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! |
02-25-2021, 12:46 AM | #184 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,503
|
Seriously though.
|
02-25-2021, 12:48 AM | #185 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! |
02-25-2021, 12:51 AM | #186 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,503
|
I even thought to myself at one point during the time the toy catalogs were appearing all over the internet circa 2007 that Yuki Sato who plays Kagami must be reprising his role cause clearly this is Kamen Rider Gatack RX.
Last edited by Sunred; 02-25-2021 at 12:54 AM.. |
02-25-2021, 03:10 AM | #187 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,546
|
Well it’s the second part, so it’s me ramblings about the show post.
I’ve sworn off telling you who the face cast are to devote myself to the regular feature (to get around this in one case, the major guest actor for episodes 15-6 just so happens to be appearing in an episode I’ll be watching in my thread next week). But I will say that the actor playing Daiki is someone you’ll be seeing a lot more of come the Summer of Inoue. For some information that the show depoesnt go into, the regular DenLiner is the DenLiner Gouka, while Ura’s version is the DenLiner Isurugi. My attempts to find the meanings of those names has turned out nothing. In all honesty, I don’t remember this one all that much. But I do remember the next one for the ending. But I’ll let you get there before explaining it’s personal infamy. |
02-25-2021, 01:04 PM | #188 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
Quote:
Quote:
I’ve sworn off telling you who the face cast are to devote myself to the regular feature (to get around this in one case, the major guest actor for episodes 15-6 just so happens to be appearing in an episode I’ll be watching in my thread next week). But I will say that the actor playing Daiki is someone you’ll be seeing a lot more of come the Summer of Inoue.
It's not that memorable of a story? Beyond the introduction of Urataros, it's a none-too-sturdy Den-O adventure that pushes Ryotaro to the distant background. It's also a story where the Crab Imagin is the one who's most responsible for improving Daiki's life, which is something I was thinking about this morning that is utterly bizarre. The big thing for Daiki's character is that he blew some kick in a soccer game, and now he doesn't deal with that failure well. He won't support his teammates, and he's jealous that they get to play when he's benched. But when the Crab Imagin goes back in time, he appears right before Daiki's kick, so Daiki never fails. There's no missed kick, nothing for Daiki to learn from or overcome. He doesn't get benched, even. It's 100% thanks to a monster showing up and almost murdering everyone in the past that Daiki is happy and healed in the present. That is some insane plotting.
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! |
02-25-2021, 01:15 PM | #189 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
|
What can be said? It's a winning combination!
The thing I remember finding memorable about this episode... is sadly the aesthetics of the fight. I recall finding it kinda funny that Rod Form was given the normal characteristics of a Rider compared to Sword Form's deviations -- he's got the bug eyes, and then his finisher is an actual rider kick.
__________________
|
02-25-2021, 01:20 PM | #190 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,409
|
Quote:
As for the episode itself... well, it certainly happened. I remember all of these early arcs of Den-O that bring in the new Imagin and all the various victims of the fortnight... except this one. Daiki and his story are both really bland. The main things I remember have nothing to do with him and are more about Urataros lying about his backstory (still a good gag even on my third time through) and the horny head nurse (also a gag that exists). It's not a high point and I like the follow-up arc (and its main guest star) a lot more. |
|
TokuNation News & Rumors |
SH Figuarts BoonBoomger Red |
Hasbro Licenses Power Rangers Toys to Playmates Toys |
Discotek Media Licenses Mobile Cop Jiban |
What's going on with CSM? |
Ultraman Arc Trailer |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:37 PM.
|