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01-16-2024, 10:30 PM | #41 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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SHOTARO HIDARI HARDBOILED DELUSION DIARY EPISODE 1 - “WHAT IF AKIKO WAS AN EXCELLENT SECRETARY?”
I’d never really watched any of the W bonus material back in the day, beyond the movies. I sort of… I didn’t really understand what it all was? Phase 2 Heisei is where Kamen Rider starts to have a dizzying array of nebulously-canonical content – HBVs, Net-Movies, DVD bonus features, stage shows, etc. – which can be incredibly daunting to a new fan that’s unused to Toei’s scattergun approach to yearly superhero stories. The first time through with W, I just watched what I thought was Actual Content: the TV episodes and the two movies. But that’s because I was young and foolish, and I had no idea how precious all of this ancillary content can be. While it’s not technically in continuity with the series, this sort of stuff has a playfulness that adds dimensionality to the characters, and a warmth that carries over into the show itself. I like seeing these actors get goofy, and I like seeing the shows churn out a cheap piece of fun bonus content. Which is exactly what this very short piece of DVD bonus content is! Absolutely inessential, but very fun to watch. It’s a bigger, more intricate version of the thing I liked from the opening credits, where Shotaro’s fiction-influenced dream of a real detective office butts up against the reality of the Narumi Detective Agency being a low-rent group of weirdos. The short itself is, uh, short (less than three minutes?), but it’s got some fun concepts that speak to Shotaro’s fiction-warped view of How Things Should Be: Akiko is a sophisticated secretary who sings his praises, while Philip is… well, basically Diend. (Maybe Shotaro watched a bunch of Decade recently?) It’s Shotaro in charge of the woman who berates him and the man who can’t stay on task, and it’s as uncomfortable for Shotaro as it is for the viewer. It’s a boring premise, missing all of the hilarious tension and friction of the main show. Still, it’s a fun concept for a couple minutes, even if it needs an appearance by the terrific T-Rex Dopant costume to come up with an ending. This was a cute little bonus feature! I don’t think it ruined my initial W viewing experience to have skipped it, but it’s a nice compliment to the series now. Any additional time spent with these characters annoying each other is a plus!
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01-16-2024, 10:56 PM | #42 |
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"Uh...YES! That would be ******* amazing!"
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01-17-2024, 05:41 AM | #43 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
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Thay's definitely one advantage the TV-N subs have over the rest: subbing the various jokes that are on Akiko's dozens of slippers.
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01-17-2024, 03:47 PM | #44 |
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I watched all of the Delusion Diaries back in the day and remember pretty much nothing about them, just enough to be amused by something specific from the cartoon*. I'll stay vague on that because, even though I don't think it's a spoiler, why risk it?
Not sure I have a lot to add about this or the second part of the casino arc, outside of just noting that I love how Shotaro's favorite card game is another sign that he's considerably less mature than he wants you to think he is. Instead, I'll mention a bit about my own background with the show. I got into Kamen Rider, as I've mentioned in at least one of these threads, by watching the first episode of Decade and then backtracking to go through all of the other Heisei shows that had been subbed at the time (i.e., everything but Kuuga). W started airing during this period and it became the first show I watched live as it aired. As such, it would always hold a special place in my heart even if I didn't think it was still one of the best shows in the franchise. It also turned me on more to classic hard-boiled detective fiction, which led to me devouring most of Raymond Chandler's novels over the course of a few months (put Playback off for a while, but eventually read that, too). Also lead to reading some Hammett, some Ellroy, and 2.5 consecutive playthroughs of La Noire. To this day, I still have a major aesthetic soft spot for post-WWII Los Angeles that can all be traced back to W. |
01-17-2024, 08:19 PM | #45 |
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Philip has a bit more functionality than Google (especially since AI started junking up the results), but, yeah, a lot of what Shotaro needs to research in order to solve a case is the stuff I check on my phone. Maybe... maybe me and my phone are the new two-in-one detective of the Windy City?!
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 3 - ?DON?T TOUCH THE M: HOW TO GET INTO HEAVEN?
Normally, this is the paragraph where I?d undercut that by listing the things I?d change about it, but no! Genuinely thought this one worked all the way through. Yuuko?s whole disobedient daughter thing was a neat way into the theme of Family, and her money-warped personality change was a fun foil for our half-boiled team of Akiko (terrible at this in a really charming way) and Shotaro (just hopelessly outclassed by Akiko?s stubbornness at every turn; perfect). The beats of the mystery both play fair ? the bus in the first disappearance scene ? and feel clever in their deployment. It?s not a huge, twisty story or nothing, but the incremental search for the Million Colosseo makes for a solid first half of this mystery. Watcherman seems to know the key to get through Akiko though, she likes being flattered, like what Watcherman does while trying to take a photo with her, to get her to comply. For being someone who understands people really well, Shotaro got upstaged by Watcherman here. And Phillip is held in higher regard for both Shotaro and Akiko, because he manages to be the "mediator", defusing their argument by telling them to be quiet as he wants to focus on the radio show. Quote:
The rest of the episode is spent on world-building and the mystery of Philip?s memories, and I found the former more appealing than the latter. Both are good (mostly in how Philip?s missing memories directly impact Double?s superheroic effectiveness), but the continued development of the citizenry of Fuuto is always going to land better for me. Watcherman returns for a bit of banter with Akiko, but it?s the time spent with the Fuuto police detectives that was most entertaining.
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The Wakana/Sonozaki family stuff? it?s coming together? This is the story where Wakana starts to interact with Team Double, where Kirihiko sees Double in action for the first time, and where the Sonozaki family start to understand what?s happening in their city. The way the show portrays them less as a cabal of Dopant supremacists, and more as a basic Crime Family, it does a lot of heavy-lifting for making them compelling to watch. They?re a fun group of affluent criminals who also happen to be rubber-suited monsters.
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True that Shoutarou is a solid candidate for heart, but I think he mostly shows that side of himself towards his clients and suspects, using emotional intuition to figure out motives and deliver effective pep talks to victims. The dynamic in the Narumi Detective Agency kind of places Akiko in the role of a mother, since it's usually her who tries to make decisive judgments for the direction of the company whenever Shoutarou's hunches come to dispute against Phillip's cold logic, or vice versa. The fact that Shoutarou and Phillip are able to honestly debate and make up after shows that their friendship is healthy and strong for sure. And yeah, Akiko ranks as my 7th favorite Heisei heroine, so fairly high. I think I generally liked heroines more often in Phase 1 and early Phase 2. Everything after that seems to be a mixed bag, IMO.
For the rank part, yeah... I thought Phase 1 ones would be the ones with really low bar before, considering that they're usually hated for being the loads/useless/damsel in distress, or yes, having the emotional or moral support role which people think it's really reductive of women to put them in that role. I wonder if you tend to like those better, who'd you like among them, perhaps other than Inoue show ones (seems obvious guess). What I read was the Hirose one in Blade, but that's just one example.
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01-17-2024, 11:21 PM | #46 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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I got into Kamen Rider, as I've mentioned in at least one of these threads, by watching the first episode of Decade and then backtracking to go through all of the other Heisei shows that had been subbed at the time (i.e., everything but Kuuga). W started airing during this period and it became the first show I watched live as it aired. As such, it would always hold a special place in my heart even if I didn't think it was still one of the best shows in the franchise. It also turned me on more to classic hard-boiled detective fiction, which led to me devouring most of Raymond Chandler's novels over the course of a few months (put Playback off for a while, but eventually read that, too). Also lead to reading some Hammett, some Ellroy, and 2.5 consecutive playthroughs of La Noire. To this day, I still have a major aesthetic soft spot for post-WWII Los Angeles that can all be traced back to W.
I've always felt like W is the perfect starter show for Kamen Rider, since it's mostly two-episode mysteries where the heroes try and help out someone being preyed upon by a monster, and that's the perfect format for Kamen Rider. (I love Geats, but the Geats format of larger blocks of thematic exploration are a bit Advanced Class for anyone's first Rider show.) Most Rider shows in Heisei work on two-episode mysteries as their structure, but always have to slightly dress it up in contrivance or toku-specifics -- Den-O's time travel, or Double's alternate realities. Here, it's just A Mystery, usually brought about by someone walking in the front door of the Narumi Detective Agency and saying I Have A Mystery. It's very expeditious! Quote:
I gotta put more blame to Akiko though. Shotaro tries to warn her about the casino being run by monsters to no avail, while Yuuko's behavior riles up Akiko enough to blow their cover, although it's a sign of her standing up to what's right with her treating family as less important to money.
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01-18-2024, 12:11 AM | #47 |
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It also turned me on more to classic hard-boiled detective fiction, which led to me devouring most of Raymond Chandler's novels over the course of a few months (put Playback off for a while, but eventually read that, too). Also lead to reading some Hammett, some Ellroy, and 2.5 consecutive playthroughs of La Noire. To this day, I still have a major aesthetic soft spot for post-WWII Los Angeles that can all be traced back to W.
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Last edited by Sunred; 01-18-2024 at 12:14 AM.. |
01-18-2024, 06:17 PM | #48 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 5 - “GIRL… A - PAPA’S A KAMEN RIDER”
Shotaro… not great with kids! It’s nice to get a Double story that allows (one of) our Rider(s) to help out some precocious moppet. It’s the heart of Kamen Rider as a franchise, making sure kids don’t cry. (Unless it’s Christmastime, and you are a Lazer fan.) Some of the best Kamen Rider stories are the ones where a hero has to be there for a kid in distress, and the ways the hero reacts to a kid help illustrate the dimensions of the show. Like, Hibiki’s great with Asumu on first meeting, but Takumi will generally yell at a child that’s bothering him. It’s fast characterization, on top of being entertaining drama. So we get a mostly flustered Shotaro in this episode, who basically takes the case on Asuka’s behalf (assuming Akiko would’ve given him a choice not to take the case) while still not really knowing how to deal with a charming child who is convinced that Double is secretly her father. Said father is, naturally, dead – ALL DADS ARE DEAD – and her mother has been hiding this fact for like a year, which is completely normal and not a weird, potentially abusive thing to do to your child. It makes Asuka’s emotional state the most precarious thing in an episode field with aquatic snipers and Sonozaki scheming, which is exactly what I want out of Kamen Rider mystery this early in a show. Like, I don’t care about Fuuto’s second wind tower (it’s neat-looking, though) and I don’t really care what happens to Asuka’s mom (she’s a cutthroat politician who is maybe trying to honor her dead husband, if we take her at her word), but I ONE THOUSAND PERCENT don’t want that kid to cry. The monster peril in this episode is almost beside the point to me – the real tension is in trying to get this kid to understand that Double ain’t her dad, and her dad is never coming home. The stakes of that… it’s good, man. Those are good stakes. They aren’t, sadly, stakes that the episode is super concerned about, though? It’s not an episode that really gives Asuka and Shotaro a lot of time together, despite it being the most intriguing hook in the episode. We spend a lot of time with Shotaro on bodyguard duty, as well as the various factions at play in the development of the wind tower. Arguably too much! It makes this episode feel a little padded out, in that it’s trying to flesh out a thing that is both of huge importance to the city of Fuuto, but also a thing that’s only relevant in the abstract. Nothing wrong with wanting to dot i’s and cross t’s when it comes to creating an immersive experience for the viewer, but it’s not really where I’d want to see the show spend its time. But the Shotaro and Asuka stuff, what little there is of it? I like that. I like Shotaro reflexively wanting to shield a child from harm – both physical and emotional – while not being able to carry on a conversation with her, or even coherently express his interest in protecting her from harm. He just, like, doesn’t want this kid to cry! But kids are hard to have a conversation with, because kids are all weird! I get that! — DIE-A MEMORIES -I resent them having an Anomalocaris Dopant, because I will never ever ever remember how to spell that, so I need to have a screenshot of Philip saying it so that I can reference it when writing. THANKS, TOEI. -Zero recollection of this one, so I’m not playing coy about what Asuka’s mom may or may not be up to. I don’t remember anything about this one! Probably– probably not a great sign for its quality, now that I think about it…
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01-18-2024, 06:36 PM | #49 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 4 - ?DON?T TOUCH THE M: BETTING ON JOKER?
It?s a theme in this episode, but maybe oppressively so. It?s there in Philip?s memories, in Shotaro?s role as his big brother, in the Narumi Detective Agency as a found family, in Yuuko?s backstory, in the Sonozaki subplot? it?s 100% what this episode is about, so it?s not like I?m mad at its inability to elucidate or adhere to a theme. FAMILY! That?s the whole thing! I just wish that it felt like we were getting more than just A Bunch Of Family Stuff. Quote:
The Sonozaki/Museum stuff? it?s definitely there. It?s a plot that moves at a breakneck pace, but without really intersecting with this episode?s mystery at all, in any way. (At least last episode we got Kirihiko saving the Money Dopant.) It?s just here to flesh out the Dopant side of their group, and that?s all. We get to see Wakana?s Dopant form in action, Nazca gets a full reveal (as opposed to, uh, Kirihiko?s earlier ?full reveal?) and a glimpse of the rest of the family?s Dopant forms in a cool/nightmarish wedding photo. Beyond racing through the wedding of Saeko and Kirihiko, there?s nothing in all of these scenes that narratively assists the mystery plot in this episode. It?s just, like, another thing that?s happening in Fuuto. While it?s nominally on the topic of Family, spoiler ? a subplot featuring a family is sort of always on the topic of Family.
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The bit that really landed with me is a two-part thing, apropos to Double. The earlier part is Shotaro trying to connect with Philip?s sense of frustration by quoting something Sokichi once said. It bounces right off of Philip, because he never knew Sokichi, and Shotaro?s invocation of his memory isn?t dealing with Philip?s current struggle. Philip feels an absence, and Shotaro?s like Let Me Talk Like My Work Dad. But later, when they?re at the Million Colosseo, Shotaro speaks from the heart and tells Philip that yeah, he?s following in Sokichi?s footsteps, but the result is him dedicating himself to protecting Philip. It takes what was previously a tossed-off detective cosplay and turns it into something personal and heartfelt. There's warmth and vulnerability where there used to be performative manliness, and it's Shotaro once again missing what makes him effective in pursuit of someone else's personality. It's always fun to watch that play out.
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-I had a vague feeling that the Money Dopant was cheating at the casino, but I?m glad I misremembered that! This whole story avoids a lot of easy outs, and I appreciate that. Yuuko just sort of goes Money Crazy; she isn?t being warped by the Money Dopant or anything. Also, everyone knows a monster runs the casino, and everyone?s too greedy to care. I love that touch!
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01-19-2024, 09:24 AM | #50 |
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[b]
Like, i don't care about fuuto's second wind tower (it's neat-looking, though) and i don't really care what happens to asuka's mom (she's a cutthroat politician who is maybe trying to honor her dead husband, if we take her at her word), but I one thousand percent don't want that kid to cry. The monster peril in this episode is almost beside the point to me ? the real tension is in trying to get this kid to understand that double ain't her dad, and her dad is never coming home. The stakes of that? it's good, man. Those are good stakes. Sen pācento!
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