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10-19-2019, 04:29 PM | #1 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Hi.
My name is Kamen Rider Die, and I'm going to be watching Masked Rider Kuuga and writing about the experience. Maybe that's something you'd be interested in? Some background, first. I'm relatively new to the Kamen Rider franchise, having started with Ex-Aid back in March of 2018. Since then, I've made my way through the following series: EX-AID (my first Rider show, love the designs, love how all of the main Riders at best tolerate each other) AMAZONS (great first season, weird second season, terrible movie) W (maybe the best main Rider, terrific theme song, sort-of falls apart in the last stretch) OOO (favorite series, not the best at anything but good at everything) FOURZE (best ensemble, maybe the best first 12 episodes, don't love the suits) WIZARD (favorite suit, show just had a ton of problems for me) GAIM (propulsive storyline, fun character development, great cast, don't love the suits) DRIVE (best theme song, fun mysteries, all-around excellent, except maybe the middle doesn't work super great) GHOST (better than you've heard, not as good as you'd hope, I talk a ton about it here) BUILD (great first third, killer middle third, up-and-down final third, I talk a ton about it here) ...aaaaaand that brings me to the present. I should technically watch Zi-O next, but I really wanted to do the rest of the Heisei Riders before I close the era off with Zi-O. So, Kuuga. I don't know really anything about Kuuga! This will all be totally fresh to me. As such, please please please don't post spoilers. I'd love to experience this as fresh as possible, which means please don't even hint at upcoming stuff. Also, please don't mention stuff from Agito through Decade or Zi-O, since I'm planning on watching those in the future and I'd really like to not expect things! That said, anything from W through Build I'm going to consider fair game, so if you haven't watched those shows, uh, maybe you might want to do that first? This thread will be here when you're done! Speaking of this thread, if you've not seen me talk about Kamen Riders before, maybe a little warning. I will be taking Kuuga both very seriously (I like examining themes, looking for emotional throughlines, and treating these shows as art) and completely not seriously (these are shows designed to sell toys to Japanese children, and as a Transformers fan I understand that often any narrative success is a happy accident). I will make up dumb names for characters. I will maybe forget to talk about new suits to dwell on a small moment of character growth. I am going to vent, I am going to criticize, I am going to cheer, I am going to praise. I have a lot of thoughts about Kamen Riders, it's why I'm here, and I need to get them out of my head. This is hopefully going to be a fun ride for everyone, but that means you'll need to make sure you're strapped in. I love when folks participate, so please chime in if you've got thoughts on these episodes or responses to what I'm saying about them. Just, yeah, no spoilers, thanks! That's all of the warnings out of the way, I think. Let's watch MASKED RIDER KUUGA! SOME FEAR! PROBABLY SOME PAIN!
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10-19-2019, 04:36 PM | #2 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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MASKED RIDER KUUGA EPISODES 1 - 2
A New Hero! A New Legend! So much to unpack and examine! Hey, let me talk about Doctor Who for a minute. I got into Doctor Who in 2005, same as a lot of modern fans. Chris Eccleston, Russell Davies, Billie Piper, that whole crew. I was aware of Doctor Who before that, of course. I had friends who grew up on Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy, were in fan clubs and ead Doctor Who Magazine. But it always looked so cheesy to me, hopelessly retro. If you don't have the nostalgia of youth, those rose-colored glasses, it's difficult to see past all of the cheap sets and corny music and stilited performances. It was a different era when those shows were made, but I'm watching them in this era. It wasn't until a fresh, modern version of Doctor Who came along that I could really invest in the franchise, where I could enjoy it without having to excuse anything. It was a fun, well-made show, not some relic of the past. Hey, speaking of "relic of the past": So, Kuuga. I, uh, I was not prepared for Kuuga. I am going to try very hard to judge this show on its own merits. Very hard. Because, you guys, it would be so, so easy to just shit all over the production values. It would be totally unfair, after having just watched 2018's Build, to compare it to 1999's Kuuga. Unfair, but so easy. The video tape looks laughably outdated, the pace is glacial, the fights are mostly two men who can barely move shoving each other, the special effects call the wrong attention to themselves... It's a lot to ignore. It is a lot. But, why shit all over it? What would the point be of that? You don't need me to chastise a 1999 TV show for looking like it was shot in 1999. Yeah, it looks cheap compared to 2019 visuals, but there's always been more to Kamen Rider than production values, right? On its own terms, the first couple episodes of Kuuga are solid, if not terribly exciting. Godai comes off as a slightly goofier take on your standard superhero. Ichijou is the gruff lawman, looking to sideline the vigilante until he realizes that he gets results, dammit. Sakurako has some cute scenes, showcasing her skills without really pushing the story forward. No one really made a huge impression on me, they were all just sort-of there. It's weird how light the stories seemed. The monster fights take a while, which eats up screen time, but the rest of the episodes don't do that much. A character goes to a place, leaves, comes back, fights a monster. The monsters thus far don't have any apparent goals, there's no sense of what they want. They just menace people, and Kuuga has to fight them. There isn't much specific motivation yet for Godai, just Justice and I Don't Want People To Cry. The stories so far hit the beats, they tell a story, but there's precious little to talk about from them. They're just there. Thematically, they aren't about anything. Visually, they're not shot or staged in dynamic ways. Character-wise, the performances are professional but lacking idiosyncrasy. (Okay, Godai gets some fun line readings, and the way he throws himself into being a Masked Rider has an appealing earnestness to it, even if it feels lower-key than I'd like.) I don't want to say these episodes were boring. It wasn't that, exactly. But it just felt so generic. It felt like I was watching Superhero Show, not Masked Rider Kuuga. I wanted some specific flavor, and I got a bland but filling broth.
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Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 03-20-2023 at 10:36 PM.. |
10-19-2019, 04:44 PM | #3 |
天心の英雄たち
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: Maryland
Posts: 939
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Kuuga is love it or hate it. Make sure you watch Agito afterwards, they (sort of) go together.
You'll probably really like Fiaz when you get to it. I think it's really one of the better seasons but i don't see it mentioned too much. |
10-19-2019, 04:49 PM | #4 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
Agito is definitely next! I'm going to take the Phase 1 Heisei shows in order, so Faiz isn't too far away, either.
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10-19-2019, 04:51 PM | #5 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 320
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...Wow, that sums up my feelings towards Kuuga in general really well.
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10-19-2019, 05:02 PM | #6 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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I think probably the reason it feels like Superhero Show and fairly generic in that sense is that Kuuga is the revival of Kamen Rider after what was essentially a very long period off the air -- and in terms of cultural significance, Kamen Rider (and Super Sentai) to Japan basically is Superheroes.
The best possible comparison I could draw is that imagine if Superman, somehow, some way went on a long hiatus for like 10 years or so, and someone was asked to bring it back. The beats it's going to hit are naturally going to be very archetypical and even if they are going for something new, the first stretch or so especially will be trying to capture the base essence of what Superman is before its own identity. Because, goddamn, it's SUPERMAN! It's-- it's the guy everyone thinks of when they think of Superheroes and the general stereotypes of one! This is actually one of the things I love about Kuuga -- it is very, very proud of its status as "Kamen Rider Is Back, Baby!" and it keeps that drive going. That ultimately is also what forms the core of the show, though. You'll probably find a lot of things that make it different later on, but I think if you're not into this sort of generalised archetypical idea of what Kamen Rider is, Kuuga might not be the most interesting show for you. It's what I personally love about it the most, but I can definitely see why others might not be into it; ESPECIALLY coming off literally every single Post-Decade series which are all going for a completely different theme and go all in on it. Ex-Aid is a Doctor/Video Game show; Drive is a Car/Police Drama show; Fourze is a Space/High School Drama show. Kuuga... is a Kamen Rider show. It's also very much themed around the idea of a Supernatural Police Drama, but first and foremost, Kamen Rider show is what I'd call it. It's very bare essentials. Still, super interested to see what you think of this going forward! I've really enjoyed all your analyses so far and Kuuga unlike the post-Decade shows is a lot more recent for me, so I'll be able to recall things a lot more freshly. |
10-19-2019, 05:53 PM | #7 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
Quote:
Quote:
I think probably the reason it feels like Superhero Show and fairly generic in that sense is that Kuuga is the revival of Kamen Rider after what was essentially a very long period off the air -- and in terms of cultural significance, Kamen Rider (and Super Sentai) to Japan basically is Superheroes.
The best possible comparison I could draw is that imagine if Superman, somehow, some way went on a long hiatus for like 10 years or so, and someone was asked to bring it back. The beats it's going to hit are naturally going to be very archetypical and even if they are going for something new, the first stretch or so especially will be trying to capture the base essence of what Superman is before its own identity. Because, goddamn, it's SUPERMAN! It's-- it's the guy everyone thinks of when they think of Superheroes and the general stereotypes of one! This is actually one of the things I love about Kuuga -- it is very, very proud of its status as "Kamen Rider Is Back, Baby!" and it keeps that drive going. That ultimately is also what forms the core of the show, though. You'll probably find a lot of things that make it different later on, but I think if you're not into this sort of generalised archetypical idea of what Kamen Rider is, Kuuga might not be the most interesting show for you. It's what I personally love about it the most, but I can definitely see why others might not be into it; ESPECIALLY coming off literally every single Post-Decade series which are all going for a completely different theme and go all in on it. Ex-Aid is a Doctor/Video Game show; Drive is a Car/Police Drama show; Fourze is a Space/High School Drama show. Kuuga... is a Kamen Rider show. It's also very much themed around the idea of a Supernatural Police Drama, but first and foremost, Kamen Rider show is what I'd call it. It's very bare essentials. Still, super interested to see what you think of this going forward! I've really enjoyed all your analyses so far and Kuuga unlike the post-Decade shows is a lot more recent for me, so I'll be able to recall things a lot more freshly. I guess the best comparison I can have for how I'm processing Kuuga is Jack Kirby. Kirby basically defined the language of post-1950s American comics. So much of what readers today see in how American comics work, that's Kirby. The artists of today learned from the artists who learned from Kirby. What Kirby did has been codified as Comics. That makes reading Kirby's stuff now, as a modern fan, super weird. It just looks like a rougher version of what you'd see today. It doesn't seem unique because it's been copied and refined to a point that anything other than that style would look wrong. Kuuga's got that sort of way about it. When you've seen the 19th Heisei show, rolling all the way back to the 1st can't help but feel basic, even if the 1st one laid the foundations for the rest to build on.
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10-19-2019, 06:05 PM | #8 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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10-19-2019, 06:06 PM | #9 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
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10-19-2019, 06:24 PM | #10 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
|
MASKED RIDER KUUGA EPISODES 3 - 4
It's fine. It's still fine. The villains are getting a little more colorful, which I appreciate. I wish they talked in a language someone else on Earth could translate, but I'm glad they at least look cool. I still don't have a sense of what their plan is, but they're grouping together, so there must be one. I'm not getting mad watching this show, is what I'm trying to make clear. It's not bad. Here're two small things and one big thing that are bugging me, though. FIRST SMALL THING - I have no idea why every single scene change needs a location flashed up, as well as a timestamp. Way, way too much information. Unless this is a documentary (seems possible) or Japanese children are the most nitpicking assholes on the planet, I don't think we need the specificity of what time Ichijou got into his car in the parking garage. It has no bearing on the story! Do I need to know if a nighttime scene is taking place at 8:03pm rather than 8:07pm? I do not! Kuuga's either exploding a monster in the daytime, or the nighttime, and that's all I'm looking for! I really hope the show leans back from these prompts. SECOND SMALL THING - The handheld camerawork is 100% on my nerves. There's a shot in the third episode, where Godai is talking to some woman (his sister? Maybe? I didn't catch it) and they're walking forward in frame, with the camera operator walking backwards in front of them. The camera might've been more stable if you'd tied it to an explosion. It's just two people talking, shot from a few feet away, and yet they looked surprisingly calm for saying their lines during an earthquake. There's a bunch of shots like that so far, where no one seemed to think a second take might help reduce viewers' nausea. They gotta, gotta level this shit out. ONE BIG THING - Do... do the producers know that Godai is the star of this show? Do they wish they'd made Ichijou the star? Because the structure of this show so far is 80% Ichijou investigating Monster Crimes, 10% Godai being charmingly upbeat, and 10% Kuuga. I like Ichijou, I think the actor balances "there are rules and we need to follow them" with "no one wants to see me yell at a superhero" pretty well. But these first four episodes, and these last two especially, Godai seems at best incidental to the plot. He's a very reactive presence, interested in fighting Monster Crimes but with little plan beyond "maybe one of my allies will figure out a clue". Ichijou is actively investigating, following up leads, making connections. You give that guy the driver, I feel like this show works at least a little better than it does right now. But, y'know, it's still a Kamen Rider show, and I like those in any variety. I like the, I don't know, the feeling of watching a Kamen Rider show. It's comforting. I wish this was changing my life or something, but I'm okay with it currently just being an agreeable 20 minutes of motorcycle men (so much motorcycling in the fourth episode) fighting Monster Crimes. That's okay with me.
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