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12-20-2019, 01:32 PM | #141 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,426
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I've always ranked Jean on the B-tier of supporting characters on Kuuga, alongside Yusuke's sister and Hot Bad Mom Scientist. They're nowhere near as integral or likable as Sakurako or Ichijou, but generally ahead of Cafe Guy and Annoying Cafe Girl With a Crush on Yusuke.
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12-20-2019, 03:50 PM | #142 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
I've always ranked Jean on the B-tier of supporting characters on Kuuga, alongside Yusuke's sister and Hot Bad Mom Scientist. They're nowhere near as integral or likable as Sakurako or Ichijou, but generally ahead of Cafe Guy and Annoying Cafe Girl With a Crush on Yusuke.
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12-21-2019, 11:06 PM | #143 |
Super Lawyer
Join Date: Nov 2019
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Posts: 207
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Quote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure at this point the police still think that Kuuga is just another monster. One that seems to be killing other monsters, but a dangerous monster nonetheless that might turn on them at any moment. They don't know he's really a human. They have no idea why he's killing the other monsters. So him blowing up city blocks is just terrifying to them. None of the other monsters can casually level an entire block with one kick, so he's arguably more dangerous than the other ones.
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12-21-2019, 11:58 PM | #144 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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MASKED RIDER KUUGA EPISODES 36 - 39
An exceptional four-part epic, with a heavy, heavy emphasis on the Grongi Megaplot, and only a few bafflingly weird diversions. It’s one of my favorite Kuuga stories so far! There’s a lot to unpack from these four episodes. They touch on nearly every character and every plotline, with everything shifting into a very The Finale Is Coming Up Pretty Soon gear. Let’s see what we’ve got: GRONGI Obviously, the meat of this story. I’ve said before that I think the Grongi culture and mission is my favorite part of this series, and this story showed off why. The struggles of the different Grongi are stylishly shot and have an aggressive, unpredictable energy to them. With so much of the Grongi endgame shrouded in mystery, it’s difficult to predict what they’re going to do next, and I love that. There’s a lot of formula to Kuuga, so these weird characters doing weird things for weird reasons is exciting in a way that the rest of the show just isn’t for me. Some of it’s the disposable nature of the Grongi. There’re no guarantees that Bat Grongi isn’t going to murder Acid Claw Grongi early in the story, or vice versa. That makes me way more dialed into their fight than I was when they fought Godai, since I’m pretty sure Godai isn’t going to die. Uh, again. But, yeah, when Bat Grongi’s in a fight with Acid Claw Grongi or Commander Grongi, it feels dangerous and exciting to me. It helps that the Grongi scenes still have the most visual flourishes to anything in the show. I mean, hell, look at this awesome sequence from the end of Episode 37: So cool! Crazy exciting! That standoff has drama for days, and then it just escalates in the beginning of Episode 38. Rose Grongi is one of my favorite characters on the show, and that’s with her barely doing more than walking around and looking placid. She’s mysterious and powerful and everything this show does right with the Grongi Megaplot in one character. I still feel like I’m only getting, like, 40% of what the Grongi are up to, but I love how that part of the show is progressing. NAGANO All of the Sakurako (and Ichijou, for a bit) investigation stuff in Nagano, it was fine. Useful to let the high-tension Grongi stuff get to cut away for a minute, but a whole lot of stalling to tell us… honestly, I’m not sure. Something about the Kuuga symbol being a Grongi character instead of a Linto character, and a bunch about the symbol maybe having two or three or four horns. I don’t know. It looked interesting, it was a nice break from the Grongi scenes, but I don’t know what I was supposed to have learned. Oh, other than that the building Sakurako and Ichijou walk up to when they get to the university… ...is Section Zero’s HQ from Wizard. It’s been weird watching Kuuga, since I’m not seeing all of the reused locations I adored/tolerated from the Neo Heisei shows. Kamen Rider Stadium! Kamen Rider Quarry! That creek near the mountain! The creek under that one bridge! The giant pedestrian walkway! The little bridge over the sanitation waterway or whatever! All of my “favorites”! But here we are, 14 years before Wizard and it’s Section Zero’s HQ! Reused locations? I am home. JEAN/ENOKIDA Who… who is rooting for Enokida to get together with a wet noodle of a man like Jean? What sin has Enokida committed (other than being a terrible mother and maybe a mad scientist) that has her spending time with Jean? I’m not a fan of shows punishing characters for no reason, so I’m not sure why this plotline is being addressed. POLE POLE Uh, Kanzaki shows up to say that Yusuke fought for people as a kid. And there’s also another three or so scenes about nothing. Nothing. Like, Minori, Pops and Nana are such worthless characters at a story level that they have to have Kanzaki, just, like, pop out of a floorboard to enable anything of interest to happen at Pole Pole. Jesus. That place is where story goes to die. I think that’s everything? This isn’t the best story they’ve ever done on Kuuga (I mean Pole Pole scenes, plural, and Jean scenes, plural), but I think the Grongi Megaplot part of these episodes was exactly what I want out of a horror-themed Kamen Rider show. The monsters have goals and conflicts beyond the Rider, the bodycount isn’t too ludicrous to care about, the heroes are always in the mix somewhere, and there’s both a cathartic victory and a terrifying cliffhanger. An exciting phase for Masked Rider Kuuga!
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12-22-2019, 09:39 PM | #145 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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MASKED RIDER KUUGA EPISODES 40 - 41
It's an interesting story, if not necessarily a good one. Two indelible images, alongside some decent thematic work, but a little too much "people talking in a room" for my tastes. So, those indelible images. Kuuga's had some super solid camerawork in the back half of the series, with a few sequences (Ichijou/Rose Grongi faceoff from the last story) that are flat-out gorgeous. There're two in this one that I thought were worth calling out. The first is the whole Laptop Grongi attack from the end of Episode 40. The eerie hum as Kuuga tries to pinpoint Laptop Grongi on the pier, the disorienting flashes of (I assume) Daguva, the quick change to Pegasus Form in the mist of the bay, the harpoon launching out of the water and pinning Kuuga through the shoulder, dropping back to Growing Form with the bloody hole in his shoulder?€? it's a really taut, tense sequence. The other great set of shots is super quick, but it's a clever physical effect that's thrillingly immersive. As Laptop Grongi is running to dive in the water near the middle of Episode 41, the camera operator chases her off the pier and into the water in one fluid shot. It's not a bravura segment or anything, it's a shot that's over in seven or eight seconds, but it definitely got a Holy Shit out of me when I saw it. The camerawork for the action and Grongi stuff has been really excellent in this part of Kuuga. It's a shame the show doesn't get to shoot more scenes like that, what with all of the talking. Yeah, it's a very dialogue-heavy story, even by Masked Rider Kuuga standards. Tons of time spent explaining a lot of the stuff that went over my head in the last story, which I wish wasn't necessary. It's a problem that's come up a few times on this series, where something inexplicable will happen in a story, go unacknowledged, then an episode or two later someone will spell out what happened. It's not fun and mysterious to me, it's just inefficient writing. There's no percentage in stringing some of this stuff out, when a little bit of exposition can keep the reveal and the relevance of the reveal within a couple scenes of each other. It can feel disjointed and tossed off, when a character's like, "Oh, here's what that thing we found a couple weeks ago actually meant." The rest of the heavy dialogue scenes are devoted to Nana's anger at a classmate's cruelty, which, look. The use of Nana's rage to illustrate the stakes of Godai losing control and becoming an unstoppable dark warrior, it's a decent way to dramatize and foreshadow the stakes of the final batch of episodes. For a series that frequently forgets to have the A plot and B plot of any story link together, I'm really glad they tried this time out. But, Nana's occasionally-mentioned audition? That we never saw her practice for? In a storyline partially about the bloodlust of a background character no one watching probably cares about? Weird choice! Maybe a bad choice! I'd almost rather it was a brand-new kid, someone's nephew or niece or whatever, who didn't have the baggage (for me, at least) of an irritating bottom-tier character. I don't know, it might just be me. I liked the storyline, I wish it weren't about Nana. Not a bad Kuuga story, but, yikes, too many scenes of people in rooms talking about monsters and threats and rage, not enough monsters and threats and rage.
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12-23-2019, 12:46 PM | #146 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,553
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And here is where we come to something that gets nowhere near the same amount of gravitas post-W, the debut of the Big Bad. It used to be a big mystery who the main villain really was, as they never appeared until the final arc/episode. Not like nowadays, where they appear as soon as the actor is announced.
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12-23-2019, 01:02 PM | #147 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
And here is where we come to something that gets nowhere near the same amount of gravitas post-W, the debut of the Big Bad. It used to be a big mystery who the main villain really was, as they never appeared until the final arc/episode. Not like nowadays, where they appear as soon as the actor is announced.
I'd argue against post-W shows not doing well with the Final Villain setup/reveal. Off the top of my head, Wizard in particular does a great job with its final arc and who the specific villain is, and both Drive and OOO have a final villain that's not super predictable. If anything, I think I prefer the more modern way of doing it? I like a villain who has some depth, some sense of why they're doing what they're doing and how the hero complicates that plan, and it's difficult to get that emotional heft if it's someone who's only a dozen episodes. Like, Build has a Final Villain who's in almost every single episode, and he's maybe my favorite Kamen Rider villain ever. I mean, not counting Jean, obviously.
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12-25-2019, 11:54 PM | #148 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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MASKED RIDER KUUGA EPISODES 42 - 43
Happy Christmas! I didn’t know if I’d have time to watch any Kamen Rider on Christmas, but I did, and I wrote a bit about the experience, and I posted it on TokuNation, and here we are. It may be Christmas Day when I’m writing this, but it’s just a regular day of posting on the boards about this old Japanese superhero monster show. Topical! This story’s all about longing for a sense of normalcy, which everybody but Tsubaki is convinced is just around the corner. Team Kuuga is ridiculously confident that Godai can quell the rage inside of him, swiftly eliminate the devastatingly powerful last few Grongi, and defeat Daguva, a monster that can knock Godai out of his henshin if Godai even thinks about him too hard. Tsubaki, on the other hand, would like to at least broach the topic, for group discussion, that they are all colossally screwed and endless darkness will soon cover the land. It’s a solid point, and worthy of maybe a little consideration, but the Team lands pretty firmly on Godai’s Going To Be Fine Don’t Worry About It. Time will tell! With the story’s monster surprisingly dispatched in the opening battle (an ass-whooping delivered to Titan Form is cut short by a well-timed Ichijou sniper shot, and then Body Attack from Golden Gouram to finish the fight), the rest of the story is… I don’t want to say “pointless”, but I’m not 100% sure what the point was. Ichijou stops a hostage situation, and the returning Mika witness him apprehending the culprit. It’s a fine non-Grongi Ichijou subplot, and it’s basically the only action we get for 75% of this story, but it ends in a really weird way. Mika won’t even look at Ichijou afterwards, and when Godai sees her off at the train station… Look, maybe it’s the translation, but I’ve got no idea what I’m supposed to be getting from the conclusion of this story. See if you can crack this for me: MIKA: I was afraid. Extremely. I saw Mr. Ichijou’s laughing face earlier but it’s probably something he doesn’t need. GODAI: Really? MIKA: For some reason, it feels like it’s not the same person. GODAI: But it was the real Mr. Ichijou. If that kind of Mr. Ichijou is here, even though I’m afraid I won’t ever go. But you know. The real Mr. Ichijou has a laughing face too. Mika gives Godai a blank stare, cut to Ichijou at the police station looking at a sunset, credits roll. What? Like, I guess maybe it’s that she saw laughing Ichijou, then she saw scary policeman Ichijou, and… something? She didn’t like him anymore? She’s mad at him? I don’t understand her reaction, and I feel like the show didn’t, either. It’s baffling, in a way where I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel sad for Ichijou or disappointed in Mika. Is Ichijou fundamentally broken in ways only normal people like Mika can see, or is Mika just being kind-of an asshole? Thoughts? Oh, and how was your Christmas? I got a Figuarts Ghost (Ore Damashii), everyone’s 8th to 15th favorite Kamen Rider, as a Christmas present (thanks, Patrick, for the figure and for indulging me talking about suit motifs for 90 seconds) and it even came with a little Yurusen to have floating next to him, telling him he’s being a terrible hero! Fond memories. It’s been a neat 2019!
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12-26-2019, 01:46 AM | #149 |
New Member
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 3
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Kuuga is actually in my top 5 Kamen Rider series'. When I first tried to watch it ages ago, I wasn't too excited about it and didn't understand the Grongi at all. After coming back several Rider's later, I found that I really enjoyed it (given a few critiques about it) and blasted through it in about three days. The amount of people who died from the Grongi, and Godai's character development really made the show for me, I think.
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12-26-2019, 05:00 AM | #150 |
Dai Shogun
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 7,530
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Oh, and how was your Christmas? I got a Figuarts Ghost (Ore Damashii), everyone’s 8th to 15th favorite Kamen Rider, as a Christmas present (thanks, Patrick, for the figure and for indulging me talking about suit motifs for 90 seconds) and it even came with a little Yurusen to have floating next to him, telling him he’s being a terrible hero! Fond memories. It’s been a neat 2019!
But yes, the figure is very nice looking, and it was indeed a neat 2019. |
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