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01-16-2021, 04:05 PM | #641 |
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KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 37
He’ll feed you, though, and that was my favorite part of this episode. In all of the time-shifting shenanigans of the last dozen or so episodes, I really liked that the most tangible stakes in this episode were centered on some teenage girl who feels like she’s not succeeding enough academically. There’s a thing about haunted mirrors and urban legends, but the episode seems to barely give a shit about it. (Or I’m just too aware of how much this seems like a Ryuki plot to invest much in the mystery. It’s possible! I ain’t too objective sometimes! Them naming the girl in this one ‘Kobayashi’ seems like they’re hanging a lantern on it, though.) Where the drama comes alive is in how much Keiko feels pressured to achieve, and how much she feels like she’s weak for being less than perfect. Having Tendou be there for her by giving her a snack so she can study better… yes. It’s this incredibly small thing that feels like the most heroic act in an episode full of monster detonations. It’s all about Tendou seeing someone working hard to improve themselves, and him giving her the support he thinks she needs. Not with a speech or a vow, but with some noodles in bread that redefine deliciousness. It’s fully Kabuto, just like Keiko’s story. Quote:
And I almost hate saying this, but maybe the episode could’ve turned down some of the humor? I laughed hard at what’s here, but the tone of every weird Tsurugi thing, or Kagami thing, or Renge thing, they’re fighting against this episode creating a legible sense of threat, or menace. This is an episode with haunting disappearances and hopeless teenagers that also includes Tendou opening a bread shop on a roof and Tsurugi attending a middle school. You can’t… I think this episode needed to pick whether it wanted to be a slapstick farce or an emotional character study, but it opted not to choose. Instead, you get these warring tones, and it keeps this episode from really achieving anything.
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A QUESTION
It’s an uneven episode with a lot of great gags, and none were better to me than Tsurugi getting Jiiya to do his math problem. Tsurugi’s logic that, by employing and commanding Jiiya, he could claim Jiiya’s skills as his own, was priceless. The clarity of purpose for Tsurugi, in him getting people to do his work for him, was adorable. Jiiya was also surprisingly good at math, for a valet? Not a skill I’d’ve expected him to trot out. In which grade school class could you have most used Jiiya’s help?
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01-16-2021, 04:52 PM | #642 |
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Buuuuuuut some of it is also that Tendou just likes making food? Any chance he has to solve a problem by throwing food at it (not literally, his grandmother had a thing about that), he's going to take. Wow! Congrats!
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01-16-2021, 09:19 PM | #643 |
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I think the question should be how would Alfred take care of Tsurugi and how would Jiiya take care of Bruce.
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01-16-2021, 10:38 PM | #644 |
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KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 38
There's a second half to this episode that's almost halfway decent! It's a shame you've got to get through the first half to see it, though... The first half is hot garbage, excluding anything with Kagami and Renge. Worse than being dull and obvious (and it is both), it also retroactively renders the last episode completely irrelevant. The characters are doing all of this undercover work, and the main suspect is found by Tendou watching the guy act suspiciously twice. That's it! Skinny Jeans Poirot did not exactly have to get his brain in top gear for this one! All of the vague nonsense of last episode, the rumors and gossip and ghost stories, it never really amounts to anything major? It's all these extra bodies being thrown at a problem that never needed them, and it feels so... just, it does not feel like a ton of thought was put into this mystery. And the motivation was a principal who wanted more success at his school? It doesn't matter! It is a motivation that feels inconsequential because the only name character in any jeopardy by the time we find out is Juka. Keiko's already dead by the time this episode starts, which is easily the stupidest decision in the story. There's this couple dozen body-count partnership with a Worm, but there's virtually no one important in jeopardy. The baseball player is no one, Keiko's not coming back... it takes half the story for Juka to be imperiled. The first part of this thing is just a mountain of nameless bodies, and it feels gross. It feels boring. (Also, so, the Worm bumped off an entire afterschool club seven years ago, and then did nothing since last week? What the hell was it waiting for, Pluto to get demoted? Is this revenge against future astronomers? Is this all just a Fourze story after all? Also also, are you telling me this principal lost an entire afterschool club seven years ago and kept his job?! And he's got more kids missing since then? If this is what's going on in the neighborhood, I feel like Tendou needs to start homeschooling Juka immediately. The Worm attacks in his home are a lot less frequent!) Luckily, there's this middle section that... I mean, it doesn't save this story, not even close. This is probably the worst non-movie Kabuto story I've watched. But! It finds a little room to spotlight Kagami's heroism, and that's almost enough for me. It's not, like, some huge evolution to the character or anything. We don't really learn anything new about Kagami in 38. But it's similar to Tendou's gift of a yakisoba bun to Keiko in the last one, where it's the specificity of how they relate to children in need. For Tendou, it was with food. For Kagami, as he's on a bus with middle-schoolers who are about to be attacked by Worms, it's positivity and energy. The haunting singing of the Worm Choir is terrifying the kids on the bus, so Kagami just starts belting out their campfire song, loud and off-key, encouraging them to meet terror with confidence, because confidence will always win. It's Kagami passing along his worldview to these confused children, and giving them a distraction so he can go fight for them. The absolute best part in this entire story is the smile on Kagami's face as he tells Renge he's going to go fight some ghosts. He's totally outnumbered, but he's got these kids' energy at his back, so he can face down any foe. It's so charming, so Emotion Over Logic... so Kagami, you know? It leads to the only real growth in this episode, where Renge now sees in Kagami what we've all seen in Kagami. He's not a joke, he's a hero. He's just a big dumb hero. Other than that, not a lot that did it for me in this episode. The flash-forward to the solar eclipse was fine. The fact that Tsurugi was just randomly in the woods for the fight was fine. The PunchHopper and KickHopper stuff was fun, basically just for the idea that the only members of the cast who'd be happy fighting/detonating teenagers are these two. (Honestly, all of the stuff with Yaguruma and Kageyama felt too repetitive to me to really work that great. It's fine, it's never not funny, but it wasn't really saying anything new or different.) It was all fine in the second half, after the Kagami scene. The first half, though! So bad! Not a good story! Probably one to avoid in the future! A QUESTION Simple one this time: Have you ever gone camping in the woods?
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01-17-2021, 02:38 AM | #645 |
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Yeah, this whole episode kinda felt like a waste of time outside of that one nice Kagami moment. The villain was, naturally, the guy who wasn't in the previous episode, there are massive holes in every scrap of logic available here, and the best guest character died between episodes (but at least they never bothered to have any reflection on that, so Keiko has that going for her, I guess). The only thing that we really got of any value was a nice promo for the new toy and a vague teaser about Hiyori. I usually don't like to be too down on filler episodes, but this one really does feel hollow and pointless.
At least we got to see Tsurugi just hanging out in the middle of the woods, though, like some kind of Kamen Riding Shia LaBeouf. |
01-17-2021, 02:38 AM | #646 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,418
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Yeah, this whole episode kinda felt like a waste of time outside of that one nice Kagami moment. The villain was, naturally, the guy who wasn't in the previous episode, there are massive holes in every scrap of logic available here, and the best guest character died between episodes (but at least they never bothered to have any reflection on that, so Keiko has that going for her, I guess). The only thing that we really got of any value was a nice promo for the new toy and a vague teaser about Hiyori. I usually don't like to be too down on filler episodes, but this one really does feel hollow and pointless.
At least we got to see Tsurugi just hanging out in the middle of the woods, though, like some kind of Kamen Riding Shia LaBeouf. |
01-17-2021, 05:26 AM | #647 |
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A couple times when I was young. My biggest memories being that the water in the creek we camped near being so clear you could see the bottom no problem, and one time during the night a bear actually rubbed up against our tent. Thankfully he wasn't aggressive and just walked by our site.
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01-17-2021, 08:16 AM | #648 |
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I desperately wish I could be the contrarian here and say these are secretly some great episodes of Kabuto, because there's only so much point in coming in here to dogpile on a story that was clearly never trying to do more than kill time, but the best I can do to disagree with Die is mention that I'd definitely rather watch God Speed Love than this. To be fair, these episodes are a lot more fun than that movie is; simply having Tsurugi around helps loads on that front. All he's gotta do is roll up in the woods out of nowhere for one scene to spout a catchphrase and the episode will feel that much more worth it. Of course, with him only in that one scene, he can't do much to save this second part by himself. His best friend Kagami tries valiantly in his stead, as Die covered, but, uh, like he also said, this is not a good story. There's a bit right at the end, after the Hyper Zecter gives Tendou a glimpse of Hiyori (seeing her name in the credits again was the high point of excitement for me here by the way), where he's reflecting on that a bit, and reaffirming his dedication to protect both his little sisters, and that was such an obvious potential core to this story it just didn't bother with, in favor of a half-baked horror mystery. If you're going to do a set of episodes about Juka's school being threatened by Worms and Tendou having to go there to watch over things, there was maybe a great opportunity there to highlight their relationship in some way. I get that Juka is such a one-dimensional character by nature it might still be tricky to do anything too interesting, but it could've been, at the very least, a way to emphasize that more protective, almost doting side of Tendou she brings out. Because that is the whole reason he's bothering to do this, but it's not a concept that goes anywhere, and that's kinda this one in a nutshell, unfortunately. The same can be said of the focus on Kageyama, where he finds a glimmer of hope only to have it crushed by the end. It's super hard to pick out what the point the episodes are trying to make with it is. It's framing Kageyama a bit more sympathetically than usual, while also showcasing how much of a toxic influence Yaguruma clearly is, but to what end is that, when they both end up back where they were at the start? I seriously hate that I'm even talking about the episode in this fashion. I try to avoid saying stuff like "this is what they should've done instead" when criticizing a story, because I think arguing that way is sort of in bad faith. I like to start from the position that there's some worthwhile goal it's trying to reach, and ask how it could better accomplish that, because I think that leads to a far more interesting and constructive critique. And that's what most bums me out about these ones – I simply can't see what they were going for. Does it want to be a genuine horror thriller? Then it either needs more consistent atmosphere in the direction, or a more exciting mystery. Is it shooting for a low-key, goofy ensemble piece for the cast? It could maybe stand to be more wild in its execution then. Is it legitimately just here to fill two weeks? Because if that's the case, then I can't call this two-parter a failure. Again, it's not some utter dumpster fire, and I'd love to highlight what works, but beyond the stuff with Kagami that Die called attention to, I'm really struggling here. I didn't feel genuinely awful watching the episode, but I sure did writing about it.
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01-17-2021, 12:53 PM | #649 |
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KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 38
And the motivation was a principal who wanted more success at his school? It doesn’t matter! It is a motivation that feels inconsequential because the only name character in any jeopardy by the time we find out is Juka. Keiko’s already dead by the time this episode starts, which is easily the stupidest decision in the story. There’s this couple dozen body-count partnership with a Worm, but there’s virtually no one important in jeopardy. The baseball player is no one, Keiko’s not coming back… it takes half the story for Juka to be imperiled. The first part of this thing is just a mountain of nameless bodies, and it feels gross. It feels boring. (Also, so, the Worm bumped off an entire afterschool club seven years ago, and then did nothing since last week? What the hell was it waiting for, Pluto to get demoted? Is this revenge against future astronomers? Is this all just a Fourze story after all? Also also, are you telling me this principal lost an entire afterschool club seven years ago and kept his job?! And he’s got more kids missing since then? If this is what’s going on in the neighborhood, I feel like Tendou needs to start homeschooling Juka immediately. The Worm attacks in his home are a lot less frequent!) But predictably, it's done by the Worms in the mirror killing and replacing that student who wished something, and live to carry that student's wish. What the Worms doing was waiting for the next student to make a wish, then kill and replace him/her. The missing kids are all unknowingly got replaced by the Worms who live just like the better versions of them (so there won't be anything wrong for the principal in public's eyes), as it's done to preserve the school's reputation after all. What you said about Tendou needs to start homeschooling Juka is valid, but as this is about the depravity of the principal, what Tendou did in this episode was also valid was well, him calling out the principal's cruelty, which the principal of course shifted the blame on the students for making the wish, and him being put under arrest by Misaki (so ZECT can act as a police too). A̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶n̶o̶u̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶T̶V̶ ̶s̶e̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶p̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶e̶a̶s̶h̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶d̶u̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶s̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶f̶f̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶ ̶"̶g̶r̶o̶s̶s̶"̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶u̶t̶t̶e̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶e̶n̶j̶o̶y̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶,̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶ ̶"̶g̶r̶o̶s̶s̶"̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶e̶r̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶s̶.̶ Quote:
The camping part too, Kagami makes an excellent point that camping is done to provide fun and joy for the participants, to refresh others, not to give others pressure like what Renge did by forcing the participants to work hard (no resting/gossiping/etc.) and focused on completing the task under a set time. Renge claims that this comes from her training, which, with her ZECT background, probably comes from something like boot camp, where that one isn't done for fun, but to toughen the soldiers, but she has to realize here, a life outside military, camping isn't only used as a means for training like soldiers do, a varying purpose of why a activity is run, on different fields even if that's the same kind of activity. Quote:
Other than that, not a lot that did it for me in this episode. The flash-forward to the solar eclipse was fine. The fact that Tsurugi was just randomly in the woods for the fight was fine. The PunchHopper and KickHopper stuff was fun, basically just for the idea that the only members of the cast who’d be happy fighting/detonating teenagers are these two. (Honestly, all of the stuff with Yaguruma and Kageyama felt too repetitive to me to really work that great. It’s fine, it’s never not funny, but it wasn’t really saying anything new or different.) It was all fine in the second half, after the Kagami scene.
Also for the part where Tsurugi was in the woods, this is the part I talk about Tendou stealing Zecters won't stop after the apology. This is literally what Hyper Kabuto does! The enhanced version of Perfect Zecter (the sword) involves stealing all the other's Zecters to use its full power. Tendou's connection to Hyper Zecter inevitably leads to him stealing other Zecters. He attempted to obtain Hyper Zecter previously also by stealing the Zecters and trading it with Hyper Zecter from Mishima (and I think stealing the Zecter is only done for Hyper Form; Tendou also thinks that Hyper Form is his main goal to save Hiyori), and Hyper Kabuto also works by stealing the other's Zecters. In meta sense, this also shows to the audience that everyone is insignificant compared to Tendou, and unconsciously achieves the "Tendou is the only Rider needed". I'd like for the battle to display that stealing the other's Zecters was necessary though, like that (something series like Kuuga did with Rising finishers failing), the usual finisher won't work on that Worm, so it needs to power up by stealing the other's Zecters. Yes, more than 1 time even. It's inevitable as one of the things to proceed in an educational piece.
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01-17-2021, 12:54 PM | #650 |
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To be fair, these episodes are a lot more fun than that movie is; simply having Tsurugi around helps loads on that front. All he's gotta do is roll up in the woods out of nowhere for one scene to spout a catchphrase and the episode will feel that much more worth it.
You all probably put that together, but it took me sixteen hours to realize that Tsurugi wasn't just wandering around those woods at a narratively convenient time. Quote:
A couple times when I was young. My biggest memories being that the water in the creek we camped near being so clear you could see the bottom no problem, and one time during the night a bear actually rubbed up against our tent. Thankfully he wasn't aggressive and just walked by our site.
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