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02-03-2023, 11:52 PM | #511 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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But I wonder if you'd think there's a better way to execute this kind of stuff. Still though, I'd say to highlight Touma's heroism better, including in his claims of protecting the people living in the world, he gotta take care of random victims, instead of only his circles (consisting of characters the audience knows and cares), as he gotta be all-encompassing.
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It does make me wonder exactly what kind of stories Touma produces for adults, though -- as unfortunately there just doesn't exist much of a market for light fantasy stories (as opposed to 'grimmer' takes) in adult novels. Or maybe he lives in the beautiful alternate universe where it's much more mainstream...
Honestly, though, I think Touma is probably writing evocative, metaphorical fantasy tales that have a small but loyal audience. He doesn't seem like he's about to have a hit on his hands any time soon. That bookstore's going to get shut down REAL quick, then. Reika was right! TOUMA'S A VILLAIN!
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02-03-2023, 11:57 PM | #512 |
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KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 20 - “DOWN WITH THE STRONGHOLD, BY THE WILL OF THE SWORD”
Thoroughly fun episode, with one glaring and increasingly aggravating flaw. It’s Reika, because, like, have you watched these episodes? While everyone else is dealing in fascinating ambiguity and compromised morality, here’s Reika with the most one-note Malevolent And Duplicitous Boss character I’ve ever seen. Every appearance is only a scene-change edit away from her cackling maniacally as she turns friends against each other. Her home base is dimly-lit for no reason other than increasing a sense of unease. She’s the absolute worst motivation for a group of morally-upright swordsmen I can think of, short of Calibur coming back to issue marching orders. For this part of the series to work best, there needs to be some narrative cover for the SoL to doubt Touma’s emotional appeals; these guys have to be wary of an accusation that the SoL is corrupt. And yet! At every turn, Reika is showing up fresh from, like, poisoning apples to give to teenage princesses, or baking German children in her gingerbread house. Her laconic menace makes the whole Just Following Orders vibe of half the cast feel willfully blind, and that disappointingly unbalances the heart of this story. (Also, what makes it worse for me is that she’s so evil-seeming that she’s probably not evil, which just makes her a terrible boss, instead of an ineffective villain. What higher-up in the Sword of Logos is like This Shadowy Creep Is The Right Person To Maintain Morale?! It’s the show spending too much energy in making the audience think Reika’s evil, only to probably twist it that she’s NOT evil, instead of just playing her character straight and keeping the focus on the friction in the cast.) Other than that, I thought this episode was finally firing on all cylinders. The humor was great (Mei doing Yuri’s Henshin sequence for him is maybe a series highlight), the drama was arresting (Rintaro tried really hard this episode to make things work!), the action was phenomenal (that four-way mid-epsiode brawl!), and the MotW plot required some (minor) character insight and problem-solving. It’s hard to find fault with the non-Reika parts of this episode! I especially enjoyed that Rintaro moment, even if it was unfortunately brief. I like that Rintaro found out Touma was telling the truth, and was immediately like COMMON GROUND HOORAY. It’s a scene where both characters think they’ve found a way to connect with an estranged friend, but instantly find out how tenuous that bridge is. Touma’s like Megids Bad But Traitor Worse, which is a colossally stupid thing to say to a good friend who has previously drawn a red line at criticizing the SoL; meanwhile, Rintaro shuts down any discussion of traitors, which shows Touma that the SoL believing him on one thing doesn’t mean they trust him again. It’s a nicely nuanced scene of these two trying to navigate their own misgivings, and finding out that they haven’t done it quite yet. Then Reika shows up to be infuriatingly suspicious and distrustful, and… well, we’ve been over that already. I really wish this show could figure out a more interesting way to play Reika’s whole Assistant Lord of Darkness/Assistant To The Lord Of Darkness schtick, or reveal that she’s just a shitty boss, or just vanish her to Sophia’s hostage closet. Just: something. Because every dimly-lit scene of her unconvincingly telling the SoL to ignore how messed up everything has gotten, it just sucks away my enthusiasm for this show. Everything else is great! Fix the Reika stuff! — IF YOU HATE YOUR FRIENDS YOU’RE NOT ALONE This was stupid. Ren was tired of all of it. He was tired of everyone treating him like a baby, when he was the strongest one in the guild. He was tired of Rintaro and the others falling for Touma’s lies, which Ren could see through in a heartbeat. He was tired of people forgetting that Kento was dead, and just moving on like he was never around to begin with. The roof was cold. It was boring. It was Kento’s favorite place, though, so Ren could tough it out. (He could tough out anything.) Kento had told him once that Touma was really tough, and Ren didn’t understand what Kento meant. But he tried to be friends with Touma, because if Kento said Touma was strong, he probably was. Kento was pretty smart about that kind of thing. Ren missed Kento a lot. He tried not to show it to the other swordsmen in the guild, and he was certain he was doing a great job keeping things under wraps. But he thought about Kento, all the time. He didn’t understand why Kento would think Touma was his friend, with how Touma was clearly just trying to gain more power. Everyone else was dumb about trusting Touma, but Kento wasn’t dumb like the rest. He was tricked. Touma tricked him. It was all Touma’s fault. Ren could see that now, even if everyone else was still talking about Touma making a mistake, or Touma being tricked by someone else. But that was stupid. Ren could see now that Touma was just waiting to turn on them. Ren was almost tricked, too. He thought that Touma might be a good guy, and could sort of see what Kento was talking about – Touma kept getting the coolest Wonder Ride books, and the best powers. But then Ren wised up, and saw through the lies Touma was spinning about traitors and the Sword of Logos being a problem and Kamijo being maybe right about things, and tried to stop Touma before he tricked anyone else. It didn’t work. Ren was tired of trying to fix everything himself. Kento was great at that, of course, but it was so hard for Ren. He kept having the other swordsmen telling him to calm down, or take his time. They didn’t have time! They needed to stop Touma. They needed to make things right for Kento. There was a voice behind him. “Saber still has the Sword of Thunders in his possession.” It was that lady Reika. Their new boss. Everyone else thought she was creepy, but she seemed alright to Ren. She was the only one besides him who seemed serious about stopping Touma, at least. She was right, which made him feel stupid. He hated feeling stupid. But Touma did still have Kento’s sword, which wasn’t right. He didn’t deserve to hold Kento’s sword, not after everything he’d done since Kento died. It should be Ren’s sword, after all. He was Kento’s best friend, not some liar like Touma. He needed to stop trying to convince the other swordsmen about what they had to do, and just go do it himself. Like Kento would. Ren turned to face Reika, steeled himself, and shouted, “You don’t need to remind me!” He was going to get back what belonged to him.
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02-04-2023, 12:12 AM | #513 |
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Yeah this episode definitely fires off a lot better in many aspects. The entire Mei gets Yuri to henshin sequence followed up by the entire spiraling out of control brawl that is Legeiel vs. Touma/Yuri vs. Ren vs. Desast. One of my favorite parts though is Touma despite being very, very injured, managing to pull a Daishinji to deal with one of Storious' attacks. There's also something very endearing/amusing about him barely holding himself up as the explosion occurs behind him.
As for Reika. A lot of people will tell you that this is like, peak Reika. Personally I feel like Reika's alright overall. But I agree that it can get rather grating. As for the story, nice insight on Ren's mindset, other than that I've got nothing else. ===Zero Presents: Desast Walk=== So in an effort to make things easier to understand, I'm using the link r4bbitdragon provided for the translations for my Desast Walk segments now. I am however keeping the part I absolutely needed to share with everyone, "I 'm Dessert" is staying. Desast Walk #2: "Hello, humans. I'm Dessert. It's good to be high up, isn't it? The smells, the breeze, and all sorts of other things come flowing in. It's so much more fun than being in a small book. It would be even more fun if I could play with strong guys." Last edited by Enchilada645; 02-04-2023 at 09:14 AM.. |
02-04-2023, 12:20 AM | #514 |
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She's just everywhere in this episode, and a little of her goes an awfully long way. The more she shows up to cattily throw shade on Touma and unconvincingly feign at diplomacy and altruism, the more I'm like Lady You Are Proving Touma's Point Right Now. Stay at the Southern Base! Don't taunt your victim! Don't play with your food!
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02-04-2023, 04:21 AM | #515 |
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Yes, the battle of 4 was the most memorable for me. Also, Sophia and Dezast returned in this episode, it was nice to see them again. But still, in general, even though this is the end of the story with Shingo, the episode is mostly intermediate.
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02-04-2023, 08:22 AM | #516 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 19
Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Saber Episode 20 By my standards, I wasn't all that glowing in my praise of this two-parter at the time, but it, and that climax in particular, has really stuck with me ever since. Touma's speech in 20, I think it's similar to what I recall being said in these threads about the speech Tsukasa gives prior to Complete Form's debut in Decade, in how it sort of transcends the actual story it's placed in with regards to how it informs the protagonist's character. Like, I'm not sure if I'll ever really be reevaluating every last aspect of these ones and declaring them some hidden masterpiece of the whole series -- it's a two-parter that feels very much like Fukuda and Ishida taking a stab at pretty much the same thing Mouri and Morota just did the prior two weeks -- but I don't know, that formula was gold, and the different creative voices give the stories a different enough feel, so you never know. Again, this is the Fukuda version of this story, and while all of these guys wrote huge, important chunks of Ghost, I feel like it's not a coincidence that Ghost's main writer is the one who gives Touma the big spiel about how understanding the pain others feel is what motivates him to keep fighting on. I also know for a fact that it was Ishida's idea to have it specifically be Touma out of the suit delivering those lines, which is a typically smart decision from him. I'm harping on about this one scene, I know, but -- it's a really good scene. Apparently Touma's actor Shuuichirou Naitou ended up being particularly fond of it too, so even the guy who literally played Saber thought of this as a definitive Saber moment. The episodes around that, too, are absolutely still rock solid, of course, even if I'm not calling as much attention to the other things going on here. I don't think I need to explain to anyone that Slash is cool, right? I am a little surprised to see Die having some harsh words to say about Reika, though! She's kind of avoided any mention from me in this thread so far, but I really did love her whole vibe right away. It comes off less like outright malevolence to me, and more just like someone who has complete and utter contempt for these barely subordinate subordinates who won't just get with the program already. Like a manager who just really wishes she didn't have to baby these people so much. I'm sure those teenage princesses and German children were some kind of threat to world peace, Die! That Master Logos guy probably said so, so it must be true! Probably! In all seriousness, though, I think Southern Base's obvious, literal shadiness generally walks the fine line between "make the plot easy to understand for small children" and "have ~some~ level of proper ambiguity" well enough. I really think the key is consider a lot of those things AS being mostly for the audience's benefit. Maybe the other Riders just see the dim lighting as the organization trying to save on the power bill or something, you know? (Wait, did I say exactly the same thing about ZECT back during Kabuto...? Maybe I'm not helping my own case here!)
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02-04-2023, 09:24 AM | #517 |
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I think, everything is much easier. If at the North Pole there is a polar day that lasts half a year, then at the same time at the South Pole there is a polar night and therefore it should be dark. I think that's what they tried to convey, because the show is still for children, and such an interesting fact is often written about in children's encyclopedias. Well, the fact that this at the same time clearly shows how the Sword of Logos plunged into darkness is only an additional, deeper subtext. |
02-04-2023, 12:21 PM | #518 |
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Which I'd be okay with, if the show didn't seem to juice every scene where she's just a terrible boss with an unspoken OR IS SHE SOMETHING WORSE, and I'm like... I sort of don't care anymore. There was a window where I was excited about the possibility of Reika being evil, but it closed. There was another window where I was interested in the possibility of Reika being just a cruel supervisor, but that window closed, too. Now I'm just frustrated by Reika's blank expressions and inability to be even slightly convincing about her possibly-legitimate altruistic motivations. She's just Rintaro's whole I'm Not Suspicious introductory joke, but played for about forty times as long. Things can wear out their welcome!
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02-04-2023, 12:41 PM | #519 |
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Now I'm just frustrated by Reika's blank expressions and inability to be even slightly convincing about her possibly-legitimate altruistic motivations. She's just Rintaro's whole I'm Not Suspicious introductory joke, but played for about forty times as long. Things can wear out their welcome!
I think the problem here is not so much the script as the acting. The performer of the role herself believes that she began to play convincingly only from the 40th episode of the show, and she is very ashamed of everything that was before that. |
02-04-2023, 12:51 PM | #520 |
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I guess what I'm most aggravated at with the Reika storyline is that it's removing a lot of the ambiguity of the situation; the sense that Touma might be wrong about this. The best part of this Touma Vs SoL plot was when Touma was acting off of instinct, and his friends just couldn't make that leap with him. Now, it's so much more blunt, and it doesn't feel like it demands as much faith from Touma's friends.
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