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09-20-2019, 07:59 PM | #121 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 29 - 31
Mixed bag, this episode. On the one hand, it's a sweet story about friendship, the value of teamwork, and putting aside your own desires to better serve a community. On the other hand, I guess this is a series that's 75% about war? Bit of a bummer! With the introduction of Pandora's Tower and open conflict between Seito and Touto, we're very much in a new phase of the story. I just wish it felt like a different phase of the story. We've still got murder robots, Hell Bros, rubble in the streets, crisis scenes with Rogue's Dad in an office, all the trappings of the last dozen or so episodes. Even as the stakes ostensibly change (Nanba doesn't care about the bottles?) and the danger's increased, visually and structurally it doesn't feel like anything's changed. That can be death for the middle of a Kamen Rider series, and it's a disappointing rut for the series to fall into. The story is still compelling though, since it's based so firmly in the three hero Riders' history. The beats are familiar (Grease wants to protect Hokuto, Sento doesn't think the answer to war is more war, Banjou is just hopeless at articulating his feelings and convincing anyone of anything except for that one time with Sento), but the resolution still delivers a gorgeous image of the Three Crows adding their strength to Grease and Build. It's lovely, grounding a standard fight in something more heartwarming, and it's easily the strongest thing in the episode Wait, no, Sawa's in the new opening credits! That's the highlight, not just for the episode but for the whole series. Act 3 is off to an electric start! This show is the best at delivering exposition. In what for another series might be a slow set of scenes, the "what can learn from Vernage and what do we know about Banjou" stuff was golden. All the right questions get asked with so much style. Just masterful work by the cast and crew, turning an info dump and foreshadowing into character-driven comedy and meta hilarity. Super, super good. Similarly, it's both a clever Build plan that gets deployed (it's not an invasion if you've been kicked out of the military for treason) and some nice reactions from the rest of the cast to Sento's would-be martyrdom. Some folks are angry, some are worried, but everyone just wants to be there for Sento. It's a really charming team dynamic. Other than that, not much stood out for me this episode, partly because the Vernage stuff was so unique and funny, partly because the rest is the same dudes fighting the same dudes on the same set. This show, especially in the second and third acts, is just nailing the smaller character moments, and doing above-average to great work when they can make the fights feel personal, but the overall war setting can feel dull when it's just about the plot. Definitely something that has not gotten better in the last few episodes. A bunch more exposition (not as impressively delivered), and a really great starting fight with some terrific cinematography, but I left this episode not really feeling it. A lot of that is because this is an episode designed around revealing big secrets about Banjou, but it's not designed around revealing big secrets to Banjou. The audience, through Sawa and Misora, gets to find out Banjou's Super Special Origin, but Banjou's left (characteristically) ignorant of all of this. It's good info for an audience to get dots connecting, but dramatically the only point is to force the character to deal with it. It's not important for the audience to know Takumi is Sento, for example, but for Sento to know that Takumi is Sento. There's a little bit of new info that Banjou gets, that Stalk had Kasumi killed to motivate him. (Fridging his girlfriend? So he'd have something to fight for? One of the worst tropes in fiction? Stalk is a monster, and a hack.) That's useful to potentially excavate some new layers of Banjou's personality, but practically it ends up resulting in I'll Fight Even Harder Now. Not exactly a revelation! Banjou gets an upgrade, but his character is basically the same. The real change might happen when he finds out Everything He Knew Was A Lie. The Mars/vessel stuff'll mean more to me when Banjou has to process it, and until then it's not much more than an interesting data point. The fight that kicked off the episode, that's where it felt like the meat was. It just looked so pretty, exchanging tan walls for a wintery beach. Those weirdo frames, creating unusual shots. After a bunch of episodes of city and warehouse fights, it's nice to head out to Kamen Rider Beach. Just, again, a visual change that makes things feel less visually repetitive. Less dull. And, yeah, unfortunately "dull" is the keyword for this string of episodes, despite some big information and quirky moments. It's tough to care about things like Seito's government and Nanba war robots and Martian civilizations because they feel so big. Too big for the smaller moments that this series kills at. Misora and Banjou and Stalk (I assume Stalk) are all inhabited by space people who have space beefs with each other, but so far it's not telling me anything about Misora or Banjou or Stalk. The Nanba stuff is an interesting take on war profiteering and the military industrial complex, but I don't care about it at all. When this show can tie the massive to the personal, it's transcendent. That's not the show I'm seeing in these last three episodes.
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09-20-2019, 08:14 PM | #122 |
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I guess I'll fly the flag for the Ex-Aid because they managed to keep each Rider feeling distinct and separate, rather than the usual progression of Surprise Antagonist > Grudging Acceptance > Total Sidekick. All of those assholes on Ex-Aid thought they were the star, and the other three were their sidekicks. They'd work together, but they clearly hated doing it. Build is much more a team of people who like and respect each other, but it still has a bit of that juice. Their goals may align and they generally like each other, but they've got their individual strengths and motivations, and they're able to disagree with one another.
Yeah, Build takes care of its non-Sento Riders, for sure. I'm watching some episodes of Build right now (I'm taking a quick lunch break!) that do a lot for all three hero Riders. And it's not even some time-filling spotlight episode! |
09-20-2019, 09:21 PM | #123 |
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After this, things stay pretty strong for quite a while, if I remember correctly. You've got a lot of fun, and some pretty crazy stuff coming up
Edit: Oops, didn't see your newest post. Surprised you didn't get into the Cross-Z Magma debut. I remember people really digging that whole episode. There's still more pretty great stuff coming before the next slowdown though Last edited by Fredbob392; 09-20-2019 at 09:24 PM.. |
09-20-2019, 09:36 PM | #124 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
After this, things stay pretty strong for quite a while, if I remember correctly. You've got a lot of fun, and some pretty crazy stuff coming up
Edit: Oops, didn't see your newest post. Surprised you didn't get into the Cross-Z Magma debut. I remember people really digging that whole episode. There's still more pretty great stuff coming before the next slowdown though Seriously, yeah, probably could've spared a few words for Banjou's upgrade! Wouldn't've killed me! I'm still not terribly into Banjou's whole Dragon aesthetic, and I'm not sure it plays into what I think the Build suit offers as a design template. (Love the Rogue suit, so I'm probably being a hypocrite.) Magma is a step up from Charge, but I don't think it's as solid as the base Cross-Z suit. It's a little top-heavy to me, with a lot going on around the back and shoulders without balancing it with the lower body. Also, and it's a little hard to tell so far from the one weirdly-lit scene I've had with it, I don't think the orange of the base suit plays that well. I'm getting less "the unstoppable heat of the Earth's molten core" and more "the SpaghettiOs are cooling off enough to eat". Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe it's a scorching color under different lights! But, no, it didn't do that much for me, aesthetically (Banjou's suits just don't mesh to me) or narratively (unlike Sento's, Banjou's upgrades come off too standard to me, how he just has to believe in himself more or whatever). Sorry I forgot to mention that! It is not a small thing!
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09-21-2019, 09:45 PM | #125 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 32 - 33
So, I didn't care much for last episode because it was information without character impact, and character growth that lacked specificity. And along comes this episode, that I guess read my post from a day ago and went back in time to do it better? Is... is this the time-traveling Kamen Rider series? Have I just not been paying attention to the credits?! (jk, the credits might be the one part I wouldn't want to miss) Yep, I felt almost the exact opposite about this episode as I did 31. The big info about Banjou's genetics is deployed immediately, and classically. I cannot believe that Sento just blurts it out like a) it's only vaguely interesting, and b) it won't change anything. I could not stop laughing, not just because it's another great way the show swerves on exposition, but because it's exactly what that character would do. (Also, he's exactly right on both counts, as proven by the rest of the episode!) This whole episode is full of smart, in-character decisions that progress the story without feeling like the boot of the plot is on the show's neck. There was no way Grease was going to give the enemy what he'd fought so hard to keep from them, so he just doesn't go save his people. We could've gotten some betrayal, then some team-up, then some reconciliation, and that would've killed an episode, but it would've sucked. (Also, thank god those farmers ran for Touto because they were being used for leverage, like, daily.) Likewise, Rogue is enough of a tactician to realize that, if the farmers don't work as leverage, there's zero point in killing them. Plan didn't work, cut 'em loose. He'll destroy anything that gets in his way, but he's not going to murder restrained civilians. This was an episode where the plot moved according to character decisions, and it was the better for it. That's evident in the main runner with Banjou, as he sort-of grapples with his newfound otherworldly heritage. It's great how the show dealt with it. Banjou's faced with an existential crisis, but Banjou doesn't even know what "existential" means, so he's mostly just grumpy about it for half a day and then he's over it. That's fantastic. Even better, I feel like I got the most clarity yet on what being a Kamen Rider means to Banjou. The idea that he's not like Sento, that he doesn't care about people the way Sento does, but he wants to be that kind of man and he's going to keep fighting until he is, I found that explanation enormously compelling. Way, way more compelling than the winter movie's "I want to protect some people sometimes" explanation. A super-smart episode all the way around, where character decisions shape the plot rather than the other way around. That's almost all it takes! Lot of arc stuff around the edges (Evolt, Evol Driver, all of the Hipster Dad backstory), which is kind-of a hallmark of the third act of Kamen Rider shows I've seen. (Not to be one-size-fits-all about it, but: First act, Introduction; Second act, Elaboration; Third act, Revelation; Fourth act, Resolution. The end of the first act is usually around the winter movie, the end of the third act is usually around the summer movie. I'm sure there are a billion exceptions to this framework!) We're certainly given some sense of what Stalk's been up to the last decade, and what he's trying to achieve. We don't get a lot more with Banjou's alien abilities, but it's still mentioned as a thing. We do get almost a whole episode with Rogue, though, and I loved it. Military Adam Driver is a tricky character, a constantly-shifting antagonist who seems exactly as crazy as the current plot needs him to be. I'm not going to say I didn't care about him, but I cared about him a little less once he abandoned Touto (and Night Rogue) for Seito (and Rogue).This episode went a long, long way to making me care about him again, maybe the most I ever have. I dig Tragic Riders. Not every show has them (most don't), so it's always a treat to me when one is worked into a show. Rogue is, like, a textbook example of a Tragic Rider. He's a villain with a goal, and it's a goal that is only 3 degrees away from being reasonable, but he just takes his ambition way too far and ruins basically everything in his life. Eventually, he gets some clarity, and tries to harness the poor decisions he's made to redeem himself, but... uh... there's this expression, it's about how many wrongs you need to make before something right happens, I can't remember it right now, but you know the one I mean, probably. Anyway, things inevitably go even further south, right towards rock bottom. That's the journey Rogue has been on, and I super dig it. This episode takes some pretty diverse portrayals and, remarkably, makes them all seem like the path of one person. He's not some raving lunatic or a calculating overachiever, he's someone who got their life ruined by a freak accident and is only now able to find his way out of some poor decisions. But, it's Kamen Rider, and he's a Tragic Rider, so there's one more thing in his life that needs to go wrong. ALL DADS ARE DEAD. Oh, and speaking of dads: Kamen Rider Evolt! Love the bottles, love the henshin, love the color scheme on the suit, love the helmet design, love the astronomy motif on the suit (science!), don't love the shoulders a whole lot. Feels like shoulders are a design weakness a lot on Kamen Riders. Frequently they're just too floppy, too obtrusive, and I'm not a fan of the "more power = bigger shoulders" design philosophy. The shoulders, swinging and flopping everywhere, end up making the fights between powerful adversaries look a bit too goofy as movement is hindered. Not my favorite part, but Evolt still has a lot working in its favor. I'm excited to see where it goes as it moves into other phases. Shoulders as big as a Rider? A boy can dream!
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09-21-2019, 10:27 PM | #126 |
take me to space
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This is a super minor point and I don't actually care if you just ignore it, but the character's name is Evolt while his Rider name is Evol. It's a moot point anyway since the cast just always calls him Evolt and that distinction only matters in merchandising.
Anyhow, I wss also really happy with these episodes and Banjou's classic Kamen Rider dedication where he says he'll use his power that came from an evil source for good. And while I don't entirely like Rogue's bit about how 'oh the pandora's box effect is gone so he is less evil now', it ultimately made little diffetence in what I think is an effective redemption arc. |
09-21-2019, 10:39 PM | #127 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Anyhow, I wss also really happy with these episodes and Banjou's classic Kamen Rider dedication where he says he'll use his power that came from an evil source for good. And while I don't entirely like Rogue's bit about how 'oh the pandora's box effect is gone so he is less evil now', it ultimately made little diffetence in what I think is an effective redemption arc.
For Rogue, I mean, we always knew that he'd been affected by Pandora's Box, so if anything I like them saying the Rogue Nebula Gas thing changed his mind because at least there's a reason why he's behaving differently. If he just suddenly didn't feel like being a stop-at-nothing military warlord, that'd be a hard circle to square. With what they gave in this episode, I think it all makes sense for his character.
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09-21-2019, 10:54 PM | #128 |
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I love Evolt overall, it helps that Stalk has been a constant during the entire show, it also helps that both his voice actor and human form actor do a great job portraying the character and give him a lot of personality, not to mention the fantastic suit acting for him.
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09-21-2019, 10:58 PM | #129 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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I love Evolt overall, it helps that Stalk has been a constant during the entire show, it also helps that both his voice actor and human form actor do a great job portraying the character and give him a lot of personality, not to mention the fantastic suit acting for him.
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09-21-2019, 11:41 PM | #130 |
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Dude swings out of frame after thwarting Night Rogue's plan to take back the bottles from Build. Swings. He just loves spoiling people's days!
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