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01-21-2021, 09:59 PM | #711 |
I got nothing
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If I’m remembering how the fights with Worm dude are structured it’s supposed to be that he can only stop time for a short period and there’s a cool down between uses, with Tendou using hyper shooting to bait the time stop and the way it functions rendering the time stop worhtless
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01-21-2021, 10:03 PM | #712 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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If I’m remembering how the fights with Worm dude are structured it’s supposed to be that he can only stop time for a short period and there’s a cool down between uses, with Tendou using hyper shooting to bait the time stop and the way it functions rendering the time stop worhtless
There is a bit with Hyper Kabuto taking a shot, letting Worm Widower stop time, then having Hyper Shooting arc around and hit Worm Widower when time restarts. After that, though, Worm Widower just has a bunch of Worms run at Hyper Kabuto? It's very strange. If there are rules to the fight, no one says them out loud.
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01-22-2021, 11:52 AM | #713 |
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KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 41
So, yeah, I was mostly just okay with this episode. There’s some big parts I liked (Kagami’s Very Big Feeling of betrayal) and some small parts I liked (Tsurugi as SwordHopper seems like a fun lark), but overall I just found the whole thing a little tedious. Quote:
I still have no idea what the deal is with the conflict between the Worms, the Natives, and humanity, despite several expository scenes. (Boy, the director did not feel like rescuing those scenes at all.) For as much nuance as previous stories have tried to give through characters like Hiyori, Reina, and Tsurugi, everything here just boils down to Good Monsters and Bad Monsters and Humans Who Are Forced To Work With The Good Monsters I Guess. There’s no sense of plan yet for the Worms (I guess they’re replacing everyone in the world? For some reason? To just keep working jobs or something?), and the conflict with ZECT went from this Cold War of minor aggressions into full-blown warfare, and it all feels so abrupt. It feels plot-driven, not character-driven, which is one of the reasons I feel so ambivalent about this episode. Stuff happens to and around the characters, and it doesn’t really feel like they’ve got much agency in this one?
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And, like, that’s not automatically disqualifying, despite my personal preference for something that draws from the characters and relationships. This episode gets some juice from Kagami finding out that both his dad, the returning Kagami Outrageous, and Tadokoro, his work dad, have been lying to him for years. Kagami has always drawn his confidence from his ability to follow his heart, to do what he thinks is right, so it is devastating to him to find out that Everything Has Proceeded According To His Dad’s Design, and that Tadokoro has let him be in the dark for so long. It makes Kagami feel like a pawn, and that’s a thing he can’t abide by.
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It’s a fun idea, seeing how a dispirited and disillusioned Kagami processes his betrayal, but a lot of the execution is him sort of acting like a baby? I’m not saying he’s wrong to feel upset at someone like Tadokoro, or especially at Outrageous, but what’s presented is him basically throwing tantrums, and it wears a little thin. It’s like, I was on Kagami’s side! And then by his final scene, I said out loud, “Quit being such a baby.” I don’t usually talk to these episodes! But that performance really brought it out of me!
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But then we have Tsurugi’s plot, and that one is a roller coaster. It starts with a Tsurugi/Misaki plot that dials back what I loved about 40 into what I grudgingly tolerated from 39. Kagami immediately tells Tsurugi that Misaki was never actually his girlfriend, they were tricking him, and Tsurugi views that betrayal as a test of character from his best friend and crush. It’s sort of adorable, how quickly he forgives two people that were lying to his face. Unfortunately, that clears the path for Tsurugi to start pursuing Misaki again, a thing I was very much not looking forward to. It’s a creepy couple scenes that get nipped in the bud (thankfully) as Misaki outright tells Tsurugi that they are never going to happen. It’s a level of bluntness that I really appreciated, even if I wish the show had done it from the jump.
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What follows is a concept that is so good, so the kind of thing I’d joke about because I’d want it too much to ever think it could be real, that I can scarcely believe it really happened. Tsurugi, the man who now stands at the top of depression, is adopted by the Hoppers, two men who stand at the bottom of happiness. Everything about that is… like, forget all of this ZECT/Worm/Native whatever nonsense. Pointless. Irrelevant. This is my endgame. KickPunchSwordHopper is my grand finale. I cannot give two shits about Worm Widower kicking Hyper Kabuto out of his Hyper Cast Off, because literally the only thing I can anticipate from this episode is What Happens Next With The Hoppers. That’s it. Only plotline that matters now!
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A QUESTION
Tadokoro’s big reveal here was both surprising, and something I sort of didn’t care about. I have some vague questions I’m not sure if the show plans on answering (Is Tadokoro’s entire family Natives? Did he kill the real Tadokoro at some point and take his place?), but it didn’t really make me reconsider Tadokoro as a character or anything. It did make me wonder if I’d missed a ton of clues along the way, so I’m curious if y’all were as surprised as I was when you watched this episode. When did you figure out Tadokoro was a Native?
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01-22-2021, 12:29 PM | #714 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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The difference now is that we're talking about big picture stuff, endgame storytelling, and it's just as vague and unimpressive as a one-off monster story. This is where it all needs to come together, where the threat needs to feel insurmountable, and I don't even think that's the case? Nothing about the Worms feels like a coherent strategy that will require the focus of our heroes. It's just, like, more Worms? Was that when he ran off crying? I honestly can't remember why I said that, so I can't really compare it to what I was saying for 41. What I'll say about how he behaves here is that he comes off less as wounded, and more as a brat. Multiple people are trying to console him, and he's just getting grumpier and grumpier. It's not fun to watch!
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01-22-2021, 02:06 PM | #715 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,420
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I'd forgotten about this, but I'm really let down by how useless all the Riders that aren't Tendou and Kagami feel at this point. I know that the show is hyping up the new villain as being virtually unstoppable, but Sasword and the Hoppers have been jobbing to pretty much every Worm they fight for awhile now. I get that they aren't the show's heroes, but it is a little disappointing to see them just lose constantly. It's like the show has three Kamen Rider Beasts on it at this point. I think the only reason Daisuke is allowed to win fights is because he's not around enough to become a joke.
I did enjoy the callback to the tofu battle from early in the series, though, complete with way-too-easily-amused tofu vendor (he should open a restaurant with Tadokoro's brother and serve food with a side of ridiculous over-acting). The bit at the end where Tendou completely forgot about the rematch was a pretty decent gag. Also, while I'm really not sure where the hell the show is taking Kagami Sr. at this point (and literally cannot remember which side he ends up on), I really did like the quiet pathos of him playing catch with Kagami. Again, totally uninvested in their relationship, but that was a really well done scene. |
01-22-2021, 02:15 PM | #716 |
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Can’t say anything about this episode (I’ve got more to say about the next one though). Most I can come up with is that this is probably the B.O.T of the series.
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01-22-2021, 02:15 PM | #717 |
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Also, while I'm really not sure where the hell the show is taking Kagami Sr. at this point (and literally cannot remember which side he ends up on), I really did like the quiet pathos of him playing catch with Kagami. Again, totally uninvested in their relationship, but that was a really well done scene.
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01-22-2021, 02:17 PM | #718 |
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01-22-2021, 06:02 PM | #719 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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Wow, a set of episodes by Ishida where everything is on fire by the end! That's almost as surprising as me taking a positive stance on an episode Die didn't like! I mean, these aren't great episodes, by any stretch, of course, but... gosh, most of the stupid things just didn't bother me, I guess? Like, I want to have some stellar defense prepared here, but even I can tell I'm probably just easily amused by anything with a Kamen Rider in it. The whole Anti Mimic Bomb plot is nonsense, just like Die said. I got nothing to try and talk that premise up. There's a chance we missed something in the exposition, I suppose; more likely, it's simply is totally and completely illogical. But I'm willing to roll with that, because any Kabuto story not involving Hiyori is automatically fighting an uphill battle for my attention, which means I'm already trying to meet whatever it's doing halfway. I can easily forgive some boneheaded plotting if it uses that to do something fun or interesting enough, and that's where my opinion splits hard with Die's, because I overall found this to be a surprisingly satisfying conclusion to a two-parter I didn't expect to like all that much? A lot of it doesn't hold up to scrutiny, which is where it definitely stumbles big time, but the broad strokes of this one hit a bunch of notes I ended up thinking were pretty neat. I liked Kagami in it, is maybe a big one to mention. It's worth noting I'm definitely sure he wanted to save Tadokoro from the very start; he's shown blaming himself for him getting taken hostage in his very first scene, and I think throughout the episode, that's the key thing motivating him to want to go and bust up the Worms holding everyone captive. He's torn anyway, because, first of all, I guess it's bad if the Worms have that bomb, and I'll take the show at face value there, but also, much more importantly, because he thinks his dad is asking him to be an unthinking pawn. That's the crux of his beef with the Natives, too. He can't stand this idea that his whole life is just some big script being written by someone else, and I like where the episode goes from there. I thought it was solid turning point for Kagami to consider, with some prodding from Tendou, that maybe his dad wanted him for the job of negotiator because of who he is as individual with his own free will, rather than in spite of it. That his dad both knows him well enough that he'd go there and try something stupid and heroic, and cares for him enough to tacitly encourage it. And sure enough, Kagami gets his groove back, goes in there, does something stupid and heroic, and manages to beat the odds with his friends by his side. There are a lot of details in the middle that don't make sense, but I thought it stuck a nice enough landing. I especially appreciated how it built off of existing plot points, too. It's cool that Kagami's history with baseball is still relevant, for example, with the big emotional beat at the end even being his dad showing up with what is presumably Kagami's old glove from high school, since it has his name on it. Kagami's dad is in no way a character I'm invested in, so I don't want to downplay the achievement of this episode for making me care even slightly. And the Tsurugi subplot, I mean, that thread is golden. Way bigger fan of that comedy than it sounds like Die was. It's wonderfully surreal in a way I have to imagine Ishida helped bring to life. The more absurd it got, the better it was for me, with the absolute highlight being Tsurugi transforming in his stage magician getup, throwing his wand into the air and having his sword come back down. Utterly delightful, and I appreciate the way it tried to tie back into the main plot thematically in the end, even if that wasn't ~entirely~ airtight either. I definitely loved Tendou telling him how messed up his interest in Misaki has been though. Much like Kagami, he's kind of responsible for all his own problems here, and in both cases, that seems to be the intent. It's sort of like a mini-redemption story for everybody... except Yaguruma, who is clearly being laughed at harder by the writers more than any characters in the show could possibly match. Yeah, at the end of the day, I don't really question Die's animosity towards this one, but I don't feel an ounce of it myself. I thought this was a very enjoyable episode, despite its many flaws.
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01-22-2021, 06:18 PM | #720 |
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I thought it was solid turning point for Kagami to consider, with some prodding from Tendou, that maybe his dad wanted him for the job of negotiator because of who he is as individual with his own free will, rather than in spite of it. That his dad both knows him well enough that he'd go there and try something stupid and heroic, and cares for him enough to tacitly encourage it. And sure enough, Kagami gets his groove back, goes in there, does something stupid and heroic, and manages to beat the odds with his friends by his side. There are a lot of details in the middle that don't make sense, but I thought it stuck a nice enough landing. I especially appreciated how it built off of existing plot points, too. It's cool that Kagami's history with baseball is still relevant, for example, with the big emotional beat at the end even being his dad showing up with what is presumably Kagami's old glove from high school, since it has his name on it. Kagami's dad is in no way a character I'm invested in, so I don't want to downplay the achievement of this episode for making me care even slightly.
Like, the idea that drives me insane is that Outrageous secretly wants Kagami to not hand over something that I cannot see the relative value in at all. If this was instead a story about ZECT not trading a random, replaceable weapon for Tadokoro, I'd be 1000% on board with Kagami's objections and rooting for his heroic resolve to reassert itself. But the episode goes the opposite way, where ZECT is totally willing to hand over some dumb piece of tech to save a dozen lives, and Kagami is instrumental in endangering everyone involved by trying to take it back. Tadokoro almost gets killed during Gatack's fight against Worm Widower! This was all for no real gain! Anyway, yeah, I agree with you that that Tendou/Kagami scene is a good one, but I hate that it's a part of this episode's story.
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