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01-29-2021, 09:18 PM | #851 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Quote:
It's easy to forget, but Tendou trained himself to become the guy we met in the premiere. That connection Tendou made with Hiyori, it's everything to this series. We've been shown them grabbing hands 48 times just thanks to the opening alone. It's what I said about 44, too, about how personal and humble it all is. Tendou didn't become the strongest for his own ego, despite what it looks like, nor did he do it out of some vague, arrogant notion of saving the world. He did it because he wanted to be by the side of a single girl who needed help. Kamen Rider Kabuto only exists because of one small act of selflessness that lead to something far greater. Tendou isn't just making up something schmaltzy out of nowhere, everything about the narrative of the series supports what he's talking about – Tendou is his own proof that he's right. Maybe he really was justice, after all, huh?
The God of Battle ekes out a last-minute win!
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01-29-2021, 09:38 PM | #852 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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I will say though, even though Tendou is such a great speaker, his metaphors are getting pretty tangled at this point. Like, how can one man be the sun, the world, justice itself, and probably several other things he's said that I'm forgetting? I know Tendou is good (the best ever, if you ask him), but man, that is one heck of a resume.
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01-29-2021, 11:06 PM | #853 |
I have a problematic type
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There is very little of this finale that stuck with me in the long term - which was kind of the whole Kabuto story, as I've mentioned before. I remembered Tendou destroying a meteor with a flower. I remembered Tendou in green screen Paris. I remembered Hiyori being heavily isolated from the actual plot and other characters. What I remembered most, though, was Kagami and Tendou. Not a specific moment with them, but I remembered this being an episode that really centered on their friendship. I still get that from the rewatch; I really love the scene after the fight where they're just hanging out on the rooftop.
I'm probably going to forget a lot of this again. The fight with Mishima is already fading, and I'm literally writing this immediately after I finished the episode. It's not an especially grand finale - Tendou's speech is great, but the villain is highly forgettable, the fight is really brief, and it all ends with an unnecessary self-sacrifice from Dark Kabuto to take out a Native mook. There are some good emotional beats, but they aren't even series high points. There's really not a lot here to hang onto walking away from the series. I'll definitely remember the show's real shining moments better now, but this isn't going to be one of them. |
01-29-2021, 11:24 PM | #854 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
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I will say though, even though Tendou is such a great speaker, his metaphors are getting pretty tangled at this point. Like, how can one man be the sun, the world, justice itself, and probably several other things he's said that I'm forgetting? I know Tendou is good (the best ever, if you ask him), but man, that is one heck of a resume.
I think some of the reason the One Year Later epilogue hit me so hard was, like, this is what I want to remember from Kabuto. After 50-odd minutes of dumb plotting and confusing story decisions, there's this incredibly sweet epilogue that reminds me of why I enjoyed this show in spite of a weirdly high amount of forgettable storytelling. Not to be a broken record, but it's a lot of what the Series Wrap-Up post is going to focus on. Great characters in a not-great story.
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01-30-2021, 02:01 AM | #855 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - SERIES WRAP-UP
That picture, man. That's the entire series of Kabuto for me, for better or worse. Two people I really care about, basking in a victory that's worth so much less than the celebration. That big smile on Kagami's face, his happiness overshadowing a lackluster superhero plot. And that's the show, really. Some excellent character development, some incredible performances, and a series plot that nearly always found a way to rob them of their hard work. I mean, I crab about how forgettable/poorly-sketched the villains can be in the Phase 1 shows, but this has got to be a new low. The Worms are introduced as mysterious invaders, and basically just stay that way for the rest of the show? There's never any sense of an overall goal, or a grand design. We'll meet a random monster, they'll do some random murders (or have a random target), and then they get detonated. When we finally get a recurring villain in Worm Widow and Worm Widower, they aren't really an escalation of the plot or arc or anything. They're just, like, recurring. They take a few more episodes to get detonated than the average Worm, but they don't mean more to the plot. They're just there a bit more. The Worms are a constant presence, a consistent threat... but they're also background noise, well-designed wallpaper. They aren't really a story? And the main villain, the real threat... I mean, Negishi doesn't even get introduced until episode 45 of a 49-episode series. That is over ninety percent of the show before he shows up, and we don't even find out he's a villain until episode 47. His plot isn't even explained until the penultimate episode! That leaves this series stringing together the occasional clever plot with a raft of forgettable one-offs, with no real story progression to speak of. It's just a rotating cast of antagonists and adversaries without anything feeling like we're going anywhere. ZECT is a threat, until they're a joke, until they're nothing, until they're a threat. Goro is a second-in-command until he's randomly the final monster. Dark Kabuto is in, like, two stories. The Natives aren't in opposition to Kabuto until the last half-hour. Worm Widow and Worm Widower have a deeper crew of monsters, but their activities are just them being more or less public as the plot demands. It's a show that is massively confused about what the villains are up to, and any attempt to encapsulate the threats the heroes face would sound like you hated the show. (See above!) Nearly any part of the series that tried to foreground the series arc was boring at best, actively confusing at worst. If my mind ever strays to the plotting of the season, I just get angry about it. But, man, the characters in those plots are so goddamn good. Tendou is a character that, on paper, 100% should not work. He starts the show as an arrogant know-it-all, and ends the series as a slightly less arrogant know-it-all that you love regardless. His arc is one of the saving graces of the show, as he never really smooths out his rough edges, while still making you feel like he's worth caring for. Tendou's all about one of the main themes of the show, that individual success is a societal good. He's a hero who is more interested in protecting people's potential than in protecting people; encouraging them to become their own heroes, asking them to succeed so the whole world could be that much better. He's like the sun, shining down on the world. The sun isn't creating millions of individual beams of light, personal and unique. It's bathing the world in light, and trusting you to go bask in it or not. Kagami was the opposite, able to see the worth in everyone. He'd risk it all for a single person, anyone. While Tendou hid his heart behind a god-level view of the world, Kagami and his Very Big Feelings were us, were the people who could never be Tendou. Kagami was achievable, recognizable. Kagami embraced the world, and tried to make sure everyone in it was happy. Tendou was someone who wanted to let people achieve; Kagami was someone who understood what it felt like to not achieve. Kagami was the other main theme of the series, that humility is the key to pursuing success. We got to see Kagami struggle to live up to the success of others. We got to see him feel like he'd never make anyone proud. But then we got to see him succeed on his own terms, by not trying to be Tendou or Yaguruma or his dad or anyone else. Once he owned his limitations, stop judging himself for his shortcomings, stopped measuring himself against others, he could finally succeed. He's the beating heart of this show. Or, y'know, maybe Hiyori is? The most relatable character of the show (YMMV), Hiyori was the most fascinating character to follow in the early going. Someone who was like a raw nerve, exposed to the world, expecting everyone in her life to let her down. She was rude, closed-off, and endlessly watchable. Getting to see her grow into a friendship with Tendou, to see her faith restored by Kagami, those were some series highlights. It's unfortunate that we never really got to see what the show would've done with her. I honestly never liked the reveal that she was Tendou's sister, but maybe that plot would've won me over in time. (It was super easy to forget about in later episodes, which I really appreciated.) As it is, her absence from the show leaves her diminished in my memory, all of those beautifully acted scenes as present in my mind as episodes of Hibiki, or Blade. Her return to the series is like an afterthought, a story that becomes more about Tendou than her. Her journey feels like it stopped at the midway point, and that's a real shame. The rest of the cast was fantastic, up and down the credits. Tsurugi, the adorable comedy relief who got the loveliest send-off, living happily in France. Yaguruma, always keeping the core of his identity, no matter the shell he was in. Kageyama, a ridiculous man who died a ridiculous death. Misaki, the only one at times who seemed like they were saying things I believed in. Tadokoro, stuck between a shadow war with monstrous invaders on one side, and two insubordinate underlings who needed to tell him everything ZECT is doing wrong on the other side. Juka, who is incredibly well-fed. And Daisuke and Gon, who were on this show just often enough to remind me that they're great, while always feeling like the show had to stop to accommodate them. (Worth it!) I love these people. I loved getting to spend a couple months with them. I cried actual tears when I realized that my time with them was coming to an end. I loved their arcs, the themes of achievement and humility that they embodied. I disliked the world they were in. Rarely did any of plots live up to the characters' or actors' potential. (The Inoue stories did, mostly. The Dark Chef one was maybe the best two-parter this show ever had.) The plots were occasionally fun, but never really added up to much. The series arc was a huge drag, actively working against what this series had going for it. But, again, look at that picture up there of Kagami, beaten but joyous. It doesn't matter what stupid story he just had to go through, or the flimsy motivation of the monster he just had to defeat. He won, him and Tendou both. They did it. I can't be too mad at a series that can make me this happy.
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01-30-2021, 02:16 AM | #856 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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It's really funny to me that Tsurugi gets to 'go to France' but when Kageyama met basically the same (albeit ludicrously quick in comparison) fate, you're just like 'welp, hes gone I guess'. I totally relate though.
It was really fun reading you navigate through this show's high-speed highs and also the various bizarre lows. I'm pretty sure the main duo of the show are all I'm gonna truly keep close in my mind even now when I think back to it, but it sounds like just about everyone in the cast has wormed their way into your heart in one way or another. |
01-30-2021, 02:30 AM | #857 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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It was really fun reading you navigate through this show's high-speed highs and also the various bizarre lows. I'm pretty sure the main duo of the show are all I'm gonna truly keep close in my mind even now when I think back to it, but it sounds like just about everyone in the cast has wormed their way into your heart in one way or another.
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01-30-2021, 03:58 AM | #858 |
King of the Rolex
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Location: Digital World
Posts: 452
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I feel that this is the last show that really has that J-Drama feel. Shows after it feel as though they remembered "Oh crap we're supposed to be appealing to kids not just their moms and/or dads" not that there's anything wrong with that in fact I generally prefer Rider shows post Kabuto. Den-O through Decade is basically like a transitional period between Heisei Phase 1 to Phase 2.
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01-30-2021, 09:40 AM | #859 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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He did, though! A lot! And specifically towards Kagami! I mean, he's still Tendou, there're limits to his teamwork and kindness (that's why the show could do the gag where Another Tendou immediately gets exposed for not being an asshole), but the show basically just did the definitive story about Tendou and Kagami's bond, about how the Riders can work together to save the world, about how Tendou doesn't need to do it all himself... literally all the things this show decided didn't happen for some reason.
Quote:
KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 48
The biggest bummer for me is how little of what’s going on in these episodes feels thematically tied into what the rest of the season has been about. Discussions of xenophobia, of an inability for previous generations to safeguard a future for their children, of allowing organizations to dictate terms to a populace instead of the other way around… I mean, fun ideas, but none of that was really in the last 47 episodes of Kabuto. This show decided to go all-in on a militarized organization of nebulous authority that has mostly been a joke the last half of the series, and it’s probably a critical error. Quote:
Like, the big fight at the center of this episode is between Gatack and Kabuto, and it just feels so forced, so false, so phony. 44 has this pivotal moment of connection between the two Riders, and here we are in 48 with Tendou throwing away all of Kagami’s trust for no compelling reason (now he decides to mention that the necklaces are turning people into Natives?!), leaving Kagami with a burning need to kill Tendou for… reasons? I think Kagami suddenly feels like Worms should be allowed to live? After one speech from Negishi? It’s not like the show hasn’t had stories where Kagami wanted to protect the odd Worm, but here he’s sentencing Tendou to death (pretty much the series theme at this point) for killing Worms, despite Kagami killing dozens of Worms over the length of the show? Hundreds?
It’s just such a weird scene, and it still feels unbelievably regressive. This doesn’t feel like the Kagami and Tendou who banded together to save Hiyori, or the Kagami and Tendou that kept one another from going too far in the pursuit of justice. This feels like the Tendou who looks down his nose at this other guy’s Very Big Feelings, and the Kagami who doesn’t trust Tendou’s loner tendencies and lack of transparency. It’s this series deciding to have a huge Gatack/Kabuto fight in the penultimate episode, and then scrambling to find a way to justify it. I guess it helps if Kagami gets scammed and Tendou takes forever to explain what’s really going on! So, yeah, a huge part of this episode doesn’t work for me. I didn’t really hate the Kagami solo stuff, since the core of this show is Kagami’s Very Big Feelings. I like him trying to help people in a larger way, in a societal way. It’s when the show so quickly pushes him into a fight to the death with Tendou, and it literally could’ve been avoided if Tendou had thought to explain himself (or even articulate his concerns, if he wasn’t certain) one single scene earlier, that’s when I feel like the show isn’t trying hard enough. Quote:
Which, yeah, sloppy plotting up and down the show. It’s a lot of quick ends and turns that a better show would’ve checked in on regularly, or possibly steadily addressed over the course of the show. Hey, remember those pills Goro stopped taking 30 episodes ago? Well, he’s throwing them away here and becoming a Super Native! (Or are the pills making him a Super Native? I’m unclear! Or uninterested! Or both!) Or, hey, that Negishi guy who has been in two scenes before this episode? He’s the series mastermind and a genocidal lunatic! Or, y’know that berserk switch we saw Kabuto deal with literally one time in one episode and then basically no one ever brought up again? It’s going to be a huge part of the finale, I guess! Or, what about ZECT being a militarized organization of nebulous authority, who worked in the shadows and could barely pay their employees or keep the lights on? Now they basically run Japan! Oh, and KickHopper murders PunchHopper! And Kagami’s dad dies!
I find something appealing about Negishi that, at first glance, he looks so casual and nobody, and had unprofessional behavior too with him acting fun-loving, foolish, and innocent, his Native form is even the fodder Worms that recently just got killed easily by the ZECTroopers' guns! Unlike Mishima's who is Gryllus Worm, the strongest Native. But the truth is that he's masterminding his visionary plan and is in charge within it. Crouching moron hidden nightmare, it's like characters such as Shunpei or Onari, but is given total "more than meets the eye" status, albeit in evil way. Negishi is the type of doing bad things for good reasons, the end justifies the means type mindset, which means him being extremist anti-villain, in contrast to Mishima who.. Mishima is also one of the most irredeemable villains on the whole franchise as well (like those 3 I mentioned). Dark Kabuto is crucial in the story for Mishima's motivations. In the past, Mishima captured the young boy that would become Dark Kabuto and performed horrendous experiments on him to unlock the power of the Hyper Zecter, keeping him as a prisoner for years inside a ZECT facility in Area X. Assigned to oversee the development of the Gatack Zecter, Mishima wastes no time in sacrificing the lives of his own soldiers to see who is worthy of its power. Mishima allies himself with the Worms to stop the independent non-ZECT Riders, framing Daisuke for the murder of a rival makeup artist and later sending an agent whom he forced to eat nothing but dry boiled rice for the last seven years of her life to assassinate Tendou. In AM Bomb operation, Mishima is disappointed in his superior for attempting to save the hostages, telling Kagami that if he fails the negotiation, he'll just nuke the entire district. After the existence of Worms is announced to the world, Mishima turns himself into Gryllus Worm and conspires to do the same with the rest of the world by usurping the position of general and, just so he doesn't get to lose his status after all the Worms have been exterminated, manipulating the population into wearing a pendant that detects Worms, but actually converts those wearing it into Natives. And you don't seem to appreciate KickHopper murdering PunchHopper here? From what I read, people can find Hell Bros' personality annoying, but they got a heartbreaking ending enough to make them sob. Kageyama is a victim of Mishima's grand plan where he got turned into Native, and Yaguruma is forced to kill him. Kageyama wants to die as himself, a human, not as a Native. Oh right, probably this resembles something in.... ep. 46 so yeah... Quote:
A QUESTION
Multiple choice time! Genuinely can’t believe that Tendou, the guy who executed Tsurugi a week ago, is letting the guy who assaulted Hiyori just, like, go live his life. Is Tendou letting Another Tendou go because: a) Tendou firmly/suddenly believes in forgiveness against psychotic Worms as long as they promise not to do it again, despite Another Tendou immediately shouting that he can’t forgive Hiyori and fleeing into the night b) Tendou is pathologically incapable of looking at his own face and not immediately forgiving it c) Nothing matters anymore, no one on this show is written like they existed before this episode, continuity is a dirty word, welcome to the darkness
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01-30-2021, 11:58 AM | #860 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
I feel that this is the last show that really has that J-Drama feel. Shows after it feel as though they remembered "Oh crap we're supposed to be appealing to kids not just their moms and/or dads" not that there's anything wrong with that in fact I generally prefer Rider shows post Kabuto. Den-O through Decade is basically like a transitional period between Heisei Phase 1 to Phase 2.
Or, man, maybe I don't? I keep thinking I want the sugar-rush storytelling of Phase 2, but the more emotional, slowed-down and spaced-out stories are the ones I can't stop thinking about. Hmm. Either way, I'm excited to see how the next three shows manage that transition! Quote:
The villain here Negishi (Mishima is just pure evil) thinks that the solution of creating world peace is turning everyone into Natives, the same species as him, because he thinks peace between humans and Natives can't coexist, the villains don't understand about the theme that Inoue brought up about self-acceptance and stop judging yourself, which means about that your species don't matter, your self does ("X is X"), Negishi thinks that peace is determined by what species your are, and thinks that human won't create conflict with Natives if they turned into that too, lacking the understanding that it's your personality that decides how they act, not their species; even humans can kill other humans for their criminal needs!
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