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05-08-2020, 12:11 AM | #11 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Whoohoo, super glad your first impression was great, this first ep is very much an either-you-love-it-or-you-hate-it thing as I discovered. While I finished this series relatively recently, I actually watched the first episode as a teen and my thought process at that time was basically “sweet, our main rider seems very likable, Shinji-esque, dude… uh he some sort of undead I guess…. that’s also interesting suit design, but maybe it’s just alternate form… uh we murder people now… okay, I guess he’s not the guy.” It hit me way harder upon rewatch, for some reason.
But, I don't know, people kept talking up Faiz in a Hoo Boy kind of way, as in Hoo Boy Wait Until You Get To Faiz, and I didn't find it especially weird or off-putting? So far? The things it's doing with backgrounding Faiz, it's maybe new to Kamen Rider but, like I said, pretty standard in other series. Even the tone doesn't feel a million miles away from parts of Kuuga or Agito. Like, it all still reads as Kamen Rider to me? Quote:
That has to be the most depressing first Kamen Rider episode, right. Not just in terms of what happened, but also the way they’re framing it—although I haven’t seen Amazons, is it the similar brand of ‘dark’? I personally loved it; it established a certain mood, an undercurrent of sorrow and longing that’s really the furthest thing I’d normally seek from a toku show, but somehow appealed to me.
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And yeah, I also liked Mari immediately, just something very endearing and authentic with her ‘no-time-for-the-stupids’ vibe and overall demeanor as you noted. In general, they really did a good job in making the core characters likable and worth the emotional investment, at least to me.
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Doing well, all things considered. Just had a con-call with my office and things are looking kinda bleak (which I guess is keeping with the thread’s theme here!), but I did what I could and hopefully had taken enough safety precautions to bounce back and help my mates if/when it comes to the worst.
It's a great attitude you've got, to be able to prep as much as possible and just wait to see if it's sufficient. A hard thing to keep to, knowing that you can't plan for the unplannable and that you need to be flexible. Hopefully everything'll work out for the best! Neat! I'm looking forward to those shows as well! And I hope you still dig Ryuki on the next go-around!
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Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! |
05-08-2020, 01:21 AM | #12 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Don't hold me to this because I break promises a lot - I had a lot more good to say about Ryuki than I thought, which is nice! - but I definitely think this is the point I'm gonna konk out aside from when there's a funny good toy. I'm afraid Faiz is a show I don't have much good to say about -- it's a very marmite show, I find. You either completely vibe with what it's going for; you love what it's doing; or you really, really don't. It's probably one of if not the most polarising Riders I've seen, and you can probably tell which 'side' I'm on.
Still! ... I like the belt! Come to think of it actually, there's a couple early merch things I gotta talk about as they happen. And the Faiz Belt is one of them -- a lot of people love how simple and realistic it is and I really gotta agree. Even if it's not something I want to totally see a return to (if we stuck to this we'd never have Taka Kujaku Condoru, like; come on), it's really nice for what it is. Just a good ol' flip-phone that reminds me of when I used to play Snake when bored sitting in the car and then it takes a step-up over your usual Sentai changer by shoving it into a belt. Epic.
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05-08-2020, 05:00 AM | #13 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Oh geez this popped out of nowhere! Uh, let my try to catch up real quick:
- So, obviously, because it's come up a few times, I'm extremely fond of Faiz, for starters. It's another show I've rewatched fairly recently and even wrote all about it, so I should be in a good place to discuss whatever about it. - When I was doing that, the subs were driving me so completely insane, I did indeed make correcting them a regular feature of my posts about it. Faiz's subs are bad. I know you don't like spoilers, but since you're using TV-N, I'll just say, get ready to find out who carries magazines around while intentionally going soon enough. I may be on standby to defend this show, but I'm also just on standby to play translation cop for a series that relies heavily on dialogue to carry its story. - I've also been so absorbed with Kuuga lately for obvious reasons that I may have pushed a lot of this stuff out of my head, but I don't actually remember that much wrong about the premiere. - I also really love this first episode, of course. Faiz was one of the earlier Rider shows I watched, and it was mindblowing to see how downplayed the actual Rider stuff is here. Really strong characterization, too, even for characters that aren't truly in the spotlight yet. It was worlds away from something like OOO tonally, and I think the way Faiz highlights the variety of this franchise is one of the things I love most about it to this day. I kind of see Faiz like, after Ryuki kicked the door open for what "Kamen Rider" could mean, it was the show that got to really enjoy that newfound freedom.
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05-08-2020, 09:48 AM | #14 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,530
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After a good year of trading cards and then getting a rider who uses a cellphone to suit up was pretty wild at the time. I mean cellphones were already done twice in Super Sentai but this was next level. The Faiz Driver was just an amazing piece of hardware itself and while somewhat expected, inputting the code to transform and then docking it to the belt was just satisfying to see every time.
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05-08-2020, 10:08 AM | #15 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,551
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Ah we’re finally onto a good show (by my standards, I prefer it to Kuuga and Ryuki. Havent seen Agito yet).
Anyway, if you think Faiz looking older than his actual age is crazy, I’ll point out that the girl was only FIFTEEN when they shot this episode. (Which is still younger than the youngest actor to play a main rider [which is currently a tie between Gjost and Zi-O, both of whom were 17].) Also, I kind of like that after 3 seasons of straight up nice guys with magic powers, we go to a slightly more aloof individual who’s entirely grounded in technology. But then again, this show is going for a more “Showa” vibe than the previous three. I’ll explain what I mean at various points when they come up. |
05-08-2020, 11:40 AM | #16 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,420
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Standing by....
Complete. I've been looking forward to this. Faiz is a show that I have... let's say "mixed feelings" on. It has great suits and the sexiest belt voice ever, it has some good characters, it has some cool ideas, but it also... Okay, let me put it this way for the sake of avoiding spoilers: what Faiz does well it does really well, and what it does badly it does a lot. Compared to the other early Heisei era shows so far, you're going to see this one skew a lot more towards melodrama. This is the Kamen Rider soap opera and I'm curious to see how much that works for you. For me, it often crossed the line into unintentional self parody. I liked it a lot when I first watched it, but I hit a point where I started realizing how its storytelling engine worked and from that moment on I found the show increasingly frustrating. It's also a show that has soured a lot more in my memory as the years have gone by. I've considered rewatching it a few times to see how much of it matches up with my recollections (and may still do so alongside this thread; we'll see). Quote:
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The subs on at least the first episode (I've got the TV-Nihon ones) seemed decent? I can't ever speak to accuracy, but they seemed to have a good flow to them. The things people were saying to each other seemed like things people would normally say to each other, which a) is not a given in a Kamen Rider sub, and b) is not a given in an Inoue episode, so I'm calling this one a tentative success.
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05-08-2020, 02:12 PM | #17 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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*musical note* Catch-ing Up On Faaaiiiiizzzz Posts 'Cause I Don't Want To Wo-ork *musical note*
I had weirdly vivid dreams about watching Faiz last night. Like, not about Faiz, but about watching Faiz. It was a weird thing where I'd written about a couple episodes, but then I watched another few and things happened that changed the context of the earlier episodes (one of the Riders was a double-agent?) and that was screwing with my head to not be able to talk about that stuff yet? It was weird. I feel like talking about Faiz is going to get real weird for me. Quote:
Don't hold me to this because I break promises a lot - I had a lot more good to say about Ryuki than I thought, which is nice! - but I definitely think this is the point I'm gonna konk out aside from when there's a funny good toy. I'm afraid Faiz is a show I don't have much good to say about -- it's a very marmite show, I find. You either completely vibe with what it's going for; you love what it's doing; or you really, really don't. It's probably one of if not the most polarising Riders I've seen, and you can probably tell which 'side' I'm on.
Still! ... I like the belt! Come to think of it actually, there's a couple early merch things I gotta talk about as they happen. And the Faiz Belt is one of them -- a lot of people love how simple and realistic it is and I really gotta agree. Even if it's not something I want to totally see a return to (if we stuck to this we'd never have Taka Kujaku Condoru, like; come on), it's really nice for what it is. Just a good ol' flip-phone that reminds me of when I used to play Snake when bored sitting in the car and then it takes a step-up over your usual Sentai changer by shoving it into a belt. Epic. The belt is great. One of my favorite things in Amazons was that the belts didn't just show up out of nowhere, which was an Ex-Aid staple I always found hilarious. (The Gamer Driver was the size of a toaster. Where the hell were these doctors hiding it?) Having to drag the belts around (sometimes literally!) gave things a different flavor, less wish-fulfillment and more This Terrible Responsibility. I really like that for Faiz, in this episode. That the belt was precious to Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza, and became something to battle over at the climax. It's neat! And, yeah, god, it takes me back to my first cellphone, a Motorola Razr that I got because I was last-minute working the San Diego Comic-Con (2005?) and I needed to be able to coordinate with people. I love that the most about Kamen Rider, I think, the way they incorporate semi-recent technology in magical ways. Can cellphones turn you into a superhero? Why not! Quote:
Oh geez this popped out of nowhere! Uh, let my try to catch up real quick:
- So, obviously, because it's come up a few times, I'm extremely fond of Faiz, for starters. It's another show I've rewatched fairly recently and even wrote all about it, so I should be in a good place to discuss whatever about it. - When I was doing that, the subs were driving me so completely insane, I did indeed make correcting them a regular feature of my posts about it. Faiz's subs are bad. I know you don't like spoilers, but since you're using TV-N, I'll just say, get ready to find out who carries magazines around while intentionally going soon enough. I may be on standby to defend this show, but I'm also just on standby to play translation cop for a series that relies heavily on dialogue to carry its story. - I've also been so absorbed with Kuuga lately for obvious reasons that I may have pushed a lot of this stuff out of my head, but I don't actually remember that much wrong about the premiere. - I also really love this first episode, of course. Faiz was one of the earlier Rider shows I watched, and it was mindblowing to see how downplayed the actual Rider stuff is here. Really strong characterization, too, even for characters that aren't truly in the spotlight yet. It was worlds away from something like OOO tonally, and I think the way Faiz highlights the variety of this franchise is one of the things I love most about it to this day. I kind of see Faiz like, after Ryuki kicked the door open for what "Kamen Rider" could mean, it was the show that got to really enjoy that newfound freedom. It's a really strong premiere, I thought. It covers a ton of ground in a really smooth way. The writing's real on-point, so a bunch of short scenes manage to give you everything you need to know about Yuuji and (to a less complete degree) Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza, so you get why they behave the way they do and why they make the choices they make. Like, that little bit with Yuuji and his mom and his girlfriend in the beginning, it's sweet without being saccharine, and the performance has a warmth without being cloying. It's pitched just right, and I felt like every short scene had that same balanced feeling. Quote:
After a good year of trading cards and then getting a rider who uses a cellphone to suit up was pretty wild at the time. I mean cellphones were already done twice in Super Sentai but this was next level. The Faiz Driver was just an amazing piece of hardware itself and while somewhat expected, inputting the code to transform and then docking it to the belt was just satisfying to see every time.
Quote:
Ah we’re finally onto a good show (by my standards, I prefer it to Kuuga and Ryuki. Havent seen Agito yet).
Anyway, if you think Faiz looking older than his actual age is crazy, I’ll point out that the girl was only FIFTEEN when they shot this episode. (Which is still younger than the youngest actor to play a main rider [which is currently a tie between Gjost and Zi-O, both of whom were 17].) Also, I kind of like that after 3 seasons of straight up nice guys with magic powers, we go to a slightly more aloof individual who’s entirely grounded in technology. But then again, this show is going for a more “Showa” vibe than the previous three. I’ll explain what I mean at various points when they come up. I really like the ambiguity of the first Faiz episode, how it feels like Yuuji's the star until NOPE Horsepower, and how Faiz is this weird creeper in the background until NOPE Kamen Rider. It's a really fun choice for the show to make. Quote:
Standing by....
Complete. I've been looking forward to this. Faiz is a show that I have... let's say "mixed feelings" on. It has great suits and the sexiest belt voice ever, it has some good characters, it has some cool ideas, but it also... Okay, let me put it this way for the sake of avoiding spoilers: what Faiz does well it does really well, and what it does badly it does a lot. Compared to the other early Heisei era shows so far, you're going to see this one skew a lot more towards melodrama. This is the Kamen Rider soap opera and I'm curious to see how much that works for you. For me, it often crossed the line into unintentional self parody. I liked it a lot when I first watched it, but I hit a point where I started realizing how its storytelling engine worked and from that moment on I found the show increasingly frustrating. It's also a show that has soured a lot more in my memory as the years have gone by. I've considered rewatching it a few times to see how much of it matches up with my recollections (and may still do so alongside this thread; we'll see). The subs probably won't be too bad. Faiz was one of TV-Nihon's first projects and the original subs have a lot of issues. They did go back and re-do the series several years ago, though, with better video quality and a new translation. As for the quality on it? I don't know. TV-N's biggest problem has always been that they still sub like an early 2000s fansub group: flashy fonts, translator notes, untranslated words that don't have a one-for-one translation, and a tendency to sacrifice grammar for correlation. Last I saw they'd gotten over some of that (and we're years out from the "o-baka-san-tachi" days), but I'm not sure where the Faiz re-sub lands in all that. I do know that you're going to be seeing the word "nekojita" pop up a lot. It's perfectly sinister. It's not just powerful, but scary. It is a Driver sound that is working overtime to be intimidating, and I love it. Faiz's Standing By thing, I didn't really get a great listen to it yet, but it definitely reminded me of Necrom's, and that's the highest praise I can give a Driver. I can see the melodrama criticism. Yuuji's story is so bleak in just one episode, in just a few minutes, that I can see it not working for some folks. I'm generally pretty okay with melodrama in my Kamen Rider. It's a superhero show, and that's always going to mean Heightened Emotions to me. It's a genre that's about expressing universal themes as punchable villains, and encoding emotional arcs into deaths and explosions and superpowers. There's... I think that whole genre works less good without melodrama. Trying to do Realistic Emotions while also having monsters and transformations and some number of villainous schemes, it's working against the grain of the genre. You can do it, but it's always going to feel slightly unnatural. Still! You can definitely push it too far, and I'm not surprised that Inoue maybe did for some viewers. (I mean, he's the man that brought us DOUBLE SURGERIES.) There was at least one, like, Yuuji-kun or something in the subs for the first episode, and I do not love the font they're using on this show at all. The content's been mostly fine (and I've got the Fifth Anniversary version, which might be improved from what other people had), but it's not going to be my favorite subbing. Couldn't find another version, though!
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Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on KamenRiderDie.com! |
05-08-2020, 02:22 PM | #18 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,420
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There was at least one, like, Yuuji-kun or something in the subs for the first episode, and I do not love the font they're using on this show at all. The content's been mostly fine (and I've got the Fifth Anniversary version, which might be improved from what other people had), but it's not going to be my favorite subbing. Couldn't find another version, though!
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05-08-2020, 04:53 PM | #19 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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Probably I won't be as invested for Faiz from what I heard about it (well, I don't want to watch in order, but I also want to share my thoughts for KR so I will follow). But for surely good things (design and action above, I'm not into Faiz' design that much, but other Riders are), Orphnochs are one of the good monsters of KR series no matter what Faiz is. And I can't talk about it yet, but there's something I really like here that hasn't been shown yet.
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Oh well, as others have told you here, the melodrama is strong in Faiz, and Yuji's story here is just a glimpse of it. Like how the people around you, like Chie and Yuji's cousin/uncle, are heartless jerks who only care about themselves. Dunno if actually at first they mourn over Yuji's death if they are not overjoyed by his resurrection, but instead forget and manipulate him. Yuji's so screwed up sure, but at least, he's the one who gets the extra power, to fight back in this cruel world. Quote:
Well, here goes the main Rider that isn't a goody-two-shoes. Name's Takumi Inui. Also one of the fights where Kamen Rider doesn't use a finisher to finish its enemy (I'm excited to talk about the finisher, but it hasn't been seen yet), just a standard kick does! |
05-08-2020, 06:19 PM | #20 |
I got nothing
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 148
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Let's put it like this at least you aren't using the TV-Nihon subs for the broadcast versions of the episodes as hoo-boy were they bad (excluding one thing)
but yeah while I think they're more recent stuff is decent boy howdy is their early stuff before Gaim or so pretty rough |
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