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08-15-2020, 10:37 PM | #631 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,524
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I really loved the whole vibe of the New Gen Riders. They flood the zone when they're interacting with the old crew, keeping them totally off-balance. For all of their little internal dramas, they present a unified front of Eff You Dad that I found really entertaining. Good team, sorry to see them go.
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08-15-2020, 10:41 PM | #632 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 32
This time on Kamen Rider Blade: Kenzaki rescues Hajime from King! Hajime's secret/secrets is/are revealed! And Tachibana throws in his lot with another untrustworthy dude and risks tearing apart Team Blade because: Tachibana! It's a solid episode of Blade, with a ton of reveals, but... I wasn't really feeling it? I mean, I really liked the Hajime and Kenzaki stuff. It's so specific to the two of them that it transcends the usual You Should Be My Enemy But You're Really My Friend tropes. There's that moment when Kenzaki tells Hajime that he had a crush on a girl in the first grade, there's a secret, now tell me one of yours. And Hajime laughs it off, because it is ridiculous, but he softens when he finds out that the secret Kenzaki wants to know is, basically, did Hajime hurt someone to look human. And, he didn't. It's not that kind of show. Hajime's story is about the steady erosion of the Joker into a man, and maybe even a hero. He's seen these laudable aspects of humanity, and he's trying to understand them. Kenzaki sees that, sees how he's so much more than a monster, and wants to protect that. It's the joke of Kenzaki, that he's an uncomplicated man, made into a strength. There's so much going on with Hajime, Chalice, Joker, whatever. But to Kenzaki, he's just Hajime. That's it. Uncomplicated. We see the benefit of Kenzaki's outlook again, earlier, in a small scene with Kotaro. Tachibana has learned horrifying details about Hajime, and forbids Kenzaki from rescuing him from King. Kenzaki's frustrated, and doesn't know what he should do. So Kotaro makes it plain for him: a friend is being held captive by a monster. What do you think you should do? And Kenzaki's out the door, ready to save his friend. It's not flashy stuff, and it doesn't have a ton of nuance to it, but it's still pleasant storytelling. In a show filled with murky, complicated Riders, it's nice that Kenzaki can be earnest, straightforward. Especially compared to Tachibana, because... ugh. It's not that he's doing anything out of character or anything. He doesn't trust the Undead, at all. They've killed his girlfriend, possessed his student, and generally been a colossal pain in his ass. Finding out that Hajime is also referred to as a "savage murder machine”, that's going to have him looking for any way possible to keep everyone safe. It's just, Hirose's dad? That's who the guy controlling U.N.D.E.A.D. is? And he shows up in Tachibana's hovel, doesn't explain why he's faked his death, doesn't want his daughter to know he's alive, is totally consumed with trying to wrest immortality from monsters from eternity as though that were in no way problematic, and just wants to give Tachibana the login to read all of Karasuma's secret documents. And Tachibana is all in on it. Just laps it the hell up. Reads the info, decides Hajime has to die, declares that there's no other way as though he didn't only come to this conclusion in the last half-hour... it's just a bummer of a plot. Again, hard to say Tachibana isn't acting like Tachibana here. Him getting suckered in by some suit and fighting Blade because of it, that's like his main solution to every problem. (Hirose cracks a joke when she sees Tachibana and Kenzaki cleaning up the window U.N.D.E.A.D. broke that Blade and Garren must've had a fight!) It's just, man, he buys it so easily this time that I'm like My Dude. This guy has earned none of your trust, and now you are dedicated to what he helped you learn. It's one more time that Tachibana is making the worst decision possible, and, I don't know. It might be one too many? I get that he thinks he's doing this to save Kenzaki the heartache of doing it himself. I get that we're talking about the end of the world. But it's just one more dude in this story who's like Hajime Must Die, and it stopped working for me. Like, maybe, maybe this part of the episode could've worked for me if it had been the first time Tachibana broke from the group. But, god, this is like the seventh terrible decision he's made that's put him at odds with the rest of the group, and... change the record already, man. Did not love the Tachibana stuff, but really liked the Hajime/Kenzaki stuff. Not an overall winner of an episode for me, but not a total failure. Next time on Kamen Rider Blade: Garren fights to destroy Hajime! Blade fights to save Hajime! And Amane gets yelled at by Hajime because sometimes Daddy has had a long day and he just needs a little bit of Quiet Time and he didn't mean to be loud and he's sorry!
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08-15-2020, 11:26 PM | #633 |
Filthy SU/FE Trash
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 572
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08-16-2020, 12:46 AM | #634 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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And yet, somehow, multiple people thought it would be a good idea for Tachibana to be responsible for reforming Mutsuki into a more capable, less combative Rider.
Tachibana.
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08-16-2020, 01:13 AM | #635 |
take me to space
Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 1,406
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For me, I was probably more okay with Tachibana going along with Chairman-person because 1) like you said, this is kinda old hat for him, and 2) at the point of this story, I just saw the chairman as a device to deliver exposition and not even as an actual person so I basically saw Tachibana's actions as entirely him deciding on his own that Hajime is the enemy. This isn't really a defense and more like 'one problem canceled out another potentially worse one'.
This next stretch of episodes is what I remember most about Blade, how it really needles at the stuff about Hajime's nature as Joker and how Kenzaki does everything he can to help people no matter what others around him think. I like to believe it must be a fun feeling to have seen Missing Ace right in the middle of it all, because that movie might have set in the feeling of 'all the undead must be sealed eventually, including Joker', but once you're back to the show, you're like 'but do they!? i dont want that!'. |
08-16-2020, 01:29 AM | #636 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
For me, I was probably more okay with Tachibana going along with Chairman-person because 1) like you said, this is kinda old hat for him, and 2) at the point of this story, I just saw the chairman as a device to deliver exposition and not even as an actual person so I basically saw Tachibana's actions as entirely him deciding on his own that Hajime is the enemy. This isn't really a defense and more like 'one problem canceled out another potentially worse one'.
It all coming from someone else, someone who broke into his home and has just the shadiest vibe and most troublesome history, it makes Tachibana feel like too much of a sap to me. It's not that the show hasn't established Tachibana as a gigantic dope, but, man, is that the side of him they want to keep showing? I'm sure this all sounds like splitting hairs. I'm not certain there's a version of Tachibana Fights Kenzaki To Try And Kill Hajime that I'd be super excited about. I'm not even sure why this story point bugged me so much. It is all massively in-character for Tachibana! I feel like it's the Hirose dad stuff. The manipulative feeling of it is so transparent, this dude so has an ulterior motive, that it's frustrating to watch Tachibana get manipulated into trying to kill Hajime. Because he doesn't really need to be manipulated! He really has never liked or trusted Hajime! So having Hirose's dad put his finger on the scales, an episode after Mutsuki does the same, it's just so unnecessary to me, and it makes Tachibana too much of a pawn. Quote:
This next stretch of episodes is what I remember most about Blade, how it really needles at the stuff about Hajime's nature as Joker and how Kenzaki does everything he can to help people no matter what others around him think. I like to believe it must be a fun feeling to have seen Missing Ace right in the middle of it all, because that movie might have set in the feeling of 'all the undead must be sealed eventually, including Joker', but once you're back to the show, you're like 'but do they!? i dont want that!'.
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08-16-2020, 03:24 AM | #637 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,551
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Well, Hajime’s been using this card for ages now, but I’m finally allowed to tell you about it.
Spirit The sealed form of the Human Undead, the ancestor of humanity and the previous winner of the Battle Fight. He was sealed away by the Black Joker, who uses his card to assume a human identity. * Suit: Heart * Category: 2 * Ability Name: SPIRIT * Card Name: Spirit (スピリット Supiritto) * Consumption Points: N/A |
08-16-2020, 05:39 AM | #638 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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The Tachibana plotline here, though! I remember being more than a little frustrated with it watching the show originally, and also much more recently, I remember not finding it a big deal at all on a rewatch. I'm not if anything actually changed in-between. Like you said, it's both entirely in-character, and also fundamentally a bit unsatisfying as a viewer. I can't blame you for not being into it.
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08-16-2020, 01:22 PM | #639 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
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It took me a while to vibe with Tachibana's stupid decision, but I think I eventually came around to liking it. He thinks he's doing his best, but as usual, he's a screw-up.
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08-16-2020, 01:44 PM | #640 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Well, Hajime’s been using this card for ages now, but I’m finally allowed to tell you about it.
Spirit The sealed form of the Human Undead, the ancestor of humanity and the previous winner of the Battle Fight. He was sealed away by the Black Joker, who uses his card to assume a human identity. * Suit: Heart * Category: 2 * Ability Name: SPIRIT * Card Name: Spirit (スピリット Supiritto) * Consumption Points: N/A Quote:
This is such a small thing, but it's probably one of my favorite moments from the entire series. There's just something so natural about the idea of Kenzaki spending an entire episode thinking really really hard about what he doesn't want people to know about himself and then effectively coming up blank. A sort of childlike earnestness to him genuinely trying to earn a secret out of Hajime just by telling him one of his own, which would be presumptuous even if the secret he came up with was at all a big deal. But, you know, even though he's incapable of being smart about this, his concern for a friend is as genuine as it gets, and that's why we root for him. It's a really smooth bit of writing with these two characters, and the kind of thing Aikawa's episodes excel at, going right back to his first few and moments like Kenzaki telling Hajime "I want you to understand why people help each other" when asked about his motives for supporting him.
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The Tachibana plotline here, though! I remember being more than a little frustrated with it watching the show originally, and also much more recently, I remember not finding it a big deal at all on a rewatch. I'm not if anything actually changed in-between. Like you said, it's both entirely in-character, and also fundamentally a bit unsatisfying as a viewer. I can't blame you for not being into it.
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It just felt rushed, maybe? Like, deciding to kill Hajime and fight Blade doesn't really feel like something he wrestled with enough. Maybe if there'd been a scene where he talked to Hirose and/or Kotaro before he went to kill Hajime? Some sense that he realizes that killing someone they've fought with is going to cause problems?
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