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02-09-2020, 08:00 PM | #191 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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02-09-2020, 08:46 PM | #192 |
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MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 40
Oh, let me write up a few paragraphs about Hikawa's unyielding view of heroism and how Shouichi's nature runs counter to that, it's not like I'll get another chance to OH WAIT THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT. Ha ha, whoops. Yeah, so, I pretty much already accidentally talked about the things I liked about this episode. Just, like, scroll up a bit. It's all still true, though. I like that Hikawa completely loses his shit, needing to get advice on what to do when he's around a boy he likes from Houjou (!) and Ozawa. The more over-the-top they go with Hikawa, the more endearing it is, and there is maybe no more over-the-top than him running away because he can't talk to a boy he likes. (And, look, I get that it's manly respect and whatnot, it's not romantic, but between Uncle's suggestion that Shouichi would make a good bride and Shouichi telling a nervous Hikawa that their discussion isn't a marriage interview, like, man. They are doing a very specific reference through this story, and I don't think it's out of place to call it out.) It's a cute story, sort-of low stakes considering The Secret Identity Of Agito is a thing the show's been building towards for a little bit, but I definitely prefer it to the alternative. I don't need another Capture Agito plan, spearheaded by Hikawa or whatever. (How could Hikawa think Houjou was Agito when Houjou ran two different Capture Agito plans?!) I like the consequences of the reveal being inflexible Hikawa losing his goddamn mind and acting like a lunatic. That's unique to Agito, you know? It's sweet and goofy, but feels drawn from the characters. And, hey, there's the Bonded By Battle finale, with Agito and G3-X officially teaming up to take down this episode's absolutely nothing Unknown. (How the hell does Hikawa beat Shouichi to the fight? Shouichi left before him, and Hikawa would need to meet up with the G3-X trailer and get into the armor. Shouichi should've beat him there by minutes!) Them teaming up makes for some first-in-the-series visuals, like Agito and G3-X riding the snake bike together for the climax and what do you mean I'm reading too much into this episode? Moving on to the other characters, uh... not much of them here! After mopping up Kino with his new Exceed Gills form, Ryou gives Kino an I'm Not Mad At You, I'm Just Disappointed speech, and that's pretty much it for both of them this time out. Super curious where the show's going to go with Kino after this. Semi-redeemed hero feels like the logical place, but I'm willing to allow for a surprise. Seems like next ep is maybe going to bring back Spooky Man and Truegami? There's that letter Houjou found, all runes and whatnot, plus some decidedly apocalyptic imagery to end things on. Fun!
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02-09-2020, 08:56 PM | #193 |
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Join Date: Mar 2017
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The last image you posted makes me wish we had more early style kamen rider designs. Damn those suits look good. Its a fantastic show with a surprisingly dark setting. The characters are adorable and awesome at the same time.
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02-09-2020, 09:04 PM | #194 |
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Quote:
For suits, I don't watch it, but Zero-One's base suit feels real clean to me, especially compared to the ten or so shows that preceded it. Couple colors, basic bug motif... seems like what you're looking for, at least that I can tell?
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02-10-2020, 05:50 PM | #195 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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I'm a little late in commenting on this, but I have to mention the scenes with Shouichi getting interrogated are all not just some of my favorites, but what I think are some of the most definitively Agito scenes in Agito. The way Shouichi immediately screws up lying about not being Agito, and then just gives up and admits it outright in his typical carefree manner, which actually succeeds in making it seem less like he's Agito to these two guys who were probably expecting someone a little more dignified? It's all brilliant. Not many shows would think to handle a big twist like that in such a comedic way. "When are they gonna find out Shouichi is Agito?" is a question viewers are going to be asking from day one, and then they get there, and it's just a downplayed, humorous series of events culminating in Hikawa being embarrassingly locked out of the loop for several episodes straight. It's an extremely bold choice, and yet it's so true to the style and tone the series has always had, nothing else could've been better.
Speaking of things that can't be better, I'll also just throw out there I kind of think Agito is the single best designed Heisei Rider costume ever? I generally don't play favorites to that extent, but that's just it. He's not even my favorite per se. But every single time I see Agito, I'm always struck by how absolutely perfect each individual line is. Like, just the... geometry of it, I guess, is stunning. Agito's shoulder pads are nothing more than a round black bit and a pointy silver bit, and yet I could stare at them for hours and never stop thinking about how pretty they look. It also maintains a sort of continuity with Kuuga, while still being its own, more divine looking thing. There's absolutely no extraneous bits, anywhere you look, basically. It's as lean and mean as can be. Hence, best designed costume ever. I mean, I actually like Burning Form plenty, but it's no wonder why it and Exceed Gills rub you the wrong way when you've been beholding the majesty that is Ground Form for 40 episodes straight now.
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02-10-2020, 06:05 PM | #196 |
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Quote:
Not many shows would think to handle a big twist like that in such a comedic way. "When are they gonna find out Shouichi is Agito?" is a question viewers are going to be asking from day one, and then they get there, and it's just a downplayed, humorous series of events culminating in Hikawa being embarrassingly locked out of the loop for several episodes straight. It's an extremely bold choice, and yet it's so true to the style and tone the series has always had, nothing else could've been better.
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02-13-2020, 05:53 PM | #197 |
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MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 41
A lot of housekeeping in this one. I mean, it was still utterly delightful, but it's mostly folks getting on the same page and bits of backstory being revealed. It's all done with such style, though. That Shouichi/Hikawa scene, it's all just each of them telling each other things the audience already knows, but when they're telling it while eating between one and two ice cream cones each, it becomes sublime. It takes a boring, perfunctory scene (they've got to learn all this information onscreen at some point in order to operate effectively as a team) and sprinkles enough lunacy on it to make it fun to watch. The hospital stuff has some of that same energy. It's a bunch of pairings we haven't gotten before, Hikawa/Ryou and Kino/Shouichi, and it's all just dialogue scenes, but they way each pairing's scene rhymes with the other one, same shots, same staging, same cadence, it's easy to forget that nothing's really happening. But, I guess, enough things are almost happening to make this episode a good one. We're nearly to an actual Team Agito, Spooky Man's plan/goal/motivation is almost fully explained, we're edging closer to getting the full deal on Truegami and the Akatsuki-gou... even Shoucihi may've gotten Rider Kicked into getting his memories back! Everything's falling into place, and Agito's final string of episodes feels like it'll be a good one. Oh, wait, no Houjou or Ozawa in this one, F-, Agito is cancelled.
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02-13-2020, 06:42 PM | #198 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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There's certainly a similarity there. Shouichi's wholesomeness gives Agito its own edge, though:
"Tell us about your daily activities as Agito." "I grow vegetables." It's too good. Quote:
(and my mind is so shorn of details regarding a show I watched a few months ago and wrote pages about)
Quote:
It’s all done with such style, though. That Shouichi/Hikawa scene, it’s all just each of them telling each other things the audience already knows, but when they’re telling it while eating between one and two ice cream cones each, it becomes sublime. It takes a boring, perfunctory scene (they’ve got to learn all this information onscreen at some point in order to operate effectively as team) and sprinkles enough lunacy on it to make it fun to watch.
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02-13-2020, 06:59 PM | #199 |
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It zero-percent makes me remember it all better. There have been a scary amount of times where I've needed to go back to the Wiki to get the name of someone from a show I watched less than a year ago, someone who was a main cast member. But, upside, I should be able to rewatch some of my favorite shows with a pretty clean slate. Hooray for the limitations of human memory and my likely approaching senility!
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02-13-2020, 08:24 PM | #200 |
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MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 42
Uh, I don't know about this one. In the present day, nothing really happens. G3-X, Gills, and Another Agito generally get their asses some degree of kicked by the Manta Unknown. The beginning of the fight, from the end of the previous episode, had some flash to it, with the Unknown using the Riders attacks against other Riders. This one, it's mostly just an unstoppable badass who stands up to every attack and form change. It's a time killer, and not much more. In the past... hoo, boy. As the end of the series approaches, we'd have to get the final word on what went down on the Akatsuki-gou. It's been danced around for nearly the entire series. What happened on the boat? Why won't anyone talk about it? Did Kino really know Shouichi? Did Aki really know Shouichi? How do the mutant powers and Agitos factor into it? The answers (and bless them for actually providing real answers instead of another variation of We Don't Talk About That)... honestly, I found it all slightly underwhelming. The big reveal here is the introduction (I guess? Technically?) of Agito Jesus, the white chocolate bore to Spooky Man's dark chocolate intensity. Good ol' AJ (if you will) fought the Spooky Man at the dawn of time, and used his last moments of life to seed humanity with the power of Agitos. Spooky Man found that abhorrent, and millenia later, for some yet to be disclosed reason, AJ shows up on the Akatsuki-gou, drops dead (or is murdered), waits for the boat to be enveloped in evil weather, bestows his powers on the passengers in general and Shouichi in particular, and then leaves just before Manta Unknown shows up to knock Shouichi into the water and threaten the mutants. Agito Jesus, it's an okay idea. The motivation is fine, playing into the duality of man, the light and dark, whatever. It's a little trite (why always light and dark as motifs), but the familiarity fills in a lot of the gaps in the narrative, letting the visuals of Agito Jesus and Spooky Man help you understand the stakes, the conflict. It's nothing stunning or surprising, but it's not bad. And, honestly, that's a lot of my feelings about this episode. Nothing that happens on the Akatsuki-gou, that backstory, is bad. It's just sort-of dull? I'd be more into them bringing back all of the dead mutants for a flashback episode if those mutants had felt like real characters to me. Like, remember the Fourze summer movie? The emotional climax of that film is that everyone that Gentaro interacted with, everyone he saved and befriended, they all play a role in saving him at the end. But that beat only worked because we spent time with all of them, saw them change and grow. Here, with the boat mutants, most of them were barely a quirk before they were monster-murdered. Seeing them here, it's just, Oh, Aki, or Oh, That Glasses Girl Was Always Horrible. (The one cool thing is seeing Casual Kino tell everyone that they're responsible for their own future and no one else can affect it. This guy, who is obsessed with saving his dead brother, is telling everyone else how to live for the future. Hilarious! Ironic!) It's like the show was so proud of itself for bringing everyone back that they forgot that only three of these characters really matter to anyone. It's all just putting pieces together, but there's no heart to it. I don't care about these people, and I know how they end up, so it's just... it's all just so inert, narratively. Things happen, we learn details, but it's all just, like, Okay, So? Plus, man, some of those details are dumb. The Manta Unknown decides not to kill them on the boat for what reason, exactly? Some vague sense of honor? But first he swears them to secrecy, despite the Unknown constantly murdering people in broad daylight? I'm not sure there was ever going to be a good enough reason for why no one could ever give a straight answer as to what happened on that boat, but this, god. I'd almost wish the Manta Unknown had said "You're not allowed to tell anyone what happened on this boat until episode 42! FORTY-TWOOOOO!" It all feels like the show wanted to keep the boat details for a late-series reveal, but also didn't think of those details until the week before filming this episode? Like, some of these answers are not worth the wait. I don't know. This information all had to come out, and I guess it's better they dramatized it in an episode than had someone exposition-vomit it out over a bunch of scenes. And this episode was a much, much better take on giving Shouichi his memories back. (Why... why does he only get his memories back when he's almost killed by Agitos?) But, yeah, it was very much a brain episode, but not really a heart episode, if that makes sense. It was necessary information without a compelling story. Also, still no Ozawa, D-.
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