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01-17-2020, 02:01 AM | #21 |
Super Lawyer
Join Date: Nov 2019
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Posts: 190
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Ha ha, surprise, I guess! I usually do up the opening post for a thread at the same time I write-up the first episodes. I want to make sure there's actual content in a thread, instead of just the promise of content.
I didn't touch on it, and I'll probably be able to articulate it better as the show emphasizes it more, but I think they've built out Shouichi as the most Different From Kuuga character so far. (Nijou, I mean, name literally one thing about him that's different than Ichijou. One.) It's a brief scene, but I liked how Shouichi's outlook is Find A Home And Protect It, rather than just Smiles or Justice or whatever. It's a nice way of using his amnesia to be about found families, rather than mystery and isolation. It's a smart move, to build out his character. A smart choice. - less c********, - less t****, - less s******, - less a********, - waaay more secretly q*****, - and the last one, THE highlight of interaction between him and Shouichi: he is c*****. And he complements all those qualities with courage and sheer d***********, making him my 3rd favorite Rider, ever. What are those qualities? I will reveal them as the story unfolds. Quote:
See, what shook me a bit was that I don't think the tone is the same as Kuuga, even though the story very much is. There's a... not lightness, but maybe a balance to these episodes. A better sense of scale? I don't know. I had more fun watching these episodes than I did nearly any Kuuga episodes. (Not to say these were better than all of Kuuga, just more fun to watch.) It's hard to really nail down how it's different, only three episodes in, but it feels less.. solemn, maybe? More hopeful? I don't know. I gotta find more antonyms for "grim", I guess.
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Please be nice to Hikawa, he's much more sensitive than Ichijou... But alright! Agito! The first episode is fairly fresh in my mind even after all this time, what with the ending of Agito destroying the unknown and walking away from the flames at night as the first and best insert song in Kamen Rider plays.
I look forward to you unravelling all the ups and downs of this show. Its much closer to Kamen Rider as I know it today than Kuuga was. Quote:
Another fan (of the first half?) of Kamen Rider Zen! Quote:
You're correct in stating that Agito was the true start of Heisei, while also served as a "transition" period. The classic "somber" vibe of the Showa era is still present, with several concepts that were expanded and experimented with in Agito: - Multiple Riders, a concept that was later taken to extreme in Ryuki, - Multiple types of Riders, mystical, robotic/hi-tech, and biological/organic, - Robotic/hi-tech Riders, TRUE hi-tech Riders that draws their power from purely modern man-made items. This trend is continued to this day in varying degree, - And the last, the final appearance of biological/organic Rider. This is the last KR series that features a Rider that displays grotesque bodily change when he transforms, with a very bad side effect. You know, that guy that Lady Luck always seems to turn her back on. After this series, different themes & motifs began to be explored, to better fit the Kamen Rider franchise to today's culture & technology. And of course, more importantly, to create more merchandising opportunity. |
01-17-2020, 07:54 AM | #22 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 318
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Ahhhh! Finally, we reach the stretch of series I feel really strongly about, in either direction. Agito definitely falls into the love category.
And your description of how you felt during the first three episodes reminds me a lot of how I felt when I watched them. I slogged through the end of Kuuga. I knew it wasn't bad, I just wasn't invested. Agito reminded me why I loved Rider after Kuuga left me so unaffected. Why I had watched everything from W-Ex-Aid at this point. Characters. Seeing characters struggle and trie to come out the other end as better people, and some failing. Kuuga didn't really give me that, especially with how it's lead was so optimistic with seemingly no reason for it. Agito immediately made it clear, that these people weren't just gonna be alright, they would have to fight for it. That things wouldn't just magically work out, they had a long, hard road in front of them. And yeah, Agito has a certain feel to it. It isn't overly dark and depressing, but it's also not happy. There is this looming darkness everywhere, seemingly waiting to strike at any moment. Also, the way you described the way G3 felt in these episodes, good catch. That is a first teaser on what this series will focus itself on later on when it establishes its own identity more. I didn't even catch that the first time, but really cool that stuff like this was already around from episode one. I hope you have as much fun with this show as I did. |
01-17-2020, 09:23 AM | #23 |
Most-hated user. Kill him
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Imaginationland
Posts: 1,813
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There's one comedic scene that I remember fondly from the show, I'll talk about it once Die reached around episode 35 or so.
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01-17-2020, 11:28 AM | #24 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Feb 2019
Posts: 182
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Agito is a real favorite of mine (I think it was my 2nd Rider tattoo) and I'm glad you're enjoying it so far Die.
As others have said, it finds it's own identity as it goes along, but it definitely has that "This is what we learned from Kuuga" vibe going for it. I actually saw Agito about 4 years before I watched Kuuga, which is probably why I don't hold it as (almost) "Sacred" as some. I also have to agree that the Hikawa/Hojou G3 stuff is some of the strongest in the show. |
01-17-2020, 12:00 PM | #25 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,410
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01-17-2020, 12:34 PM | #26 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
As the story unfolds, you will notice several differences between Ichijou and Nijou. Compared to his previous "incarnation", he is:
- less c********, - less t****, - less s******, - less a********, - waaay more secretly q*****, - and the last one, THE highlight of interaction between him and Shouichi: he is c*****. And he complements all those qualities with courage and sheer d***********, making him my 3rd favorite Rider, ever. What are those qualities? I will reveal them as the story unfolds. Quote:
Ahhhh! Finally, we reach the stretch of series I feel really strongly about, in either direction. Agito definitely falls into the love category.
And your description of how you felt during the first three episodes reminds me a lot of how I felt when I watched them. I slogged through the end of Kuuga. I knew it wasn't bad, I just wasn't invested. Agito reminded me why I loved Rider after Kuuga left me so unaffected. Why I had watched everything from W-Ex-Aid at this point. Characters. Seeing characters struggle and trie to come out the other end as better people, and some failing. Kuuga didn't really give me that, especially with how it's lead was so optimistic with seemingly no reason for it. Agito immediately made it clear, that these people weren't just gonna be alright, they would have to fight for it. That things wouldn't just magically work out, they had a long, hard road in front of them. And yeah, Agito has a certain feel to it. It isn't overly dark and depressing, but it's also not happy. There is this looming darkness everywhere, seemingly waiting to strike at any moment. Also, the way you described the way G3 felt in these episodes, good catch. That is a first teaser on what this series will focus itself on later on when it establishes its own identity more. I didn't even catch that the first time, but really cool that stuff like this was already around from episode one. I hope you have as much fun with this show as I did. But, luckily, 100% not the case. It's still got that Working Class Kamen Rider vibe of Kuuga, but it feels more into being a superhero show this time. The Kamen Rider parts and the police procedural parts and the drama parts and the humor parts, they're all working together in harmony this time. Quote:
Agito is a real favorite of mine (I think it was my 2nd Rider tattoo) and I'm glad you're enjoying it so far Die.
As others have said, it finds it's own identity as it goes along, but it definitely has that "This is what we learned from Kuuga" vibe going for it. I actually saw Agito about 4 years before I watched Kuuga, which is probably why I don't hold it as (almost) "Sacred" as some. I also have to agree that the Hikawa/Hojou G3 stuff is some of the strongest in the show.
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01-17-2020, 04:07 PM | #27 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 05 - 06
Despite a few funny/interesting scenes, our main cast recedes to the background for this story. (For the record: Shouichi being inappropriately horny; Houjou being all "Wow, it must be so great to be a secret hero who can leverage their secret heroism to get a job they should never have been offered” to Nijou; Spooky Kid haunting Lady Scientist; and Lady Cop yelling at Junior Cop for dwelling on the whole Didn't Agito Almost Murder G3 A Few Weeks Ago thing.) Nope, they're in this story, but it's definitely not about them. It's about Ryou. It's also about taking some of the dark, fatalist tone from Kuuga, but applying it in a way that best serves the story of Agito. Ryou's story so far is someone who's been cursed by darkness, turned into a monster, and found himself abandoned by the people he most depends on. His coach ghosts him. His teammates belittle him. His girlfriend tells him that it's his fault she's in danger. He's isolated and afraid, but he harnesses that fear, that self-loathing, to protect the people he cares for. I was surprised how into Ryou's story I was, because it has that suffocating despair that Kuuga tried to do often, but I thought it worked way better here. Some of it's the catharsis of a henshin and a monster explosion, but I think a lot of it is how Ryou's story is allowed to exist in parallel to the Agito/G3 part of the story. Ryou's story gets to be about him, his losses, his determination, his sacrifice. It doesn't have to have Shouichi's likely enthusiasm or tactlessness. It doesn't have to spill over into other scenes, leaving room for jokes and counterbalanced high-energy pure action scenes. It gets to live as this thread of a guy losing everything, but trying to persevere. Plus, it feeds into the larger story of special powers being a curse, but maybe also useful? That's a very on-brand Kamen Rider theme, and it's one that, again, I feel like Agito is expressing better than Kuuga. Kuuga had this tendency, for me, to kind-of miss the forest for the trees, spending a ton of time on the minutiae of How To Police and forgetting to address the emotional core of its characters, its stories. This one felt like an important counterpoint to Shouichi's story, someone who's isolated by his powers rather than embraced, someone who's haunted by his losses rather than allowed to forget them. It's anchored by heartfelt performances and subdued camerawork, and buoyed by Big Hero Shots and some awesomely violent action. (Very Amazons!) More than G3, I feel like Ryou is the right secondary Rider for Shouichi.
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01-17-2020, 05:43 PM | #28 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 318
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I was surprised how into Ryou’s story I was, because it has that suffocating despair that Kuuga tried to do often, but I thought it worked way better here. Some of it’s the catharsis of a henshin and a monster explosion, but I think a lot of it is how Ryou’s story is allowed to exist in parallel to the Agito/G3 part of the story. Ryou’s story gets to be about him, his losses, his determination, his sacrifice. It doesn’t have to have Shouichi’s likely enthusiasm or tactlessness. It doesn’t have to spill over into other scenes, leaving room for jokes and counterbalanced high-energy pure action scenes. It gets to live as this thread of a guy losing everything, but trying to persevere.
And this is also a good look into how Inoue writes his stories. He takes a character and then beats the ever-loving shit out of them, mentally and physically until they either perceiver or wither and die. That isn't always something everyone will like, but for me, that is exactly how I like it. If a character doesn't suffer, I most likely won't be invested. Quote:
More than G3, I feel like Ryou is the right secondary Rider for Shouichi.
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01-17-2020, 06:12 PM | #29 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Man, Die, you are seriously impressing me with quickly and accurately you're getting a grasp on what this show is about. I expected you would like Agito a lot, but I figured it would take at least a second, you know?
But yeah, Ryou is great. Hopefully Hikawa will earn being called by his name soon enough. Agito was the first real multi-Rider show, and one thing it does better than most shows after it is how it makes each of its trio of heroes an integral pillar of a whole story. Each Rider has their own supporting cast, unique plotlines, and even overall tone, and they all connect to each other even when they aren't directly connecting. It's crazy organic.
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01-17-2020, 06:46 PM | #30 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Man, Die, you are seriously impressing me with quickly and accurately you're getting a grasp on what this show is about. I expected you would like Agito a lot, but I figured it would take at least a second, you know?
But yeah, Ryou is great. Hopefully Hikawa will earn being called by his name soon enough. Agito was the first real multi-Rider show, and one thing it does better than most shows after it is how it makes each of its trio of heroes an integral pillar of a whole story. Each Rider has their own supporting cast, unique plotlines, and even overall tone, and they all connect to each other even when they aren't directly connecting. It's crazy organic. Nijou gets a name when he's more than Young Ichijou. (They shoot his driving scenes exactly how they shot Ichijou's driving scenes! They are doing it to me on purpose!) Speaking of the connections, yeah, it was neat to see them thread the story from Agito/G3 to Ryou with Mayumi as the lynchpin, but in a way where the two hero groups are completely isolated. "Organic" is the right word for it. There's a logic to how things progress, how the characters are involved or invested in the threat. It's compelling storytelling. I really missed having multiple Riders to carry the narrative load. Multiple Riders feels like real Kamen Rider to me, in a way that Kuuga felt like it wasn't as into being. It's... Does anyone else watch the CW superhero shows? When they started, it was very We Are Not Doing Superheroes. Green Arrow wasn't called Green Arrow, it was dark and serious and definitely not a superhero show. But, very quickly, it seemed like they wised up and went, "Why are we working so hard to make a superhero show that's ashamed to be a superhero show?" Agito feels like a Kuuga that's sick of pretending it's not a superhero show. More superpowers! More suits! More monster fights! Lean into what's special about your show!
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