KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 6 - "BEATING SOUL"

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki06a.png

"Time and transition is a wave that will put you overboard
Where the darkness is a bed and you can sleep
'Til someone tells you that they know you and they do"

-Superchunk, "My Gap Feels Weird"

I keep forgetting to mention it, so, apropos of nothing, let me talk about how much I love the end credits.

I mean, the song alone. "Hit the beat! Keep yoooouuuurrr beat!" It's this very lovely song about a boy on a journey to being a man, and how he needs to believe in himself, how he needs to find a path and a passion and a purpose... and the whole thing is Asumu literally following the lead of Hibiki. It's so perfect a distillation of this series' strengths and themes. And to have it all be with these little pop-ins from the other cast members, the serenity of it all... I can't think of a stronger way to end an episode of this exceptionally kind and generous show.

It frames everything that happens as important not because of Hibiki's heroics, but because of Hibiki's example. Defeating a monster isn't cool, being respected by people is cool. (Defeating a monster is a little cool, objectively.) Asumu isn't awed by Hibiki as an Oni, he's awed by Hibiki as a strong, confident man that is surrounded by people who care about him. These lessons that Asumu's learning, it isn't making him a Kamen Rider, it's making him a man.

It's another unique thing the series does. It's taking the subtext of every single Kamen Rider show, and making it text. Like, every Kamen Rider series is trying to instill lessons to the children watching at home. (And the impressionable adults talking about Kamen Rider on the internet.) It's trying to teach them empathy, confidence, integrity, determination, compassion, and how to throw a belt and cell phone to someone who is about to be mauled by a monster. (That one doesn't get called on a lot in adulthood, but it's a good skill to know you've got.) It usually couches those things in allegory, where a superhero has to demonstrate some life lesson to find a way to defeat a monster. OOO needs to believe in himself. Snipe needs to have integrity. Garren needs to acknowledge the existence and interior life of someone other than himself. It's always some weirdly flawed adult who has to show a kind of growth that a child can apply to their own lives.

(Real quick: I love those characters. I love those shows. It's not a bad way to tell a story that way, but it is a typical way.)

What Hibiki does is say, Look. If we need to have a Kamen Rider show kids how to become responsible adults, let's just make a series about a Kamen Rider showing a kid how to become a responsible adult. That's it, that's the mission statement. As a result, we don't need to have Hibiki falling apart emotionally or acting childishly. We can have Asumu get freaked out by a challenge he feels unprepared for, let him feel unprepared, let him look for an escape, and then just have Hibiki say What Do You Think "Pretty Well-Trained" Means? It doesn't have to be a grown man figuring out that success doesn't come easy. It can be a grown man saying to a child I Am Only Successful Because I Worked Hard At It.

I like that approach. I like that this is a show where Hibiki isn't variously competent/mature, as the plot demands. Asumu's the one who gets to freak out, worry, be needy, make bad decisions, because he's a kid. Hibiki gets to be a weird adult, but he's still someone who I'm not afraid to leave on his own. (Tachibana!)

This was a solid episode, made up of a bunch of very cute scenes (all of the stuff with Ibuki getting dissed by Ichiro because Ibuki's hot for Kasumi, all of the stuff with Ibuki just assuming Asumu is Hibiki's apprentice, all of the stuff with Ibuki) that are laser-focused on creating a space for Asumu to, even if he doesn't feel confident in his chances on the exam, he can feel confident in trying to feel confident. He can keep studying because he sees from Hibiki that getting knocked down isn't the end, and that proper training can give you the confidence to face insurmountable odds. Success isn't guaranteed, but neither is failure.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki06b.png

Hmm... there's a talk I had about the setting places (and you haven't seen every phase 1 yet to judge it's all restaurant, also Kotaro's household in Blade isn't one) the Riders have. Where there are some people who appeals to the settings in Phase 1, where it's just some small apartment compared to Phase 2 where it's large HQs, because of it being sort of homely how the characters just lived together, gives the feeling that these are still just regular people.

And unfortunately people can be turned off from Phase 1 merely just by bad CGI, ignoring anything else that is on the show. But actually Kamen Rider's CGI is equally poor in each era, like seen in Ghost and Build's opening, for those giant stuffs. Though still, don't underestimate Drum Solo, it's smacking monsters over and over with battering weapon! I'm a bit confused here, you say everything else is great... but wouldn't care if the whole show was just Asumu worrying about his future?

Well, actually it is. Even if Hibiki is the hero of the series, Asumu is the main protagonist of the series, as I said in the episode 1 part. And if you wanted it in Asumu's perceptive, prepare... for later.

They even pay 300 yen to temporarily hide from him! How about trying to use your bikes?

Hibiki's ferry save isn't only saving, but also showing his well-trained abilities to perform impossible acrobatics like that. This one's just an old man rushing to shield a child. And in this episode he was refered as boss by Hibiki at the end part of the episode. Though apparently he's no slouch to advice Asumu and his friend to train more while chasing him...

Oh yeah fair enough, the way the charming is worded feels like just compensation to me here..

I mean, I'm thinking about Phase 2 shows, and it's:

Home office
Restaurant
Space clubhouse
A living room, basically (technically a showroom, but come on)
Non-space clubhouse
Legit office
A supervillain's underground lair, basically, but by accident
Legit office
Restaurant/A supervillain's underground lair, basically, but on purpose

And I haven't watched Zi-O yet. There are a few more "official" spaces that characters congregate, but most of them are very casual, home-y spaces. They don't feel more impersonal to me than Phase 1 settings have been.

(Also, I'm just teasing about these shows all being in restaurants. It's 60% so far, which isn't that crazy.)

I just meant that the teen drama stuff is so strong that it could be its own show. The things from the Hibiki storyline I'm the most interested in are the things that connect back to Asumu, so I'm folding that into what I like about the teen drama. The parts I could live without are anything that isn't connected to Asumu's story.

I actually meant this literally. Like, don't ever show me a Hibiki scene if Asumu's not in it. I only want to experience that world through his eyes.

They got flustered! They're not well-trained!

Okay, so first and foremost: Asumu is incredibly lucky that he doesn't get his bike stolen, given how often he just leaves it lying around to go off with someone from Takeshi. That's two episodes in a row now.

We get a lot more Ibuki in this episode - not a proper fight yet, but he's officially part of the cast now (I don't think that's saying too much, given he's pulled a Mutsuki and been in both the opening and closing credits since day one). I can't say that he's my favorite character on the show, but I do like him a lot as the secondary Oni. A big part of that is because of his personality. After several seasons in a row of antagonism between the main and secondary Riders, we have a show where the two are friends who just get along with each other. That's one of the things that I find so refreshing about Hibiki: everyone gets along and the show isn't driven primarily by interpersonal conflict. It's a nice change of pace.

We just need an episode where a Makamou steals all of the disc animals from Hibiki, so Asumu can learn the importance of looking after your things.

I like that introduction of the secondary is just... him pitching in for a minute? He doesn't volunteer to help fight, or loudly declare that he's going to solve this problem. He just drops off a new drum for Hibiki, and then splits. It's so... quaint? It's that constant downplaying of the superheroism again, where no one's that afraid for Hibiki's safety, or that he won't get the job done. (Although, man, Zanki got hospitalized, right? Maybe they could be a little more concerned about the outcome of this conflict?) This episode spends more time on Ibuki trying to win over Kasumi, and Ibuki getting dissed by Ichiro for trying to win over Kasumi, than it does with Ibuki being another Rider. It's the most light-hearted choice they could make to introduce him, so I can see why they did it that way.

I’ll mention here that when I watched the series, Ibuki barely registered on my radar, even after I got hooked by the second half. But apparently, according to the wiki, he has the second clearest arc out of the non-Asumu characters. I’ll just see how much he registers on your radar after this episode.

Hey, please don’t link to random people to mock them because you think they prove your judgements right. Thanks.

I think Ibuki is sort of my stealth favorite Hibiki character? He's not someone that I get particularly fired up about, but I just kinda feel happy when he's onscreen. Switchblade put it pretty well. I think the show knew what it was doing having his first scene be that chance encounter with Asumu's mom, too. That sort of feeling of "I met the nicest young man the other day. And so handsome too!" is pretty much the absolute core of his character. He's just a real swell dude.

I think that's why this show works. There are usually two kinds of protagonist; those you can relate to and those you can idolize. But this show has both and through their interactions, it feels like Hibiki is personally delivering the moral to viewers using Shounen as our perspective. It's the same thing I praise Lupinranger VS Patranger for with the two Red Rangers and the moral that conflict isn't always black and white. Shounen idolizes Hibiki as this really cool guy and feels inadequate by comparison but that's only due to Hibiki being older and more experienced while Shounen is just trying to live too fast.

Hibiki moving past his failure and defeating the Bakegani is the start of their mentor and pupil dynamic which will be instrumental (haha) in Shounen's development to accomplishing his internal goal, by seeing how Hibiki and the Oni react to adversity and what it really means to be a man.

Considering Shounen's reaction to his classmate calling him a "man among men", I think you're right. It just happens that Hibiki is the most macho guy he knows recently and that results in an association between man and Oni. He thinks the best way to be a man is to be an Oni. In reality, you need to be a man, you need to train, to be an Oni, not the other way around.

Shounen Yo is my favorite ending theme of the Heisei Era, not that there's much choice. I complain about the lack of ending theme in Lupinranger VS Patranger so I'm glad Saber's compensating me for that. Going back to Hibiki, it's interesting how the emotion changes depending on the setting. Sometimes the other characters are happy and having fun and then it's more melancholy with them sitting idly looking glum. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be relevant to the tone of the episode or something else. What's your take?

Sometimes, Ibuki feels more like the Primary Rider than Hibiki, but only when he's in focus. At 19 years old, a more conventional protagonist age, he's the youngest active Oni in the Kanto region, he has a bike, he's more willing to embrace his role as a mentor and has my favorite fight scene and arc in the show which I look forward to mentioning later.

EDIT: 200th post, yay!

We'll see! I like him already, though. He's forthright, which is a good kind of person to be on this show.

The way he just gives Asumu a lift over to see Hibiki, it's such a nice thing to do. He sees that this kid is worried about Hibiki, so why not let him see how Hibiki's doing. So simple. It's not heroically generous, it's just a nice gesture. So underplayed! So this show!

I think that's a good way of looking at it, as Asumu's impatience to be a grownup causing him to get in his own way. Music is all about pace and rhythm, right? Hibiki is here to show him how to slow down, think things through, and figure out what he wants before he tries to get it.

Having only seen three different takes so far, I'd probably attribute it more to an evolving sense of what the show is, rather than trying to loop into the episode's emotions. (I mean, there hasn't been an episode yet that I'd call melancholy, so I don't think that's it!) The first couple are sort-of contemplative, mysterious. The newer one is more celebratory, warm. The newer one just feels like this show.

If this were any other show, Hibiki would've been killed in this one and Ibuki would take over as the primary Kamen Rider.

Congrats!