I'll talk more about this later when we see another side of Leo's personality, but for now, I'll agree about his entertaining rivalry with Hayami and good taste in walnuts. I guess one of the Horoscopes needed to fill this role, as it's not like you can expect to find the total mystery of Virgo casually drinking at a bar.

Except Yukina takes away Fourze Driver as she mistakes it for a burden, whereas 5 years later Gentarou throws away Fourze Driver as he believes his friend will return to him, which is proven true in HeiGen Final.

Fourze is a PlayStation and EX-Aid is an XBox. Donbrothers also have buttons and D-pads, but I can't identify which console they're from.

Are you still following Zeztz?

Unfortunately, yeah, seems like gatekeepers still miss the whole point about Gentarou's motivation despite Yuki literally spelling it out for Yukina and the audience that fighting is simply what he does, not something he forces himself to do out of necessity. Asking him not to fight is asking him not to be Gentarou and that really would be a sacrifice that benefits nobody. Fighting can be a way to protect your friends and depending on the redeemability of the enemy, it can be a way to make new friends.

...I would actually love the surreal image of the Virgo suit seated next to Hayami in a classy and subdued Kyoto bar.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE: ROCKET DRILL STATES OF FRIENDSHIP

originally posted on December 13th, 2021, as part of “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Legend Rider projects (and more!)”

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I’m not crazy about the Interactive era of HBVs, but this one keeps it relatively unobtrusive. It’s just, the consequences of the choices -- the difficulty of choosing the correct choices -- were weirdly distracting to me.

Like, the first choice is Which Switch Should Fourze Use On The Monster: Rocket, Drill, Launcher, or Radar? All of the offensive ones fail, and the correct choice is Radar. Except, all Radar does is intercept an incoming Ryuusei call, directing Team Fourze to go find Kamen Rider Amazon and pick up an HBV-exclusive collectible. That’s not predictable from the choices and setup provided! That’s like having the correct choice be the Hammer Switch, because the monster had an unpleasant encounter with MC Hammer at a Burger King in 1993. There is no way to have known that when you’re making the choice!

The ending choice is sort of the same thing: Choose between Amazon’s friendship sign and Fourze’s. Seems like a little bit of fluff; can’t possibly affect the outcome of the fight. Except it does, because Fourze’s friendship sign causes Amazon to cough up the Clear Drill Switch -- the thing that actually defeats the villain -- early enough to keep the villain from escaping. You go with Amazon’s friendship sign, the villain escapes and you don’t get to see the (presumably bundled with the magazine) brand-new Switch in action. Again, how could anyone intuit that from the story being told? This is presented like an innocuous choice, but it’s potentially depriving you of the better, longer ending.

Besides me yelling at a nearly decade-old piece of entertainment made to sell toys to children for being too difficult (THEY CHEAT), I really enjoyed this special. This was the first place I got to know Amazon, and he’s still one of my favorite Riders I Don’t Truck With. He’s an adorably innocent Rider, and his baseline belief in making friends is perfectly in tune with Fourze’s excitability. Just two Riders who want to be friends. To quote Keanu Reeves, “It’s always nice, when it’s nice.” Sure, he was talking about people reprogramming a video game to have sex with his digital avatar, but I think the same thing applies to two superheroes teaching each other unique handshakes. It’s always nice, when it’s nice.

It’s also nice to see a writer hit a minor roadblock, and then drive through it with such lunatic gusto that you can’t imagine why people drive around things. Ryuusei has told Team Fourze (for this special, that’s just Gentaro, Kengo, and Yuki) that they’ll need to travel all the way to South America to find the crucial Astro Switch and gain Kamen Rider Amazon's help. But, like, Fourze’s barely holding on against the monster in Japan. Going to South America, finding Amazon, and getting back to Japan would take almost two weeks.

So what if Fourze fought the monster for twelve straight days? Twelve days of increasingly exhausted combat? Days and nights of increasingly delirious fighting? A final few hours where both combatants are basically gently slapping each other, because all strength has left their bodies and they long for the calming embrace of death?

It would be amazing, and it’s such a terrific middle section that I can forgive it for BLATANTLY CHEATING on the interactive sections. It’s a bonkers conceit, coupled with Yuki and Kengo searching for Kamen Rider Amazon by going to the largest rainforest on the planet and just shouting out AMAZON until they eventually (almost literally!) stumble upon him. It is deliciously stupid, which is exactly what I want every HBV to be.

This was a ton of fun. Amazon and Fourze teaming up is incredibly charming (the little “Chun!” Fourze does when he performs Amazon’s friendship sign!), and the weirdly tortuous journey the other kids go on is like a fever dream. Perfectly ridiculous, and ridiculously perfect.

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—

WHITHER TOMOKO

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It’s the one flaw of this special, if we’re excluding the baffling and hostile choices provided as alleged gameplay – you’re dropping Tomoko from the Amazon crossover?! The character who arguably does the Amazon call better than either the Showa or Heisei versions of the actual Rider? They at least mention her, which is something, but it’s insane to me that they couldn’t get Tomoko into the mix on this one.

Other than that, this special still works pretty great. I like the implication that Ryuusei refused to help out over the week-plus that Fourze was trapped in mano-a-mano (another Amazon reference all along?!?!?! no) combat with a Mutamid, seeing that Fourze’s battle was too silly for Meteor’s assistance. It’s an HBV perfectly calibrated for Fourze’s unique blend of adolescent shenanigans and triumphant teamwork. Too bad that Yuuki and Kengo never came home!

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For me, the funniest thing about this is the fact that Amazon’s entrance cuts from some old footage from the 70s of him on his bike to the newly shot scenes of just the suit.

And Suddendeath still doesn’t get to fight Skyrider, despite being based on a villain from one of his movies.

Maybe he'll get to come back a THIRD time!

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 35 - “MONSTER LIVE ON-AIR”

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I remember two things about this story from when I first watched it years ago: I really liked it for the JK stuff, and I really disliked it for the Horoscopes stuff.

I’ve definitely changed my mind on the second part. I remember originally feeling like the Horoscope introductions were badly paced, relative to the run of the series – cramming in five Horoscopes over a dozen episodes, where we’d previously gone dozens to introduce a single new one. But with the closure of the Hole in Kyoto creating a reason for greater cosmic energy in Amanogawa, and Libra’s new Eye of Laplace more easily scouting out new Horoscopes (I wish he’d done the Taisen thing of saying HOROSCOPE PARTICLES DETECTED endlessly; missed opportunity), I think it works just fine? It sort of sucks to have to had jump through a bunch of hoops back in the 20s to generate a Horoscope, where here it happens entirely off-screen, but it also speaks to the higher floor of danger the show has for its narrative. Fourze’s leveled up, alongside the cast, so it just makes sense to be All Horoscopes All The Time. We don’t need to keep the show in a storytelling stasis, when there are bigger things on the horizon to worry about.

Which is another way of saying that I still love this JK story. The GeneGod story… it might be my favorite one on the show? Which is nuts, considering that a) the show has largely forgotten that JK’s existed for the last dozen stories, and b) he’s still probably my least-favorite KRC member. But I like how this story feels like it’s in direct conversation with JK’s original two-parter, in the ways it wants to talk about JK’s ability to value friendships beyond the transactional. It’s a story that allows JK’s fears from his past to color his hopes for the future, and asks him to weigh different friendships against each other to determine what those friendships are worth to him.

We start off with God, who isn’t another guy that JK wronged or is trying to manipulate – he’s a friend of JK’s and a guy that JK spends half the episode trying to protect from the KRC. It creates a more contemplative and bittersweet lens for this story – lit with moody neon and wistful sunset – where JK has another, equally vital friendship, but one that’s pulling him in a different direction. JK is genuinely protective of God, and wants what’s best for him: first, it’s trying to get the Horoscope Switch away from, then it’s shutting down the radio show that’s harming its listeners, but eventually it’s going along with God’s dream.

That arc through the episode, it just feels right? I buy it, in a way that still flatters JK’s hard-fought decency and sense of loyalty. It’s not a quick change, him throwing aside the KRC to be more than whatever his dad turned out to be. The episode slowly brings us along with JK, to see him become the performer he always wanted to be, but clearly wasn’t. (To have to stand there and listen to his friends be like That Song We Heard Was Too Good To Be Gene! Jesus!) To get the chance to be the star he always dreamed of, to not squander it or miss his shot like his dad might’ve, and to get to do that alongside a friend who remains the only one to believe in his hidden talent? Isn’t that worth giving up the brief friendship of the KRC? A club he joined a few months ago, that’s bound to disband or transform in a few more months once even more friends graduate? Is it worth missing out on his future in order to honor his present?

And that’s why I like this story so much – in the end, it’s just about high school. The friendships of high school are all-encompassing, until they inevitably evaporate. That’s either beautiful to someone like Gentarou – a chrysalis to turn us into our ideal selves – or terrifying to someone like JK, who sees these valuable friendships now as an anchor that’s keeping him from his dreams. The struggle of that, balancing what you owe to the people in your lives now versus what you need to do for your own future, that’s a perfect high school story. It makes sense that Fourze would knock it out of the park, and it’s still slightly unbelievable that they did it with JK.

p.s. I love the KRC band so, so much.

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Yuki channeling her inner K-On. :lolol

How is it now I realise they gave the guy named for X a friend turned villain named God?

Also, I’m guessing the rock cover of Hayabusa-kun’s song was supposed to send terrible, but it actually sounds pretty good.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 36 - “OUR LAST PERFORMANCE TOGETHER”

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I think you could only do this story – the best Fourze story – with JK, because he’s the worst.

In any other version of this story, with literally any other KRC member (even Ohsugi, who is sorely missed, and that’s one more insane thing this story has me thinking), you’d be waiting for a twist, or a reveal. Something that says that the KRC member has been plotting something the entire time to defeat his Zodiart buddy, or undo his influence on the kids at Amanogawa; something that says the KRC member never really turned on Gentarou. With JK, it’s abundantly clear at all times that he completely gave up on the KRC in order to pursue his dream. We’re not in a densely-plotted story with additional layers, because JK is exactly as self-serving and cowardly as he appears. That’s what makes him work in this story.

It’s also what makes this all so poignant, because – much to his surprise and chagrin – he’s not as self-serving and as cowardly as he appears, even though JK himself isn't aware of that. JK’s made too many real friends to be okay throwing them aside for fame, and he’s sacrificed too much as a member of the KRC to be okay with a bunch of kids wasting away from cosmic shredding. High school is about finding out who you are, and JK discovers that he’s not Gene, because Gene was the dream of a kid who wanted fame at any cost, and was desperate to escape the reality of his limits. But that was a long time ago, and holding onto that fear and desperation, it’s JK forgetting about how he’s grown, and the reasons he wanted fame in the first place.

Naturally, it’s Gentarou who gets it, after learning who Gene really is; not the pseudonym, but what the identity of Gene really meant to JK. It was about fame, sure, but it was more about being able to express himself, and be seen for what he could be, and connect with others… which is all the things the KRC is already letting him do. He thought he needed God’s Zodiart ability to reach people and be loved, but here’s Gentarou spending a day learning the song that made JK love music, just for a chance to let JK show his authentic self to an audience. JK missed all that in the rush to become a star, hollowing himself out just like his brainwashed fans. He tossed aside the goal for the dream, but luckily his friends were there to remind him of what he really had to offer.

Again, it’s a sweet story of high school, and how easy it can be to hold onto your past when the future is pointing you in a different direction, which is sort of exactly what JK was saying last episode, just 100% reversed in its meaning. It only works if you think that JK is shallow enough to team up with a horned cosmic guitarist at the possible cost of dozens of lives, but lucky for this show, JK is the worst, and so we can see it – but even more lucky for this show, we can see that JK is capable of changing for the better, and maybe he’s been changing this whole time without us even noticing.

Beyond that, this is a pretty good episode of tokusatsu storytelling? The larger Zodiart stuff continues to feel like a series of developments happening without much build-up or foreshadowing – much like JK’s issues with his dad are brought up last episode for the first time literally ever, we get two episode of Horoscopes talking about the lost Core Switch as a big deal that no one really brought up before. (It’s… maybe this was the Horoscope stuff from this story I ended up not liking? Like the Hole in Kyoto, we get zero build-up, and then suddenly it’s all anyone can talk about. There’s got to be a more organic way to set some of these escalations up!) But the smaller Zodiart stuff still works just fine, like the battle between Meteor and Leo. I love any fight where the Rider wins through strategy over power, so I really liked Meteor attacking Leo’s literal Achilles Heel, forcing Leo to abandon a fight that Meteor definitely couldn’t’ve won. It’s also a great way to see some of those old Horoscope suits again, even if the usage here felt a little superfluous. (Leo did not seem to have much of a problem kicking Meteor’s ass in his normal form!)

Solid Kamen Rider episode, but a great Fourze episode. I am okay with that trade-off!

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Though as the KRC pointed out, Fourze also has an upgrade in Cosmic States. And ofc here, Cosmic States doesn't utilize his powers. Also only using single Electric Switch in the Barizun Sword, not combining it with something else. Missed chance to have Cosmic States combine Beat with another Switch to fight against a musician Zodiart. Outside of Libra threatening other Horoscopes to obey him, Libra also insists that he takes credit for the faction's achievement like finding Goto.

But it seems that, which seems to be ignored below (or also here to accuse JK as constantly trying to wrong or manipulate people), there seems to be a change in JK after joining the KRC where JK can be conflicted about his dream hurting his friends and people. But JK seems to still get something tragic of being laughed upon when trying to reach his dream. And though there's a change here, there's a root cause of JK being previously only taking benefit from others in friendship, where he thinks friendship is only temporary and wouldn't last long. This should be a way to stop people's evil by understanding the root cause and finding a way to solve that.

This can be portrayed as JK selling out his friends for his dream, but I can feel bad that for someone that, perhaps would be untrustworthy due to the circumstances of him joining, the KRC didn't see JK's conflicted self to try to get Goto to stop the show as it seems to make people hurt himself, albeit it seems that JK consciously started it when Goto reminds him of his dad. It should be ok to go on his own path, like how it should be ok for people who don't join the KRC like Miura joining the photography club, what's not ok is, as a tokusatsu show, to have this directly hurt people by having Capricorn seemingly brainwash the watchers. What'd be a betrayal to KRC is JK knowing that he's hurting people, going against what the KRC stands for. But it's not wrong if one splits from KRC to go after personal dream in a neutral way.

I actually also relate on how friendships can be temporary and that it's only a fraction of someone's life. It's not only high school too, but this still applies to places like work, and there can be also places where the meeting is even briefer, like I guess, the place where Ryusei and Jiro went to (martial arts training), or likely public places like forum, where people may join for some weeks then disappear forever. This can make me less enticed to form friendships, though this can be just my experience because it seems that others stay in touch later after graduating, but for me, it's always me initiating before with nobody doing it after I moved places, which I still wondered how those formed the friendships to not be one-sided (never having social skills or properly learning it).

I actually don't watch it, including in the ep. 1 discussion. I only just wanted to say a piece of mind from me. Just a numerous coincidence that the show I'm watching right now, as well as the show that is airing right now, feature the return of Kousei Amano, as well as a character named Tachibana in Fourze's case.

Followed by the next episode of insisting that chasing after your dream/wish is portrayed as mutually exclusive with loyalty to a friend. It depends on the circumstance tbh like how Capricorn is making the viewer hurt themselves for this one, but many stories portray the former as a bad thing and thus, it'd not help the martyrdom complex, seeing dreams and ambitions as something bad and corrupting that should be curbed.

We are in a phase of the show where Gamou and Leo treat the Dark Nebula like it's got a daily quota, so I think Hayami is just trying to reiterate his worth before he gets put on the 9:55 to the Zodiart Zone. (Also, Hayami is a self-aggrandizing creep.)

This probably isn't a two-parter that immediately comes to mind for me when I think of my favorite Fourze stories, but it is one I like quite a bit, so I'm happy to see Die singing its praises in spite/because of the way it focuses in on a supporting character he's generally not otherwise that excited about.

It really does just kinda come together super nicely, as a story that makes sense for JK, and for the show? Taking his whole frivolous partying side, for example, and then expanding that into music specifically as a big theme, letting the sorta mood and tropes that come with that territory color the whole tone in a way that helps it stand apart from other Fourze two-parters -- like, it's hard to really say when it's been a while since I've seen it, but I recall this one feeling particularly... cohesive, I guess. Like there's just this particularly clear intent to the script, which would definitely line up with the way Die is talking about it.

Yeah, it even gets to end in a very melancholy and final way, like Gene was an actual cast member. Normally, you'd end a thing like this with an upbeat Remember Why You Wanted To Sing montage, where JK rediscovers his love of performing with Gotou, and he trains a little harder to be good on his own merits instead of due to the proximity of cosmic energy/drug metaphors, and it's all very hopeful and open-ended. This one... definitely goes the other way! JK acknowledges that Gen asked him to keep at music, and he said no, preferring to leave it in the past and let his future reveal itself through his friendships. It's letting the musical aspirations be a way he was trying to find meaning, but that meaning became kind of a self-destructive trap, when the real meaning happened without him even realizing it. There's a maturity to that, and again: this was a JK story!!!

I guess, what's specifically wrong in this story is, about Capricorn harming others in pursuit of fame, and as what Gentaro puts it, being a phony who took a shortcut with Zodiart power to be famous. But still, dunno what's really wrong to go into separate ways from a friend to chase after dream by itself. As long as it's not using underhanded method or faking it. The ending would be obviously, the usual "right" way of leaving away your dream to spend time with friends (albeit different future path compared to past can be a good lesson too), albeit Gentaro told JK to not give up.

As JK thinks friendship is only temporary and a fraction of someone's life, seems that the solution for JK is the usual modeling good behavior for your friends that has happened before to Ran, and to a lesser extent Ryusei (ep. 28), in Gentaro acting as JK's dad to him, and at the end when JK didn't expect to be forgiven by the KRC, which seems to prove about what you said here of him being loved. Still, this doesn't dispute about how when graduating from high school, people won't see each other anymore, despite being close in high school. I mean, there's Miu and Shun being still a part of KRC, but still it's not addressed (albeit it's only because their college is close to AGHS).

Dozens of lives due to the brainwashing of Capricorn... but for another case of seemingly mass brainwashing/life force draining, like Clotho using the Zukyumpire power for this, it's seen as how the villain never killed anyone, has completely clean hand, thus wasn't really bad/wrong (for redeemable talk). It seems to be a hot take for me to think that the bodycount only didn't happen because the plan is foiled in the heroes taking care of those people or beating the villains, but it's seen by people as them purposely not killing. It'd be pointless for the heroes to try to stop them if, according to that view, the villain isn't a real danger with them never having the heart to kill.

I guess this is a decent showing of a Rider fight where the choreograph mostly disappoints me, that Ryusei refuses to give up despite Tachibana insisting him to due to how powerful Leo is, and he at least proves Tachibana wrong by making a small step in his rematch by injuring a fragile point of Leo, thus while Meteor didn't beat Leo yet, it made Leo uncomfortable to retreat from the fight. Some cuts like that can be an inconvenience while not being life threatening. Also, there's another Switch combination from Cosmic States, and it's on the theme for Beat, combined with Net, the Beat soundwaves form a net to capture Capricorn's wave and then trap Capricorn inside it along with its own attack.

I'm going to stand by some of what I said here, but honestly I didn't think episode 35 was all that bad this time. I wouldn't rank it as my personal favorite, but all the JK stuff definitely landed with me a lot better this time and I didn't find God/Capricorn as annoying as I did last time.

I don't know that the episode makes this clear enough, but what I took away was that JK's dream was about music as a kid, but as a teen it's evolved into something more nuanced and open-ended. If JK really wanted to leave the KRC behind to be a musician, I don't think anyone would've stood in his way, but what he was doing in 35/36 was more about his fear and desperation.

You think The Demon from KISS has a stupid name?! I mean, he's a terrible human being, but a legend in rock music.

It's a name that probably sounds cool and foreign to a kid living in Japan but it is incredibly mundane to an adult living in America (so nice, with your bad self).

I suppose! I'm just still hung up on the idea that we didn't get a "GeneGod vs Juuga" TTFC special. Karizaki wouldn't let that name be taken by a band that didn't include him!

KAMEN RIDER CLUB MEETING – QUIZ: KAMEN RIDER URBAN LEGENDS!! EPISODE 09

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It’s really funny to me that the Year-3 team has an extra person, and it seems to have acted as a handicap for their team. I swear that Gen and Kengo have at least scored a point before, but they – along with Yuki – are consistently flummoxed by the Super-1 questions, missing the basic logic that the other four competitors instantly grasp. For the core trio of the entire Kamen Rider Fourze series, they have no cohesion or chemistry. It’s just three confused and disinterested teens, blindly guessing where they used to intuit and decode. How are they so bad with an extra brain?!

Meanwhile, Tomoko and JK now regularly cruise to at least a competitive position, where they used to flail from the rear of the pack, and Miu and Shun are preternaturally unstoppable. I believe the universe is right to bestow riches and valor on Miu, but the whole Hand Power thing from Shun is incredibly eerie in its accuracy. Ryuusei may be a bust as host, but the Seven Legendary KRC Members can still make these quizzes a blast to watch.

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My main takeaway from this segment was that JK’s actor is a Sentai fan.

Anyway, time for my own quiz. The answers for last time were b (which no-one got, despite my mentioning it earlier in this very thread), c, a. This quiz too a little more effort on my part, so it should be slightly harder.

Which of these Jin Dogma monsters was the winner of a kids design contest?
A) Red Danger
B) Keyman Joe
C) ShoukaKong

What historical Japanese figures shares his name with one of Kazuya’s martial arts mentors?
A) Musashi
B) Benkei
C) Goemon

Unlike most other Showa Riders, the series constantly reminds us that Kazuya is a cybernetically modified human. How?
A) He performs regular maintenance on his electric mechanisms.
B) He excretes oil
C) Metallic sound effects play during his fights.

Thanks for the quiz!

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 37 - “SELECTING THE STAR PUPIL”

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I like Erin, and I think she’s got strong chemistry with Gentarou, but this one’s a little too hard to take seriously, for a couple reasons.

The first one, weirdly, is Erin herself. Like I said, I think she’s a fun character for this series: a poorly-translated American girl who immediately connects with Gentarou’s overpowering enthusiasm, but bristles from his boundless empathy and sense of shared achievement. She is unbelievably self-motivated – her Zodiart form is capable of recovering from any injury and pressing on like nothing happened – but she can’t grasp the idea of teamwork, just top-down leadership. The idea of her interacting with the flat management structure of the KRC is solid, even if elements feel a little derivative of 15/16. (We’re seriously in another story where Yuuki’s exuberance is driving a Zodiart completely insane!) The problem is that her loathing of Yuuki feels even more tenuous and untethered than Motoyama’s did back in 15/16, since Yuuki is at maybe 75% of Peak Yuuki, and Erin is losing her mind. I get that Erin’s under pressure, both externally and internally, but it’s hard to take her seriously enough when she’s flipping out at Yuuki in her very first scene. There sort of needed to be a more gradual build-up, and I don’t think we got it here, which makes the emotional weight of Erin’s frustration hard to give much credit. Yuuki isn’t nearly annoying enough to warrant this, even accounting for the psychological warping effects of the Zodiart Switch.

The other problem is, uh, Yuuki. I know I just said that Yuuki isn’t annoying enough to warrant Erin’s immediate and blazing enmity, but Yuuki is still pretty annoying this episode. I think she acquits herself well enough over the various tasks, and Kengo’s right that Yuuki has a great sense of when to lighten a mood (always, around Kengo, which is why she’s so good at it), but she’s rolling around during a presentation and screaming fealty to a rocket. Again, I get that she’s also under pressure here to realize her dream, but the stakes pale in comparison to how wacky Yuuki gets in this episode.

So, yeah, between a Zodiart who screeches her backstory and a KRC member who is slightly less relatable than the Hayabusa puppet this time out, I don’t know that the main rivalry has enough thoughtfulness to it to allow for real emotional investment, at least from me. There’s still the Gen/Erin stuff, though, and I thought that worked way better, mostly because Gentarou’s able to modulate his performance enough to make some of the heart-to-hearts feel like they’re about two actual teenagers, instead of overly-broad characters. I love seeing Gen get the chance to try and understand an episode’s villain before things get too crazy, and it’s nice to see him once again wager the story’s outcome on the hidden talents of Yuuki. (I… hope she does better here than in the talent portion of the Queen Pageant!) While Yuuki and Erin are hard to believe, Gentarou’s place in the balance always helps to bring things into focus.

And, y’know, there’s also the rest of the cast who… are present! It’s not a story for them, sadly, so we get yet another episode that JK, Shun, and Miu can’t directly participate in; Tomoko is dragged along, without really having much cause to be there; Ohsugi gets a single scene, barely; Kengo’s Cosmic Illness pops up again, after, like 20 episodes of not mentioning it; and the Zodiarts continue to collectively make Hayami feel like garbage. It’s a lot of little bits of business, some more entertaining than others – Ryuusei’s isolation freak-out and old-school cover-up are an episode highlight – but everyone’s so good at their characters by now that they can make even a single scene worth the viewer’s attention. I wish this one integrated everyone more, but some stories are just Gen/Yuuki/Zodiart stories, and that’s okay.

Which: this was an okay episode! I don’t think the tension between Yuuki and Erin was crisp enough to carry their story beats, but Gen smoothes over a lot of it, and everyone else chipped in around the edges. Sometimes that’s enough!

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This episode was my breaking point for Yuuki. I absolutely lost any remaining ability to tolerate her after this.

I assume she seems a lot more tolerable if you've been awake in a blindingly-lit room making paper cranes for over 70 hours.

Ah the old “this person who speaks perfect Japanese and broken English is totally a foreigner” episode. Never change, Toei.

Also, Makise is here. Even Tomoko’s reaction is basically “for some reason”.

I’ll have more to say on this storyline after the next episode.

This honestly should've just been a Gen/Yuuki/Kengo/Erin story, with some sort of B-plot for the rest of the Club to work on. Ryuusei's only there to get bounced (it's funny, but he doesn't add anything to the plot; Meteor can always just drop in out of the sky!) and Tomoko is just an extra set of hands. Story would be tighter if they weren't hanging around!

My main nitpick with this story is how this Gene guy is introduced out of nowhere and virtually everybody in KRC is a fan of him. It doesn't have the same effect as Wakana's Healing Princess, which Shoutarou and Phillip were regularly shown listening to. However, I do appreciate the effort to do something with JK to solidify his motivations, as he's the member with the least focus. I think it's a better story than his introduction anyway. The guy most likely to betray his friends has betrayed his friends, but only due to intense peer pressure from another friend and it's interesting to see how that development can be resolved. JK feels like whether it's KRC, God or himself, he'll be betraying somebody no matter what, which leads to him accidentally betraying everybody.

I like how Meteor's role in this arc is basically just to prove Tachibana wrong and show he can keep up with Leo in a fight, a more recreational problem Ryusei gets to obsess over now that the big deal Aries stuff is behind him. He's a martial artist with a lot of pride, so you can't tell him he can't win and not expect him to try until he can't stand anymore. Meteor sticking to his base form and enduring through targeted attacks was great to watch. He didn't exactly win, since Leo mostly decided continuing the fight would be more trouble than it was worth, but forcing him to retreat was still an impressive win for Meteor.

Yeah, making friends IRL can be difficult and keeping them even more. Friendship thrives on having a common hobby, but something like Tokusatsu is so niche. When people want to talk about "normal" stuff like most sports, world news or weather, I lose interest and can only feign so much. When the server switch happened on my previous forum, I also lost contact with a bunch of interesting people, so that sucks. I'm glad TN welcomed me here though, at a bad time for me. Gentarou is surely enviable, for his ability to navigate human relationships with such skill and hold on to them.

Which of these Jin Dogma monsters was the winner of a kids design contest?
A) Red Danger
B) Keyman Joe
C) ShoukaKong

What historical Japanese figures shares his name with a me of Kazuya?s martial arts mentors?
A) Musashi
B) Benkei
C) Goemon

Unlike most other Showa Riders, the series constantly reminds us that Kazuya is a cybernetically modified human. How?
A) He performs regular maintenance on his electric mechanisms.
B) He excretes oil
C) Metallic sound effects play during his fights.

Yeah, it would've been nice to have checked in on Gene's Psycho Circus (or whatever it was called) once or twice prior to this, maybe as a way of seeing what the student body made of ongoing Zodiart attacks, or some other measurement of the evolution of the KRC's impact on things. Of course, the answer to "why didn't they do that" is probably "no one on the production thought about what JK did in his free time prior to these episodes"; see also, JK's motivating trauma of his never-before-mentioned fisherman dad.

Though she's another sympathetic MOTW like the ones on early Fourze, where she has tragic backstory of seeing her dad failing to become an astronaut, of which the one accepted is, at least in Erin's eyes, a fraud. And she feels wronged with actual evidence in Yuki seemingly cheating by her hiding the camera, rather than just being petty of sense of superiority to her. She's the Horoscopes version of Motoyama, though legitimately feel wronged more, where she takes something really seriously (art and astronout), while only having a beef with Yuki, but not any others, having some helpful moments as a Zodiart (wanting to please kids, healing Kengo), for now.

I guess not every broad character behavior would win you over, of which Inoue frequently make characters broad(er for existing ones), and here, it's Riku Sanjo doing it, flanderizing Yuki into ditzy space otaku, where you turn out to like Akiko when rewatching W, Sanjo's show, before.

Cosmic States now use his Limit Break without going to space, which is just a sword wave, only for it to feel weak to have the MOTW completely immune to it. No Switch Combinations. Meteor Storm with Fire is creating Tornado as the natural disaster ober meteors.

And there's a rather surprising return in Makise, who claims he has changed and reformed (not proven, obviously). I guess it seems that the girls didn't beat up Makise to the point of crippling him or even death. The audience may will support Makise being beaten up to death, just like detonating monsters, though dunno if doing this would land them in trouble, even if Makise is unlikable. Erin also has Hayami vibes of being established as perfect, good-looking, charismastic, and capable in everything, but ofc they'd be made to be the bad guys as they have nothing to work out for.

Blame different writer in Riku Sanjo.

I feel I don't want if any of the main characters would just be given victim position of the story which can be easier to view them as innocent and only blame the society around them, even if their action would be like what JK did, particularly if it's done early on. If one is seen as completely innocent, then Gentaro befriending those is viewed as something ordinary and expected. Of which, the JK backstory here does have victim position unlike the introductory part, of him being laughed upon here for trying to reach his dream.

I see this as a weakness, of which it may include me though I don't know. Like how many things would be viewed as better if they're more all-rounder, someone would be better in socializing or making friends if they're more versatile, as in, being able to make friends without being limited to those having common hobby. And I know there were two school friends who's really into Kamen Rider, and their main group circle is the type who mainly talk about politics (what they claim they do).

She definitely doesn't like upbeat, gregarious astronauts! Seems like a potential failure of leadership!

Rewatching the episode, I noticed that the Daimonji-kun football robot is actually a UK-made toy named Robo-Sapien that was common a few years prior to Fourze coming out (around 2007-08). They jsut painted it entirely white and stuck some American football detailing on it (the only variant the actual toy got was the American superhero themed Spider-Sapien)

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 38 - “AND THE WINNER IS…”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze38a.png

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze38b.png

And that’s sort of this whole episode for me, you know? Heartfelt ideas I largely agree with, undercut at almost every turn by frustrating story decisions.

Like, I admire an episode that wants to position Yuuki’s role in a group as the one who never quits, the one who has the personal resolve to overcome any hardship, and the brightness of spirit to rally everyone around her to tackle the impossible together. I completely agree with that! I’m pretty sure I mentioned it in the write-up for last episode! But we’re also in an episode that can’t stop comedically depicting Yuuki as a psychologically-drained anchor, who loudly and repeatedly exclaims her inability to proceed in the contest, needing to literally be dragged along by her more able teammate. This is kind of attacking your core premise, Episode 38! You are not exactly fortifying anyone’s sunny appraisal of Yuuki’s theoretically indefatigable inner strength! You can do an episode where a hapless Yuuki is a wacky problem for the rest of the cast to smile and shake their head at, and you can do an episode where an underestimated Yuuki consistently summons her (alleged) natural charisma and sense of personal pride to push through the walls that would stop any sane person, but you sort of can’t do both in the same episode, often in alternating scenes.

And if that were the only problem, fine, whatever, I got other stuff in here to enjoy. Erin and Gentarou continued to be a charming couple, exhibiting enough chemistry to fuel an actual rocket. Erin’s arc in this one is a compelling exploration of how finding the best in someone can still not get you what you want, and Erin’s character-defining dedication and commitment gets a melancholy finale, pitting her allegiance to Gamou against her newfound supporter in a rain-soaked duel. It’s sad, and inevitable, and avoidable, and sweet, and beautifully shot. It’s Erin’s whole arc, concluding perfectly, after two episodes of growth and examination.

So, you know, OF COURSE they wipe her memory, making sure that we end this story with an Erin who doesn’t remember Yuuki and Gentarou, and presumably doesn’t remember her cathartic confrontation over her traumatic resentment of her father’s deferred dream, so she’s just bubbly and friendly, and fine with two random strangers saying they’re her friends who are going to support her no matter what. It feels pointless, relative to how hard Erin had to work to earn her defeat. It’s like some other character is the beneficiary of Erin’s personal growth, and it all feels kind of dumb; unworthy of the effort of most of the actors in this episode.

And then, and then, even if you disregard how Erin’s story collapses at the end, or how Yuuki’s story tells us one thing while showing us another, there’s just way too many narrative shortcuts and counterintuitive reveals, even for a toku franchise that is normally too fun to care about said details: Why are half the KRC invited along for the final test alongside three of the judges? Wouldn’t it be considered cheating for Gentarou and Ryuusei to turn up with four competitors? Isn’t a test where you tell two competitors to sabotage their teams’ efforts in secret not really about how to overcome unexpected problems on a space mission, and more about how to deal with sabotage from your crewmates? Did none of these kids bring an umbrella to the rain-soaked duel? (The last one… it was just a snowstorm! Don’t make these kids stand around soaked for hours in the cold! That’s how you get sick!)

Again, man, I want to like this episode! I think Gen’s right about Yuuki based on a half-dozen previous stories, but basically none of that is in this one. I love what Erin and Gentarou bring out of each other, but then she gets mindwiped and that version of her character no longer exists. I like getting to have the KRC integrated into this episode’s final act, but there’s no logical reason for any of them to be allowed to be there. (Yuuta doesn’t express any surprise at running into Ryuusei halfway up a mountain in the middle of a timed test!) This one… man, it just doesn’t work. No thanks!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze38c.png

PROGRAMMING NOTE: The next few days are going to be full up for me, with the C2E2 convention being in town, and the steadily-suffocating social and business commitments that go along with it. Don’t expect a new post Friday or Saturday; I’m going to try for Sunday night, but no guarantees. I hope you all make new friends in the meantime, and I hope they’re allowed to keep their memories after you do!

You can't? I don't know. This is another thing where it's really hard to jump into the nitty gritty of this specific execution of the concept, not having rewatched the episodes, but the concept itself, to me, sounds an awful lot like a much less flat, much more dynamic version of the basic idea?

In theory at least, I think if you spend the episode focusing on portraying Yuuki in the same positive light someone like Gentarou puts her in, you'd sort of have a one-dimensional story (or one with no moves on it, as you might say), where it's just a guest character clearly being wrong about something the audience already knows the entire time. I'd imagine the intent of emphasizing how she IS genuinely sort of gratingly energetic at times and IS this flawed human who isn't always above feeling overwhelmed, on top of showing the understandable aspects of the guest character's view so the clash of perspectives is less one-sided, is also kinda like, you know, Yuuki doesn't really need to "prove" anything, here, exactly? Because that probably isn't the point the story is trying to make, as much as it is that Yuuki already proves herself enough all the time to not really owe it to someone who barely knows her to justify her whole existence.

Maybe, anyway! Again, I'm kind of having to go on memory here, but I do like these episodes, even if they probably aren't absolute top-tier Fourze for me either.

I see your point, and I don't disagree that the theoretical Yuuki Is Awesome And Is Judged Unfairly By A New Girl story would be grating in entirely different ways (I don't need some guest star telling me I'm wrong to like a regular cast member!), but I still feel like this story doesn't do enough to make Gentarou's typically boisterous defense of his friend feel grounded in the reality of Erin's interactions with Yuuki, or the viewer's experience with this episode. Like, yeah, I imagine Gentarou has seen a wholly different side of a girl that Erin's only known in a high-pressure situation for several partially sleep-deprived days! That tracks! I got way better memories of her than how she's been doing here, too! But the episode they chose to give Gentarou this big-hearted speech about Yuuki's power and spirit -- how it's the same drive Erin has -- is, like, Yuuki at her absolute most hapless and defeated. I get why Gentarou has to explain all this to Erin, because Yuuki has demonstrated essentially none of it in this story, give or take her gaslighting her science team under bizarre orders from the testers. (I really hate that reveal! It's not a good one!) I could for sure put together a list of scenes from Fourze of Yuuki powering through adversity in a way that rallies her friends, but I don't think any of them would be from this story. I could've used maybe a single non-sabotage scene of Yuuki acting like she could win this contest through her own pluck and drive!

I am deeply conflicted about these episodes. On the one hand, Yuuki is absolutely intolerable and drags down every scene she's in - which is a lot of them. On the other, Elleen's story is really good and she has a fantastic dynamic with Gentarou. On the third hand, Elleen's actress is... not amazing; she's at about an 11 for most of the episodes when the performance would work much better at like a 6. On hand #4, there's an emotional climactic battle in the rain and I'm too big of a Dekaranger fan to ever hate on that. Fifth hand, Elleen's character development is frustratingly derailed by amnesia so she can't tell anyone that Gamou is the big bad. Upon the hand of the sixth, the Aquarius Zodiart provides many opportunities for puerile jokes about her amazing jugs.

So yeah, conflicted. It's definitely still the most memorable story from this phase of the show.

I'll also add that on this rewatch I realized that three of the four finalists were Horoscopes: Aquarius, Taurus, and Gemini. I thought that was really cool until the show made it explicit at the end that Hayami didn't know that Sugiura and Yuuki were Horoscopes. Not sure if that counts as foreshadowing or not.

It is! There's a thing I loved from 38 that I didn't find a place to talk about before, and so I'm going to just toss it in here.

Erin is fuming about Yuuki as she walks along That One Kamen Rider Pedestrian Trail, and she gets so furious that she turns into Aquarius and goes on a rampage. She starts attacking innocent people, including this one guy on his phone, and it cracked me up:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../bystander.gif

If I was still doing fan-fic like on the Saber thread, y'all would've gotten a few pages about that dude's day...

Late reply. It's true that JK was driven by fear and desperation, but it's just my feeling that your writing about the ep. 35-36 two-parter was about how JK was bad for leaving the KRC behind to be a musician like you said here, of which for this reply you think it's fine that anyone wouldn't stood in his way. But I might be wrong.

I don't completely understand what you're saying here, so forgive me if I got it wrong (I also might not have made my points clearly!), but I wasn't trying to say that JK was bad if he'd really wanted to leave the KRC to be a musician -- I think his friends would've supported him? But JK wasn't leaving to pursue his dream, he was endangering others to try and assuage his own fear, and that's why Gentarou stood in his way. I hope this makes sense?

So I think 37-38 might be my favourite arc from Fourze. Which given I’ve said how difficult finding specific favourites for Rider shows is, says something. I will admit most of that is because Aquarius fits my preferences regarding monster designs.

It also helps I had to write Eline for one of my fics, and it gave me an excuse to look up Japanese words to demonstrate her mangling of the actress’s native language.

It's a very fun and humanizing quirk, plus it demonstrates the story's theme of people not communicating their intentions successfully!