No Blade AND no Ex-Aid?! Man, you really do like this show!

Curse Hayami’s sudden but inevitable betrayal!

Okay, I half-lied when saying I had a lot to talk about. It’s mostly getting a chuckle out of how as Gamou is about to kickstart the final stage of his evil plan by opening a black hole so he can meet aliens… Kengo just stops it.

The things I do for you people!

Technically Kengo collapses the black hole, which is kind of Kengo's only move over the last several episodes. He loves collapsing!

We're getting into Fourze's endgame now, which is still probably the part of the show that I have the most issues with. I've come to terms with Horoscopes replacing regular Zodiarts as the Monsters of the Fortnight; the show does a good job of justifying the switch from a narrative perspective. I still think the final block of episodes has a real problem with pulling stuff out of its ass that could have been established earlier in ways that felt less abrupt.

There could have been a version of the show where Tachibana told the heroes about the Core Switch and how it was the only thing that could stop the Horoscopes' leader. We could have had the search for that running as a subplot for the back half of the series, with the reveal that it was actually inside Kengo the whole time feeling more like legitimate plot twist than a deus ex machina. Same idea for the Presenters, who never fail to read like "oh fuck, we have five episodes left and we never gave the villain a motivation... um... aliens?"

Not my biggest issue with the ending - that will come next time - but it still brings the final act of the show down in my opinion.

I still wish that we would have gotten more of Ran and Haru between their debut and now. Not every two-parter, just the occasional glimpse here and there to keep them more relevant as the KRC Junior Division. Sure, Hayami would probably still get more focus and Ran would still be a relatively minor part of the plot but she's a fun character with a lot of potential and we should have gotten more of her, damnit.

The Presenters are the one thing from the last few episodes that I haven't talked about, mostly because I completely do not give a shit about them. It's some vague thing that Gamou (and, to my knowledge, only Gamou) ever really talks about, so it might as well be I Have To Go Into Space To Fight The Monstars In A Basketball Game for all the impact the concept has on the surrounding narrative or characters. Gamou wants to go into space for evolution reasons and his own infinite ego -- what it is he wants to see or do out there is incidental to the consequences at this point, and I cannot muster up any enthusiasm or curiosity about it.

What it is Gamou wants to see is an intelligence he believes will finally match his own. What he wants to do out there is meet someone, which probably has quite a bit to do with the narrative of Fourze?

I've had my own gripes with the whole Presenters concept I could get into, some of which actually line up with what you guys are saying, but like, I can definitely see a lot of what it's trying to add to the show.

Well, obviously, and it's always seen as a good thing to push kids harder, it's constantly told there that you have to work hard and always study so you'd be successful later. It'd be hard too to refute that if there's a 'limit' on how needed it is for the kids to push hard. I rather feel that school institution operated like Kekera regarding misery builds character, and the one who isn't are just deemed as having thin skin, the students would be the easy scapegoat for the school if they fail, so that the school doesn't need to re-evaluate themselves. Them being well-meaning also expects the students and society to owe them and get hero worship treatment, which means they can never be in the wrong and should never be questioned. Otherwise, yeah, it should be obvious on why there are no teachers or cops who act against AGHS, as Gamou is the head of it and it's only Zodiart factory. The revelation of Sonoda being one of the Horoscopes is meant for this, about the true nature of the entire school (so Gamou or Sonoda aren't the exceptions).

Guess it'd depend on what kind of goal someone is working for. Kengo's goal is to continue what his dad left of which would be about protecting the students in AGHS, but obviously, protecting people would require being able to connect with people, thus being able to be more fond of people would drive him better to protect people. Also, it feels that for KRC, they have similar goal, like how Gentaro would protect his friends as well as potential friends (other people), with Kengo wanting to do that as continuation of his dad, or Miu thinking it's Queen's duty to look after the school. And I thought for last episode, Kengo was being more logical than ever despite what other people said of him letting go of it, where rather than being hostile or mad at other people, though understandably, like before, he questioned Hayami about the needed info, which leads to Hayami giving various intel to the KRC.

Gai's redemption in Zero-One was also what's seen as having a sudden bout of guilt (for a far grander scale of crimes). I guess Emoto tried to tell Kengo that (he teleported only them together), but he was already dying before he can utter the word. Tachibana has seemingly betrayed 3 times in both Kousei Amano's roles here... as well as the revelation that Tachibana was Virgo before. Otherwise, after Ran got some tolerable showing before, this may re-ignite the hatedom for her for being short-sighted to take the Switch to save Haru without a plan, handing herself over to Gamou's plan, while others (an athlete in Shun and a girl in Miu being another one who got thrown by her) including Haru himself is screaming at her not to do it. I don't know about Gamou not caring about Hayami, as for below, Tendou looks out for people like Kagami while dismissing friendship.

If it happens to any other protagonists, regarding trusting the wrong person, being betrayed, and having thoughts of good deeds being genuine (e.g. risking life or sacrificing due to friendship), they'd be mocked and criticized as being naive and a proof that virtue is weakness. I guess it seems that if someone didn't get direct danger from the person who betrayed them and almost get killed and needing to be saved from (Hayami only punched Gentaro a few times in human form), people wouldn't think they're acting naive. What Gamou said regarding Hayami's death is similar to what Tendou said about how they're the sun, and Tendou also dismissed the concept of friendship, saying that it's only for those who have naive hearts (why is it a surprise that he agreed to kill Tsurugi?).

Sure, and I could've been less dismissive about it, but the Presenter scheme (which is a Gamou-only obsession) is super secondary to the Destroying Japan consequences, which is more what I was trying to get at in my post. That said, everyone's spending a lot of time talking about Presenters as a main topic thing in 46, which I find a little rushed and comical.

It has long been the position of Kamen Rider Die threads that "Tsurugi dies" is an unfortunate, if common, misreading of the text. In actuality, Tsurugi went back home to France, and lived a long life afterwards.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 47 - “BEST FRIENDS PART WAYS”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze47a.png

It’s always funny to me, as I rewatch these shows, what I remember and what I’ve forgotten. I might remember a minor twist in a mid-series episode of little significance, but forget a huge late-series reveal that provides context and drama to a million previous scenes.

For example, it was only a couple episodes ago that I remembered that Kengo was some sort of Space Baby MacGuffin. (Like, the minute where the Flashback Friends unearth/unmoon the Core Switch in 45, I was like Oh Yeah This Is A Kengo Thing.) That feels like a massive piece of information that it’s insane to forget – along the lines of huge reveals in Faiz andd W, or the fact that Ghost gets really good at some point – and yet not only did I manage it, I can sort of see why I forgot? In an episode that I almost completely adored, Kengo Is A Space Baby is the part I could most take or leave. It’s fine, as a late series twist that, like a dozen other things from 45-48 of this show, could have been better used by sprinkling them out where they’d be allowed to be more fully examined and utilized, rather than being told to us a scene before it’s crucial to the plot, but I don’t think it breaks the show or anything. It wraps up a couple lingering questions that viewers could possibly have (Kengo’s cosmic swooning, why he couldn’t use the Fourze Driver) with answers that don’t require much mental gymnastics to go along with. But it’s not only something that doesn’t drastically impact the series until more or less when Kengo tells about it, it also doesn’t impact Kengo as a character in the ways that we most care about; it’s information that matters to the plot, but not to the character’s journey. It’s a complication that gives Kengo a reason to have to leave, but the the weight of him leaving is all about how he’s changed as a person, which has nothing to do with him being a Space Baby. While it’s there the whole time in the show if you care to look for it, for the effect it has narratively, Kengo might as well have been blasted with a Turn Into A Space Teen ray from Sagittarius last episode. It’s not a big deal for Kengo as he changes and grows over 46 episodes of television, it’s a last-minute dilemma for the finale to resolve.

(I also… man, I loved the ridiculous exposition trying to explain Kengo being a Space Baby, because it is easily the dumbest writing this show has ever done, and I’d be mad about it if a) I cared about the Space Baby stuff, and b) the rest of this episode wasn’t so excellent. Like, Emoto leaves Utahoshi to die, and then immediately comes back to get baby Kengo because he feels so guilty, and then still leaves Utahoshi on the moon to die instead of rescuing him as well, but still regrets it for another 18 years? Or, he waited until Utahoshi died, and then rescued the baby that this flashback specifically says that Emoto and Gamou didn’t even know about? And, like, who in the hell was raising Kengo all this time? How did anyone in Utahoshi’s family think that he managed to have a son without a spouse while he was on the moon?! I sort of love how Kengo Is A Space Baby is literally the only part of his backstory that makes any sense now! That is kind of impressive!)

But the dilemma of Kengo needing to leave, that’s the stuff. It’s an episode that splits off into two parts, where each part is amazing in hyper-specific ways.

I wanna talk about the Rabbit Hatch part first; not because it’s the best part (it isn’t), but because I like how it lets the other KRC members chime in on a plot that that not only doesn’t include them, but doesn’t really require them. Most of these other kids barely know Kengo, and they certainly aren’t his best friends, but it’s neat to get their perspective on whether or not Kengo should go into space, and why he’s being so callous all of a sudden. To the latter point, I like that Ryuusei’s the only one who sees the value in Kengo lying about his emotional state, because that’s what Ryuusei spent half his time on this show doing. Ryuusei thinks that in order to protect the people you care about, you might have to lie about what you’re going through, and that’s something in which Ryuusei can now see the tragedy. Meanwhile, while characters like Tomoko fret over the horribleness of fate, Miu is the pragmatic leader, gritting her teeth and admitting that Kengo’s plan is one that’d save the most lives, so it’s understandable why he’d sacrifice himself like that. This whole scene is just characters chiming in on the plot to help the viewer orient themselves emotionally, but it’s done with such brevity and precision that it was, honestly, almost the episode highlight.

It wasn’t, though, because we had the scene with the Core Trio at the space center.

I love stuff like that, when a show brings us to a place we’ve seen every single episode, but shows it to us in a new way. (See also: a massive battle in the Rabbit Hatch! That Gamou also has a personal history with!) Taking that fun romp through the space center – all duck faces and youthful energy – but now turning it into something melancholy and bittersweet, that’s good storytelling. It’s smart to pull Kengo, Yuuki, and Gentarou into their own subplot to deal with Kengo’s emotional state and planned exit; it’s brilliant to do it in the place that was only ever for the three of them. The speech that Gentarou gives is suitably generous, him vowing to support Kengo endlessly as long as Kengo is honest about it; the little deflecting song that Yuuki sings is adorable for its corny attempt at levity, which was always Yuuki’s move. But it’s the acting that makes the scene unstoppable. When Gentarou is crying his eyes out, and Kengo is red-eyed and sputtering, and Yuuki just needs a hug to let her be okay with her sadness… man, A+. A+ moment for these young actors, when the show needs them to deliver. It’s solidifying these three as the heart of the show, and the stakes of their friendship as the most vital. (And Kengo even does the I’m Finally Calling You By Your First Name To Show That We Are Best Friends thing! I love that move!) The rest of it, the Space Baby stuff and Gamou’s long history of needing to be the Most Special Astronaut, it’s fine, I don’t mind it, it’s great if it means something to you. For me, I care about these kids, and this episode gave me everything I wanted.

You might even say it meant the world to me.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze47b.png

Sota Fukushi is, hands down, the best ugly crier in the history of Kamen Rider. Nobody else even comes close.

So my fun fact for this week is that originally, instead of showing he didn’t need to breath to prove he’s not human, Kengo would’ve transformed into an alien resembling Fourze. But they didn’t have the CG budget for Sagittarius to go Supernova like the others, so some cutbacks were made.

He's really great, and it's so apropos for Gentarou as a character -- dude's got great big emotions and does not know how to moderate them!

I just figured it was a Nadeshiko callback? If you need a dramatic way to tell Gentarou that you're a non-human lifeform, that's the accepted way to do it!

About Kengo being in conflict with Gentaro before for him trying to help Nadeshiko, turns out that Kengo wasn't different from Nadeshiko. Obviously, as what Gentaro already did, or recurring theme in Kamen Rider, it shouldn't matter which species someone is. This is important for the villain fighting aspect, in the reason of why Japan isn't doomed yet due to Gamou collecting all the 12 Horoscopes, and that everyone including the main KRC cast are still safe, that the real chosen one was Kengo to visit the Presenters. Wonder what'd be the other proper way to prevent Gamou from succeeding until now other than the shoehorned plot/secret revelation (of which, Utahoshi name means star, thus explaining Kengo's origins).

It's rather ironic for the franchise that, the move Gamou uses to commit the most significant atrocity to the cast in murdering Kengo, was a Rider Kick. Should be obvious that Emoto rescued Kengo after Rokuro died, guilt happens when the damage is done and is irreversible. Kengo was given to Rokuro's relatives, being said as Rokuro's son, and was raised by them. What's said here in this discussion is about Gamou only having infinite ego, but it's clearly said here that Gamou wants to evolve humanity in the backstory with Rokuro, at the cost of Japan casualty.

It was actually rather good fighting scene between Ryusei and Tatsugami in their human forms. Tatsugami is clearly stronger, but Ryusei manages to hold his own due to using martial art techniques, something that seems to be more significant in their human forms rather than when Ryusei fights as Meteor. It's confirmed here that Tatsugami doesn't value his life, he devotes himself for his loyalty to Gamou while having nothing else going on in his life, used to also waste his life by only brawling in alleyway fights. Ohsugi got more involved here to not only hear about Kengo's explanation, but also tries to stop Leo from harming the students and reported to Gentaro and Yuki that Rabbit Hatch was attacked (from the man who once intruded in the Rabbit Hatch to antagonize these three).

Yuki's obsession with space began due to hearing voices from the Presenters (though it's about Riku Sanjo episodes), which was what Gamou related to her with before to create Gemini. This should also have Yuki being more motivated to become an astronaut, so that she can meet Kengo again after he returned to the Presenters. It'd be not a sacrifice for Kengo (he's not dying), but just going separate ways that they may not be able to visit them anymore. This should be also about their bond rather than plot revelation, with an added thing of actually showcasing Yuki's determination or the show's theme of breaking the impossible.

Nadeshiko is made of space goo; Kengo is made of space rays. Totally different!

(But, no, it was pretty lucky for Kengo that he didn't talk Gentarou out of being friends with collections of space materials that were built to mimic human life!)

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 48 - “THE GALAXY OF YOUTH”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze48a.png

That graduation scene! One of the best things Kamen Rider ever did.

I like how it foregrounds the dramatic irony of Gamou’s story. He wanted to evolve humanity into something that could take its place in the stars, so he built a school in order to scheme a way that would let him do that, but the school itself became the culmination of his plan; his achievement was there the whole time, and he couldn’t even see it. The evolution of humanity… man, that’s just growing up? The next generation improves (hopefully) on the work of its predecessors, just like Utahoshi tried to explain 18 years earlier. It’s links in a chain, like Kengo’s keyholder (it keeps being narratively important!), until the dream is achieved. Gamou thought he needed to do it all himself, but the reality was that he imparted his wisdom, his drive, and even his dream to these kids, who are going to achieve it in his name. He’d already won, and he didn’t realize it.

Any finale that tries to put the villain into an emotional context with the rest of the cast is a winner for me, and Fourze’s maybe the best example. (Also: Saber, Ghost, Drive, maybe Kiva if you’re feeling generous.) Gamou was part of the same system as the kids, doing his part in their story, and that’s lovely to acknowledge. For all the ways the Zodiarts were using the KRC to power up, the KRC were learning and growing because of the Zodiarts. Everyone’s in the same space (sorry) in high school, for good or ill, and the struggles and conflicts help us learn who we want to be, and how we want to become that person. Gamou wasn’t some outside force of evil, he was a guy who helped them as part of their daily lives, even as he was doing it for the wrong reasons. From a top-level view, he was the leader of a celestial death cult that preyed on the youth entrusted to him, in order to reach the stars by obliterating a nation; from the KRC’s view, he was a misguided man who couldn’t see the value in the community his experiment accidentally fostered. The idea of imparting the same grace and forgiveness that the KRC would give to a student to the Chairman of the school, that’s something special.

I’ll always love that interpretation of the season from the kids that powered through it. It’s a view of high school that’s sentimental without being saccharine – high school is a thing that makes you who you are, and that takes both pain and joy. We grow from our success and our failures; from our happiness and our sadness; from our empathy and our selfishness; from our knowledge and our ignorance; from our heroism and our villainy. The KRC wouldn’t be who they are without Gamou, no matter who he ended up being.

Besides that scene, which is astonishing in its humanity and distillation of the show’s ethos and approach, I thought what was here was solid. It didn’t get in the way, if I can damn it with faint praise.

Kengo’s letter was very sweet, even if you knew that Kengo would 10000000% be appearing again in the episode. (I once again forgot how: Gamou saved him via Aquarius’s power, and Kengo just woke up at home and didn’t tell anyone.) I like the contents of the letter, and how it addressed all of the characters, even the ones you don’t associate with Kengo. I like him saying that the show forgot to do a major Kengo/Ryuusei story, which is a wasted opportunity; also, I think he outed JK? I like that he used his words from beyond the grave to rip on Yuuki’s normally-atrocious cooking. I like that it’s Kengo getting the final word on what everyone means to the show, because Kengo fought the hardest of anyone to become the guy who could get the final word on what everyone means to the show – his journey was the longest, and the hardest, and ended the saddest, because of what the KRC represented to him. I like him coming back in a redo of Episode 1, chiding Gentarou for having the gall to throw away a letter that someone put their heart into, because symmetry is always nice in a finale.

The middle of the episode… again, it didn’t get in the way. Fourze was about kids and school and friendship, sure, but it was equally about the Sakamoto Stunt Show Spectacular, so we get some explosions and sick bike jumps at Kamen Rider Quarry, plus all the major upgrade suits for Fourze and Meteor. It’s a fight that doesn’t mean a ton to me story-wise – trying to give Meteor a moral victory over Leo in a final speech felt forced, but whatever – but it genuinely wouldn’t feel like the end of Fourze without a half-dozen form changes and too many explosions. I think of it as ceremonial, befitting the graduation theme.

But, yeah: the graduation. I love it. It makes me so happy, to see these kids tell their season-long villain that they learned a lot from him, and that defeating him helped turn them into people that he can be proud of, and that they’ll be the people that he always wanted to be. It’s the hardest kind of finale to do, but it’s the only one that would’ve made any sense for this show. I’m gonna be smiling like Gentarou for the rest of the night.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze48b.png

One of the many distinct yet scattered specific memories I have with this finale is watching it again on a whim, I believe sometime during Wizard (maybe before Ultimatum was subbed too?), in that period I've probably mentioned somewhere in these threads at least once where my overall passion for tokusatsu had cooled just a tiny bit compared to how it usually is, now and before.

I was so invested in Fourze from the beginning, it should go without saying that I found watching the last episode a very emotional experience the first time. It shouldn't be a surprise that I found it very emotional that second time either. The thing about that second viewing that I remember most though, what really caught me off guard, was that it was actually that little mini-finale for Ryuusei that pushed me into that territory of just being like, destroyed, before I even got to the much more emotional graduation bit that I expected to do me in all over again. I'm sure it had to something to do with the distance from the show -- it now being an old show versus the newest one -- but I just got so caught up thinking of how much these characters meant to me, and all the joy I felt, not even just watching the show, but simply knowing the show was there for me to watch, that the really simple and obvious idea of Meteor turning his catchphrase around like that in the end suddenly hit me like a truck. Like I hadn't really been giving it the space in my mind it deserved, but all of a sudden, yeah, that whole Leo/Meteor rivalry really had a great payoff, didn't it? This show had a really great payoff.

If I ever tried to do an episode-by-episode deep dive on this show, it scares me to think how long I'd end up feeling the need to go on about this one episode. There's just something to say about pretty much every last scene, and even trying to just hit the major bullet points in this thread is a little overwhelming to think about.

Like, the letter-reading scene's pretty great, right? I believe there's a whole anecdote about how the staff deliberately made that all those actors' final day of filming, letting the KRC all be in one room with just each other, which is appreciably sentimental but also just cruel? I haven't checked the exact facts on this in a while, but I'm pretty sure at least Yuuki's crying there basically involved no performance at all.

And then like, the graduation thing is the big showstopper, and you'd think Die writing all that he did so eloquently would about cover it, but there's so many layers going on there! I know Switchblade mentioned when it was used earlier that he doesn't like that Kamen Rider Girls cover of Saite at all, and I think back when 25/26 aired, I didn't like it either, but here, I thought it worked fantastically to add to the emotion of the scene. I really appreciated how well edited the whole sequence is to match the gradually ramping intensity of the song itself. And like, of course I love that Fourze ends with Gentarou shaking the main villain's hand. What else could it be, you know? There's a very strong overlap between Die's taste in Rider finales and mine there, so that's the part I don't need to repeat too much. I appreciated each and every week of watching Kamen Rider Fourze for that whole year, but this conclusion in particular is extraordinarily special to me. I don't know if it's like my favorite Rider finale or any concrete way like that I could try qualifying it, but I think about this episode a ton, and it's certainly something that comes to mind almost immediately when thinking about Fourze.

Koichi Sakamoto has actually talked about that in multiple interviews. The easiest one to find probably being during the episode of "Let's Talk Toku!" that he was on, wherein he talked about the letter reading scene was the final thing filmed, specifically because everyone knew just how hard it'd hit everyone on staff.

And while I probably sound like a broken record in mentioning how alot of Fourze was just so-so to me, I can also acknowledge how cool it is that the show really hit home with those involved in making it come to life.

I keep forgetting how much everyone but me loves Meteor! (Spoiler for the Series Wrap-Up post: still did not end up loving Meteor!) (Also, Leo: not my favorite Zodiart!)

I am glad that Ryuusei got a moment in the finale for Meteor fans to enjoy, though, in much the same way I'm glad there were sick bike jumps for the fans that enjoy those. There's no wrong way to enjoy a Kamen Rider episode!

To clarify a little more, a lot of the reason I didn't expect to find that scene as emotional going back as I did was because my initial impression of it was very much that it was just Ryuusei's "give him something to do" scene. Something functional and needed, but not especially clever or interesting -- a lot like how you describe the stuff in an episode of Rider that you appreciate logically but didn't really engage with emotionally.

But I think I sort of related to Ryuusei more that second time in a way that made me understand more deeply how well thought out a final period (or exclamation mark; this *is* Sakamoto we're dealing with) at the end of Meteor's arc it was? It's very appropriate that as a transfer student, he shouldn't be there for the Gamou stuff, and I like that while the rest of the KRC express what AGHS has meant to them, Ryuusei is the one who expresses more specifically how much the KRC has meant to him, and how he's going to keep carrying all those feelings forward in his life -- that's the thing that suddenly meant way more to me however many months on, rewatching the episode as a way to think back on old times.

Sure, and that's a sweet way of looking at it. Similarly, I can try and put myself in a headspace that likes what the show is doing with Meteor and Leo -- Leo's this guy super dedicated to dying for his cause because of his faith in someone else, while Ryuusei's here saying that the kind of single-minded focus on one person in your life to the degree that your own life and goals lose their definition is super unhealthy, which is all because Ryuusei's had the KRC to help him work through his self-annihilating tendencies.

...but man, Ryuusei still isn't my guy! I'm sorry! I don't want to take him away from y'all! I will try and explain why tomorrow, but I assure you it's incredibly subjective in a variety of ways!

My most vivid memory of this last episode is Gamou telling the seemingly defeated heroes to come and listen to his big evil speech… and try the soup on the menu.

It seemed like a pretty good last meal!

For Ran to flip Shun like that though, she could succeed him as the future Power Dizer pilot. While her action was brash and ironically about Protecting Haru, a flaw she'd acknowledged, I personally wouldn't say this is on the same or worse level as before, like, Haru did actually need to be protected this time, as he was still in recovery. Ran probably felt like she needed to atone for driving him to that point of vulnerability in the first place, even though she's too young and dumb to help like she wanted. Wouldn't be the first time a KRC member did something detrimental to the team.

Regarding your Gamou and Tendo comparison, while they both have ambitions to be an ultimate example to others and are called the sun, Tendo is a true hero and wouldn't expect his satellites to sacrifice themselves for him. When he scorches, it's only when he knows somebody's ozone layer is strong enough to take it, which makes it a sign of his respect.

As a fan of the Rabbit Hatch, it certainly hurts to see it destroyed. A moon base isn't the kind of thing you can just rebuild when you no longer have a dimensional portal to get there. I'd say inviting Hayami was a terrible idea, but then, it was around that time that his Eye of Laplace had advanced enough to track other Horoscopes, which would include Gemini and Pisces, so maybe Rabbit Hatch would've been compromised no matter what. Don't even need to know where to find the gate when Tatsugami can use Virgo for teleportation.

Of course, Rabbit Hatch's destruction is secondary to what happened to Kengo, dying on the moon just like his father did, just like he had feared back in Episode 12, but this time he faced it with the conviction he gained from his friends. Like his father who entrusted his mission to him, he died confident in the belief that their mission would be continued by those who lived after him.

The Kengo letter scene is one that hits me everytime. While the old Kengo was somebody who cynically looked down on the idea that people could change or be more than what they appeared on the surface, now he's the one who posthumously convinces Gentarou to not give up on Gamou, which totally shows how much Kengo changed thanks to the friendship of KRC and how much he ended up meaning to them despite his cold exterior. Even though he's not Gentarou, the heart of the team, or Miu, the reliable chairman/ex-president, the KRC functionally had always revolved around Kengo in a way that mattered beyond what he could initially see. Not only the basic good of saving the world from evil destruction by Dark Nebula (which is real!), but also contributing to the future prosperity of humanity, not advancement for its own sake, but rather as a way to move forward together. I'm glad he revived, so he could move forward with them.

Maybe the reason why this scene might get overlooked is due to it occurring in the same space as Fourze VS Sagittarius, but hey, you know I'm a Ryusei fan, so of course I was satisfied with his climactic moment. I kind of forgot to talk more about Tatsugami like I said I was going to, like how his obsession with Gamou led him to lose his cool in the Aquarius arc, not wanting others like Gentarou to steal his special spot beside him. Ryusei was like that once, when he saw a threat to his mission to save Jirou. Meteor VS Leo works for how Leo is a symbol of Meteor's biggest failure, so Meteor's victory is a symbol of his strength in how he overcame his past self to become a true Kamen Rider who fights for justice. I totally love that payoff!

Yeah, I like that Kengo is basically the proof-of-concept for the KRC -- the first friend Gentarou tried to make when he came to AGHS (Yuuki doesn't count, they were already friends) and the last one in the KRC to shake his hand in friendship. Kengo's living (oops!) proof that Gentarou can get through to anyone if he believes in them, and he shouldn't forget that just because Gamou, y'know, executed him on the moon. Kengo's the best guy to tell Gentarou that he can make friends with anyone, because basically no one wanted to make friends with Kengo, and Kengo sneered at the concept of friendship, but Kengo died being a friend to the entire world.

Allegedly! We never saw what was on the other side of that portal! For all we know, the Presenter is in, like, Iowa. Maybe Gamou was blowing up Japan just to go to Iowa!

Finally the AGHS as something led by Gamou as well as Gamou's motivation related to it is acknowledged here. Gamou thinks what would be good for humanity is them becoming Zodiarts, as he was baffled that Ran would discard her Zodiart power with the human shell before. Like Orphnochs in Smart Brain before, Gamou was still a social darwinist and thinks lowly of regular humans, so he disregards achievements that are done as humans like what the students can do due to studying there, but the KRC are convincing him about human potential, so that humans are good enough as what they're, with Gamou also realizing that forcing evolution can be bad with his body overloading at the end, again, like how Orphnochs have short lifespan. If Gamou has realized the errors of his ways by knowing that humans are fine enough as they're, and that he suffers the consequences of his evolution, what'd be the reason for Gamou to still want to see the Presenters via the KRC? He wanted to visit the Presenters to force evolution on humanity, which plan is abandoned now, settling to follow Rokuro's mindset in passing their creations to the next generation.

Dunno if it's about different sub, but in mine, he talked about JK where both of them hide their true feelings, but convinces JK that he's strong enough? Otherwise, guess it also can happen that, while usually, the main Riders are the moral compasses of the others, like how Gentaro convinces others to bury the hatchet with Ryusei, with Kengo being the one who got the angriest at Ryusei for his murder, here, Kengo convinces the KRC to not hate Gamou, his own murderer, while still stopping him, while also being the one to stop Gentaro for throwing his letter later. This should be clearly a change for Kengo character, of which you'd like if the characters stay true to their original character, for being influenced by the main Rider. Though, Gamou was never the utterly depraved type of villain (e.g. Isaka, Dr. Maki, Gai, Glion), which can be easy and expected for him to make peace with the main cast and got redemption.

I do feel that, as usual I guess for Fourze or many Kamen Rider series, the final fight is lacking, and though it may be satisfying for some, it doesn't feel much of a payoff for how early on, everyone was worried about how Gamou can be stopped, but the final fight just have both Leo and Sagitarius, who were completely invincible before (with Leo being able to beat both Fourze and Meteor in their final forms), got beaten straight up like regular MOTW by both Meteor and Fourze, even if there's a moral victory for Meteor in him having a drive to survive for his friends unlike Leo who is an empty shell other than serving Gamou. It's only the movies that put good showings for Fourze in his multiple Switch uses against Dustards, when it should be shown against the final boss.

You aren't viewing Tsukasa the same way as this?

Which is why, it's still unknown that what are the heroes supposed to do against villains who seem to reform, regardless if it's genuine or not, where it'd be inherently risky, thus it's better to just ditch them as the usually safest route. And that, while you might be biased for Gentaro's case, if it's not Gentaro doing this, do-gooder characters would be mocked and criticized as being naive and a proof that virtue is weakness if Gentaro and Hayami stuff happens to them.

Sure, but it's also a metaphor for how adults can ignore the potential and drive of kids because they're just kids, despite that formative period being something every adult has experienced; Gamou thinks the dreams of the KRC are childish, but it's that same type of childish dream that set him on his path in the first place.

Fourze's finale is always a weird one for me. I didn't care for the emotional final showdown with Gamou on my first viewing because I was wrong. A lot of it worked better the second time around and most of my opinions on it still hold true after time three. I still have some issues with it, though, and a lot of them are because I just cannot divorce Fourze from its context. The one-on-one between Gantarou and Gamou? Fantastic. The other big action sequence? Very familiar to someone who watched Power Rangers during the Disney era and was thereby exposed to dozens of action sequences involving slow motion explosions and motorcycles. Everything about Kengo's death and return? See below. This was my third year of watching the shows as they aired and this finale, in particular, is the moment when I started to become very aware of how formulaic Kamen Rider was at the time. This would become more of an issue during Wizard, but it absolutely started here.

On the upside, it was great to see Ran and Haru properly included with the KRC in the final group shot. Also love that Haruto cameo at the end (I like to think that Shun is still fruitlessly pursuing Miu now, 14 years later, and it's really weirding out her husband and their kids).



As someone whose gateway to tokusatsu was Power Rangers, I always think it's fun to see a good end-of-season base destruction. That's incredibly rare in Kamen Rider, too, so I always have fun with this part.

As a lifelong resident, I promise you this place is not worth blowing up Japan to come visit, even back in 2012 before the drinking water was carcinogenic.

It was nice of the KRC to formally induct Ran in by using Gamou's need for validation and gratitude against, in the style of aikido. I hope she appreciated the gesture!

Man, you really owe Kengo for averting Gamou's first attempt to visit Iowa, then! Show some of that KRC gratitude to your enemy!

SERIES WRAP-UP

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/seriesa.png

I feel like talking about this show is really just talking about the characters, maybe more so than any show outside of Saber. The cast is massive, and… like, what is high school except the kids you went to school with, the teachers you had, and the administrators who disregarded your individuality in their pursuit of cosmic ascension? Because of that, as teased/threatened near the beginning of this thread, I am doing my definitive*, unchanging, deeply considered, locked-in POWER RANKING for the Kamen Rider Club. And we’re doing it in countdown order, to make it extra thematic:

*for the duration of this post only, subject to change afterwards

NOT RANKED: THE HOROSCOPES

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

Considering how the show massively ramps up the Horoscopes in the back half, it felt weird to not include them, even if as a group I don’t really love them enough to consider them my favorite characters, collectively or individually. You can kind of see the show wincing at the We Have Twelve Lieutenants thing as the series goes on, seemingly learning nothing since the time Ryuki was on the air. We get Scorpion for a long time, then Libra for a slight overlap and then a long time, then Cancer and Virgo and Leo for a while, and then nearly everyone else sort of gets crammed into a series of quick two-part stories, give or take a Pisces. As much as they seemed like a mirror to the KRC by design, they’re too dispersed and siloed to feel like a group; they’re just more powerful Zodiarts for a bunch of the time, and then a couple extra guys that have a connection to the team. There’s a thematic arrangement to them as the Anti-KRC, but I don’t know that they have enough interplay as a whole team to actually deliver on that potential.

But if we’re talking about just the main ‘Scopes – Sagittarius, Virgo, Leo, Libra – I think they worked pretty well. The Sagittarius/Virgo thing of letting the conflict power itself, where winning and losing are both delivering the same step along a path, is one of my favorite stratagems, and one we’ll be revisiting in the very next Kamen Rider series. Having the school’s hierarchy be the main threat, especially in the Scorpion/Libra/Sagittarius period, is a perfect scale of threat for a bunch of schoolkids. I don’t usually think too much about villain groups, but I like this one for Fourze. I didn’t like how they were paced, and I think they left a lot of meat on the bone for that result, but in general they worked okay.

9: JK

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/seriesjk.png

Someone’s got to be the least-loved member of any group, and for me and the KRC, it’s JK. Partly, it’s an Embarrassment Of Riches thing, where JK would probably be one of my favorites in a show with a less-accomplished ensemble. (He would’ve killed on Zi-O!) JK’s couple of spotlight episodes were thoughtful and nuanced, and his little bits of big-hearted cowardice added a fun element to rowdy fight scenes. I like JK, despite ranking him so low.

But he’s a character that the show frequently neglected to utilize – there’re at least a couple two-parters where he’s chilling out with Miu and Shun, despite every single other Amanogawa High student being involved in the main plot. He’s useful for maybe eight episodes in the beginning, helping Gentarou (and the viewer) navigate the social stratas of AGHS, but once the full team is assembled and Meteor is streaking in, JK just doesn’t have a place to exist, or a role to play – he’s just around, and you can tell that no one on the production staff figured out what his next move should be. I like him, and I think he has potential, but he’s clearly the character that got most usurped by Ryuusei and the Horoscopes.

8: Ryuusei

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

Speaking of! Ryuusei, now and forever, not my guy.

After hearing plenty from Meteor fans, I will readily and wholeheartedly acknowledge that Meteor isn’t a bad character, or has a mistake made in his storytelling, but there’s just a vibe to him that doesn’t work for me. After thinking on it for a bit, I’ve come up with two reasons: one that’s fairly grounded in the text, and one that people are probably going to find rude and mean-spirited.

The one in the text… like, it’s Ryuusei’s demeanor, and how it fits into the final third of the show? He’s the guy that Doesn’t Want To Be There, and I never really enjoy watching that long-term. (I dug some of the comedic aspects to Ryuusei’s ruse in the beginning, but it did not last long.) Even after he sheds his deception and fully joins the KRC as Gentarou’s friend, he’s always grumpy, and an ill-fit for a collection of outgoing weirdos. I get that that’s the point, but I don’t have to like watching it. I don’t like that guy! Go back to your old school already!

The other reason is so dumb. Basically, I feel like Ryo Yoshizawa – much like his character – does not want to be there.

While the non-canon Quizzes and Net Movies gave me a deeper appreciation for the actors behind characters like Kengo and Shun, every time Ryuusei shows up there’s this, like, wave of discomfort coming off of him. Watching him try and host the Quizzes made my skin crawl. I am basing this on nothing more than vibes – I haven’t read an interview with Yoshizawa, you don’t gotta love a show to do a great job on it, and I don’t know if maybe Miu hated this show with the fire of a thousand suns – but the more I saw of him, the more I was bringing that dislike back into the show. It’s petty, and it’s projecting, but it’s seriously how I took this guy over the course of the series. Not my guy!

That said, he ranks higher than JK just out of basic narrative utility – he’s the Secondary Rider, so the show never loses track of him, or forgets what he’s there to accomplish. His arc is basically the middle-third of the series, and even in the aftermath of it he’s got plenty to add to the superheroic side of things. He’s valuable, even to someone like me who isn’t craving additional minutes of screentime for him.

7: Shun

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

Arguably less notable than JK in the long run – once Meteor renders the Power Dizer irrelevant, Shun’s basically just Miu’s accessory – but a combination of fun initial arc (he tackles Fourze!!!), the unbeatable conception of “sweetheart himbo that’s colossally full of himself”, and proximity to Miu render him a fairly likable member of the KRC, even at his least essential. (More or less once he and Miu graduate.)

But the thing that made Shun so fun for me this time is exactly the same thing that made me like Ryuusei less this time – he’s so good in the ancillary, non-canon content! This guy is completely fine playing the entertaining buffoon, because he is an entertaining buffoon; there are hard edits in the Quizzes where the producers had to drop some weird, unfunny gag or bit that Shun just decided to do. It’s charming and dopey, which is 100% Shun.

6: Ohsugi

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

I know. I know! I still find the Scorpion-era Ohsugi to be both repellent and nearly anti-comedy in his leering, obsessive workplace harassment. But there’s a stretch of this show – post-Scorpion, pre-summer movie – where Ohsugi is such a reliable burst of goofy energy, and the secret ingredient to the KRC as a school-adjacent concept, that I totally get why they bring him back more often as a Legend Rider(-friend) than any other character on the show. He grounds the KRC back into the school ecosystem, and having to navigate his lack of genre savvy is always good for a laugh.

He also… man, there are some incredibly sweet moments of drama when Ohsugi drops the clown act and implores these kids to come back safe and sound from one of their world-saving missions, and it, again, grounds the show into a world with actual normal parents and guardians, to reinforce that these are still children, and they shouldn’t have to deal with any of this nonsense. Ohsugi is a crucial additional viewpoint for a show that lacks much sense (especially late in the run) of how the adults of Amanogawa might view the KRC, and he gets some good bursts of comedy and drama.

(But, man, those Sonoda episodes! Horrifying! In poor taste 15 years ago, and did not age well!)

5: Yuuki

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

Yuuki’s like an oscillating wave with Ohsugi, where her best period is his weakest, and her prominence is matched with his irrelevance, and vice versa. (This show is sort of not great on a series level with juggling its massive ensemble!) Yuuki starts off incredibly strong, with a flustered but forthright attitude that’s capable of acting as the interpreter between Gentarou’s boisterous lack of forethought and Kengo’s grumpy overcaution. She’s an integral part of the core dynamic of the show; if Gentarou’s the heart and Kengo is the brain, then Yuuki is the spirit. The KRC fundamentally doesn’t exist without Yuuki as one of its founders. I love this version of the character enough to rank her this high based on those episodes alone.

But that’s Act 1 Yuuki – it’s in Act 2 and Act 3 that the wheels start to come off.

Act 2, the post-winter movie version, is still plenty likable, even if her counseling attributes go underutilized in a group full of so many different personalities. Yuuki is great with Kengo and Gentarou, but she becomes more of a – if you’ll pardon the expression – space cadet once the KRC ramps up to full power. She’s more comedy relief, and borderline-parodic when asked to take things serious and/or sad. (She does this Sad Cartoon Animal thing when she’s supposed to be reacting to most serious developments, and it’s… a choice.) When given something related to Gentarou or Kengo, her Act 2 stuff still works; when given something to do in the larger group or story, she’s the new Ohsugi (derogatory).

But, boy, Act 3 Yuuki! Not my favorite! Definitely too broad in her performance, and her Gemini spotlight story was one that I found to be a huge misfire, narratively. I think she gets it back in the finale, but there’s a string of episodes here – Aquarius, Gemini – that really tainted my opinion of Yuuki.

Real good to start, though!

4: Kengo

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

Kengo is the character I most came around on with this rewatch. I never really liked him on my initial view, but I’m struggling to remember why. I think I just found him too petulant and whiny in the beginning, or just not a great actor. (I still think he’s… solid, maybe not the guy in the cast you see having a long and celebrated career in the industry.)

So imagine my surprise on this rewatch when the Kengo/Gentarou dynamic immediately locked in for me, providing the nucleus around which the entire show orbited. I know I just said that the KRC couldn’t exist without Yuuki, but that’s only because she facilitated the epic and heartwarming friendship between Gentarou and Kengo. It’s a bond that never feels like a foregone conclusion, or permanently resolved – every time Kengo loses his shit at some insane assertion from Gentarou re: Making Friends, I bought the tension and friction that kept them trying to understand each other, over and over, all season long, because that’s what friendship is. Without Kengo’s arc, you’ve got no show. The Ryuusei stuff doesn’t work without Kengo’s story to provide a template that Meteor could play off of; the Gamou stuff doesn’t work without Kengo’s example; the friendship between Gen and Kengo is the show.

And I think Kengo carries his side of things beautifully? The high point for me (non-47/48 category) has to be Cosmic States, where Kengo has to devise and fulfill a Gentarou plan to revive Gentarou, and the ability for Kengo to do that was such a brilliant example of how these two knuckleheads impacted each other for the better. If I like Fourze, it’s because of this friendship.

3: Gentarou

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

And yet, for all the ways Kengo changes from being Gentarou’s friend, I like that Gentarou himself doesn’t fundamentally change between Episode 1 and Episode 48. He’s tested, and he refines his worldview, but his methodology and goals are consistent throughout. Because Gen’s role in the story isn’t to change, but to facilitate the change in others.

Gentarou is high school.

He’s the constant that guides others, brings them together, and helps them become the best versions of themselves through attention and support. He’s unwavering, and he doesn’t change along with the characters. He’s reliable and dependable and lots of other ables (to quote Dave Lister), and that’s the perfect lead Rider for this show. Not every show needs the lead Rider to be a POV character that resolves their own traumas or learns something new about themselves. (I love that there’s literally one mention of Gen’s parents’ having a mysterious job before their mysterious death, and it never comes up again, and Gen is smiling the whole time he recounts this part of his past.) There are shows like Gavv and Gotchard that are all about growing up and figuring out your shit, as seen through the lens of the title character; then there are shows like Kabuto, or Geats, or Fourze, where the title Rider is one that largely exists as a port in a storm, an idealized figure that we can trust to show us the way forward. Gen was that Rider, despite his youth and naivete. He was steady, and an exemplar of the power of friendship. He didn’t need to change or grow, because he was more concerned about making sure all of his friends got the chance to change and grow. That’s a hero.

2: Tomoko

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

I wish I had something deep to say about Tomoko, but I just think she’s adorable. I enjoyed everything that actor did, even if 90% of it is just categorized in my brain as Is Adorable. In any other year, Tomoko is the best character for being the best Amazon in going-on 55 years of Kamen Rider history, and then being the most adorable member of the KRC.

1: Miu

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

But we are in the year 2026, and I just finished rewatching the Kamen Rider Fourze series, and Miu is my favorite character.

It’s such a fun character, the haughty mean girl who basically becomes the leader of a superhero team through her indomitable will and unshakable self-belief, while reframing her haughtiness as hard-earned pride, and her meanness as motivating steel. Whenever the show needed to quickly and smartly establish the stakes – comedy or drama – a line from Miu would get the job done. My favorite actor on the show, and the one who I always, always believed. I wish the show had kept her as central to the storytelling post-graduation, but even in the aftermath of her presidency, she usually got a good scene every other episode. (I don’t love that string of four episodes or so where it’s just her and Shun and whomever hanging out in the Rabbit Hatch while the story happened elsewhere, but she even made that work.)

In a better version of this show, Miu would’ve been the secondary or tertiary Rider, but she’ll always be the leader of the KRC to me. If this rewatch gave me nothing but a chance to appreciate Miu again, it’d’ve been more than worth it; to give me that AND a chance to befriend the rest of her team again, that was a real joy.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/seriesb.png

Honestly, at the end of the day, after all these years, Fourze is a series where I feel nothing. I don’t hate it, but it’s not cracking my top 10 either. Which if you’re familiar with my opinions on… anything shouldn’t be a surprise (and if you’re not, the basic low-down is that I’m meh on anything beloved and popular, while drawn to stuff that most people are neutral to at best, dislike at worst. That’s not even a Toku only thing, I don’t like Kevin Conroy’s take on Batman)

I'm sorry to hear it didn't work for you, but thanks for sharing your thoughts on it over the last few months!

You got the goal and means backwards. Gamou wanted to meet the Presenters after hearing the voice of space and due to his lack of faith in others, he decided to use the most expedient yet destructive method to ensure he would succeed. This was the reason for his disagreement and betrayal of Rokurou, who wanted humanity to meet the Presenters.

Rogue planet

Tragedy is part of entertainment after all, so I accept that my sadness for the destruction is a credit to the show. Some people just don't want to deal with hard emotions and will turn their back on something the moment their favorite character dies. But I think it's great that Kamen Rider can make people feel a healthy range of emotions.

Nice to see you've given Kengo and Ohsugi the promotions they deserved! Honestly, I'm especially surprised that you ended up ranking Ohsugi higher than I did. Miu's still your favorite, which is expected at this point after your consistent praise towards her, but Tomoko in second is pretty respectable. Anyway, since you shared yours, I guess it's only fair that I reciprocate with my own Kamen Rider Club Ranking, which I've now put together:

1) Tomoko
2) Gentarou
3) Ryusei
4) Miu
5) Kengo
6) Shun
7) Ohsugi
8) Yuki
9) JK

I also want to clarify like you did for JK that I don't actively dislike any of these characters. They all have some good points. Kamen Rider Fourze is such an awesome show and that's mostly thanks to this lovable group of different individuals making the world around them worth protecting.

And that's totally okay. Gentarou wouldn't want you to say something you don't believe. I respect that your opinion is authentic and not just jumping on bandwagons.

It really is! I think the basic storytelling setup of High School Monster-Fighting is solid enough to do a whole bunch of different kinds of stories, but it's the cast who interacts with those stories that makes this show so special.

Weirdly, I think I like Kengo less when I watch the show again. I think it's because I always tend to remember the character's high points and forget all of the time that he spends being either grumpy or relegated to background status because the show is way more interested in Ryusei right now.

I think Fourze cracks my top ten but not my top five. I don't know if any particularly elements of the series really stand out above the pack, but so much of it works so well that I always have a good time when I watch it. There are a lot of Rider shows that I kinda have to be in a certain mood to want to watch, but I'm pretty much always down for some Fourze.*

*Provided it's not the Gemini two-parter.

https://i.imgur.com/XTmDSbj.jpg

I find it kinda amusing you decided to give your overall thoughts on Fourze by talking about the characters, because it reminds me of when I decided to do the same exact thing with Faiz after rewatching that show. Like, it's not really that surprising either of us would make those decisions at all, it's mostly, just, it reminds me of that Zi-O two parter, and that has me questioning if there really *is* some secret deep affinity between these two seemingly very different shows which makes pairing up them more natural than we'd think. Maybe that .5 episode didn't need to bother being so insecure about it after all! :lol

Anyways, yeah, Fourze's a great time, because hanging out with these guys is always a great time. It's almost like, *too* precious of a show to me, though?

This is something this thread has got me thinking about lately, but, as best as I can currently put this theory, I'm starting to think my relationship with Fourze is sort of locked in time in a way that isn't true of any other Rider show for me? I associate it so strongly with a really specific point in my life that it's hard to think of it outside that context. It actually made rewatching the show a sluggish process for me, because I kept having that experience I described with the Meteor stuff in the finale over and over again, especially in the early episodes. It's the lighthearted show that makes me smile, but I kept getting choked up over scenes that aren't quite supposed to be *that* emotional, even when they are emotional, dramatic scenes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the episode where Tomoko joins the club did me in worse than any of them.

And I think, especially because I've since started another rewatch of Wizard, the show that inexplicably ended up meaning even more to me in the long run than this one, I'm finally becoming conscious of just how unusual that is. When I go back to any Rider show that isn't Fourze, I'm generally thinking about it in the context of where I am now, and how that changes and grows my connection to whatever given series. (You can even see this happening in real time thanks to things like my Kuuga thread.) With Fourze though, at least going back for that first full watch-through since it aired, I was mostly making deeper sense of why it resonated with me in the past.

For now, though, I think I'm going to choose to think of that as just another homework assignment to get to one day. I kind of suspect most of that baggage was something that only needs to be squared away the one time, and that still leaves the mystery of what Fourze really does mean to me in the present as something exciting to discover in the future. A future where hopefully, I'll only be crying at the scenes that are actively gunning for my tears. Fourze has long existed in this strange gray area where despite my *way* above average level of emotional attachment to it, it's somehow not a show I immediately think of as a Ghost-level all-timer for me, but, thanks to this thread, I feel like I'm finally getting a handle of some of why that is.

Them Larry King suspenders. :lolol
And god, that haiku. :lolol

I don't blame you? I don't really blame anyone who ranks the characters in different orders. Nearly any character in Fourze could either be someone's favorite, or their mortal enemy, and I could probably see it. (Except for Miu and/or Tomoko; you got a problem with them, you got a problem with me.)

No, I get it. I'm planning to do a rewatch of Agito on my commute starting in May, to refresh myself for the new movie, and I feel like it's going to be real weird -- that's the show I really associate as the start of this whole writing project, where it stopped being reactions to chunks of episodes and I started to really sit with a single installment. It's a formative show for me -- the thinking man's Kuuga! -- and I definitely am going to be right back in the winter of 2020 when I watch it again.

He's so good in the middle of this show!

We have the same top three, just not in the same order.

KAMEN RIDER CLUB MEETING – QUIZ: KAMEN RIDER URBAN LEGENDS!! EPISODE 12

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/quiz12a.png

First of all, is that right? Did Shun actually receive half the prizes for the Quizzes? I did the math, and here’s how many times each contestant won a Quiz:

Ryuusei = 0 (He was only in one, but it’d’ve been pretty funny for him to win the one he was in and be able to say he won 100% of his Quizzes.)
JK = 2
Tomoko = 2
Miu = 2 (robbed)
Yuuki = 3
Gentarou = 3
Kengo = 5
Shun = 5

So, actually, counting the Blu-ray he got for hosting 11/12 and the Nigou figure he got for hosting 2, he got seven of the eleven prizes! More than half! (Also, the winningest team was Kengo/Shun with three straight wins, and Tomoko was right to declare that they needed to be broken up after 6.)

With the bookkeeping done with, we can talk about this final Quiz, and it was one of the best. The actual normal Quiz part was solid, even if the kids seemed a little lethargic after eight questions, but the Bonus Round was insane – five kids trying to guess a number and getting incrementally more hyper about it, until only a jankenpon contest could crown a winner – and the little send-off at the end was surprisingly affecting. I wish that the various Final Stage cast Q+As would get subbed at some point, but since that feels unlikely, this is the closest I’ll maybe ever get to hear these actors talk about what this show meant to them while it was still fresh and/or raw. It’s interesting to hear how much each of them embodied parts of their characters: Tomoko’s well-spoken emotional insight; Shun’s poorly-timed humor; Yuuki’s wistful nostalgia; Miu’s charm and joy; Ryuusei’s brevity-bordering-on-curtness; Gentarou’s lack of interiority and easily befuddled nature. You get a sense of how working on this show for a year-plus bonded them, and what the end of it via a DVD pack-in (?!) signifies to them, and it honestly caught me off-guard. I thought we were just gonna give away a Kamen Rider Blu-ray! I did not think you were going to make me sad! MINUS A MILLION POINTS!!!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/quiz12b.png

Man, there were way more of these trivia quiz videos than I knew there were.