Sort of a late post considering Die has covered up to episode 4, but here goes.
Here's a "Jean-Claude Van Damme in Breakin'" levels of trivia for everyone.:lolol
Sota Fukushi wasn't the only one to find success after this show. One of the school muscleheads was Wataru Ichinose (he is I believe the shaved head dude with noodles in his mouth while working out with a pulley in episode 1) who went on to star as the protagonist in Netflix's Sanctuary, the show about a delinquent who enters the world of sumo and becomes a rikishi (portrayed by Ichinose).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA2-DjbULiM

King-Ohger fans also might want to check this out if they haven't since So Kaku who played Kaguragi/Hachi Ohger plays a prominent supporting character in it. There are probably one or two more familiar faces as well, but these two are the ones that come to mind right away.

It's a thing I will definitely get into more once we're past the winter movie and a certain character is introduced, but a major part of Gentarou's character that I love is that he can be friends with anyone, as long as it's their authentic self. Challenging himself to be friends with Miu helps him understand the ways in which they're similar, and he in turn challenges her to be true to herself. No one is worth abandoning as long as they're honest about who they are.

Very cool! Thank you!

While I wouldn't rank Miu quite as high in KRC as you do (assuming you're counting Riders?), I think the new president is a great first addition to the team for sure! I agree with you about the Kabuto reference, like Tendo, while Miu is somebody who may appear arrogant and pretentious at first sight, especially with Tamae making propaganda to frame her as such, all of her boasts are in fact totally sincere, not empty words. Tamae deceived herself, believing that she was only a stepping stone for Miu, when Miu would never make friends with people she doesn't care about. So Miu is a totally reliable and loyal friend, if you can accept her proud personality. Even Yuki-supporter Tomoko looked mildly impressed with the speech.

I knew about the FENIX employee in the next arc, but the flipping beast in this one surprised me!

Gentarou probably comes in third!

KAMEN RIDER CLUB MEETING – QUIZ: KAMEN RIDER URBAN LEGENDS!! EPISODE 01

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/quiz01a.png

I love these little quizzes. It’s all the general camaraderie and individual alliances of the KRC, but goofed off via an obligatory piece of DVD content. We get “Kengo” instead of Kengo, for example, where the normally grumpy and curt protagonist becomes an amiable and hilariously underprepared game show host. It’s just enough of the character showing through to make it feel like Fourze content, but still meta and disarmingly giggly.

Which, man, you can tell which of these kids were having the most fun on this show through these quizzes. They all seem like they’re having a good time – as someone who thinks Showa jank is ridiculous, I very much appreciate these kids laughing their asses off in unison at some of the story choices from the 1970s – but some of them just come across as more willing to look dumb in these bits of ancillary content. Miu for sure seems like she’s having a blast, and Kengo is an inspired choice for the first host. Everyone else acquits themselves well, and is at worst amiable in playing along with the conceit, but some folks seem like they really dug this idea.

(Like, I feel as though you can tell the difference between the Actors and the Performers here: the Actors get into a role and can’t really play a game as their character, while the Performers are willing to do something ridiculous if it gets a laugh. I know we’re looking at young people on a Kamen Rider show, so they’re probably all models/singers/dancers from performing arts academies or whatever, but folks like Gentarou and Shun seem like they’re not as equipped to goof around as the others.)

The quiz itself is a riot, letting a group of kids be alternately thrilled and surprised by the idiosyncratic choices that would come to define the franchise, which they themselves are the beneficiaries of with their current employment. It’s less like a bunch of modern-day young adults mocking the past, and more like the children in a family watching home videos of the granddad when he was their age. While I’m a little shocked that Actual Rider Fan JK did so poorly in the quiz (he schools them all on how Ichigou powers his Henshin!), I really enjoyed watching the cast try to reverse-engineer the correct answers from trying to decide what would be the dumbest and/or cutest options, which sometimes fails when you don’t go dumb enough. Fun way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of a very cute and very dumb franchise!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/fourze/quiz01b.png

It's an interesting choice going with Miu as the first recruit for the KRC. Given her attitude towards Gentarou in the first two episodes you'd think she'd be one of the last to come around instead of the first, especially with Tomoko actively helping out/stalking the gang at this point. It's a good choice, though, because Miu is really fun and this story does a great job of showing off the full range of her personality. It makes a lot of sense that she and Gentarou bond early on, though, since one of Miu's big things is respecting people who are honest about what they want and Gentarou never uses less than his whole ass in everything he does. I'll always love the bit where she provokes the Zodiart because she trusts that Gentarou will be able to save her.

I think this was also the first time we saw Fourze headbutt a monster and I'm always here for that.

Let's see what I said about it in '19:

The quiz segments are so fun, that I came up with my own set of multiple choice questions, which I will ask every time we reach one of these segments, and reveal the answers at the end of the next.

Q1: Which real world monarch did Geldam’s Commander Black serve under before his fall to evil?
A) George V of The United Kingdom
B) Tsar Nicolas II of Russia
C) Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany

Q2: Gel-Shocker’s combat men are given pills they must take every hour. What happens if they fail to take the pills?
A) They revert and become human again.
B) They die horribly
C) Their bodies turn inside out.

And for the third question, Hiroshi Fujioka was famously injured doing a motorcycle stunt for episode 10. What new regulations were put in place as a result?
A) All actors doing their own stunts must be qualified
B) All actors must have a motorcycle license
C) All actors must be physically athletic.

The only rules are that you can’t look the answers up on purpose.

I wonder if in the 2050's we'll have some TTFC monthly spinoff where the actors from the current Rider show are baffled by correct answers to Heisei-centric questions such as "Kiva turns into a giant bow and arrow Decade uses to defeat a monster" and "Kabuto saves exactly one falling bottle of olive oil". Heck, maybe by the 2060's we'll even have fans on futuristic forms of social media declaring they Don't Truck With Heisei!

...Eh, who am I kidding? An unsightly era like that will probably just be more popular than ever by the 80th anniversary of Rider. :p

Everything Miu does in Episode 4 makes her arrival as Club Queen at the end feel not just inevitable but necessary. She's way too competent to let a club she's in be run by these dummies!

I very much look forward to telling future fans that Ex-Aid is supposed to look like that, and maybe they aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate the heroic power of neon-pink bike shorts!

So, based on what you've said before, I guess your ranking probably looks something like:

Tomoko
Miu
Gentarou
Ryusei
Shun
Yuki
Ohsugi
Kengo
JK

Am I close?

Q1: Which real world monarch did Geldam?s Commander Black serve under before his fall to evil?
A) George V of The United Kingdom
B) Tsar Nicolas II of Russia
C) Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany

Q2: Gel-Shocker?s combat men are given pills they must take every hour. What happens if they fail to take the pills?
A) They revert and become human again.
B) They die horribly
C) Their bodies turn inside out.

And for the third question, Hiroshi Fujioka was famously injured doing a motorcycle stunt for episode 10. What new regulations were put in place as a result?
A) All actors doing their own stunts must be qualified
B) All actors must have a motorcycle license
C) All actors must be physically athletic.

I haven't watched OG Rider yet, so these are mostly just my guesses based on what seems the most Showa.

Well, my list of anything is heavily shaped by a combination of recency bias, IRL distractions, and free-floating but comedic spite, so a ranking for the KRC from my original viewing is lost to time, and my new ranking isn't complete yet. I hope to be more engaged and appreciative of the various characters that annoyed the hell out of me last time -- I'm already liking Kengo substantially more than I remember from last time, for instance. Here's a tentative ranking, just to put this someplace I can maybe reference it later:

Miu
Tomoko (I'M SORRY!!!)
Gen
Yuuki
Shun
Kengo
Ryusei
JK
Being forced to watch the Tsurugi Goes Back To France episode of Kabuto on repeat, for eternity
Ohsugi

I'm pretty sure I brought this up when I was going through the show last time, but I actually like Ohsugi a lot more than you would think I do, given my usual disdain for the slapstick comic relief characters. Not at this point in the series, mind you; there's a thing that happens which forces the character to refocus and he actually ends up becoming pretty fun.

There is for sure a Phase 2 for Ohsugi where he feels more integral to the story and less like a walking HR violation, but we definitely aren't there yet!

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 05 - “TWO SIDES TO FRIENDSHIP”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze05a.png

My all-time favorite thing in Fourze is Miu as the leader of the club. She just barges in and declares herself leader because she’s the most clever and charismatic girl in school, plus she’s already in charge of everything school-related as Queen… but then the show goes Yeah She’s Right, which is the funniest possible choice. It’s the idea that you can make a decision about the person you want to be – trying out new conceptions of yourself, new identities, new responsibilities – and you’re allowed to see where it takes you in high school. Every day’s a blank slate, and every dream you have is one you’re allowed to nurture and explore with the right group of friends (and friend-adjacent grumps like Kengo) at your side. Miu shedding things she’s outgrown, like Shun and cheerleading, in order to become a superhero supervisor that goes for moonwalks is such a fun concept to play with, and it alone makes this episode a winner for me. Every scene with Miu is fun and surprising.

Also, I guess JK’s in this one?

If you’ve got a big-hearted but impetuous main character like Gen, you inevitably have to do a story where his twin tendencies of seeing the best in people and not really thinking past his immediate desire get him into trouble, so here’s a story where the enormously phony and fawning JK manipulates Gentarou into protecting him from a vengeful Zodiart. JK’s annoying from the first scene of this episode, declaring himself Gen’s best friend and biggest fan and Gen’s the coolest and the most amazing and I hate it. It’s one of those things that haunts this episode in a variety of ways: how the story hits the same buttons over and over, way past where the show has made its point, and into something more grating and annoying. JK’s supposed to be annoying, but I don’t need all of JK’s scenes to be annoying. It makes Gen look a little too naive to be believable, and it’s just not fun to watch play out. JK is performatively awful in this story, but he also makes his scenes awful to watch.

The Ohsugi scenes: same thing! They play the Wacky musical cue under a multi-minute scene of Ohsugi and Sonoda talking about a bunch of things that clearly aren’t clues to anything, or will have any bearing on future storylines in and around this two-parter, like horoscopes, Sonoda being invited to JK’s party, or how to deal with students outside of the classroom. Ohsugi is sweaty and clammy in equal measure, his normal Horny Weirdo character from every other scene he’s had with Sonoda, but the relentless It’s A Joke music underneath was both totally unnecessary, and went on for way too long. The editing and post-production for this episode lack the confidence and cleverness of the previous episodes, layering oppressive musical cues and amplified character traits over an otherwise solid story.

Beyond the Miu stuff – perfect; I could’ve watched a hundred more of them – everything else in this episode felt tuned incorrectly. Gen comes off slightly too dimwitted, instead of sweetly motivated and single-minded in his focus on friendships. JK is wall-to-wall annoying, instead of just suspiciously outgoing and ingratiating. The music is distracting, instead of additive. The balance is wrong, rather than the ideas being bad, so I don’t think the show’s on the wrong track. This is early days, and it’ll take some fine-tuning to get things right. But this one was kind of irritating to watch!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze05b.png

I remember one person pointed out that JK stealing the thing the one person willing to defend him needs to win is stupidity on such a level as to make Starscream look like he has more common sense.

As for our Zodiarts guest star, aside from his two episode stint as Hiromi’s bestie who never gets mentioned before and doesn’t appear afterwards, also went over to the Ultra Series, where he attained a great Victory.

Honestly, everything JK does in this one tracks for me -- it's the way the show portrays it that gets on my nerves. Like, there's a lot to what JK's doing that is pointedly selfish and nihilistic. JK comes across as a guy that's made mistakes, been burned, burned others, and generally become so much of a hedonistic and self-involved caricature that he doesn't see any other way to survive. This is a guy who, much like Kengo, so loudly states that HAVING FRIENDS IS DUMB that he's clearly covering something up. Part 2 will probably help explain his strategy, but I wouldn't be surprised if doing something counter-intuitive and self-destructive isn't just part of his psychology at this point.

https://i.imgur.com/DMj9ePP.png

(I know a Blade reference would be the go-to here, but I figure this thread will have plenty of time for that later.)

I've heard Rider directors say before that being the guy who does the episodes right after the pilot is, in its own way, almost harder than being the guy who does the pilot, because you have to start working before you have a completed pilot to clearly demonstrate what the show is actually supposed to be. I don't usually feel it that much, honestly? But I do wonder if that's got something to do with what's going on here for you, Die.

That being said, the guy who directed these ones IS Hidenori Ishida, and I recall from my rewatch that this was actually the first episode to do the big zoom out to orbit for the transformation? Which I also ~think~ would mostly be contained to his episodes after this, but I know there's at least one exception there. Regardless, it was a really fun idea that the show got to keep building on and escalating throughout its run, and if that was specifically Ishida's idea to begin with, that's a heck of a gift to give this show.

Some of it's definitely that -- a show that's trying to figure out its balance and rhythms without enough past work to reference -- but some of it is also the incredibly subjective thing of me not particularly enjoying JK and Ohsugi even when they're at their best, and then this episode amplifying the things I most dislike about them, while also finding them at their most embryonic and unlikable. I was primed to not have a great time with this one, and the show did not make it easy for me to change my mind. Hopefully next time!

Before I watched the show a second time I remember thinking "you know, JK started off really rough, but I remember him being a real stand up guy by the end of the show." Then I watched the show again and realized that I was wrong.

The one positive to never quite getting onboard with certain characters on Fourze is that there are so many characters -- as long as you at least like Gen, anyone else you dislike is probably not a big enough part of the show to detract from all of the other characters that probably work better for you. On the other hand, if you're watching Gavv, and you don't like one of the main protagonists, you are kind of screwed.

(I'm just picking a recent small-cast show at random! I loved Gavv, and all of the protagonists!)

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 06 - “FULL BLOWN ELECTRIC ASSAULT”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze06a.png

This is a tough one!

I think it largely works in a few major ways. Gentarou’s point about the people who are terrible needing friends the most is exactly the sort of generous, optimistic, and self-sacrificing way that Gentarou would look at the world: good people are easy to be friends with, but shitty people only get to become good people with the help of their friends. Telling a story about how Gentarou’s naivete is more of a dedication to modeling behavior for folks that don’t understand the value of friendship makes this story more grounded and nuanced than the first part indicated, and pushing the crux of the drama to the Kengo/Gentarou side of things – losing the Elec Switch puts stress on their friendship, and Kengo grudgingly appreciates the lengths Gen will go to in order to help his friends – makes Gen’s choices reflect better on a relationship I’m more invested in as a viewer.

Because, man, JK is a total piece of shit in this story.

It’s mildly commendable, the way this one follows the Miu route of refusing to rehabilitate the character, because friendships shouldn’t be about fixing someone, they should be about accepting people so they can find the more empathetic and happy versions of themselves. But JK’s awful here. He never really apologizes to Nitta, or shows any real contrition. He’s aware of all of his friendships being transactional and hollow, but his behavior at the end of the episode is… transactional and hollow. (He’s dragged into the KRC as a kind of community service -slash- rehabilitation program, which doesn’t say much about him forming any healthier bonds in the aftermath of nearly being monster-murdered after literally everyone he knows besides Gen would rather abandon him than risk themselves for his safety.) Where Miu’s story was about someone who looked awful being revealed to be confident and highly-motivated, with a genuine interest in other people standing on their own and reaching for their dreams, JK’s just a weird, selfish jerk who someone believes in now, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s a story where Gen comes off as noble and compelling because JK isn’t worth the effort. That’s great for Gen, but sort of not great for the show.

(Honestly, after this episode, it feels like Nitta’s the one who should’ve joined the KRC? Nitta’s story is him being manipulated and betrayed by someone he thought was his friend. What better person to bring into the KRC, to show them that friendships still matter? Also, man, JK’s story here is him stealing the Elec Switch, and Gen going I Don’t Know I Guess Sometimes Friends Steal From You – is this a guy Kengo wants around all of his dad’s stuff?!)

Again, I still think this episode largely works. Gen’s viewpoint sticks the landing, especially since JK in no way deserves Gen’s grace. The Elec States stuff is fun in the final fight, even if I sort of don’t get the thematic link between the Switch and the JK plot. (I don’t feel like the two Elec Switch scenes did enough work to sell the idea of Gen needing to be okay with being electrocuted or whatever in order for the Switch to stop electrocuting him?) Making the second part more about Gen and Kengo than Gen and JK was a smart move narratively, even if it kind of exposes how irredeemable JK is here. Miu subtly pushes Kengo to do the right thing and support Fourze, even if he can’t support Gen, which shows how good she is as the leader. The principal’s moon chair is neat, and his foreboding monologues about space are great. The direction uses a few killer shots, like that hillside scene in the top screenshot. Tomoko gets an A+ weird scene. There’s good stuff here!

But, yeesh, JK. I don’t know that you gotta let a manipulative scumbag into your life! I don’t know if that’s a great choice!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze06b.png

I love how Elec States has mitsudomoe-looking turbines on its front straps. My guess is they're inspired by the depictions of the Raijin, the thunder deity from Japanese mythology/lore.

Neat theory!

So, before I even knew you'd actually bring it up yourself in the text of that post, just from seeing the screenshot before reading anything, I instantly knew I wanted to comment on how much I like that framing against that dialogue? It's fairly basic stuff, but just maximizing the literal physical distance between Gentarou and JK in that moment, that's such a great way to emphasize the difficulty of them making an actual connection. JK's even on the lower ground, because he just can't stop being the lowest of the low!

...Which, yeah, I can understand why every now and then I'll see fans who kinda can't stand the guy. It's one of those things where it's really important to the point of the show that this character exists the way he does and everything, but it's also kinda a show about hanging out with these fun characters you'd want to be around, so...

I feel like JK is meant to give off more of a "oh, that lovable rascal" vibe, at least later on, but obviously the whole audience isn't liable to be as generous as Gentarou.

Heck, even I'm barely sticking up for the guy out of the gate, because I'd much rather talk about something else in this episode! Which is the insert theme that debuts here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXM2-chWAfM

Giant Step might be my actual favorite Rider insert theme ever? I'm both naturally terrible at ranking things and also just plain don't like to, but when I try to think of other Rider inserts that mean this much to me, the ones that immediately come to mind can still be counted on one hand, all these years later? (It's like, Destiny's Play, Just the Beginning... probably some other ones but it's already hard to say definitively...)

On the surface level, I just love the overall sound of it, of course. It's super energetic and has the electronic vibe and everything to make it fit perfectly as something that pumps up the excitement for a fight scene in Fourze specifically. But how well it fits in a scene is only sorta half the equation, because part of the idea of even doing insert themes like this is that fans get to listen to them outside of the show whenever they want to bring that same energy into their own lives, and Giant Step absolutely crushes that part. It's to the point where it's a song that's almost more directly for the audience than the characters?

The title is obviously an allusion to Neil Armstrong's famous quote contrasting how the literal small step he took onto the moon represented an enormous accomplishment for humanity -- something that would've been thought impossible not that long prior to it happening. What the lyrics of the song do is spin that into something more personal in scale, encouraging the listener to keep taking those small steps in life even in the face of frustration and uncertainty, because they'll turn out to be much bigger leaps than you'll realize at first. It definitely loses something when I talk about it like this (as I always insist -- I'm not anywhere near the wordsmith Shouko Fujibayashi is!), but despite not literally just being Gentarou singing about friendship or something, I think it does a brilliant job of representing Fourze as a whole. It's got the space stuff in the sound and language, it's got the high school stuff in the themes of finding your future and all that, it's got the teamwork because it's a duet, it's got the optimism of a show designed to make people smile... what more could you ask for?

Well, actually, in my specific case, I also have to thank Giant Step for introducing me to May'n, but honestly, that's like a whole separate rant at this point, and I've already gone on longer than I expected to. Suffice it to say "got me to watch Macross Frontier" is not something most Rider songs can brag about. :lol

JK's story here is one that, if he were just a one-off student, I'd probably think was Fourze making some incredibly unique and smart choices with its storytelling. Gen being all gung-ho about trying to show a jerk what friendship really is, especially when he doesn't in any way deserve it, is such a great Gentarou story to tell.

But then JK's still there afterwards, and it reframes the previous Gen Is A Guy With A Code story into an origin story for why JK is now part of everyone's friend group, and I just sort of think you can't do both of those stories at the same time? You can't do a story about a manipulative, scheming jerk AND have that story be about everyone making a new friend. Those are two very different stories! Putting them together is so weird!

(That said, I will probably forget all about this in maybe two or three episodes, once JK is just part of the gang, and he bails Gen out of some random situation. I am willing to not dwell on this!)

I think the show is going for JK as a character who needs to learn the value of real friendship, hence the contrast with all of the shallow dirtbags he usually hangs out with who are completely content to let him get murdered by a guy doing his best Horse Orphenoch impression. It doesn't entirely land, though, because JK doesn't seem to really learn anything from the experience. I guess you could argue that the KRC is like a "friendship training camp" program, but I don't think anybody is especially devoted to working with JK (or that he'd be particularly receptive to it).

I think I tended to view JK as being less of a dick because of his appearance with Gentarou in the Ex-Aid/Build movie. I don't really remember much about that, though, and I think his role was actually pretty minor. Going back through the show, JK is not a character that benefits from getting a lot of narrative focus.

I will admit here that I did forget Tomoko was responsible for getting Gentarou back to the Rabbit Hutch, which is more of a role than I remembered her playing in the story. It still feels like the show is really stretching to fit all of the main cast in before they fully sign up with the KRC.

Gentarou doesn't even ask anyone! He just inflicts JK on them! This is not doing wonders for making JK seem like less of a weird obligation!!!

I wanna say it just showed up again for some Gavv stuff? It's a really pretty hill.

I think him and Ohsugi being in that movie was because they were officially The Ones Toei Could Book, the most crucial attribute of any returning actor to a movie or TV show for this franchise. (See also: Ohsugi in Zi-O, and Zanki for like five straight years.)

Wow, yeah, your opinions changed a lot in only a week. Curious to see how this ranking will look by the end of the show.

Liking the main characters isn't the only important thing though. If they're poorly balanced, then it can hurt the group dynamic. I think Kamen Rider Fourze, being a show about the magic of friendship, is excellent at making everybody feel like they matter, which Gavv struggles with after the halfway point.

This arc might be the weakest of the introductions, as it establishes JK as this problematic dude who might betray you if you give him the chance, yet all of his most deplorable traits pretty much disappear after this. On my first watch, I thought it was simply another great win for Gentarou, but like, that was a long time ago, before I could really understand Nitta's perspective.

Maybe that makes me sound a little cynical, which I don't want to be, but there are surely people similar to JK who even after learning right from wrong will continue to do wrong to their friends if it benefits them in the short term. Seeing Gentarou go so far for this guy (saving his life is a given of course) after learning how many times he's conned people is harder to accept now and it seems like the show was afraid to show the danger of bringing a wildcard like JK in to the KRC, or rather it couldn't do that without contrasting too hard with the friendship theme. Fortunately, JK is genuinely redeemed here, so I guess we can move on.

I wouldn't call Giant Step my favorite Rider insert theme ever, but it's surely in the top 10!

Totally a fitting insert to hype up Fourze's first big form change as well. Elec States is a great suit with the shiny gold texture and the turbines and I like the plug and outlet gimmick of Billy The Rod.

May'n will also be performing Love Is The Strongest, the OP for Gavan Infinity!

Question for Die, what is your opinion of the upcoming Gavan Infinity, as a non-Metal Hero fan?

Yeah, there's a pretty big difference between saving JK's life while modeling better behavior for him (good!) and putting yourself and your friends in the position of being hurt by a guy with a history of duplicity and theft that hasn't really committed to changing his ways (bad!). I'll be happy to stop thinking about this part of JK's story real soon!

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 07 - “A REALLY CRUEL KING”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze07a.png

This is the first episode that really felt like full-force Fourze, you know?

It’s an episode that is, beyond an alternative teacher to maintain discipline and a Zodiart monster, completely handled by the entire KRC, even if they aren’t all on the same side yet. (It’s… I find it sort of difficult to maintain an air of credulity and obliviousness as to whether Shun will overcome his raging narcissism and unchecked privilege to join the gang on the moon, since he’s been in every single episode's opening sequence on the moon with the gang.) Where previous stories would slowly fold in one member at a time, and pad out the remaining dialogue with Ohsugi or Sonoda or someone’s sidekick, this one’s the full KRC bouncing off of each other while getting in and out of trouble, and it’s kind of perfect.

The bulk of the cast is off doing a low-stakes Breakfast Club, so lemme first talk about the bit with JK and Miu – my least-favorite KRC member teaming with my (current?) favorite KRC member. It’s incredibly fun, and a great early example of the toolbox this show has at its disposal. Miu’s the hardest working member of the club, and JK’s sort of got nothing else going on (see last episode’s nearly-fatal abandonment!), so while the rest of the cast is stuck in a John Hughes homage, Miu and JK have to handle the various superhero confrontations and investigations. Really think about that for a second: the self-centered party animal and the terrifyingly-motivated princess are responsible for the main tokusatsu storytelling for this episode. But, it works, and it works great. Just seeing Miu try to tell off a dog-shaped cosmic monstrosity before JK lets his unwavering self-preservation wind things down to a more survivable level is worth the price of admission, but the two of them genuinely carry the connective tissue necessary to keep this thing in the realm of Action/Adventure through multiple scenes. And this is the most random possible combination of club members!

Meanwhile the remaining active KRC members – Gentarou, Kengo, and Yuuki – are forced to spend a Sunday doing remedial work alongside a scene-stealing Tomoko and a permanently-enraged Shun. We’re in a story that’s trying to reveal what makes Shun tick so that the audience and the KRC members can try to see him with a little more empathy, so of course Shun is fighting that tooth and nail through his performance. He’s traded Miu for Reiko after Miu expresses interests he doesn’t like (as well as not making him the center of her world), and he views the world as his birthright, thanks to his supportive but enabling father. The disobedient chaos and easy charm of the KRC drives him up the wall, and he becomes more and more unhinged until a climactic sequence where he throws a football at Fourze’s head and basically screams NNNEEEEEERRRRRRRDDDDDDSSSSS until the screen says To Be Continued. He’s angry and entitled, for the whole episode.

Which is maybe the only slightly bum note? Maybe? Shun’s adamant that things work out the way he wants them to, but we’re kind of missing the psychology that explains why he’s losing his mind over Kengo going off to fight a dog-shaped cosmic monstrosity in a suit of power armor. (That’s, like, in one of the main equipment sheds! Have other students seen this thing behind racks of athletic gear and next to the groundskeeping machinery? Is anyone asking questions about why a high school has a mech?) Shun is going bonkers in this episode, and what we’re told is clearly half the story, so we’re just randomly watching him be more of a disciplinarian than the actual teacher, who wanders off constantly. It’s antagonism that’s waiting for explanation, beyond just Shun Is Mean, and it makes Shun’s scenes not as effective as they could’ve been.

But that’s super minor! I loved the rhythm of this one, and how the full cast allowed for fresh angles and exciting interactions. Watching this cast work off of each other is the most reliable pleasure of this series, and this episode ably proves it.

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So this one I actually have something to say about. The conclusion to last time’s two-parter failed to register in my brain.

It took me a few watches and checking the Rider Zukan to realise that Shun’s new girlfriend was the same girl Gen and JK tried setting up as a Queen Fest competitor.

And before I get to the actor appearing before part, I’m going about the obligatory joke on an actor appearing later with no Regad for our Zodiarts of the weaks and his face full of Zitt. Now let’s Access some trivia on the motivation behind his Enforcement of Violence.

Rider-lert!

Our detention teacher who’s a little too fond of the words “bad boy” is Satoshi Jinbo, in his third go-around in Rider, after being Alternative Zero in Ryuki and the Rhino Fangire in Kiva.

Yep! She got to be a Queen after all!

A really neat aspect of the high school setting is that it allows the show to have recurring characters outside of the main cast. It’s neat when Fourze does this, but it does end up feeling underutilized.

I hear you, but the counter-point is that this show has maybe the largest full-series cast of any show in Heisei (and probably gives Geats and Saber a run for their money in Reiwa, considering how fluid both of those shows' casts are) so finding room and space for a random classmate or two is possibly asking too much of a Toei budget. Also, it's pretty difficult to remember all of these one-off kids: Androzani knows everything, and even he needed help to remember Reiko, who had only just appeared in Episode 3!

Definitely one of the more memorable cliffhangers in this show, in my book?

Seeing Shun abruptly decide to grab onto Fourze as he blasts off especially, like... I don't recall this being a cliffhanger that has any particular dramatic weight, because it doesn't add a new wrinkle to the story so much as reinforce what we already knew, but it's just so gosh darn outrageous it's impossible to hate.

Honestly, this is one of maybe three things I remember from this TV show. I couldn't tell you what happens next, and I didn't remember most of what led up to it, but I knew this was the episode where an enraged Shun mid-air tackles Fourze into a cliffhanger. It's a pretty great thing to end an episode on!

(Also, I was at work way too late today, and I've got a bunch of leftover work I've gotta do from home, so Episode 8 will be tomorrow night! Please don't tackle any superheroes in the meantime!)

You're not my life coach.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 08 - “COORDINATING WITH HEAVY METAL”

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I mean, it’s pretty corny.

Like, it’s for sure a choice the whole production team made for Shun’s big speech. The crux of this story is that Shun – much like Satake’s BAD BOY of a son – is chafing under the demands of his father. But unlike the Hound, Shun deals with the stifling expectations of his father by doubling down on the pressure, forcing himself to be even more stringent in his identity as a good son. Shun hates the KRC because they’re fun, unlike his miserable existence as a popular jock. (Just, like, go with me here. I know how that last sentence sounded.) Shun breaks down at Gentarou’s flippant dismissal of Shun’s so-called leadership skills and strategizing, and tearfully lays out his entire psychology in capital letters.

(Real quick aside: as an actual American Football fan, I found this episode’s specifics on Shun, the team, and all of it to be hilariously distracting. Most of Shun’s physicality in the fight scenes would be more appropriate for a lineman, not a quarterback. Quarterbacks definitely aren’t supposed to tackle people! And Kengo’s description of the QB's leadership and play-calling kind of misses out on the idea of, you know, coaches. The QB, much like basically everyone on a sports team, is supposed to follow instructions and execute according to a coach’s plan. You can gunsling, especially at the high school level, but it’s very weird for this show to suggest that Shun subsuming his own plans in order to follow someone else’s lead is a deficiency in him as an athlete. It’s sort of a crucial skill?)

What follows is a scene of Shun weeping about his dad being overbearing, and football not being fun because of it, and him wanting to have fun, and it is a mystifying scene, tonally. If there’d been a shot of Shun using eye drops to fake tears, it’d make perfect sense in the way the actor plays it. It’s 100% this character having an emotional breakthrough, and the things he’s saying definitely make him sound miserable and self-loathing, but the performance is one of the phoniest things I’ve ever seen. It’s a joke that no one’s laughing at.

But it sort of worked, because Shun’s scene partner is Gentarou.

The thing that makes Shun and Gentarou work as scene partners is that they both have incredibly weird ideas about What It Means To Be A Man, and they’re the only ones in the cast that have that near-psychosis. (JK isn’t gonna care about manliness, the girls all think that stuff is toxic masculinity, and Kengo can relate to the dad stuff, but he ain’t gonna bawl in front of people about it.) Gentarou goes big as the default, and Shun best responds to big, theatrical nonsense. They both view manliness as an intense burden to carry that are thinking about way way way too much, so they’re naturally going to cry their eyes out and connect over making a break with your dad to become your own man. Shun’s phoniness hits Gentarou’s over-the-top empathy and it all feels like it’s the only way this show could’ve landed Shun’s big, dumb story. I like it, even if it’s hard to spend too much time defending Shun’s terrible, terrible histrionics. (It’s real bad!) I think the specific hypermasculine weirdness of Shun and Gentarou as rivals and then dudes forgives a lot of the embarrassing performance stuff.

It doesn’t hurt that the pathway for Shun’s revelation is a super solid KRC adventure. There’s not a lot more to this part than just more of what happened last time – we’re still in Miu and JK steering the Zodiart parts, while Gen, Yuuki, and Kengo find time to duck out for fights. (Tomoko is… around for a lot of it!) Having Shun basically watching a Fourze episode to learn that all these kids are having fun while being heroes is as laudable a plot as you can get this early in a Kamen Rider series. It’s cute, him learning that a real club is one where you’re empowered to be your most honest self, while supporting your friends to do the same. Wrapping it all up in duty and pride is probably all Shun needed to join the team. (I assume getting to wreck the crap out of cosmic monstrosities with a suit of power armor didn’t hurt!)

I don’t know if this is going to be one of my favorite two-parters? I think the formula established here – and refined and enhanced going forward – is one of the most reliable in Heisei, thanks to how fun the cast is to separate and combine, but Shun’s big emotional scene is either terrible, or so terrible it’s great, depending on your point of view. It’s all in service of adding one more KRC member, so the goal absolutely makes it worthwhile, but I think they asked too much of Shun’s actor here. Unless you’re Gentarou, apparently.

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The highlight here was Gentaro excitedly saying that a 50 (which in my country’s grading system would be barely scraping a C) is the highest score he’s ever got. Even more so if you look closely, his actual score was 18 (under the same grading system, that would be a U, meaning it’s so bad it can’t be graded).

Also, Yuki putting books onto shelves that are blatantly too small for them to fit.

Hard to believe that an afternoon of calligraphy, monster-fighting, lawn maintenance, and athletic cosplay didn't teach him... whatever subject the test was on!

The irony of Yuuki not understanding the space required for her books to fit!