As Miu said, JK's advantage for the club is about how broad his connection is, he knows everyone.

Despite Kengo being cold, Kengo has standards where he feels Shun is too much of an asshole in his eyes. Like how Ren called out Kitaoka in Ryuki for being the worst kind of person (despite best lawyer). Guess it can seem like a coincidence again after how both Kengo and Miu discarded gifts from others, Shun's philosophy is also about taking advantage of others, like JK before.

As Androzani said, the teacher was Kagawa in Ryuki. Kagawa in Ryuki was an university professor as well. I guess Gentaro does fit being a delinquent despite being a nice guy, as he did constantly break rules, like not wearing an uniform or wandering off constantly. He's also a student with bad grades, which in teacher's eyes, means being naughty. And to outsiders, Gentaro would be the one looking problematic for picking up a fight with Shun, despite Shun being the one who provoked him.

And I guess this applies more as I reach ep. 7, it's seen that Shun and his father are loving and supporting of each other, but this'd be also about screwing over anyone that isn't them. In my case though, personal bully was friends with the person who accepts everyone and isn't enemies with anyone. I'm friends with them as well, but have a hard time hanging out as the bully was always present. Basically any group has bullies that prevents hanging out despite me being ok or friends with the ones that aren't nasty there individually.

True, but I guess as I said in my above comment, I feel Gentaro's ideal can be stronger to be applied on someone that seems thriving in JK about dog eat dog environment, rather than if it's done on someone who has been visibly a victim and resorts to taking advantage of others because others did it first, as it may have the audience view them as innocent and only blame whole society/their so-called friends that time.

Ryusei's introduction for me, while it's no direct homage to it, reminded me of this obscure gem by Kazuhiko Shimamoto, aka the man who worked on the Gamma designs for Kamen Rider Ghost, worked on manga adaptations of Kamen Rider ZO, a one-shot manga of Kamen Rider Black, and Skullman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy-qye2FJVQ

Aesthetically, Gentaro fits this trope more, being the Fonzie of the school who wears a gakuran while others wear blazers.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 19 - “THE MATCHLESS STEEL DRAGON”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze19a.png

I love how much I never know what episode I’m going to get on this show. And not in the usual way of me forgetting plot points or mystery solutions – I’ve completely forgotten who the Dragon Zodiart is, for example – but in how the massive cast of diverse characters means any scene could have anyone in it, and any episode could focus on anyone in the cast. For example: Kengo! Why not do a whole story about Kengo, from Kengo’s perspective? It’s a smart choice, leveraging the tenuousness of the Last OG KRC Member’s connection to Gentarou in order to talk about Ryuusei’s destabilizing effect on the club’s core dynamic, with a heavy emphasis on Kengo’s prickly personality and fear of abandonment.

I get Kengo in this one, sadly. I see part of me in him. There’s a thing I feel, where I need to be providing value to a group or community, or I’ll… I don’t know, be overlooked, be unwelcome, vanish. If I’m not contributing in some way, my friendship isn’t worthy of reciprocation, or my existence isn’t enough. I can see that in Kengo here. He had a role, and a purpose, and now that’s been usurped by Ryuusei. He was the Switch Guy, and now he isn’t. To the rest of the club – who don’t have defined roles or clear purposes – this isn’t a huge deal. Everyone contributes in whatever way they can, to whatever extent they can, whenever called upon, but that’s not what the Club is; it’s a group of friends, and that group chooses to fight monsters. No one’s getting kicked out because they can’t offer anything, and no one’s made redundant by a new member. But Kengo doesn’t it see it that way – they needed him, and now they don’t. To Kengo, need and want are the same thing in a friendship; if they don’t need him, they also don’t want him. So he quits in a huff, and goes to join a completely different story.

I kind of love that, how we’re in an episode of "Kengo (feat. Fourze)". It’s Kengo getting his feelings hurt, and feeling worthless, until he can find someone else who needs him, and it’s a girl that clearly has a crush on him who did not watch Episode 1, Scene 1, so that’s going to go great. It’s an especially absurd and melodramatic episode of the show, befitting the lens of the most petulant and hotheaded member of the cast. The track coach is sneering and possessive to a degree that even the Amanogawa HR department that let Ohsugi and Hayami orbit Sonoda to varying levels of creepiness would feel the need to step in, while Kengo and Gen practically brawl their way through multiple scenes in a way that the Faiz cast would think was crossing a line. (Great direction in this one, as an aside. Lots of long takes, and multiple stages of action happening within the frame: the brawl in the Hatch, Rumi coming out from behind the sign, a few of the Dragon fights.) It’s a Kengo story, with a Kengo baseline of Helpful Rudeness for everything else in the story to calibrate off of.

It makes for a fun episode, despite the division of the cast and the introduction of a love interest for Kengo. (He just… that girl’s gonna get hurt! I don’t like where this is heading for her!) Putting Kengo in a different element just reveals his true nature, which is to be curt and rude but still perceptive and dedicated to improving the people he cares about. Robbing Gen of Kengo shows how much that relationship is something the show does not want you to take for granted, because some friendships are constant work. (Jesus, just ask Yuuki!) The same things that bring people together – a shared cause, or a common goal – can be the things that push people apart.

Like magnets!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze19b.png

Satake has black and white view to lump any "filth" the students have the same with the worst kind of students. It's not really stated on what happened for Hound that he ended up bad despite having Satake as dad, other than how Satake's hatred of delinquents rooted from Hound. It may mean Satake didn't discipline Hound enough to then go 180 after Hound's failure, or that Satake was always like he's now to Hound and he instead broke under pressure to be free. Being "lawful" good isn't about most righteous characters like Gentaro, but "lawful" is what Satake pulls. Otherwise, I feel that Yuki isn't really at fault to be punished, it's just Ohsugi being an overbearing jerk as someone who thinks teachers and students shouldn't be friends.

I guess this can be expected if Kamen Rider wouldn't always seem to get hand to hand combat, more core part of the series as fighting one, right.

Shun's relationship with his dad turns out to be not a pleasant one, and everything wrong Shun did are all the dad's fault. Anything he does including dating Miu or ditching Miura is about obeying his dad. Shun's acting aside, this'd be the more easier route for media to try to make the main cast member or characters they want people to support to be rootable, in contrast to JK before not being the one put on victimized position even if it'd lead for him to take advantage of others (can have just said other friends/society being blamed instead, like the dad for Shun).

Regarding the girls part, Miu's defense of Gentaro against Shun was how his words might be right about him being the manliest of the man. I guess other than Miu quickly warming up to Gentaro, I feel Shun warmed up even quicker to Gentaro despite being seemingly more hostile before to ditch Miu for joining KRC and have a dispute with her about how they view Gentaro as trash/manliest. Miu seems to be still not enough for Power Dizer despite her having athleticism for cheerleading or Queen festival. Shun's clearly on a different level compared to Gentaro (who is a good fighter) too when pushing the lawnmower by himself.

Shun is definitely the Muscle of the group, yeah. Everyone's got their niche! Just not Kengo anymore!

It already screams Pokemon when Gentaro declares he already made 1000 friends in the beginning of the story. Honestly though, I often feel this way, not only for Fourze, but also about other stories where previously individual tales become a group tale that they gather together more. It can feel like if their individual identity stand out less as people who orbits the main protagonist, and act mostly in service of them. But of course, if those people didn't act on the service of main protagonist, they can be demonized as ditching them.

I wonder though, what'd be your expectation for the goals of people like Yuki, Kengo, Miu, Shun, and JK before. Yuki's all about being space nerd and she already became an astronaut via KRC. Outside of being a cool jerk, Kengo's just about working on what his father left him. Miu is about becoming and fulfilling Queen's role, including protecting the school. Shun is about becoming the King like his father forced him to, until he felt stressed by it and broke off with his father, just wanting to make friends as he pleases. JK at best would be about business-minded in turning the KRC into a tourist attraction spot. What'd be your expectation of what their goal to be?

Wizard is the newer series, but after watching for a while following Fish's Wizard rewatch thread, this reminds of Shunpei in ep. 2 about how people performing magic is fake, and it's just the MOTW deceiving them into believing they can do magic. Though this may still reveal people's character like how it seems that Tomoko doesn't really care about causing arson in the school with the cult's magic. Which can seem to put Tomoko in more similar category to the other KRC members at the beginning except Yuki, where she's the edgy teenager type despite not being the violent type.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 20 - “THE UNIVERSAL MAGNETIC FORCE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze20a.png

Look, I just like Miu, okay?

It’s churlish to start this post off with a picture of Miu, since it’s an episode about Kengo and Gentarou’s friendship, with crucial contributions by Ryuusei, but I can’t pretend that Miu, Tomoko, and JK getting dressed up in a series of costumes to dig in the frozen, barren wasteland of Amanogawa High’s nearby lake and forest didn’t make me just as happy as this installment’s cathartic resolution to the show’s preeminent bromance, if not more so. (She’s so great in those fatigues!) It’s this show, man – a whole episode that’s centered on the three ostensible male leads, but it somehow found time for an adorably goofy and absolutely integral subplot in which Miu showcases her exemplary leadership skills. I’m not being weird for thinking this sequence was the greatest thing in toku for the year 2012!

Putting that stellar bit of heartwarming comedy aside, there is (unbelievably!) more to talk about. We get the conclusion to Gentarou and Kengo’s most recent permanent rift, and it’s a solid bit of melodrama, even if the extremes of both Gentarou’s abasement and Kengo’s steamed hamminess starts to unravel the intriguing character work. (I like how Shun just LOSES it on Kengo when he does yet another We Don’t Need Gentarou thing as the Dragon Zodiart is attacking. Kengo just wants to keep his friend safe, but he’s ALSO being a big petulant baby and Shun is the one that’s just had it with him in this episode. I love it! I love that one guy’s sick of coddling these two dummies!) While Gen and Kengo spend most of the episode orbiting one another and trying to navigate a way back to their friendship, it’s somehow Ryuusei who becomes the key to getting things back in order.

Which, it’s funny, because Ryuusei is way way way more annoyed at this story than Shun is, and way way way earlier. Miu sticking Ryuusei on the team that needed a deft touch and real empathy was such a hilarious misapplication of Ryuusei’s phony, secretly-snide bullshit that I was expecting another series of eyerolls and muttered judgment. But the show smartly layers Gen and Kengo’s most recent permanent rift over Ryuusei’s falling out with Jirou, and it brings more of the real guy to the surface in this story. (Just in time! I am finding Obsequious Phony Ryuusei to be a less-is-more situation, after just a few episodes.) Ryuusei hears Kengo’s typically grandiose statements about the finality of his friendship with Gen, coupled with the same attitude he had when he flung a girl’s love letter off of a bridge (surely not worth pointing out how that tone is now being used for his platonic friendship, sure, okay, right) and hears the awful things he and Jirou said to each other, right before Jirou was encomatosed by a cosmic collectible, and he can’t sit idly by and maintain his cover while two friends don't realize how precious their bond is through the haze of anger. Ryuusei has to get these two to realize that they’re both being headstrong and possessive and overly protective, but since they’re both doing it, it shows how much they actually care about each other – what looked like opposing force was really just the same force coming into conflict.

That’s nice, letting Ryuusei get to be the one who fixes things. (Besides Miu, obviously.) He’s got a different perspective on friendship, and he gets to add that perspective to the team – grudgingly, but still – to solve a problem. That’s a Kamen Rider Club move, whether he likes i or not. Luckily, I sure did!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze20b.png

“Magnets. How do they work?” - Gentaro, probably, to an irritated Kengo.

Honestly from this one, the only thing I remember is Miu’s chibi drawings of everyone.

The one where Fourze struggles to answer the square root of 49. :lol

They wouldn't have found the right digspot without Tomoko....

Ryusei's trauma trigger moment caught me off guard and this is my third time watching the show. He barely manages to calm himself so he can politely confront Kengo about his terrible words, but there's still the tremble in his voice that betrays his feelings, which he has to fight to stop them from surfacing. That contradiction between the real and fake Ryusei is such a credit to the actor.

She has so many skills! I think that's a Kuuga reference!

But it was Miu's leadership that put Tomoko on the right team to be the most effective -- sort of thought she'd end up on the Ryuusei team, but that's why I'm not the boss of the KRC -- so really, the credit should go to her.

It was a great moment with a bunch of fun performance choices (I'm especially fond of Ryuusei trying to get his phony smile back on before he blows his cover, but he can't quite manage it), but I'm sorry, this is now a thread only for praising Miu.