To be honest, I mostly forgot this, beyond the end scene where they gave Ikemens singing Wataru’s own insert song. And they actually released this version as a part of a later album. (But if I told you which one at this point, I’d have to kill you. Or just make you say your catchphrase. Whichever’s more convenient)

Highlight of the episode for me was the Yuri and Otoya date, mostly because it's fun to watch Yuri be completely manic while Otoya gets increasingly queasy.

I'll admit that I forgot that Ixa 1.0 had that health drawback and I'll apologize to Shima for being unfair to him. Still pretty sus that he wouldn't just tell Yuri that he's letting Jiro beta test it until it stops hospitalizing the user, though. Agreed on that point.

This episode also saw the debut of the Buroon Booster which, unlike Shoodoran, actually shows up again! By which I mean it's maybe used two more times, tops.

I hope now it's obvious why I called the suit G3-iXa, haha.

I'm still trying to figure out how Kengo packed an entire club for a configuration of his band that had only existed for a week (they only had their bass player for a couple days, one of which she was being held hostage by a monster), fronted by an entirely new lead singer with stage fright, that only knew one song. Like, the crowd is going ape-shit for, basically, complete strangers. If there had been more than three non-Kivat people in that crowd, I'd've been amazed, and they've got a packed house of screaming fans.

My only theory is that Nago is actually the best promotion that band could have, since he was probably loudly complaining about them for an afternoon after punching Kengo in the face. (Which: !!!) I'm assuming Nago was griping about this infuriating "rocked music" in such a Nago way that total strangers became Ikemens fans just to spite him.

It's absolutely the best part, and one of the only things that comes close to matching the charm of the previous episode. Like, we get to see Wacky Yuri for the first (and maybe only) time, and it's outstanding. Seeing where Megumi gets that black hole she calls a stomach; watching her risk-taking get used on thrill rides and dumb dares; seeing Otoya realize that Full Force Yuri is maybe not a relationship he could survive... it's all so good!

And then it has this kind of sweet button, where Otoya figures out that Wacky Yuri is just her trying to ignore her pain and resentment, and how false that makes her. HE cares about the real Yuri, not all these fake smiles and forced pleasantries. He'd rather get eternally shot down by the real Yuri than go on one more date with this fake version. It's a nice beat for Otoya.

Where is Ozawa when W.A.K.E.U.P. needed her! (Probably in grade school, I guess?)

Okay, I have a different take on what Wataru singing represents, other than that he's a great singer due to having Seto Koji's talent. I think there's a lot more happening inside Wataru than just deciding to sing. You can see when he starts, that he immediately becomes more confident and vigorous. I think he's actually channeling his Kiva persona here to trigger that change. Just like Kiva, the key to that change is the power of music which Wataru resonates with. If the Bloody Rose tells him to fight, then the music here is telling him to sing, so he sings. It's not like the bad violin performance he gave at his house, where only his reputation was at stake. He has to sing here, for the sake of Kengo and the audience who were excited to hear them play. It shows that Wataru can Break The Chain of his shyness with the right stimulus.

The date montage also shows a new side of Yuri's personality, where the stress of not getting to be IXA manifests in her acts of impulsive sensual overindulgence such as eating, going to amusement parks and jumping out of a boat. It's easy escapism as a coping mechanism and I can totally relate to that, but Otoya shows his observation skills once more and notices that something is wrong with Yuri. He misses the game of hard-to-get and doesn't want her to go on a date with him for the wrong reasons. Megumi's drunken foolishness in the last episode implies this is an inherited trait.

It probably helps that Jirou is secretly a Clawolve/Wolfen, so his body is more resilient than a human. In exchange for agreeing to be an expendable test driver, he gets to play the self-sacrificing hero and make himself look even cooler to Yuri. And it works. I mean, it's like he's taking cues from Zanki in the second half of Hibiki!

But yeah, now Yuri knows that Shima was lying about the Rider System being complete and that she's a candidate for the next user when it gets a bugfix patch. She's a human, so she may not have been as lucky as Jirou.

I'm drawing a blank of my own here as well. I remember this episode for being the one with Buroon Booster, but it's easy to forget when it seldom get used. I guess I'll look forward to seeing where else it shows up!

On the topic of Buroon Booster, I obviously but respectfully disagree with Die's anti-CGI opinion. I like Buroon Booster. It reminds me a lot of the Jet Sliger, which also has limited appearances.

This is a nice idea! I can see it tying into Wataru's violin performance for Megumi when she was in the hospital, where his connection with her overpowered his fears.

I just don't know how much of that is really onscreen here? I feel like Wataru's stage fright needed either one other scene with his friends, or some narrative parallel in the IXA fight. Either we needed to get Kengo or Megumi to give him some sort of pep talk that he could tap back into when he was on stage, or... I mean, I feel like not tying it into his IXA fight is a huge missed opportunity. If there had been some angle to the IXA fight where he needed to face his fears directly and come through for Megumi, then I'd feel like it was a worthwhile conclusion to the episode. As it is, Kiva beating IXA doesn't feel like some repudiation of Nago's actions/attitude/existence, so there's really not much to tie it all together.

I do like the idea of Wataru improving as a person! I just don't think the show really spent enough time on that concept.

(Also, I think I maybe preferred Kengo's vocals! Wataru's performance on stage is too tentative, too cautious. The music is shredding, and he's singing a ballad. Bring back Kengo!)

She's probably still not going to be super lucky when the system gets fixed, because it's being calibrated for a Clawolve. All of the data that's being collected is fixing the IXA System for non-human biology. Yuri puts that thing on in a few months, it's probably going to kill her faster than it would've before!

I hope Wataru's "new" career as a band member can cross with, dunno, that his violin making part is a career too of his? Both are about music, and I'm pulling Nago on this, but for "humanity's full potential", I want Wataru's already existing skills to be made use for. Though Wataru being suddenly a singer does come out of nowhere, though I feel like as Wataru is shy and timid, they made him grow by him gaining confidence singing in front of people.. Kengo's reaction not shown for Wataru's injury is also not talked about which is a wasted opportunity, as Kengo was talking about how Wataru's performance were terrible before, but I really want to know his reaction for the actual reason of Wataru's failure there.

For what I and people talk about Kiva's sexism, I feel like different here for thinking that there are may be legitimate reasons to prevent Yuri becoming IXA here. That IXA is still incomplete and it'd outright kill Yuri if she used that. And thus, Jiro, a Wolfen, is less risky to be tested of using IXA (and you're right, the name is IXA Prototype). This gives me the vibe of Faiz again, where this is a difference between humans and monsters instead; only an Orphnoch like Takumi can be Faiz, and Mari/Keitaro got rejected for that. For Kiva being labeled as sexist to women, this notion can instead be sexist to men instead, seeing men as the expendable gender, it's ok for men to be used and tested as their lives have less value. Though I agree it's legitimate complaint you have for Yuri here to not have their emotional issues to be addressed, have to say a girl being independent and capable doesn't mean they should never show affection, defy everyone, and never need any other people particularly men.

I guess, that's the consequence of your previous episode review, "But I don’t care about that! I don’t care about how bizarre the Fangire fights were in this one (why was it laying underneath leaves in a forest?), I don’t care about how cool the IXA/Kiva fight scene was (very cool!), I don’t care about any of it. I care about this brand-new friendship between Kengo and Wataru, how excited they both are to make art and have fun and be happy. I care so much about Wataru being in a rock band that I’m pushing the movie until after Episode 12, so I can finish off this story one day earlier. I am very into this show being permanently about Wataru playing bass!" which means Megumi is also caught up into that, being focused on her also joining the band as bassist, again, as an extension of Wataru's struggles.

Lol, Nago's first appearence literally shows his gracious and genuine human being side to ooze heroism and someone that Wataru can look up too. Though yeah, other trait of Nago is shown here, he's someone who really hates music and thinks that music is a waste of human potential. I guess his actual beef to Oomura before had to do with his hatred of music, and here he literally beats up Kengo for playing music. Though still, most people don't go through dramatic changes in their life all of the time.

I've been saying this before, but not to you, but I personally think that comedy is inherently light-hearted, because for example if it's about how any toxic and crude behaviors being considered funny, as long as it's happening to someone else (and partly because you aren't affected; not putting themselves in their shoes), and those actions being justified because of being hilarious without any regards to the victims where it don't matter as much as the comedic or entertainment value in those behaviours, then that's comedic sociopathy. As Mel Brooks put it: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die".

But even more there's also lies the deceptive power of humor, the troublesome nature of the joke content; If someone confronts a joke-teller, or speaking out against even mild forms of inappropriate behavior, there's a risk of being shamed for being over-sensitive and refusing to play along (phrases like “can’t you take a joke?!”, "you must be fun at parties"), the pressure to play along to avoiding social exclusion or ridicule as humor is also a form of social dominance. And this can send false feedback that any of those people, ranging from jerks to outright villains deeds as acceptable and they can shamelessly get away from what they did.

So, the problem with some of this is that while the viewers know that Zanki isn't human, Yuri and Shima don't. Shima picking Zanki to operate IXAlso isn't some pragmatic decision based on Zanki's superhuman resilience; he just picked the newest dude to walk into Mal d'Amour.

And, really, the problems are in how the episode resolves these attacks on Yuri's pride. Shima opting to make this decision for her is bad enough, but her acting grateful for Zanki's sacrifice is a little too far. It's a decision two different made on her behalf, with none of her input, and the show resolves her frustration and despair with a Gosh Thanks Guys. It's a story that's 95% about how Yuri is dealing with losing something that connects her to her late mother, and the final 5% is a patronizing Don't Worry Lady The Men Will Carry This Burden For You. She never asked them to do that! But then she's, like, touched by the gesture? It's a very unwelcome turn for the character.

There's a difference between a story where Yuri asks for help, and a story where a couple men decide something to protect Yuri without telling her.

In celebration of the very noble and generous decision to selflessly deny Yuri what she wants, here's the theme of the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization, which plays here as it's explained that 86' Ixa is potentially deadly to its users. As you'd expect from such an upstanding group anyone would want to be a part of, it's a totally upbeat and joyous tune...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QxNYvcAfRs

...except it's actually the complete opposite of those adjectives! Heck, there are tracks on the OST for the Fangire that sound less ominous than this!

This was basically the summary of Kiva I always saw before going into the show, and maybe it's because my expectations were set so low that I don't recall being too bothered by anything in the 2008 plotline. (Also, you know; me) On the contrary, I still vividly recall being a little touched by that happy ending?

Was it unearned like you say it was? I don't know, probably. Looking back through the episode, I see there's like a whole thing with Kiva trying to run away from Ixa at first before hopping on his bike to take the advantage, with the scarf Nago used as a sling for Wataru dramatically flying away in the process? All of which is maybe sorta trying to somehow make some thematic point about Wataru's self-confidence or whatever? It seems pretty thin, even if I'm onto something here, but it's an observation. (I like that Kiva was thrown in a river, by the way; gotta have that in your Inoue show!)

The point is, none of that mattered to me at the time as much as just how sweet I found it seeing the episode end on that note of Wataru finding the courage to sing. It was the first time I think I really started appreciating what the show was doing with his character, if I didn't get it already from the whole Nago hero worship thing.

I don't ~exactly~ relate 1:1 with Wataru (he's no Hiyori), so it didn't hit me on a personal level per se, but I don't know, something about it gave me this very specific sense that it definitely must've hit someone out there pretty deeply? It's a super weird train of thought to describe – the vicarious joy I feel from hypothetical Kiva viewers – but even now, I still feel like there had to be at least a few people out there who really connected with Wataru's particular brand of anxiety that got something meaningful out of this two-parter. Maybe even gained a little confidence of their own after seeing a story where Wataru makes a new friend, who is just genuinely a nice dude, and then they go play in a band together and it unironically works out with no cruel twist or anything.

It's an episode that probably bothered me more for the sloppiness and missed opportunities than it did for any particular story choices. Like, even the Yuri stuff... it only needed a moment for her to verbally transition from You Are Stealing My Heritage to Christ I Dodged A Bullet Here, but they instead squandered what little time they had burnishing Zanki's heroism.

But the rest of it had plenty of things I liked (I will never be angry at a decision to end a story with Wataru overcoming his fear of crowds by singing a song about how he needs to understand himself better through the act of pushing against his own expectations for his future!) without really deciding on how they wanted to get there. It's a bunch of interesting dilemmas that don't have interesting penultimate scenes.

Still, yeah, I liked Wataru and his friends playing to the exact crowd he had an anxiety dream about, but this time he succeeds through his own confidence and bravery. He's a sweet boy that I'm rooting for, you know? I can't hate the ending, even if I'm not a fan of the path to get to it.

(It's no wonder Wataru has stage fright at this show, now that I think about it. He basically prophesied an angry crowd turning on him during the first song of the night! Oh god! That is terrifying to even consider, let alone live through!)