KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 22 - “KICKING YOUR TRUE NATURE”

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Oh, right: It was Kijima.

I sort of thought it was? I remembered the rakugo thing not being some minor details, but a big clue, and Pegasus didn’t act like Utsugi at the quarry. This episode more or less immediately offers Kijima up as too suspicious too ignore, and Utsugi too confused to be a cover, leading to a pretty enjoyable solution to what’s normally an Act 1 mystery. There’s some genuine effort made to have the clues divulged organically, with very little of the dialogue bending over backwards to phrase things in a way that triggers a forced Eureka moment – though, even when it does, that’s a little ode to the wordplay of rakugo, maybe? (The biggest one is Shun’s whole Gosh Magnetic Fields Are Powerful bit, but even then he’s talking about cell phones, which Ryuusei links to watches.) Kijima framing Utsugi out of a combination of spite and ego makes for a compellingly villainous motivation, and a worthy new Horoscope for our team to deal with.

But that’s only half of our story! The other half is devoted to Utsugi’s professional malaise, and I liked it just fine, even if it missed the zip and zing of the Zodiart story. (Kijima’s a more interesting actor! I’m sorry!)

Shaping Utsugi’s story into a more adult take on following your dreams is a neat swerve for this show, and it’s especially welcome around a discussion of what the kids are going to do with the rest of their lives. Like, there’s your dreams, and then your career, and sometimes those don’t get to be the same thing. Utsugi dreams of being a kickboxer, but that’s not the sort of thing that’s going to pay the bills, so she became a teacher. (I’m not going to say that people don’t end up in careers they abhor via accident or inertia, but I’d love to hear how she ended up in a job she clearly despises, instead of, like, becoming a gym teacher? Or a physical therapist? Or any number of sports-adjacent jobs that aren’t dressing up in a suit and listening to the problems of teenagers you resent?) But Gentarou – both a high school student and a superhero – helps her understand that you can still follow a dream while working a job, and you can even find the things in your job that help you get closer to your dream. It’s cute, that little acknowledgement that being an adult means maybe doing a thing that isn’t what you’d hoped for, but can maybe still be something you find fulfillment in if you work at it. (Like teaching a kid how to kick the crap out of a wordplay monster!) It’s a minor victory, her starting a kickboxing club at school, but it does feel like a victory.

We’ve also got the Meteor/Aries storyline cooking in the background, but I wasn’t really feeling it here. We get a little duel with Virgo, but mostly it’s stuff that didn’t feel as dialed-in as the rest of the story did for me. Some of it’s just… like, Pegasus only had a 1 in 8 chance of even becoming the right Horoscope, and I kind of laughed about that at the end of the episode more than I should’ve. It totally tracks that those odds are good enough for Ryuusei, but this does not feel like a strategy I’m going to be super invested in. (A 1 in 7 chance now!) My favorite Ryuusei beat in this one was probably him trying to sneak away to Henshin, but JK thinks of him as the other coward in the KRC, and sticks to him like glue so they can both avoid combat. It’s a fun gag! The rest of his story was plot stuff for the future, and I’ll hopefully care more about it there.

This one was good! I like how much work went into the reveal of Kijima as the Zodiart, and I’m excited to see more of him as the Cancer Zodiart. And Utsugi! Liked seeing her smiling at the end! This one ended super sweet!

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It’s funny how the Horoscopes finally find a new member, and it’s by sheer dumb luck.

Also, I love the gag where Gentaro turns into Fourze and goes over to Haruka demanding the switch… and she hands over the fire alarm switch she broke offscreen in the last episode.

It's often said that yeah kids and teenagers are naturally inclined to poor decisions, but I wonder what'd be your thoughts for people like Gentaro (also a teenager), against temptations like this which should naturally affect kids and teens, as I feel Kamen Rider power is similar as Astroswitches for something that grants power, so they can be alluring and be used to endanger others too. Guess this is the episode where Gentaro is hammy throughout all scenes. Miura isn't making things easy for Gentaro though to constantly run away (another difficulty in friendship), where Gentaro is right to assume that Miura might be scared of being attacked by monsters based on what he knows about the current situation.

Even though Sonoda, as her name actually explains it where Androzani pointed out above, is the actual Scorpio, I seem to have read the tropes that for Kamen Rider (at least, not limited to KR though), the good guys should be the average or loser type of people, the competent and charismatic ones (Gentaro's not bright, can be rejected by people at first, and can still be seen as undesirable like Miu's joke of girl from space as Gentaro's lover) are at least morally dubious to being villainous at best, and it still applies on Hayami. If someone is shown to be this much "alpha", likely as otherwise perhaps the writing team feel they'd solve problems easily, they'd be the problem instead, and Hayami turns out to be Libra, another Zodiart General albeit not the main threat for this 2 parter.

I guess this twist can happen sometimes for other KR series, like perhaps Daichi Kamijo in Saber as Calibur, or Girori in Geats being revealed as the Game Master after first arc. Maybe too much expectation for to be "surprising". And dunno if this can be even more obvious in Japan, as the meaning of Sarina Sonoda's name is clearer to them as "I am the scorpion" anagram. I feel that Sonoda being Zodiart isn't a surprise for the character, but rather, perhaps the very school the students are going in. The school they're in is literally the bad guys organization, so the real stakes would be about how they deal with the school body itself, of which, the bad guys aren't limited to Gamou alone, but at least 2 teachers are also Zodiarts. If it's Gamou alone, then likely the school setting stake wouldn't be higher. Usual KR trope of the secret bad guy organization.

I guess Ohsugi and Makise is comparable here as the "creep", where obviously Makise is far worse as an actual villain, while Ohsugi is just a comic relief. Though about being creep, while Ohsugi IS a jerk, I can feel that one being judged as a creep or not can be viewed just by their looks or status, where people like Ohsugi who isn't good looking and has loser status (like how he only had a conversation with girl once in school and people abandoning his speeches), is easily judged as a creep just for approaching someone out of his league (in Sonoda); anything an "ugly" people do is seen as a creep, but maybe not so much if they're someone charismatic or good looking (only actual depraved stuff they do will, but "ugly" ones have mundane things judged as creep too), perhaps for example, Kitaoka's advances to Reiko in Ryuki.

It's good if deliberate wording of names can still sound like actual name, where Sonoda is also the surname of Mari from Faiz.

I vaguely recall it being pretty exciting for everyone when it turned out that on top of the well-handled twist for the Zodiart's identity, we were also secretly watching the origin of a new Horoscope the whole time, after the possibility of something like this happening being teased for so long.

I also recall the despair of fansubbers when they realized Mr. Wordplay was sticking around indefinitely as a new main bad guy. Really upped the stakes and tension of the show in a completely unique way for them. :lol

It's cute, him demanding she hand over the switch, and her bringing this gigantic fire alarm switch in her bag that she took home and saved out of shame and guilt. Amanogawa High only hires the weirdest possible educators!

I mean, adults are also historically bad at avoiding temptation, so I don't think anyone anywhere is completely immune to the allure of power. Just say No to Astroswitches!

God, I feel for them. Having to more or less invent narratively-appropriate wordplay because what's onscreen is basically untranslatable in a way that would work as a joke... cruel! Cruel of the production team to do to their invisible and unwanted global fanbase!

There's something external that can help. Certainly not the silly play, but about the Miura smiling photo that his girlfriend Mari (not Sonoda for here) gave Gentaro to. So this is about "this isn't you" and "remember who you are previously" kind of rehabilitation, where the method that finally works was Miura's photo that gave Miura the motivation to continue being his best self. Honestly for Miura skipping school for quite a time, there's something to be scared of too, about more mundane things, like the teacher's punishments for skipping school or the loads of extra tasks.

I expected the fight with Dustard to end with Electric State using his Limit Break on the body of water to spread electricity to all of them at once, maybe even the regular attacks to negate the number advantage with AoE attacks. This should be the advantage of water compared to other ranged leg Switches like Gatling. I wonder if Fourze could've achieved similar similar result with Gatling, or even better? Guess for Scorpio, it seems that previously, against Miura, Fourze needs to send him to space as he had not enough Switches, but now, only bigger threats like Scorpio needs to be sent to space due to Fourze getting more Switches and upgrades? Nothing's really different in the 2nd Drill Kick other than more energy effect.

I thought the need to fight in space was more about the amount of energy the Zodiart had generated, and that detonating them in the city would cause too much destruction?

Yeah, I feel that about the energy Zodiart had generated, I thought it was about weakening them by depriving them of energy source, thus with new Switches or upgrades Fourze becomes powerful enough against later Zodiarts to beat them on Earth until Scorpio, but I might be wrong that it's about collateral.

- internet glitch sending twice -