So I come here to share some thing interesting about episode 20 and I find you haven’t uploaded your thoughts yet. I guess your work must be particularly rough today.

Sorry! Tuesday was a day of commitments and complications. By the time I had the ability to watch anything Kamen Rider, it was after 11 and I had nothing left in the tank.

As much as I love the daily updates (and I'm keen to wrap up Hibiki before Thanksgiving), skipping Tuesdays is probably going to be necessary going forward. Tuesdays are my heaviest day, so trying to spend a couple hours on a Kamen Rider episode is... not that fun. Worse, Wednesdays are days that make being on the boards to discuss an episode almost entirely impossible, which is also not fun. Between rushing to get an episode done and not even being able to talk with people about it, yeah, Tuesdays might need to be a skip day for a bit.

That said, I'm still looking to do 7 a week, so expect a double post somewhere between Thursday and Saturday, depending on the week.

Sorry this was a surprise!

Nah your fine take things ay your own pace you shouldn't apologize for priortizing your life over a simple hobby like this. It's totally understanable to take a break once awhile especially if your job is harder than usual.

Ibuki's dedication is one of his most admirable qualities and that line says all it needs to. Sure, he could've waited for backup and his weapon but his decision to fight Oonamazu alone without a plan or anything is pretty much as heroic as it gets. Even the soundtrack Fish linked to is heroic!

Yeah, I love when that happens!

Maybe the kids are also a reflection of how Kasumi thinks of Ibuki. Like how Ibuki needs Kasumi to pick out his clothes. But Ibuki is able to have a civilized discussion with the kids and reveals that those kids are actually pretty reasonable and they learn something from the experience thanks to his mentoring skills. It's the same thing Midori said to Hibiki, that he's a cool Oni but an okay guy. These guys look way more competent when they're in their element and seeing Ibuki in his element is what allows Kasumi to appreciate him and see him as more of an adult, which parallels Shounen's desire to quickly prove himself as an adult but without the experience of Ibuki.

Something else I forgot to mention about the fight scene with Oonamazu. Sound travels faster underwater! Ibuki may not have been the best Oni for the job but had a really good tactical advantage here and the setup with shooting the stomach full of stones. At that point, his job was probably easier than Hibiki's.

I didn't want to put a downer on my favorite arc but now would probably be a good opportunity to mention that I didn't get the point of Mochida's envy. It happened in one scene only to be resolved easily in the next scene she appeared in. Where is the conflict here? Maybe this sounds ironic after Faiz but people are too good at communication in this show! Maybe I'm just spoiled for love triangles by Faiz's love hexagon! Hibiki has a lot of great qualities but this probably isn't one of them.

Now that I think about, I don't really get what Mochida brings to the show? She doesn't know about the Oni and whatever purpose she may have served at the start seems to have been taken over by Akira as the female lead to Shounen's protagonist role. She's like Mizuki in Amazons S1, before she joined 4C.

Yuka snapping at Keitarou was caused by a misunderstanding (which, yes, is very Faiz, but it's a great source of conflict) since Keitarou was given two contradicting messages from "Osada" and Yuka, the first that she loved Kaido and not him, and the second that he should try holding her hand. Yuka didn't know Keitarou was referring to her in the email so she assumed he was being desperate after she friendzoned him.

Tell me about it! I went to see Assassin's Creed in 2016 and I thought it was pretty terrible.

It was under Tokyo at the end of the episode, but it was thought to be in 3 different locations, which is searched upon throughout the episode. And the acid, well yeah... attacks they take transfered over into their human bodies, oh well, beaten up Riders are injured after de-transformed from beatings.

Being incapable or childish doesn't mean Ibuki is completely tactless and/or out of reality. It's just that like you said, he specializes in fighting, but the knowledge stuff isn't really his forte. You can't be incapable/childish for not dominating a field, nobody's perfect. Kasumi remembers him as that likely because of how he acts, which means she seems to refuse to acknowledge him, it's likely her issue tbh. But other than that, Ibuki asking Kasumi also comes from how close they're as childhood friends, trust being built over years.

Yeah... not a ton of moves, fighting Oonamazu, the one that spawns the monsters from stomach was only done with 1 finisher (and a tension where it seems that Ibuki was going to be eaten). Tbf they're fighting underwater and likely Ibuki can't move much but...

Yeah, with the warmth here, it's ought to be kept that way, no ruining this, especially in OOC way. Asumu stumbles and seems unintentionally dragged into Takeshi's workload, and well, I think this should give credit to Asumu compared to what said before, he seems to get praised for his contribution to Tachibana's (at least from Hibiki), like refilling teas. And the end celebration, that happens because of by coincidental everyone gathers? Or somehow beating Oonamazu is treated as something more special? Well, that if not the celebratory being purposely done and no need special moments.

I know it's about context, but I still want to hear the explanations ofc, because many times I found people sometimes giving double standard treatment to medias; like blindly hating on something, while giving free pass on similar element that existed in series they like. Well, that means Hitomi's only that relatively to Asumu... And ok I got it for what you said regarding Asumu (though "doofus" seems derogatory to me), he's definitely socially awkward (and I had some part of this as well), and well, this is something unfortunately people often use as insult fuel, especially if they're males (this quite runs on toxic masculinity tbh, ignoring the fact that males are humans too). For the last question, it's about the "There’s a part of me that regrets that we’re in a place where two smart, capable women could squander a burgeoning friendship on (and I love him) a doofus like Asumu." sentence, and I ask why the regret.

Thanks!

Great points! I feel like Ibuki is someone who tries not to be judgemental. Like, it's that Kamen Rider thing where deciding to protect humanity means you protect all of humanity. There's no picking and choosing, and doing that means you naturally see the best in everyone. It's the difference between Kasumi's role (support Oni) and Ibuki's job (save people). She's used to having to deal with corralling people and working with systems, so she's more apt to be curt to get people to take a threat seriously. Ibuki feels more connected to the people he's saving, since he's risking his life to do it, so he's able to work with them to ensure their safety.

I don't know if that just made sense!

I mean, I don't really like it, but I get it. Hitomi is a teenage girl who has a Completely Obvious To Everyone But Asumu crush on Asumu. She's always probably had him all to herself, and now he's going out of his way to help Akira. She feels threatened, but that feeling goes away when she's able to think that Asumu is only really helping Hibiki.

I think the Asumu stuff has enough weight and independence that she's still valuable. If the show dips too far into Only Oni territory, though, yeah, tough to give her much to do.

Yeah, I don't think this story was trying to make it seem like they both had to come to an understanding. It's pretty much just Kasumi needing to see Ibuki as a man and an Oni.

It's totally impromptu, which is one of the reasons it's so great. They're just all together, and it becomes a party. I love that.

Sure, that's all fair. Doofus was maybe a little unkind, but it's difficult to see why both Akira and Hitomi might be interested in him at this point. He doesn't seem like that much of a catch!

For the regret, it's just that The Two Ladies Fight Over A Not-That-Great Dude is such a weird, frustrating trope that I didn't like to see the edges of it blooming in this episode. They didn't really go there, which is great, but just setting it up made me a little disappointed.

It's really not something you have to apologize for. I'm honestly shocked you've had the endurance to keep these threads going at the pace you do for this long. Let's see... how would you put it? Something like "+10 Rider Points, and Kazuma Kenzaki applauds your commitment to the work you do. Please adjust your TokuNation Scorecard appropriately"? :p

You gotta do you, is the point. And this gap is actually kinda convenient for me, because there's something about episode 19 I totally forgot to mention, which of course means it's the thing from the episode I most wanted to mention.

It's the second episode of the show (the first being 11) to be solely written by Tsuyoshi Kida, who, despite being credited as main writer basically everywhere I've seen, is on record as saying he feels he didn't get to put much of a personal spin on his Hibiki scripts due to Takatera being as involved as he was. In spite of this, he did manage to get one thing into this episode that has his Wizardy fingerprints all over it:

https://i.imgur.com/BaqLH1z.png
https://i.imgur.com/hU51Tkh.png

Like, of course an episode written by him just HAS to feature a scene where the hero jumps into the frame (and it is always jumping) to save some extras from a monster. It's a classic Rider Rescue, if you will!

So yeah, I don't know; that moment just made me really laugh for some reason.

Aw, thanks. Just for that, I'm definitely going to watch the next episode of Hibiki that I was planning to watch anyway, and I'm definitely going to write it up because that's how my brain processes tokusatsu now. I can't risk losing those points!

KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 20 - "PURIFYING SOUND"

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki20a.png

"I don't feel old
I don't feel proud
I speak too fast
I laugh too loud
I am the smallest
In the crowd
I don't feel old"

-Wye Oak, "I Don't Feel Young"

Todoroki is a bundle of energy, and for the world of Kamen Rider Hibiki, that makes him weird. The whole aesthetic of this show is Make The Mythic Part Mundane And Make The Mundane Part Mythic, so Todoroki being an Oni that actually has fun with it is... it's just enormously confusing to all of the adults in this one.

And, metaphorically, that's kind of key. The people who are confused by Todoroki (I keep wanting to say "troubled", but it's really more confusion than any sense that he's endangering himself) are basically his dad, Zanki; his grandad, Ichiro; and his uncle Hibiki. They've got a system for being an Oni, and Todoroki is doing stuff that's outside that system. They spend most of this episode not getting him, not getting what he feels, and not getting why he's being so weird.

It's an episode that's setting us up to have Todoroki's enthusiasm get tempered by failure, or exposed as recklessness. He's rushing into combat, he's getting clocked by Makamou that he should be on the lookout for, and he's just hilariously tense and sweaty in every conversation. Or, not tense, but... awkward? Hyper? Every time he needs to assure someone that he's okay, and he's got control, his responses are basically I'M FINE and I'VE GOT THIS and I DON'T EVER FEEL LIKE A FRAUD and NERVOUS PUKES ARE WHAT CONFIDENT PEOPLE DO RIGHT. It's so unconvincing that it's got to be something that's going to trip him up. He's got to be ready to have his weaknesses exposed by this story, and for his adult mentors to be there to tell him that it's okay, he just needs to slow down.

I mean, that's what the Asumu storyline is, right? Asumu's desperate to feel useful at Team Hibiki Bar and Grill (home of the Flaming Oni), so he's working too quickly and making mistakes. He feels terrible about dropping a tray, and he's convinced that Ichiro's going to berate him about it. On the one hand, I don't think we've ever seen Ichiro being anything other than kind and generous, so Asumu's fear feels a little overblown. On the other hand, if you screw up at work and the manager of a demon-exploding franchise/cult asks to speak to you in the basement... I don't know, maybe Asumu's right to be trepidatious! I would've probably quit on the spot and never looked back! It's a haunted ninja house! But, no, Ichiro just tells Asumu to be more thoughtful, to slow down, and not to worry about it. The point seems to be that he already has the trust of his bosses, so there's no need to risk errors by doing too much too fast. Slow down, you've already got the job.

Except, that isn't the point of Todoroki's story. I mean, a little, maybe, but not really. (You could argue that Hibiki and Zanki are just there to reassure him, but I'm not sure they have that kind of impact on Todoroki. He doesn't seem, like, changed by them being around.) The point of Todoroki's story is that the adults were wrong, and he's right. His methods may be unorthodox, and they mostly stem from him feeling like he's not doing enough and everyone's secretly disappointed in him (which is incredibly troubling and maybe glossed over in this one), but he gets results, dammit! They couldn't see that he needed to do things differently than they do. Once they see that his Strange New Methods a.k.a. Just A Basic Guitar Solo That's Been Around For Decades is him testifying to his devotion, they get it. Moreover, they support him. Zanki decides to give Todoroki help, but not in the form of more mentoring, but in carrying some of the load for him. It's not about Todoroki not being good enough, so Zanki has to hang around. It's that Todoroki is great, but with some support he could be greater.

(Also, shit, Todoroki is great in this episode. That move where he flings his ax to explode the Douji, and then it falls onto the Hime to explode it? God damn! Not a big action-y episode, but that move was bonkers!)

I didn't expect this episode to go that way, and it's all the better for it. I like that Todoroki's weirdness isn't something to correct, but something to celebrate. He's a hero. An exceptionally weird, possibly in need of therapy to overcome his feelings of worthlessness, easily excitable hero. Congratulations, you sweaty, bug-eyed close-talker, you.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki20b.png

Yeah, Hibiki is known as not being safe around vehicles, and the training he got here is a motherfucking dirtbikes.... And somehow Hibiki's tendency to never stop isn't coincidental with anything, like for example, someone who brute forces through anything and never quit no matter how many injuries in the fight with that reflected on how they ride their bike or something. Todoroki surely watched Sony's E3 2016 conference; though he didn't flip the crab this time.

Zanki is the one that said Todoroki should just follow what himself wants instead of over-relying on his teachings! Though obviously Todoroki is taking it too far for having celebratory rocks. While Makamou is purified by music, probably having guitar solo like that isn't the way. He keeps track of his killcounts probably as a solution to fight his insecurities, to keep reminding himself that he had successes of killing Makamous.

For bolded one - Kasumi, Hinaka, Akira, Midori: Are we a joke to you?! But yeah... I don't think the girl joke fits here, Hitomi is the minority that didn't know. Otherwise, the Takeshi so far only knows about the Makamou staying in the mountain (though they're progressively spreading) and likely also doing their best to keep the Makamou only occupied in that area, never disturbing civilians (other than those that goes to that mountain). And yeah, I'm someone who is eager to make someone who is unknowingly related to each other reveal themselves in the story; Asumu and Zanki being "members" of Takeshi (but still didn't know that Asumu is Hibiki's "apprentice"), also Todoroki and Hitomi being cousins.

OK, this is against your rules, but her name is Ikuko Adachi. And she's the older figure that keeps the others together for Hibiki, the counterpart to the likes of Kazari, Kogami, Jun, Haima, etc. And well, most if not all of them have the kooky energy stuff.

I'm pretty sure that each one of us wants to be treated like Asumu, where you can get cherished (not limited to romantic love here, and it's not even known yet if it's romantic love) unconditionally. It just screams hypocrite alert to me for this topic, like if someone talks about how it's difficult to see girls want someone unremarkable, but complain if no girls want to love him unconditionally. Actually it bugs me if girls are expected and always made to only respect and chase perfect boys (at least outwardly).

Didn't realize that you replied on my post earlier. And altough you're spoiled with the conflict part of Faiz don't force to turn any other shows like Faiz? Like I said in previous reply...

"cynical tryhard edgy media with milktoast characters = good " mindset needs to stop, obviously not purge away those completely, but like, this aspect being hailed as something (or worse, considered the only way) to make something appear more complex than it actually is when it degrades and is pretentious in its attempt. Unless you meant for conflict being just any obstacles, struggles, and challenges a character need to overcome (like Asumu's story), then sure why not (like probably Akira being Ibuki's apprentice), which is also something I want to convey, that conflict isn't only toxic characters childishly infight all the time, so no need to degrade characters to create conflicts.

Yeah there, for last sentence, I want to convey that conflict isn't only about characters acting uncontrollably childish and/or depraved, as you damn well know on Gaim. Like, Asumu's personal fight with the exam and what he try to do to overcome that is also a conflict. Also.. who says Mochida is the female lead? She's never that. The female lead is debated between Kasumi or Akira. Mochida is just that school friend character like the Nozomi in Blade, etc. And they're considered side characters.

https://screenrant.com/why-video-game-movies-suck/

Yeah, this is a recurring trend to any video game adaptations. There are also bunch of other examples like other fighting games like Mortal Kombat, DOA, KoF, and Tekken, also Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc.