This was pretty much every late 80s and 90s scifi ova ever. Best thing to come out of this show. :rock:

I said that Revice got disappointing after ep. 25 and never recovered, and the good thing about it is mainly in the side contents, like Revice Legacy: Kamen Rider Vail.

Unrelated (and likely an obnoxious nitpick) but there's this oversight that can happen for shows that is meant to be set in the past as Revice prequel. As ep. 30 of Revice claims, the photo of NOAH executives (with Akaishi) are set decades ago... but one of the cars shown, the one he looked at the window as others call him devil, was 4th generation Honda Fit, which was a 2020 release. Sure the tech in KR world is far more advanced like NOAH, but this is still lacking an effort to make the past is really the past.

So Genta in the past, a.k.a Junpei, or a.k.a Subject 071, did the Demon hunting on his own instead of Vail. Vail has less significance by only a partner to talk with. And Junpei's anti-hero kind of a Rider, as he didn't do anything bad (but NOAH is just bad) by killing devils, but he only fought the devils for revenge of the death of his parents to a red devil, and him losing his soul as he fought more and more unrelated devil shows that he didn't really care about protecting others.

Junpei learns to use the ViStamp and Vail Driver quickly, while he at first goes to fight the devil in his human form, after Masumi tells him to use both devices he did it without struggling, or making use of Vail's tools afterwards. And while NOAH treats him as a captive, his fighting style is also really brutal, as if he's mindless. It even got him to destroy the bridge at his final fight and buried him under rubble, so he's a really destructive folk which have NOAH quite justified in their cruel methods of restraining him.

As Vail in the main series is shown to be able to destroy a Giftarian without a finisher, I wonder if the devil in the past was all the stronger one compared to the ones present in the main series, the general MOTW ones (not Phase 3 or above).

I think it's may be fair to expect and have Ikki try to understand Olteca, but, what if after Ikki actually tried, Olteca's proven to be irredeemable? Would having tragic backstory means they're free from any blames and it's still the only other party's fault? (e.g. Ikki is too much of an insensitive egotist thus he's complicit in being unable to redeem Olteca and keeps him going). What should Ikki do next after it's proven that he's beyond redemption? Tragic backstory to explain aside, Olteca is just like Asakura and Kitazaki in evilness - of which Shinji tried for Asakura but it's revealed that he's truly beyond redemption.

And I agree with the declaration sounding like prejudice (though he shouldn't be condemned for rubbing someone the wrong way), but, about you, didn't you think that it's only ok for someone to resort into for example, killing when they've given up their humanity such as turning themselves into monsters? I'd also think that while perhaps humans (normal, outside of KR) can be more neutralized, it should be also acknowledged that there can be human villains who are much worse than any monster, also not judging good/bad by species alone.

You said you weren't going to remember another name for Genta but you did anyway. :lol

While Yukimi is the only sane person and heart of the Igarashi family, it's here in this spin-off where we can see how much that means. The one who can turn Genta from angry revenge man to goofy vlogging man.

Revice Legacy Vail is a sweet love story for sure and something I could look forward to each week. The prequel setting gives Mouri the freedom to write however he wants to and I think he does a great job. I like the ED theme a lot as well, performed by Yukimi's 20s and 40s actresses.

BTW, Yukimi's 20s actress, Okubo Sakurako, was previously Hammie/Chamaeleon Green in Kyuranger, which shares the producer with Revice and was also written by Mouri.

Tragic backstory doesn't absolve Olteca, but that information can provide a solution for others to help him recover from the trauma, like how Reiko and Shinji tried to help Asakura after finding out about the fire and his surviving brother. Even though that ended badly, you can't know the outcome for sure unless you try. Shinji still declared to Kanzaki that protecting people includes protecting Riders and later that "nobody is better off dead", as even Asakura's life was important to Mika (those two episodes are next on my rewatch). If Ikki was willing to see potential for change in Suzu, due to her tragic backstory, then it seems OOC and disappointing that he couldn't do the same for Olteca.

Ikki and Daiji already had to kill three Giftex due to their powers at the time being unable to defeat them non-lethally. Even in the Ghost example I gave, Takeru was forced to kill Adel since the Ganmaizers refused to let Adel live. Unless mercy is refused, like Desast demanding Kenzan to not hold back, then heroes should always strive to save those they can, which is the minimum Ikki did for Olteca before Gif finished him. Ikki doesn't bother to give Olteca a clear explanation for his confusing statement, only that he's crossed a line and whatever, which I'm not sure how Olteca or anybody in his position is supposed to take that in a constructive way. Being hated by his father was the reason he turned out like that, after all, so more hatred solves nothing.

Congrats on your 1100th post!

Ha ha, I'm not sure I'd go that far, but this was a fun first episode. Glad you enjoyed it, too!

I'd assume that Vail not being in full control of Junpei in the past probably limited their effectiveness in monster detonation. Vail unleashed in the present is, I'd think, significantly more dangerous than Junpei was as a Rider.

DAMN IT! They got me!

REVICE LEGACY: KAMEN RIDER VAIL - EPISODES 2 + 3

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/vail2a.png

Solid middle episodes!

There’s not really a ton worth talking about beyond the romance of Genta and Yukimi, though. The various unconscionable acts of Noah are so boilerplate as to be almost a parody of mysterious organizations of nebulous authority. They’re just trying to harness Giff’s power for some reason, but the only path to success seems to be churning through dozens and dozens of unwilling test subjects, to a degree that even Shocker would find to be wasteful and inhumane. I laughed pretty hard at the implication that Genta’s been polishing off a mounting number of devils solely because no one at Noah thought to run their human experimentation in a room more secure than a well-appointed office, leaving each successive failure to rampage out of the same goddamn office, killing a few guards on their way to freedom. I understand the management tactic of throwing bodies at difficult problems, but maybe someone somewhere should’ve told Noah that it’s just an expression.

(I also completely don’t get the timeline on Noah using a devil to kill Genta’s family in order to motivate him. How Noah’s suddenly controlling a devil feels like a reveal for a future episode, but the first episode of this run made it seem like Genta was a fluke victory for the program, and his parents were already dead. Was he experimented on, and then Noah dragged him home to watch his parents get murdered? I don’t at all get how that reveal fits into the established timeline.)

But Genta and Yukimi! Very sweet at times, weirdly toxic at others. The story is smart to reframe Yukimi’s crush on a smelly, taciturn, dismissive psychopath as her being a busybody, since it both connects back to Revice as a show, and also makes her seem less like she’s just going through the motions of the plot. Genta’s sort of impossible to see as a romantic partner in this stage of their romance, and it works a little better if she’s just trying to help a dude who’s as lost and alone as she is.

I like that Genta and Yukimi are both aching for a family to make them feel safe, and see that absence in each other, and want to build a new family together. I like that they both want the same thing. It makes this less a story about a Kamen Rider falling in love, and more a romance of equal partners, one of which happens to be a murder machine. The way these two episodes never let you forget that Yukimi has goals and desires, that she’s not just someone to be rescued or protected, is really helpful in elevating a story of fairly ridiculous extra-governmental imprisonment and execution.

This thing continues to be greater than the sum of its parts. Yukimi and Genta have always been my favorite characters on this show, and this special just reinforces that decision.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/vail2b.png

Yeah, this is every late 80s and 90s scifi ova ever. :lolol
On a side note, great to see Sakurako Okubo again since Kyuranger, aka Super Sentai Star Wars. She was the green ranger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhXrAitR9gk

As this centers outside of Noah, more of Junpei's personality is shown here in the daily talk against someone, as someone only driven by revenge and has lost his meaning of life by that, he's a lone wolf type and would show some coldness and aloofness. It's explainable with how NOAH treats him, but his vengeful side seems to be purely his own, as that time he was eager to fight the devils, instead of obeying NOAH. He's the closest to edgy asshole secondaries for Revice. Other than that, he seems to be enhanced as Vail with his wounds healing quickly. Not that it applies to his scent too however. He doesn't seem to be much superior to the NOAH soldiers that fought him, so he's probably at best slightly superhuman in physical stats at that point.

Actually Masumi's conscience kicked in earlier than I thought, I thought he felt regret as he grew older and a bit wiser, but actually he already objected as a young man here against Agariyama, who's shown to be completely ruthless in reaching his goals, experimenting on various people without blinking an eye despite that all of them except Junpei are killed. That'd mean he might've obtained more victims than Olteca with Junpei being numbered 71. He'd also capture someone innocent just because she interacts with Subject 071 and would soon consider him a failure as well, Junpei's second chance is given without freedom. While Masumi has done the experiments too, thus he's amoral too, he had limits to stop when he feels it has gone too far. This also makes him a better person compared to certain another hat + sunglasses + mask covered person, W's Shroud, that he's more well-meaning and is genuinely remorseful for the damage and chaos his research caused unlike Shroud who's completely consumed by her vengeance to manipulate others as a tool constantly including monsters like Isaka, though she eventually felt remorse but in much later time.

Now it's clearer why the NOAH captain seem to have more restrain and standards compared to the other NOAH members, because he's actually a spy from a resistance to prevent victims like Genta. This one's not a case of 'not all members from a shady organization (in this case NOAH) is fully bad'. Before he helped Genta and Yukimi escape he tried to convince Masumi, so that shows he disapproved of Agariyama. Though dunno when did he become a spy of NOAH and if he's already there when the previous 70 victims aren't saved, as it can seem as if the turnaround of the captain was forced in the middle if he's already there for quite a time, and that he did tase Genta. Masumi is also a better person compared to Agariyama, but he's still not a good person overall, then and now, with him refusing to change his ways here that he has sunk too deep despite having limits in what he did.

Actually turns out how Genta is seen as a failure was about his body rejecting Giff cells thus he can also potentially turn into devil. So it's nothing different from previous 70 subjects, but just delayed failure for Agariyama. Obviously planning to kill Yukimi is monstrous too. For the fight here, the stock "your loved ones fuel your determination" trope is used as a reason why Genta can escape (and likely keeps his human self this way)... Other than that, Revice continues to provide bodycount here, and not from Giff-related stuff in the captain firing at his squad members. Which next leads into a rare scene of Kamen Rider directly hitting humans. The soldiers aren't actually reduced into mush for obvious reason (excessive gore even if that makes sense), but likely they died too from a direct blow from Kamen Rider.

It now centers around the buildup of his relationship with Yukimi as she helped him out from the debris and took him to the similar-as-ever-in-the-past Happy Spa. True to how "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree", Yukimi showed traits that is seen in her future children, seen in her cooking being about spicy curries like Sakura's, as well as her being a #1 busybody like Ikki's, none for Daiji's yet. I guess it makes sense now on how she was fiercely overprotective against Sakura becoming a Rider, she resembles Ikki the most at the first place. That'd make her kind and helpful...b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶J̶u̶n̶p̶e̶i̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶R̶i̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶u̶i̶t̶, albeit with some wild and savage traits too, she's saving the day with traditionally feminine role to Genta, but Ikki's busybodiness is seen as a wrong trait in the main series, so if Yukimi's like him too she should've been given a lesson too, but I don't think it'd happen for 5-part only unless it's mentioned offscreen if Yukimi can be a main guide to her children.

Still there's something that all the children has nothing in common to their parents... so far none of the Igarashi childrens inherit Junpei's personality, while Yukimi was never strong physically unlike all her children... of which is shown in ep. 1, the difference between her and Sakura dealing with the Giff Juniors. Though she did rescue Genta by using steel rod to lift the debris.

I was worried before regarding about how the next one was probably going to sideline the deeper development of learning to live or something for just lovey-dovey romance, even though it's obviously going to happen eventually, but actually that's handled fine and better than I expect. There's some relatable traits between Genta and Yukimi to each other that probably is the one to spark the relationship. About how both lost their parents, and both feel a sense of emptiness in their life with Genta losing the meaning of his life by only taking revenge, and Yukimi seemingly accepting of her potential death as NOAH prisoner. And then Genta, with him also being far more honest than I expect, admitting that spending time with Yukimi was enjoyable and likely something that can fill the void in his life, probably Yukimi as well before of wanting to eat together with him. Many of previous talks about this seem to often portray those who are more "stereotypically" feminine as "just someone to be rescued or protected"... with desires and goals being visible in those "defying" feminity...

Other than not absolving him, it doesn't make him above/better than Asakura and Kitazaki too. Still I'd want the clear answer of what Ikki should do if Olteca's really irredeemable after he actually tried? Not that Ikki should "understand" him by letting him win and get what he wants to "ease his pain" right? Though Saber did have Touma reaching out, Isaac's final fate is also being finished off by Storious. I think while it'd be fair to expect and want Ikki to have some attempt in reaching out, but I'd think, him prioritizing Olteca's victims is good (I can think declaring unforgivable means honoring those victims), of which you also can seem to overlook nameless victims (of which this can happen in serial killer stories to focus on the culprit and have them inadvertently getting admiration instead or such), like forgetting Heaven and Hell because Sara wasn't killed, Suzu did something bad but is nowhere near as horrible as Olteca is, what about this being Ikki having limits?

Dunno why I can't keep up with others here.

Personally, I think Kyuranger is more Super Sentai Assassin's Creed, or Super Sentai Guardians of the Galaxy. But I guess it can be a little of all three.

Right, Ikki shouldn't let Olteca have his way. Ending someone's suffering only works if it doesn't bring suffering to others. If he tries and fails to help him see the error of his ways, then ultimately he should defeat him to prevent him from committing further crimes, although preferably without bringing unnecessary hatred in to it, as heroes are still supposed to be examples of the morals they preach. Pay evil unto evil isn't good enough.

Well I already admitted my mistake of forgetting about the Heaven and Hell game victims, so it's not that I've forgotten Olteca's victims either. However, I think there's an important difference between justice and self-indulgence. Ikki having limits is probably another flaw manifesting from his egotism, that he calls himself the Ultimate Busybody, but he can't live up to that title, compared to Takeru who actually surpasses him in compassion.

Yeah, I should've said space opera looking back. :lolol

REVICE LEGACY: KAMEN RIDER VAIL - EPISODE 4

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/vail4a.png

Long day! Late night! Let’s quickly talk about a single episode of this Vail special!

It’s a lot of plot business in this one, trying to lay out the bizarre NOAH-related cause and effect of Genta’s backstory, and it sort of mostly works? I always got the impression that his death and resurrection was what lead to his memory loss, but somehow he retained those memories enough to know who his parents were, which is why NOAH had them murdered by Vail: to give Genta a thing to avenge. It’s just… it’s a little weird, timing-wise. If Genta lost his memories before/during his experimentation, which makes the most sense, why would he even know his parents enough to understand who was being murdered in front of him? And if he lost his memories afterwards… what does he only remember just enough details from his Narratively Convenient Amnesia to be traumatized by his parents’ murder? And why does he lose his memories at all? It’s a very, very weird plot point, and I don’t think this episode completely squares that circle.

What it does do, however, is reveal that Vail was the killer in question, and that part is really well done. It’s not surprising, but it doesn’t really have to be. It just needs to both expose Genta’s addiction to using vengeance as a way of excusing his propensity for violence, and it needs to give Genta nowhere to hide from his monstrous nature. Vail acts as a more malevolent Vice; there’s a sense of both companionship and liberation in his cruelty, and he genuinely seems to want to give Genta the life he secretly desires. Vail’s the thing in Genta that fears domestication, and longs for the self-obliteration of life as Kamen Rider Vail. It’s ugly, but it definitely comes from someplace in Genta.

The Vail stuff, along with the cute Genta/Yukimi scene, really worked for me this time out. NOAH, meanwhile, continues to be the perfect prequel organization for Revice: just the most relentlessly incompetent sociopaths, assuming that myriad failures – ranging from homicide to genocide – will eventually result in something that will validate their jobs. (Also, “Nest Of Anti-Human”? YIKES. Terrible!) All these mysterious organizations of nebulous authority are such a drag, but the character-based storytelling continues to impress. Excited for the finale!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/vail4b.png