Whoa! My apologies to Androzani. Out of curiosity, where did you find those deleted scenes?

As much as I call Otoya unintentionally being an imagin by possessing Wataru a poor attempt at cashing in on Den-O I love how Koji Seto gives us his rendition of Otoya. Especially when he goes Exorcist on everyone and starts off with WHO THE HELL ARE Y'ALL. :lolol

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 20 - “NOCTURNE: THE MESSIAH OF LOVE”

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https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva20b.png

This is one of those Inoue stories where… I’m not sure how generous I want to be to it.

There’s definitely a positive interpretation of what’s going on with Yuri and Megumi in this episode, a way that it’s not just conforming to regressive gender roles. It’s all in what IXA represents to both women, and how that reflects the larger themes of the series.

The positive interpretation is that IXA is a burden, and their happiness depends on freeing themselves from it. Yuri views IXA as retribution for her mother, the physical embodiment of her grief and rage. It suffuses her desire to destroy Rook with obligation, with expectation, with pressure. It’s no longer just her needing to gain control of a horrible outcome, her loss of a parent. It’s a weight on her back, needing to follow through on her mother’s work at the cost of her own identity.

Megumi’s in a similar boat. She needs to be IXA because she expects to be IXA, because it’s woven into her family’s legacy. Once it’s literally in her hands, it’s fraught with decades of regret and disappointment. It’s not a coronation, it’s a poisoned chalice.

Viewing their story - and it’s really their story, singular - in this way, it makes their eventual rejection of being IXA into something heroic. It’s them breaking the chains of fate (or whatever), choosing to fight on their own terms, in their own way. Megumi isn’t any less a warrior for fighting without IXA’s abilities; if anything, her heroism is more unalloyed than Nago’s psychotic need for power and control. Yuri’s tears at her weakness… it isn’t her being some weak woman, unable to fight; it’s her feeling some small despair at how liberated she feels from her self-imposed vows to her mother. It’s a story that’s really no different from Wataru’s. These were two women who were crushed by legacy and obligation, and they found a way out of it, into the light.

That’s the positive interpretation. The negative one is that this episode bends over backwards to contrive a reason why not one but two different badass women find themselves psychologically unable to fight in the same manner as a bloodthirsty Clawolve, a psychotic button-enthusiast, and a lothario with a heart of gold. The optics on that move. Just… I don’t want to say “indefensible”, but it’s an episode that is only rewarding if you can make your brain tilt to a very specific Inoue degree. Mine can, but, shit. I don’t begrudge anyone who finds the justification for Yuri and Megumi’s crises unappealing-to-reprehensible.

Putting aside the, uh, point of this story, I think there were plenty of things that are less controversial and more incredibly awesome?

For one, there’s Otoya acting as a guide to Megumi because he is in the middle of the exact same story with Yuri. The way the ‘08 Otoya immediately diagnoses Megumi’s fixation on her mother’s legacy because he already watched Yuri’s deteriorating mental state due to her fixation on her mother’s legacy… perfect. Terrific, terrific use of the dual timelines, and it made for an episode where Otoya’s relationships with both women flipped around in fun ways. Megumi was classic Yuri, consistently telling Otoya to get away from her while he flirted shamelessly and refused to treat her deflections seriously. Meanwhile, Yuri was less guarded around Otoya, more willing to open up to him about her fears. She’s vulnerable in a way that is incredibly sweet, and it’s another step forward in making Otoya seem like not a gigantic mistake Yuri could make.

But wait! A new challenger arrives!

Holy shit, Maya. What a debut! Absolutely gorgeous from her reveal, I was probably as gobsmacked and awestruck as Otoya was. That face. Jesus. And then everything after that was a TV show that just wants you to feel previously unreached levels of desire and terror, with her detonating a rogue Fangire for the crime of loving a human while looking impossibly perfect and regal. The blood red moon, the thrown-back hood, that face… it’s an unforgettable sequence, and it’s such a stunning debut. In just a few minutes, Maya’s established herself as both a force to be reckoned with, and a #1 suspect for Wataru’s Real Mom. I mean, who knows what could happen in the next few episodes, but her and Otoya had instant chemistry, and the notion of her falling in love with Otoya when her first appearance is her detonating a Fangire for falling in love with a human? I can’t tell if that’s perfect, or too perfect. Very excited to find out which it’ll be!

(There are also a whole bunch of other things that are pointing very emphatically in the direction of She's Wataru's Mom. There's her Kivat, which is probably Wataru's Kivat's predecessor. There's the fact that the first meeting of Otoya and Maya is intercut with a wedding. It's, again... it's so unsubtle about the connections it's making that I can't tell if it's a red herring or not.)

While nowhere near the highs of the last episode, I did like this one. I think the Yuri/Megumi plot is more complex and considered than it appears on the surface. I loved a full episode of two different actors playing Otoya. (I laughed out loud when Real Otoya showed up directly after Wataru’s Otoya, because it was a weirdly seamless transition. It was like they switched actors between shots in a scene. Bizarre.) I liked seeing Yuri’s vulnerability and Otoya’s quiet support. (That shot on the riverbank!) I was thrilled for Megumi to kick ass in a fight scene again. And Maya! Oh god, Maya. Not an easy episode to defend, maybe, but one that worked for me.

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What I liked about this one the most is that it was an episode that really zigged when you expected it to zag. After how the last episode ended, it really seemed like this was set up to be a two-parter that was all about wacky Watoya shenanigans. Instead we get a dramatic episode that's all about Yuri and Megumi confronting their insecurities about using Ixa, the latter getting some tough love from Ghost Dad. It's really good, but

This. In a better world, this episode ends with Megumi resolving to be a warrior and taking up the Ixa Knuckle as her own instead of just kicking a considerable amount of ass alongside Nago. It's still a cool fight scene, but definitely not the way I'd like to see it play out (for the record, I'm more okay with what happened with Yuri because it makes more sense to me that she isn't ready yet).

Yeah, Maya makes a hell of a first impression. Not just because Saki Kagami is, yes, absolutely gorgeous, but her confrontation with the Fangire bride is very stylish and dynamic. Excellent way to introduce the next high tier Fangire.

My one big non-Yuri/Megumi regret for this story was that we never got to see Otoya's actor play Wataru for a scene. Feels like that could've been really fun!

Sure, it's a bummer. I think it vaguely works as a way of getting at one of Kiva's big themes, that you can draw strength from your parents without shackling yourself to their choices, but... the optics! Very difficult to not feel let down when Nago triumphantly henshins.

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How long does she stare down the barrel of the camera in this sequence: a hundred years? A million? It feels like the director needed to be assured that he'd be able to shoot more with her, so he could end that shot. It's scorchingly epic, that whole thing. She even has a badass Dealing Justice catchphrase!

Friends, we have arrived. I have been sitting on my hands for 20 episodes waiting for the arrival of Maya. I don't want to increasingly lean into play the caricature of myself that I am becoming and declare, "Yes, actual, literal Queen", but I adore everything about her character, about what she represents.

I also don't want to confirm or deny any speculation, but, for me, she is the best thing about Kiva. As much as the narrative involving Yuri and Megumi really had an impact on me, as much as I deeply care about this storyline of the distance and circumstance between them, I cherish every scene Maya is in because she represents that archetype of the wild woman, the woman who has gone so far the limits of her constraints that she is almost oblique to us as we look towards her; she is Medea, she is Lilith, she is Yodonna, and just... every moment she is on screen keeps me setting fire to Inoue's house.

And now, we come onto the introduction of the show’s (arguable) main female MVP. And I’m saying this because a) she’s this show’s representative in that figurine line I keep bringing up in these threads (other representatives include Tackle from Stronger, the rose woman from Kuuga, Sumire from Agito, Miho from the Ryuki movie, Mari and Smart Lady from Faiz, Akira and Hitomi from Hibiki and Naomi and both versions of Hana from Den-O), b) she’s the only female character with a song on the show’s reunion album (which is covers of the songs from the show, credited to the in-universe characters) and c) everyone’s pretty much said everything I wanted to say.

Anyway, like the Rook, she has a song on the album, but not in the show.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qoi1fYQbtZg

Sorry this is sparse opinion-wise, but as said, everyone already said something I wanted to say and I’m unsure whether doing Maya’s “Fact Fangire-le” constitutes a spoiler. Though I will say, as a call back to my last post, there is another deleted scene from this episode where Wataru has to pay the bills Otoya racked up in his body (with Shizuka and Megumi wisely deciding to leave the room).

I mean, pretty great? Maya is pretty great.

One other little touch about her debut is that, when Otoya mistakes her for Yuri (from behind, because again: that face), she gives him this I've Never Been Mistaken For Someone Else Before And I'm Not A Fan Of It line that is so complimentary-energy to Otoya's flirty demeanor that I get why Otoya was left speechless. The two of them are just perfect together, without really even having a scene. It's immediate and electric and I feel a little bad for how this is going to push Yuri out of my mind a lot.

No, for sure. When I bring up speculation like that... I try to do it sparingly. Some of it is because I don't really go in for a lot of that puzzle-box stuff for Kamen Rider (generally feel burned by half or more of the big reveals on these series), but most of it is because you guys all know what's going to happen, so there's really nothing to discuss. When I bring it up at all, it's more just to plant a flag that says Here's Where My Head's At than anything I'm expecting to talk about in greater detail.

I can see why she got a figurine! I can see why she'd get a hundred figurines!

There’s something about the phrase “a face that launched a thousand figurines” that is both inspiring and uncomfortable at the same time.

Agreed, the scenes they share together in the series are some of the most memorable for me, and some that I still think about. There's a lot from this later half of the series that I've been brooding on since I finally watched it all earlier last year/this year—and I found myself very much in the same position as you with the big reveals, in that I knew some of what happens but didn't really know how—and... I think that some thought was put into how these events that led up to 2008 were portrayed, and whilst not all of it worked in my opinion, some of it I found really haunting.

Gosh, I'm so excited you've reached the Maya episodes though. Not that I am big-headed enough to assume that you pay avid attention to a lot of the nonsense I write, but I've had this Maya fic sitting here that I haven't published just on the off-chance that you did notice and saw the picture and the Kiva setting, and were suddenly like "Who the heck is this Autobot?" I'm really pleased that no one spoiled her arrival for you. She's just a genuine delight of a character.