Tatsulot's sudden appearance is one of those things I'd love to get in on making fun of, but thinking about it... I'm honestly not sure the show needs to dwell on it too much? Like, Kivat exists to be armor for Kiva, and Tatsulot exists to be a key for that armor. The offhand mention in this one of Emperor Form being Kiva's true form and the mention last time that he woke up basically because Wataru wanted that power are ~maybe~ all you really need? At the very least, I definitely agree Tatsulot is keeping with Kiva's trends when it comes to writing the merch in, but man, for some reason, I've become way more generous towards those over time.

I will also say that I recall finding Tastulot pretty annoying? I'd probably be more mellow on his personality nowadays too, especially having heard Akira Ishida in other, significantly less grating voice roles, but his generically chipper attitude was never my favorite. (Again, the timing of that debut almost certainly did not help.) And while I'm on the subject of Wataru's living trinkets, I've always really liked Kivat as a Rider Belt who is also a character, although he became massively overshadowed in my heart once Drive started existing.

Calling Kivat a character always felt like a bit of stretch to me. Sure he talks and stuff, but how often does Wataru actually respond to or engage him in conversation? He never manages to feel more than a mascot purely for the viewer's sake to me.

I'm glad they revisited the idea with Belt-san, who's way better implemented and more memorable in all respects. Also more DX belts should have the ability to make cute expressions at a press of a button.

Quite frequently, actually. He’s often the character who Wataru holds the longest conversations with at his house (which is the set where he spends most of his time)

Huuuuh, is that right? The most vividly I can recall are instances where Kivat would offer some advice to Wataru about some problem of his, but Wataru doesn't really look towards Kivat so it looks more like Wataru's just talking aloud to himself while the CG bat is inelegantly inserted into the scene. I don't doubt there are exceptions though.

Yeah, pretty much this. For what it's worth, I'm realizing skimming through the episodes there's more material with him than I remembered, but I love Kivat's concept so much it was always disappointing to me he wasn't more actively involved with the plots.

Whoever came up with the idea of him hanging upside down on the belt is a genius though. The designers at Plex truly had their brains in top gear that day. :p

Honestly, it’s something I find really endearing about Kiva. Castle Doran starts shaking and Jairo’s all “Oh, that’s just Tatsulot acting up” like that makes any sense to the audience. My second favorite part of Zi-O’s Kiva tribute is that it brings back the “Wait, what is this and where did it come from?” “Meh.” new merch introduction that is just 100% Kiva.

Sure, but there's also a time and a place, you know? An episode can have comedy and tragedy, but it's a lot more difficult to include Wacky Comedy and A Spouse's Death From Illness in the same episode. Can it be done? Yeah, probably. It definitely wasn't done here, though.

I took Shinji's freakout as the standard Suicide By Rider that you get with your sympathetic monsters at the end of a story. He couldn't live with his loss, and here's a merciless agent of retributive justice, the end. It definitely goes up a level when he sees that Mio is the new Queen, though. Then it becomes about lashing out at the people who cost him the ability to be happy with Ryoko.

First, I'm not sure I'd read Ryoko's admission that she knew Shinji was a Fangire as something she just learned. I definitely read it as something she's known for years, maybe since 1986. The way she quiets him as he tries to unburden himself implies that she has lived with this knowledge for a long time, but let him keep his secret as a kindness. She had spent a long time caring for Shinji, and if he needed to pretend he was a human because he couldn't bear the thought of her hating him? She's okay with that compromise.

Second, the implication is that Shinji and Ryoko spent years living off-the-radar in not-great conditions to avoid being tracked down by Maya. Unless you mean how Shinji escaped originally? Because that was from Maya laughing so hard at Otoya that Shinji was able to make a run for it.

I'm okay with this interpretation! Because, yeah, Yuri saying she loves Otoya feels a little unearned. It's better if she's just saying it to protect Otoya and dissuade Jiro. I'm not sure the beginning of 25 supports it, but that could just be Yuri deluding herself.

It is neat that Yuri has become this woman with nothing but bad relationship decisions, although when your options are Clawolves, Frankenburies, and Otoya... I mean, it is okay to be alone maybe. I'm not sure there's a good pick anywhere in there. My OTP is Yuri/Her Career.

Yeah, I can't say I was ever super concerned about the backstory for Kivat and Tatsulot. It's nothing I've puzzled over. It's maybe a weird perspective, considering I came through Ex-Aid, where the entire show is built to constantly explain power-ups and form changes, but I generally don't give a shit where some of this stuff comes from. I kind of like the idea of it being totally reasonable within the world, to the characters, because then it feels like it's woven into the fabric without having to spend two minutes on exposition. It's got that Star Wars thing of feeling like you're getting a small piece of a much bigger story, and that's a fun tone for sci-fi/fantasy storytelling.

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 26 - "METRONOME: MIRACULOUS MEMORY”

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I don't feel like there are a lot of longform romances in Kamen Rider. Like, stories about heroes falling in love and navigating a relationship are weirdly few and far between.

Top of my head... well, most of the cast of Faiz, obviously. But after that? Ibuki. Todoroki. Maybe Drive. That's pretty much it? Everything else is fully-formed on debut (Miu and Shun on Fourze), basically tacked-on at the end (Accel and Akiko from W, Gentoku and Sawa from Build) or the far more likely Fridged Girlfriend (as featured prominently in Ryuki, Blade, Ex-Aid, etc). The arc of a relationship isn't really something Kamen Rider seems to have a lot of interest in, beyond Faiz and half of Hibiki.

And now Kiva, because Inoue. Inoue Forever.

I thought this episode was really tight. It's not exactly my favorite one ever, but I liked its thematic coherence. It's an episode about the figurative and literal Power of Love, and we get to talk about it over three different storylines.

The Yuri/Otoya one is very sweet. Maya wants to see what it means to Otoya to be in love. She's lying to him, pretending she's Yuri, but it's just to get him to talk about what it means to love Yuri. Maya doesn't want Otoya to love her (yet!), but she wants to know what loving her feels like for him, how it motivates him. For Otoya, love's about sacrifice and dedication, despite his normal womanizing ways. As he plays his violin, it connects him to his feelings for Yuri, and a promise he made to find her mother's ring that was lost at a beach. The first thing he remembers about Yuri is a vow.

Maya gets at the other side of the equation when Yuri tracks them both down at the beach. Maya wants to know what it feels like to be loved. Yuri's answer is Otoya's answer, but with words instead of actions. Being loved is motivating, it's empowering. It gives you the strength to be your best self, to be better than your best self. Loving someone and being loved, they're a power.

So, naturally, we get the Mio/Wataru story, where the power of love takes on a darker context. (I mean, Otoya almost drowned because he wanted to fulfill a promise to Yuri, so it ain't like that story was all happiness!) Mio's on the run from Bishop, who wants her to serve as the new Queen for Checkmate Four. She can't do that, because she doesn't believe that love is something to be punished for; it's something to be protected at all costs. Wataru feels similarly, and they both end up finding new strength in their feelings for each other. As someone in love, they view their responsibility to one another as protection. Mio broke up with Wataru to save him from danger, and Wataru gained Emperor Form because of his feelings for Mio. The power they get from loving each other isn't just some internal strength, it's an external force. It makes Kiva more dangerous. It gives Mio not just the ability, but the resolve to execute a Fangire. (I cheered a bit when I realized that she'd found a way to do her job as Queen by murdering the Fangire who hurt Wataru. Incredibly clever plotting.) What Mio and Wataru have found in their relationship feels a little scary, and that's a good way of examining the uncertainty of where a relationship can take people.

There's a third look in at The Power of Love, and it's delightfully off-beat. It's Megumi using the Fangire's love for her against it, delivering an unbelievably overdue kick to its balls as she swipes back the IXA Knuckle for Nago. It feels like it's going to be a story where Megumi and Nago find that the spark from their teamwork is maybe more than they thought, but the show swerves away from that. Instead, Nago uses his love for power to give himself the strength to lie to Shima's face, claiming contrition (he even fake cries) so that he can retain the IXA Knuckle. It's Nago as an Individual System (!!!), his own relationship, and using that to push himself to achieve his goals.

I don't know that anything here really blew me away, but there's really nothing I can point to as subpar. I thought the IXA fight was fun (those hand puppets on the IXA suit are... did they put them in the Seihou?!), and I thought Mio's justification for killing the Fangire was fiendishly clever. Beyond that, the story was just relentlessly well-executed, front to back. That's awesome, and I'd take a season as good as this episode in a heartbeat, but it didn't really have anything in it that I feel is going to stick with me long term. I liked what it was saying, and I loved how it said it (the direction in this one was impeccable), but it all felt very... I don't know, sturdy? That's a good thing! But it's hardly the sort of adjective you trot out to get people excited. Still, a very good episode for a show that is putting together a very enviable second-half.

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Rip Spider Fangire