Oh yeah, but like I said: caring AND responsible. We've got a lot of "either/or" but very little "and."

Ha ha, I would also intensely qualify the terms Caring and Responsible when it comes to Megumi and Nago!

Although... I mean, I don't want to keep walking back Work Mom And Work Dad Are Failing Wataru, but there's honestly some value in even the weird manipulations and ways Wataru's personhood is weaponized. Like, Nago is able to manipulate and isolate Wataru so thoroughly because he knows exactly what's motivating Wataru. Megumi is trying her best to make a connection with Wataru, but Nago instantly gets that this kid has daddy issues he can leverage. He also probably does want to help Wataru? Just in the most selfish, emotionally-dishonest way possible?

It's a real Inoue take on these types of issues, because there isn't this clean delineation between Good People and Bad People, or between Helping and Hurting. It's very messy, which... I mean, we're still turning this plot over, and that's not something that might've happened on another show.

I do respect Wataru's neverending quest to find the perfect varnish though. Admire the work ethic. :lolol

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 08 - "SOUL: THE ANGERED DRAGON CASTLE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva08a.png

I don't know if it's the existential terror and wounded anger of the Rider Subs thread overflowing in my brain, or if it's just this episode, but I found this one pretty hard to concentrate on. My mind wandered a whole bunch here.

It's an episode full of red herrings and unexplained occurrences (a Gillagoon is hunting Yuri for some reason? And whatever the Fangire was using to track down his victims after they ingested it was flammable for some reason?) that ends with two previously-uninvolved CGI monstrosities battling it out in the air, none of which feels connected even slightly to last episode's Work Mom And Work Dad Are Tearing Wataru Apart story. This one was all antics and shenanigans, nothing I could really care about.

Like, Wataru is active(-ish) in defeating the Fangire, but a passive observer for the rest of the 2008 story. Most of the episode is just him drawing out Nago's backstory, which is legendarily stupid. And I mean that as a compliment! The idea that Nago got his father arrested for a clerical error (and ended up leading to his death!) because All Sins Must Be Punished is... *chef's kiss*. It's that heroic certitude he debuted with, but recast as villainous inflexibility. There's a way to read it as tragic (Nago definitely comes off in the flashback like someone trying to justify a hideous mistake by doubling down on it), but Nago is so insufferable at this point that it's nearly impossible to muster much sympathy for him. As it is, it comes off as riotously funny - a parody of the tortured hero's backstory - which I will gladly accept.

Besides Nago's backstory (and this is another story he's completely absent for the second half of! Does this guy only work odd-numbered episodes or something?), the rest of the 2008 part of this story is some cutely funny scenes with Wataru, Shizuka, and Megumi; a brief fight scene on the docks where Kivat's just like I Don't Know Maybe I Should Fight Too; and then the conclusion, where a Dragon Cathedral and a Dragon Rooftop Windmill team up with Kiva to defeat a Resurrected Chandelier. It's all stuff happening, but it wasn't thematically relevant or vital to the characters. Wataru doesn't resolve the tension between Nago and Megumi, because Nago straight-up leaves the story. There's a sense of Wataru feeling a little more confident in his decision-making, but then he's reduced to a prop that Shizuka and Megumi briefly fight over. Like, last episode made itself really dark, and then this one sort of pretended it never happened. I don't know. Didn't feel like the 2008 stuff went anywhere for me.

1986 fared a little better, but not really. It's a lot of plot machinations, maneuvering Zanki to be less of a cool heroic loner and more of a wolf in helpful clothing. He's up to something, and it's not really clear what it is. There's a bit of a cliffhanger here, where Yuri flirts with Zanki, but it feels disingenuous to me. I can't really buy it as Yuri starting to swoon for her feral protector. She's probably letting him think she's falling for him so she can figure out what he's up to. (Yuri is way too smart to take Zanki at face value.) It's not really as shocking as it maybe was supposed to be, her picking Zanki over Otoya.

It'd help if Yuri seemed to be anything less than horrified at Otoya, though. Otoya is maybe at his most unhelpful in this episode, vacillating between actively making situations worse and almost killing himself to prove his bravery. His least frustrating moments are only when he's debilitated and pathetic. He's still funny in this episode (him jumping that rando in the park was a stitch; I still love how unsubtle he is in his feud with Zanki), but there's almost no way to look at him as anywhere near the league of a suave, decisive, leather-clad werewolf. If I'm supposed to be invested in Otoya's attempts to win over Yuri (and I was just a few episodes ago), episodes like this are the wrong direction to go in.

This whole episode felt wrong to me. Or... not wrong, maybe, but uninspired. It missed out on the complicated emotions of the previous chapter for romantic wackiness and CGI battle scenes. (I don't like CGI battle scenes at the ends of my Kamen Rider episodes!) The Fangire villain (a Prawn?) never really came together, outside of a funny gif. The 2008 stuff gave us Nago's backstory and nothing new for Wataru. The 1986 stuff teased Zanki's duplicity and murderous nature, but mostly shrugged at connecting itself with the other timeline. The whole thing was... adequate. Forgettable, but nothing that made me angry. Not like this Toei fansub news!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva08b.png

Despite the current doom and gloom, and a story that may or may not be a little undercooked and unfocused, this episode is still pretty exciting for me, since it debuts the show's first insert theme, Destiny's Play, which means it's finally time to start talking some TETRA-FANG!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LxukijQ7fc

It was mentioned briefly earlier in the thread, but, proving the commitment to the show's musical theming, an entire "limited-time" band was put together solely for the sake of performing songs for the show. Den-O's huge array of character songs were quite popular, and like a lot of things in Kiva, they wanted to mimic that same successful formula. Also like a lot of things in Kiva, they wanted to do something different with those same ideas, so rather than variations on one song sung by a huge number of actors, Kiva has a huge number of unique songs all sung by one actor, Kouji Seto, who of course plays Wataru.

I probably don't need to explain the "fang" part of the name, but the "tetra" comes from the band having four members, which includes Shuuhei Naruse as the keyboardist. Naruse started working as a composer on Rider during Den-O and has had an insane level of contribution to the franchise since, not even limited to just theme songs, as he also did the background music for Decade, Double, and Drive alongside Koutarou Nakagawa, and handled Fourze entirely by himself. For Kiva, he composed quite a few songs, including Break the Chain, as well as handling the arrangement on many others.

The point I'm attempting to get at here is that TETRA-FANG is awesome, and all of these songs totally slap. Destiny's Play is a particular favorite of mine, even. Sort of a gold standard for Rider insert/character themes in my mind. While it's certainly something that can get you pumped for a fight scene, it's also got a relatively subdued sound compared to a lot of the insert themes Heisei Rider had been using up to that point, which makes it pretty much perfect as a theme song for Wataru at the outset of the series.

Shouko Fujibayashi is still handling the lyrics for a huge number of these tracks, and, again, Destiny's Play is a song I'm always thinking of whenever I'm gushing about her work. It really nails that balance of being this optimistic jam about Wataru finding the courage to face an uncertain future while still having the lines kinda tinged by the doubts he's trying to overcome. It effortlessly encapsulates everything you need to know about the character, and I'm speaking from experience there, since, as I mentioned, these songs are how I knew the cast for a good while before watching the show. I felt like I had a pretty good grip on the guy going in.

pretty much the one thing Everyone agrees with on this show is it's designs and soundtrack both orchestra/insert themes are among the best in the franchise with the mc's ultimate form having IMO the best design in the franchise

This is the scene I was talking about earlier that I consider to basically be Kiva in a nutshell. I've mentioned a few times now, in this thread and others, that Kiva is a show that refuses to explain things and this episodes climax has what is, to me, to the ultimate example. This is the episode where Shoodoran shows up. Shoodoran is a smaller version of Castle Doran that has a windmill on top of it and can mount on to the full size version. It just shows up suddenly out of nowhere with absolutely no explanation of what it is or where it came from and after this it is never seen again. Not in the series. Not in the movie. Not in the HBV. Never.

I'm not sure if that counts as a spoiler. If so, my apologies.

This is what Kiva does, though. It just throws things into the show and then never bothers to explain anything about them. It is easily the most consistently frustrating aspect of the show for me.

I don't know that I'd consider This Never Comes Up Again as a spoiler, but I appreciate the concern.

The conclusion, with the five butlers (or whatever) turning into a Resurrected Chandelier that only another CGI monstrosity can defeat... it's just, like, everything that bugged me about this episode. It's a conclusion that's on the backs (literally?) of two monsters who were not even present in the story before that moment. It'd be like if the 2008 Sentai Zord showed up to save the day. It might look cool (I assume that Zord looked cool), but it relegates to the background Wataru and every thematic thing the previous episode had been building towards. It feels like a failure of storytelling.

I?€™ll let you decide.

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

That said, the thing I remember most about this episode isn’t the debut of the Six Pillars Sabbath (the giant chandelier monster), or the sole appearance of ShooDoran, but Megumi dressed in Lolita clothing. I don’t know why, but that just stick out more than anything else.

FYI Yaguruma piloted the golden chicken helicopter that has the number 7 on it.

I can totally see why Yuri might be romantically interested in Jirou. Other than how he's just a really cool bad*ss, he appears to be reliable and gentlemanly, which acts as a foil to Otoya, whose best quality is probably his determination (drinking all that bitter black coffee is crazy impressive!) but that gets overshadowed by all his terrible flaws. It's the same thing that happens in Faiz, where Kusaka exploits Takumi's flaws to damage Mari's trust in him. Except in this Kiva 86 story, it's also a love triangle and Inoue does an awesome job at making it exciting like he always does!

Anyway, like Switchblade said, the cute windmill wyvern makes his one and only appearance here. It was nice knowing you, Shoodoran!

Other than Go-Onger being my favorite Sentai, Engine Oh G12 is also my favorite clusterfudge mecha, followed by Good Cool Kaizer VSX!

I would definitely like Kiva a lot more if Engine-Oh was in it.

That said, I mean, I dunno. Kamen Rider toy stuff, easy for me to overlook. As Switchblade said it never comes up or matters again so it's, like, a minor minor minor issue with the show as a whole

First, I never mentioned that Fancy-Dress Wataru just looks like Boy Band Takumi, so thank you for giving me that opportunity.

Second, I think the problem with the Zanki/Kusaka comparison here is that Otoya's losses are way more self-inflicted than Takumi's were. Takumi could be a selfish, grumpy asshole, but Kusaka usually needed to actively stir the pot and/or physically assault someone to get Takumi to strain friendships. Here, Zanki just has to not be as much of a pushy creep as Otoya? Like, Zanki just has to clear that incredibly low bar to (theoretically) turn Yuri against Otoya.

For me, it was just emblematic of a story that basically gave up on trying to say anything about its characters, so here's something flashy and irrelevant to distract from that.

I don't love a finish with CGI monstrosities battling in the skies for a Kamen Rider episode, but it ain't like I'm turning my nose up at toyetic content. I mean, Ex-Aid. I'm okay with fun toy content that enhances the narrative! This wasn't that for me.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if this is the reason why Inoue never did another Rider show after Kiva. Decade and all the other shows after it have been really big about pushing the collectible gimmick toys, which is something that Inoue is just not interested in. I can see him not wanting to write a toy commercial and Toei not wanting a writer who would have Kouta just randomly pull out the watermelon Lockseed once and then never mention it again.

Otoya might be the opposite of Takumi in this regard. Otoya thinks highly of himself and eagerly contests Jirou's claims against him, when he usually deserves his misfortune. Takumi thinks he deserves his misfortune and never contests Kusaka's claims against him, when he has every reason to. It's like if they took the opposite action, they could have done something about their problems, but their specific personalities prevent them and make them easy scapegoats for these manipulators.

I'm surprised how anybody can just not think these CGI fights are totally awesome, but considering our frequently clashing opinions about Makamou fights in Hibiki, I think we are always going to disagree about that.

It's completely a Personal Preference thing. I like human-scaled conflicts in my tokusatsu, so anything that goes giant-sized tends to lose my interest. It's maybe one of the major reasons I've stayed away from Sentai?

I think this line of thought is exactly how I ended up watching Go-Onger the first time I tried to watch Kiva. :lol

But yeah, I'm going to go on record here and say that I find Kiva's attitude towards a lot of its merchandise more deeply endearing than anything? (Hardly surprising when I'm such a fan of Faiz Accel's introduction, I know.) Like, I guess it's a flaw, but it's a cute problem, and you can't always say that about this show!

I like this theory. Especially looking at those few things he has written more recently, it's very easy to imagine this being part of his thought process.

Well in Sentai, the giant fights are choreographed using a mix of CGI, suit actors in miniature city sets and a little animatronic action so you might actually prefer that to the non-humanoid CGI fights in KR?

Maybe? The various Sentai/Rider crossover films usually feature some giant mech action, and that stuff never really ignited a passion within me for more, so it's likely something I'll never grow out of. But maybe!

Yeah, I’ve been on record saying much the same. I find it’s habit of stuff being given to them at any random point a lot more exciting than the standard “tap into willpower” or “gets given an artefact after an hour’s training” cliches.

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 09 - "SYMPHONY: IXA, FIST ON”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva09a.png

Well, that was an hour spent writing a shitty version of this post.

It was an hour where, as I neared the end of it, I was like Wataru at the beginning of this episode. You get to this moment and you're like This Is Garbage, and then that's it. There's no salvaging it. There's no fixing it. You made a wrong turn so early in the process that you can only burn it up and start from scratch.

I really liked the start of this episode. I liked Wataru realizing that he'd built himself a prison of Almost Bloody Roses over the last eight episodes. It's a ballsy cold open, the hero of the show feeling so disappointed in his art that he needs to watch it be destroyed. It's sad, and awkward. Wataru throws a little fit. It's childish and slightly obnoxious. I get it, though. It definitely fit this episode, a story about how much we care about art and the ways we try to protect it.

Oomura is a pretty great Guest Dad for Wataru. I mean, Murakami from Faiz! Sure! You don't have to talk me into it! He's got a really great attitude in his scenes with Wataru, where he's kindly and gently trying to get Wataru to stop looking to other people for validation. The world doesn't need Wataru to make another Bloody Rose; Otoya already did that, and it's three feet away. What the world needs is the violin that only Wataru can make, if he'd actually let himself make it. Wataru's struggle isn't just to make his dad (or Guest Dads) proud, it's to find a way to communicate his art to the world. Oomura sees that, and tries to give Wataru the tools to express himself. It is incredibly lovely.

So, of course, Oomura is a murderous Fangire. He's in the 1986 scenes, bumping off people who would play a perfect violin badly. (That scene of Yuri playing the Black Star so badly that fish died!) It's his dedication to art and craftsmanship as a mania; as some futile attempt to create a space where only beauty can exist, no matter the cost. He is furious at a world he can't control, and a world that won't live to a higher standard.

So, of course, he has to fight Nago. The eventually-returning Nago officially takes up the mantle of IXA in this episode, the infuriatingly obvious choice made by the higher-ups at W.A.K.E.U.P. (I like the suit! He looks like Kamen Rider Catholicism, and that's exactly right for the secondary Rider of a vampire show.) There's a nice move made by this episode to at least have Megumi argue for her candidacy, even though this is a franchise that's always going to have some handwavey reason why the strong, capable woman can't be a Kamen Rider. (Kiriko can't be Drive why, exactly?) Here at least, the frustration caused by Nago's inevitable coronation is sort of the point, where him shouting Henshin feels like a huge mistake. His inflexibility matched against Oomura's inflexibility makes for a fun thematic concept, as well as an eventually tragic outcome.

Because, like... Oomura is maybe just misguided? There's a lot of time in this episode given over to adding nuance to the monsters of Kiva. Oomura is a decades-long murderer, but he's also someone who clearly cares for Wataru. He believes in the work they're doing, and treasures the music that work could create. He just cares about it to, like, a fanatical degree. He doesn't come off like someone who's thrilled to battle a Kamen Rider. He comes off like a craftsman who regrets his choices. He's not exactly innocent or evil, and that's a way more interesting story to tell.

The 1986 portion of the episode adds more of those details, as Zanki meets up with the other members of the Monster Squad to talk about why he's working with Yuri and the rest of W.A.K.E.U.P. It's a scene that's mostly about later payoffs, considering we know that the kid is a Gillagoon and we still don't know what the other monster is, but it does manage to fill in some more backstory. All the other monster races, the Clawolves and Gillagoons and Yummy Mummys (?), they were all nearly wiped out by the Fangires. The Monster Squad is all that's left, and Zanki's like Hey What If We Worked With Humans To Kill Fangires. It's a very Inoue take on teamwork, more about briefly-aligned goals than about deeply-held altruism. It makes Zanki a nicely pragmatic antihero, someone who can be counted on but not trusted. I dug that scene for how it added some new shades to the monsters, slotting in well with the tragically misguided Oomura.

I really enjoyed this episode, which is why I maybe wrote so badly about it before. (This one felt a little better, less laborious.) It's talking about art and validation in ways that are... difficult to untangle. It's talking about our need to find our own voice, and about how the very desire that leads us to create art can cause us to feel ownership over art, and about how gross that rigid definition of art can be. I hope I made any sense in trying to explain how smart I thought this episode was!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva09b.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva09c.png

You made sense enough to me, Die! This is definitely a story for the show with a lot of complex stakes going on, and one I remember better than usual as a result. That being said – I mostly just really wanna talk about Ixa right now, and more specifically, his musical motif:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okbCkMqVjl8

This is hands down one of my single favorite pieces of background music in the entirety of Kamen Rider. It sticks in your head like crazy because it's such a perfect theme for a character who is pretty crazy. Like, again, I can only analyze this so well, but it's the ideal musical distillation of Nago's single-minded pursuit of justice. Those initial few seconds heralding the transformation itself are tense and suspenseful, maybe even a little ominous. It doesn't necessarily sound like a good thing is about to happen, and then the rest of the song really kicks in and just starts pummeling the listener with those strings that almost never let up their raw fiery intensity. Ixa isn't really a hero, and he's not a villain either – he's a mission, and that's what this music conveys better than this paragraph of text possibly could.

And I mean, the guy himself just makes a pretty cool Rider, right? The whole light/dark contrast with Kiva is the most obvious/smartest thing ever, and as someone who came into this franchise during OOO, I honestly prefer it when the main and secondary Riders are meant to be like complete opposites this way. Ixa pushes that whole motif so far too, with things I've always loved like the face that evokes a cross; and things I only just found out about that I wish I had known sooner, like how the silver design on his chest is representing a mirror, because he's fighting vampires. Like, Ixa is the holy light, exposing the truth of these sinful creatures! ...or something. And then apparently his index fingers are black instead of white because they've been stained by having to bear the weight of pulling a trigger? It's all trying so hard, and it's so, so appropriate for everything that makes Nago who he is.

(Also I like it when the visor does the thing. That part is neat too.)

Part of me sincerely hopes that Megumi sees IXA in action next episode and just goes Oh Yeah No That's A Nago Suit. It's so completely him (a divinely-ordained warrior against sin, destruction as purification, the visor opening to signify his horrible judgment), that, like... no, Megumi. No, you cannot be IXA.

I wouldn't be surprised if Boss tells her next episode that Nago himself spontaneously generated the IXA System, and willed it to have always existed.

There ya go. Nago is a self-righteous punisher, giving excessive treatment towards anything wrong done by people. And I don't know if this is a parody of tortured hero's backstory, there are LOADS of anti-heroes (talking about good guy as you refer to "tortured hero", there's loads of actual villainous characters who feel they're doing the right thing though like well-intentioned extremists) in media that resorted into pay evil unto evil for misdeeds like Punisher. Otherwise yeah, Wataru being neutral should have him approach both sides, him approaching Megumi here gives him the clearer conclusion he probably needs.

Wataru and Megumi interacts amicably further as it's revealed that Wataru builds violin himself too. Megumi now has to accept Wataru's demeanor actually, while Wataru's shyness has to be improved, Wataru's job of being musician and art creator suits the ones who is less sociable (and focused as compensation)! Shizuka is overprotective of Wataru to prevent him interacting with people she has a beef with, and this is far from the worst of this case which exists. And for Wataru being a prop to be fought over by Shizuka and Megumi, well, that's Inoue's stuff of adding love triangles anywhere, but didn't you like this part in Faiz? I mean otherwise the story is MOTW type to investigate and figure out that the restaurant owner is the real monster here. Also the castle's name is mentioned, Castle Doran, so this is the first time the "megazord" fight of Kiva happened and this is directly after Den-O with DenLiner.... but Kiva still takes the finishing blow here with the kick as Castle Doran empowers Kiva (and I don't see a problem of the fight being CGI or not personally, it's just another KR fight like Rider vs monster, and I wouldn't mind CGI if it's done for more smooth fighting).

Yeah, Jiro is, at least for this time, not exactly good. He's like how Momotaros, Urataros, and Ryutaros started at first. Jiro eats woman daily. It's simple, he's still a Fangire, but recurring Fangire can have him change. And for the cliffhanger with Yuri flirting with Jiro, that's also likely one of the other Kiva sexist aspects for people as it seems to symbolize that no matter how much of a badass fighter Yuri is, the fact is woman exists only to fall in love with men and have babies.

For Otoya part, I don't know where do you get that the audience is supposed to be invested in Otoya's attempts to win over Yuri, when before Otoya's awful traits is widely acknowledged here (and many people who discuss Kiva here has finished the series), but otherwise, I like the consequences of Otoya get here better than others, getting himself harmed for his lecherous attempts on women, it's better than harming others in his attempts for that like other men or inadvertently the women themselves. Plus, this is not spoiling, and talking about the current situaiton, but Wataru is Otoya's child, and Megumi is Yuri's child, and neither seems to be related here, so the answer for Otoya to Yuri is quite obvious there...

I mean, the joke is that Nago's moral code had Clerical Error = Embezzling = Crime = Sin. Most tortured heroes do not have Clerical Error as the inciting incident for their war on crime! Pretty sure this part is meant to be ridiculous!

I don't know that I'm going to put a random distraction in the back-half of an otherwise unrelated Kiva episode up against series-long character work on Faiz. Again, the answer to this contradiction is Execution Matters. They feel like building an episode around some of these ideas, maybe I'll feel more warmly towards them.

The second-to-last scene in the episode is Otoya serenading Yuri by moonlight, and the final scene is Yuri approaching Zanki to flirt with him. The audience is absolutely supposed to be, at least to some degree, invested in Otoya's attempts to win over Yuri. The placement of those scenes is to make you care about the Yuri/Otoya/Zanki love-triangle.

Most of these shows have secret siblings! The last series had a plot where a character was revealed to be a secret offspring! It's not like I'm grasping at straws to come up with these theories!

And here we are, at the actual debut of Kamen Rider Intercept X Attacker (no, that is what IXA is short for, in addition to being a play on the kanji for war), the Wonderful Aozora (which I call them because A) that’s what the subs I watched call them and B) there is (or rather was, Disney had it bought out and dissolved recently) a real world animation company using the translated name) Organisation’s attempt at replicating Kiva (he even has the same whistles, only in black instead of white), though there’s one key difference, which will appear next time.

And I’ll point out that, like a lot of elements in the show, IXA has a song that’s not in the show, entitled “Individual System”, which I’ll present for your consideration.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cpgOs-Ju2ks

But what does appear is the Keisuke Nago version, entitled “Fight for Justice” (and I deliberately went with subtitled videos to compare and contrast.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SeH1qkUM1jQ

And now for the main feature.

Frog Fangire

True name: The Evolutionary Theory's Golden Ratio Will Be Buried Between Papers (進化論の間紙に黄金比は埋葬される Shinkaron no Kanshi ni Ōgonhi wa Maisō sareru)

Human identity: Takeo Omura

Class: Aqua

Rank: Pawn

Actors: Katsuyuki Murai

And as a final note, the suit actor for IXA isn’t anybody you’d expect, like Eitoku, Makoto Ito, Jun Watanbe or Motokuni Nakagawa. Instead, it’s Jiro Okamoto, who was the main suit actor for the Showa Riders after 1984. There’s a subtle reason for this.

I have conflicted opinions about IXA. I like the knight motif, color scheme and its importance to the backstory. But I think it's annoying how the distorted voice emphasizes every syllable, probably the only Driver voice I actually dislike. I know Fourze Driver kind of does the same thing but it does it in a cool voice, not an annoying one. I like Fourze Driver. There's also the lame and frivolous final form but I'll complain about that in a few weeks.

Regarding Nago's debut as IXA, it's appropriate how his first opponent is the most sympathetic Fangire we've seen so far.

Ixa is one of those Riders that makes me wish I liked this series more. I don't have a lot of love for the suit or anything - it's pretty good - but the belt being a weapon, and that weapon being a knuckleduster? I'm glad Build used this concept later because it's a hell of a cool one! The way it slides on too is just great.

Oh, and the way the mask opens is. So good

Huh! I've only heard it the one time, and I can't say it bothered me. I will be sure to pay more attention in the next episode!

(Also, I don't know that I consider the Fourze Driver's voice "cool"? It's adorkable, maybe. I love that whole RoCkEt oN thing, but it's mostly for how goofy it is. It always felt very... DIY, befitting the afterschool project-nature of the KRC. Not cool, but, like, charming.)

Yeah it's super-important that IXA's debut is him being merciless and unyielding towards a monster who might just need understanding. I really loved the brief shot of Wataru de-Henshining when he saw Oomura. It's Wataru's shock and sadness mixed with Oomura's shame and embarrassment. There's a desire from both of them to explain, to reason with, to communicate.

And then IXA's like Cool Story Bro and explodes a park.

The knuckleduster is perfect for Nago, because he needs to punish with his hands. I'm sure there'll be other weapons and stuff, but Holy Punching is pretty much the exact skill I'd expect Nago to utilize as a Rider.

Honestly, I feel like Wataru when I write comments on this thread, given how little reaction my comments get.

I'm sorry! I do appreciate them! I just don't have a lot to say about the factual nature of the posts. (I'm usually more talkative when it comes to opinions?) You are doing a great job! Like Wataru! You're both underappreciated!

What would you say to the audience that wouldn't be invested in the shipping? There would be likely those who would be grossed out by Otoya and hope for Yuri to get a much better pairing for her best. And show don't tell means to not rely on narrative's word to decide on morality or if the character should be cheered or condemned, as in the story dictates for the audience's 'supposed' reaction to the characters, and their role can play a part in this (protagonist/antagonist).

I'm a perfectionist too if able for what I do, but I wouldn't completely burn the failures I've done, I may also will start over, but will keep the old ones intact for reference, as I can lose the creation mind I had if it's poured out already. And expressing and caring about art would mean tolerating those who aren't someone's preference being created too, to force the show to tell what the person wants to be told and rejecting those who aren't their preference, it's limiting their expression in art. If Shizuka claims she's "Wataru's mom", this is something she had to help Wataru get over with and she's just... somehow forgetting the fire is there to pick the violin that is burned.

Omura is the first Fangire that appeared in the series who wasn't truly evil from the start yeah, though to reply about what you said here... this seems to employ protagonist centered morality here. To state that he "clearly cares for Wataru", character morality doesn't depend on how much favor they carry with the "good guys", or how they're worthy of praise, condemnation or indifference. I think more about Omura will be revealed on the next part, so can't say more about him here. And talking about someone doing atrocious stuff they do rooting from having too high standard for the world, it's also 2 dark trait; likely social darwinism and/or lack of empathy to treat others around you as lesser beings. The guidance he gave to Wataru is a valuable lesson though, to believe in yourself and place confidence in your own skills, comparing yourself to another figure like own father even if they're supremely good isn't fair, as it can hurt your confidence and potentially just holding you back.

Though you say this is the franchise, this is the sexist part of Kiva people talk about of how they see people like Megumi lowly enough, and enforce the role of how women is only exist to fall in love and have babies. Though there are complaints (memes or not) revolving this that is I think baseless like for Faiz one, ignoring that Keitaro is unable to become Faiz too (though Rina did perform horribly as Delta). Or at least this is character-enforced that Nago is the one to invoke sexism towards Megumi. And for the talk of strong woman, again, other than combat-related jobs like Fangire Hunter, I don't want for this to set the notion of women needing to be ‘loud’, ‘expressive’, or ‘aggressive’ to be strong.

N̶o̶w̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶i̶-̶h̶e̶r̶o̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶e̶l̶e̶s̶s̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶s̶.̶.̶.̶ even if it's true that Jiro is an anti-hero, as he shares the same goal with the heroes, that he'd benefit others by doing that, but the negative trait he has is that he doesn't give a damn about human life. The thing is, I questioned because in discussions the term won't be used on something like, secondary Riders who all occupy that role. I also don't think that this is Inoue take of teamwork, as there's series like in OOO's Wonderful movie where the Greeed give Eiji their medals in order to help him defeat Garal, Gaim where Kouta sometimes helping Yggdrasil to keep an immediate threat in check despite having no love for them, or Ex-Aid to invoke teamwork between doctor Riders the first time against Graphite, and even pulls someone as depraved as Kuroto on the protagonist side with their shared goals, not to mention buttloads of examples in media outside KR.

These comments all remind me of things I also wanted to point out about Ixa that I forgot to mention, (because I am always forgetting something) so thanks everyone! :p

- As has now been pointed out, Okamoto filled the secondary Rider role for Kiva, since Makoto Itou's involvement with the franchise had dropped significantly? (I'm not entirely clear on the details there, but Zeronos was his last major role in Rider.) Playing a character as involved with the action as Ixa again must've been a bit of an adjustment for Okamoto compared to playing Kintaros the last year, too, as Wikipedia mentions him entering into a diet for the role extreme enough that friends were apparently worried he was ill when they saw him.

- I don't think I liked it at first, but the Ixa belt's voice is something I appreciate now. It's highly distinctive, and the lifeless mechanical nature of it is yet another strong contrast between the two Riders.

- As is the the whole emphasis on fists through the Ixa Knuckle, since of course Kiva has an entire bit of armor dedicated to Kicking things. I really can't stress this enough: they did an amazing job making these two polar opposites.

- And you what, on the subject of belts, here's a fourth thing before I forget that too – how neat is Kiva's belt? I mean, the whole idea of a bat that bites you and then naps on your waist, upside-down and everything, that's such a wonderfully quirky concept, and it's so unapologetically blunt about the theming I can't help but adore it.

I would say that I agree with them! For the most part, the objections people seem to have to Otoya's character aren't just that he's awful; it's that he's awful AND we're supposed to be invested in him and Yuri. The show has spent a lot of time with Otoya trying to win over Yuri, and it's also spent some time showing a gentler, better side to Otoya. You can argue that the show shouldn't be forcing that pairing, but you can't argue that the show isn't investing in it.

I'm going to assume that Shizuka has enough experience dealing with burning violins to be able to handle them without any long-term damage. It's one of those things you need to be onboard with if you're going to care for Wataru. I mean, Megumi had to figure that out the first time she went over to Wataru's house!

Jiro is Wolfen not a Fangire.

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 10 - "SABRE DANCE: GLASSY MELODY”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva10a.png

Oh, I loved this episode.

It's all Oomura, basically. He's the perfect vehicle to explore multiple characters. (Only the men, though! Shizuka and Megumi never appear, and Yuri doesn't really have a plot in this one.) He's complex and sympathetic, but he's also embodying the hopes and fears of our heroes.

Wataru is one of the bigger ones. The connection they found in the last episode blooms throughout this one. It was incredibly sweet, the way the exposition came about for Oomura's backstory. The episode starts with Wataru protecting a Frog Fangire from IXA, and then the next scene is Wataru and Oomura making a violin in the golden sunset; a father's pride and a son's devotion. It's so nice. It's just nice.

Wataru's relationship with Oomura doesn't really change after he learns that Oomura's a Fangire, which is the perfect choice. When you've got one Rider like Nago who is Always Certain (he screams that he's always right and never wrong as he's storming out of a lunch with Wataru, totally normal thing that every sane person does, it's the new See You Later), the opposing force is to Ask Questions. When Wataru sees a person he respects turn into a giant frog (with pink buttcheeks), he's going to let them tell their side of the story. Oomura didn't stop being a Guest Dad just because he's a monster. Wataru's heroic enough to see people for their actions, not their reputation.

He's hopeful that there can be good Fangires out there, because... I don't know, exactly. It's not really discussed, what Fangires mean to Wataru. We know what they mean to Nago (BURN IT WITH FIRE), and we know what they mean to Oomura, but with Wataru? Hard to say. I'd like to take him at face value in this one. I like him just being happy that there's the possibility for good in the Fangires, for no greater reason than There Should Be More Good In The World. Like, it's simple.

Oomura represents Wataru's hope for goodness, but he also represents Nago's belief of the inevitability of sin. Nago's going to destroy every Fangire, because it's only a matter of time until they turn on humanity. And, hey, if the Fangires are reluctant to show their villainous desires? Well, Nago will be right there to give them a little push.

I love that Nago taunts Oomura into losing his cool, and then, like, leaves? It's like Nago needed to break Oomura utterly, to show Oomura that he's a monster. It's not that Nago was looking for an excuse to murder Oomura, he was looking for Oomura to accept the rightness of Nago murdering him. Nago can't win unless someone else loses, and that especially applies to arguments about the capacity for change and forgiveness. Fangires aren't Nago's archenemy, moral relativism is.

Nago, of course, gets the final blow on the Frog Fangire. Kiva was never going to take him out, and we ain't at the point in Heisei where guest-star monsters get to go make art in peace. (Cubi! I hope you come back for that Ghost/Saber thing!) That just left IXA. (Also, this is the IXA introduction story, so it was always going to end with IXA killing Oomura. Always.) The whole IXA Calibur (yeah, I got it) Rise Up thing was amazing, IXA using the power of the sun to defeat his adversary. It's the obvious flip on the eclipse finishers Kiva uses, but it's also so classically Nago: a nuclear furnace of unstoppable force, washing out shadows and nuance, blinding in its horrifying intensity. Kiva is all moonlight and serenity; IXA is all sunlight and force. It's a great showcase for IXA, and as demoralizing as you'd assume a Nago Wins finish was going to look like.

And it's sad. It's so sad. Oomura gets to die in slow motion, using his final breaths to tell Wataru that he believes in him, because this whole episode wasn't poignant and beautiful enough. It's an ending that's as complex as Oomura ended up being, where Nago's fatalism and Wataru's empathy meet in the middle. Oomura couldn't keep his rage at bay like he promised, but he was still someone who deserved pity. He cared about art, and he wanted to bring more of it into the world. He wanted to be more than people's expectations, and while he couldn't quite reach those levels, the fact that he tried made him someone to root for. It's why Otoya gave him a second chance at life in 1986.

It's Otoya who comes out the best in this episode, which is why I'm talking about him last. After this, there's no higher point to end on. It's an episode that redeems Otoya by taking him away from his worst impulses (Yuri; still had a killer comedic scene with her in the beginning, absolutely great rapid-fire jokes, he asks her if she thinks he looks like a liar and she goes Of Course and he goes Fair) and letting him focus on his craft. It's that mirror to Oomura's story that I really respected, where they're both men that want to be artists, but they keep getting in their own way. I think Otoya is self-aware enough to see that parallel, his own womanizing and Oomura's possessiveness for the Black Star, and how those things keep them from being their best selves. Otoya can sympathize with Oomura as a man with weaknesses.

He can also connect with Oomura as an artist, and it's here that the episode made me a believer again in Otoya. The last few episodes have been all Creep Otoya, and no Sensitive Otoya. Here, outside the harassment of Yuri and the rivalry with Zanki, Otoya's free to talk about art with another artist, and you can see how that humanizes him. He's contemplative, quiet. When he goes to smash the Black Star, to end Oomura's rampage for good, he can't do it. The violin is innocent, and it deserves to exist. It's Otoya finding the heart of a thing, seeing past its reputation for its actions, and finding something to cherish. His son would make the same decision 22 years later, and that thread is what this show does best. Getting to see the ways Wataru's positive qualities were handed down from his father, that the connection Wataru is always reaching for was already in his grasp... it's like Oomura's lesson about Wataru's violin-making. When this show tells this kind of story, one only it can tell, it's outstanding. It is sublime, it is smart, it is moving.

I hope it ends up taking Oomura's words to heart.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva10b.png

Yeah, this two-parter is pretty dang good, from what I remember. It's Kiva's take on one of my favorite toku plots, "but what if there was a good monster?", from the guy who wrote Faiz, so, I mean, I don't think I need to explain that to you, but it's a properly emotional story. And as such, I can think of no better track for this one than what plays during Kiva's subverted Rider Kick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2bOZOsnpqI

(Meaningful subversions of formula like that are another one of my favorite things in a toku plot, by the way. That moment was another thing I'd forgotten about that instantly reminded me why I don't hate Kiva as soon as I saw it again.)

It's Wataru's take on Otoya not destroying the Black Star, you know? It's this father and son having the exact same view on the sanctity of life, on the difference between a monster and a misguided creature. Calling off that Rider Kick is Wataru thinking he can finish off Oomura, and then realizing that he doesn't have it in him to mete out that kind of justice.

"Luckily", we have IXA.

Honestly, the little subtle nuance that IXA’s victims don’t release the same puffs of light that Kiva has a castle used almost entirely to store (which an enterprising birdy tells me is the Fangire’s soul) kind of makes for a subtle statement on the difference in power between Wataru and Nago.