Well I promised I’d resurrect one of my running gags specifically for this episode and I am nothing if not a man of my word.

In this episode, Rook uses the IXA Knuckle and if you’re not convinced he’s Sazer-Tawlon, he does the Earth Tribe Gransazer pose.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3XGrHYW...jpg&name=large

Yuri meanwhile, seems to be doing the Flame Tribe Gransazer pose.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3XGcFkW...jpg&name=large

And Otoya breaks with the others by doing the Ichigo/Ryuki pose.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3XGcFiX...jpg&name=large

With that out of the way, this is the last we see of the Rook (obvs). There is an S.I.C story where he comes back as a Sabbath, but it’s non-canonical.

I feel that Abel only existed so Wataru would have something to do in this episode (beyond his pit crew selling DVDs).

And, for my second promise, here’s Mio’s Fangire data.

Pearlshell Fangire II

True name: A Dress like an Isolation Cell (独房のようなドレス Dokubō no yō na Doresu)

Human identity: Mio Suzuki

Class: Aqua

Rank: Queen

Actor: Yuria Haga, Naoko Kamio (suit actress in Fangire form)

Next time, we get what is probably the best exchange in this show and get to the roots of the king.

Oh well, I didn't expect for this part to be this brief, I did read about the love triangle Kiva had and about Shizuka regressing to this. There were parts where Shizuka atones for her sins against those 2 which is directly setting them up like here. Though her previous behavior wasn't forgotten that this resolve is made by touching upon what she did before (with angelic metaphor.... but I don't understand why there's still evil laughing there). Other than that, Kengo for now becomes more of an unpleasant man (I know he had terrible moment but still), I guess this is what others meant when talking about Kengo's jerk moments. There's also the reveal of Wataru being actually Kiva to Nago.

Well, I think Kiva's base form is used more than I thought here, but Kiva's Emperor form is used (likely this episode is the start of it being the main action form) because of a real life reason, the Kiva base form is heavy with the actual chains attached to it. Though I guess, Kiva Emperor's kicking repeatedly (not the Wake Up Fever) before was implemented as a part of its finisher on games like Climax Heroes due to "one-minute Henshin that led to a quick finisher". I mean, Kiva Emperor has not used other weapons finisher yet except for Garuru one iirc, not even its own Zanvat Sword. Though at least Kiva Emperor's kick actually feels like an upgrade, lack of night aside, unlike DoGaBaKi's. I think about the monster fight lacking distinction, that's something commonly happened in other Rider fights as well.

I agree for the parallel parts that it creates significance in their fight, like above, carrying emotional weight but on the heroes side. Albeit don't know if Megumi and Yuri similarly getting beaten up brutally to be saved by others later would sit well with the audience. Though you describe their fight as "personal" here, I don't want for being personal to be used to measure the fights (or others) being good or bad, as I think this can veer into false use of the term "one-dimensional", that those who don't have potentially darker traits like revenge and the lengths they go to achieve it as "unrealistic, lacking depth, one dimensional, etc.". I mean like, don't want for this to be an example of how main Riders like Wataru should view his oppositions as, they should be turned like this.

So yeah, this part reminds of when series with many Riders had most of the Riders gathered there for fights against each other, but for this, it applies to every fighter but not all them are Riders. But... Kiva Emperor is actually overpowered like usual final form, and Rook isn't the final boss of this story, there will be a real proof about why the final fight is made that way, due to the overpoweredness of it.

Why shouldn't Yuri be laughing triumphantly with Jirou though? Remember, Rook is their mutual arch enemy, he killed Yuri's mother and Jirou's clan so it makes sense that they would both be happy about finally getting their revenge. It's not just Jirou who Yuri is laughing with either, there's also her bf Otoya, as well as Ramon and Riki. It was a team effort and I think Yuri appreciates that after being alone in her personal struggle for so long, they finally conceded to let her be their comrade and equal and gave her the honor of using IXA to deal the coup de grace to Rook. All she needed was that little bit of validation from them, to realize that her revenge wasn't the most important thing in her life, but the life that she can enjoy freely from now on and her friends are a part of that, cause they believed in her and rooted for her success.

Maybe you misunderstand why Yuri is so happy here? Her quest for revenge was a burden that made her feel guilty for being happy, perceiving it as a betrayal of the obligation she made to her mother. She's not sadistically laughing that Rook's dead for 22 years, she's laughing cause she can finally give herself a chance to be happy and balance her life as a soldier with her new life with Otoya. I'm honestly surprised and curious how you can see this beautifully heartwarming scene with Yuri expressing her most genuine happiness in years as she runs towards her friends in celebration as a "dodgy decision". Don't you think that she deserves to have a life outside of fighting? Doesn't she deserve to enjoy a little moment of happiness after denying herself that experience for so long?

I recall that the cliffhanger at the end of Episode 30 was the one that left me in the most suspense, but unlike Takumi's and Kiba's initial hostility towards each other after finding out their secret identities, the first scene between Wataru and Nago in Episode 31 is surprisingly at Mal d'Amour and all of Nago's antagonism towards Kiva is immediately gone. And yeah, I would totally attribute his change of heart to his seemingly insignificant and small development in the Time Door arc.

Maybe that's why it seemed so insignificant and small at the time, since the real payoff to that is here, as Nago reasons that Kiva might actually an okay guy since it's Wataru. Sure, if Wataru betrays that trust, then Nago won't hesitate to kill him, but for now they can be friends and partners in fighting Fangires. Usually, I think it would be a narrative letdown to have the conflict resolved so easily (like my minor complaint about Akira's and Mochida's 1 episode-long conflict in Hibiki), but after understanding that Nago is a changed man, I had to feel kind of a fool for expecting anything else and it made me see him in a better light.

This was a little thing, but it's worth calling out. Yuri does the Knuckle activation the way Otoya does it, and Megumi does the activation the way Nago does it. It's specific to the IXA of its era. I really appreciated that touch.

It honestly felt like a bigger fight scene than the movie, which is crazy. It felt like pretty much the entire cast was teaming-up, and that's not what I was expecting in the middle part of a three-parter that is 18 episodes away from the end of the show!

It's not that she's happy (I like Yuri being happy with her choices!), it's that she's happy around Jiro, and that's a problem. Jiro's the guy who kidnapped her and threatened to breed her just a few weeks prior. For her to be all Forgive And Forget when that guy did nothing to redeem himself after his, frankly, irredeemable transgressions? To see her laughing with the guy who vowed to assault her? That's a massive miscalculation, and it was a decision that it feels like the show didn't think through all the way.

But, yeah, I am totally okay with Yuri celebrating her hard-fought victory with everyone else. It's a very nice moment for her, and I wish it wasn't tainted by Jiro being a part of it.

I wonder if some of it also isn't that Kiva's way more powerful than Wataru, so molding and shaping Wataru suddenly becomes more appealing than before (or than acting as a mentor to Kengo). Like, I think Nago is in a real Not All Fangires mindset, but some of his turnaround on Kiva might be less that Wataru's a sweet boy, and more that Nago now can direct Kiva to serve Nago's purposes.

So you think Jirou needed an arc like Alain where he sees the error of his ways and resolves to become a better person? I guess that might have made the scene work better. However, it's probably okay for that to be water under the bridge after 7 episodes. Even though he didn't do much to redeem himself, he did ultimately accept Yuri's feelings for Otoya and spare their lives, so he does have some heart deep down.

I think one of the morals of this episode is about how holding on to grudges and letting hatred fester can have a toxic effect on a person. Yuri shows an admirable amount of maturity and wisdom by being able to forgive and forget. By doing that, she was able to share her burden with the others and that's probably why Otoya decided she was mentally prepared to finally use IXA.

I don't know if any of this can convince you. Maybe we just have to agree to disagree here?

Well Nago is a skilled manipulator, so it makes sense that he would want to capitalize on his friendship with Wataru after the revelation, but then, Kiva and IXA were already aligned in their fight against the Fangires, just not with each other until now. So it's mostly that their teamwork is going to be more synchronized from now on, with Nago resuming his role as Wataru's mentor to shape him in to his ideal image of a hero.

Poor Kengo though. Rhino Fangire didn't crush his dream, but it still got crushed anyway. Maybe he should try and focus on his singing talent?

I haven't talked much about the 2008 side of the fight, since I thought Yuri's was more emotional, but I will praise Megumi for destroying Rook using Burst Mode, showing once more how superfluous Rising is.

Sure, I don't really love revisiting one of the most problematic stories that Kiva's done to date. I am totally fine to move on from this one!

I'll just add that:
-I was using "Forgive and Forget" sarcastically, since the show never gives Yuri a scene to confront Jiro. It's the narrative opting to ignore a terrible action, and that's way worse to me than if they'd contrived some redemption arc for Jiro or some forced acceptance from Yuri.
-I feel like saying that Yuri needing to not hold a grudge against Jiro is a stretch? For one, it continues to make the resolution dependent on Yuri changing to accommodate her attacker, which, no. The other problem is that I'm not sure I'm seeing a lot in this story that's about letting go of anything, since it's largely about a bunch of men telling Yuri and Megumi what their motivations are and getting them pretty much entirely wrong.

And they said Megumi wasn't good enough to be IXA! She's the best IXA they've had yet!

For how Aso family are born warriors and that they're the most happy in their fightings, this can impact those people's lives negatively (which I guess is the one touched upon Yuri cleaning Otoya's home? though that one refers to their revenge). Like when the fight ends, they can feel that life by then doesn't longer fit their ideals, only being able to define themselves through conflict and would be lost without it. Though I guess these 2 has multiple jobs like how Yuri is a waiter and Megumi is a.. foodie model. Though it's undeniable that support is important, the part of Megumi remembering her mother to gain upper hand to Rook.. that's commonly implemented in media as 'power of friendship/love' that can seem like cop out to others (and memed), like Megumi retrieving IXA gear when Otoya tosses it to fire. And this episode will be the only one they use IXA.

This is another spiraling down for Kengo, he's further becoming more jerk due to his misery he had received, apparently for here losing his faith in humanity. It's ok to feel angry and sad (but from here you can only feel those if disaster happens and impacts you only and not if others had unrelated misery? this will be glorifying selfishness then) about those things, but it's not ok to lash it out to others who are undeserving for your grief for those who do that, it cannot be used as an excuse to justify immoral deeds (not talking about Kengo here albeit he's more of a jerk now, but characters in general if they turn evil due to ). But other than that, Nago finally stops his feud with Kiva knowing that he's Wataru in the present, likely teaching the lesson about how power depends on who uses it, if it's Wataru then he's typical KR main Rider heroism, but it can be the ultimate evil if it's the one Nago experienced in the past.

This was one of the episodes I remembered the most, given it was the big moment where both Yuri and Megumi got to be IXA. It was a good finale for Rook as a villain, too, although I find it a bit dumb that such a brawny dude died from a shoulder injury.

Why is that/?

Just about the easiest choice in the world for me this time, as it absolutely couldn't be anything other than Feel the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umrMR0PKows

A song that apparently exists specifically because the actors for Yuri (Yuu Takahashi) and Megumi (Nana Yanagisawa) wanted to perform a duet together, everything I could possibly say about it is pretty much summed up perfectly by that title alone. Unlike the vague longing and uncertainty that defines Wataru's relationship with his dad, the Asou family has a very specific connection that's been passed down through the years, and there's a confidence to that which the song reflects nicely. It's just kind of a base-level Kiva character song, but keep in mind how high the average for Kiva is when I say that. Definitely a treat for fans of Yuri and Megumi!

And I mean, s***, after watching this one, a lot of people were probably fans of Yuri and Megumi? Kiva's treatment of these characters has its ups and downs, but it did right by them at maybe the most important possible moment, resulting an episode with a level of fiery intensity that surpasses the very sun Megumi is standing in front of in Ixa's stock footage, as her mother declares in the past how her very soul will rise up to destroy Rook no matter how many times he comes back. GAAAAH this is a good one! I had really forgotten just how awesome it was before going back to it, and it's another occasion where I was straight up rewatching huge chunks of the episode because of how attention-grabbing it is. It's really got it all, and I especially love how Rook is defeated in the past with a smart plan, which is a plus in any superhero story, but even better here, because it's entirely Yuri's plan.

No, it's definitely what he says! At a glance, it seems like Inoue can't remember his own show, but, as you point out, this is pretty typical behavior for Nago? Which is worrying on so many levels, but hey, like I said earlier, that's our Nago-san! He's just a big goofball when you get down to it, you know?

Well, I mean, he used to be a bit more serious, but especially with the benefit of knowing how the show progresses, I can see why Inoue resolved his rivalry with Kiva in such a surprisingly cleanly fashion. The story is maybe well past the point where Nago's whole Van Helsing shtick is useful to drive Wataru's growth, so redefining their relationship like this freshens things up and allows Nago to be more in the loop going forward, lest he end up like poor Shizuka.