It just triggers all of that childhood Voltron nostalgia of the transformation sequence: the process, the weight, all of it. There's a comfort to the routine, and an excitement as it gets closer to concluding. Some heroes do it better than others, and I think Kabuto's suit deployment is one of the good ones.

Very cool! Thanks!

It's so weird to say I don't like Organizational Kamen Rider, since I came in through Ex-Aid and the C.R., but I find myself way more into the lone hero/team stuff. (And even Ex-Aid didn't really have much in the way of oversight, at least past the first couple stories.) Just not my thing, all of these support guys and bosses? I like a group of friends (or frenemies) teaming up to defend the world. The more bureaucracy the show inserts, the less excited I am.

And you're right that Kagami working a second job attests to his junior status, but... everything ZECT does is so emergency-based. Why risk one of your few operatives not being available because he's delivering food for a bistro? Working for ZECT (or, really, any militarized organization of nebulous authority) seems like the sort of thing you don't half do. Feels inefficient to have this one guy (who seems to have been given some fairly important tasks!) splitting his time.

I absolutely reposed my FRS Kabuto into a roundhouse pose after this episode. It's a great finisher!

I'm a fan of organisational kamen rider... when it abandons it. This is maybe part of why Blade's first episode is such a killer for me; it builds up BOARD and then just as quickly destroys it and further episodes imply that was maybe a good thing. That's so deeply cool and so deeply Kamen Rider and I love it!

...

Probably not the best thing to hear from Hibiki Lover 7, huh?

I think my favorite version of Organizational Kamen Rider is probably the Kamen Rider Club from Fourze. The idea of a group of friends hanging out on the moon after school and fighting constellation monsters -slash- metaphors for the turbulence of late adolescence... that's the stuff. Flat structure, titles are bullshit (Miu's just like I Am The New Queen Of The Club and everyone just lets her have it), and everyone contributes equally. That's my platonic ideal of How Systems Should Work In Kamen Rider.

So, let's talk Tendou now that we get to see more of him. Tendou is a character that I feel can be very hard to like. His supreme confidence often dances close to the line between "cool and cocky" and "insufferable prick." I like him, personally, but I do so in spite of some very obvious personality flaws. A lot of that I chalk up to the actor. Hiro Mizushima is incredibly charismatic, which helps smooth out a lot of the character's rougher edges. There are definitely still times when I find him to be a lot to handle, though.

Food is a huge part of Kabuto and it's something that will keep coming up throughout the show. It will reach a peak eventually, but it's always a dominant element (and 95% of Jyuka's entire character). The Kagami thing is a fair point, though. I think it exists solely so there's a pre-existing connection between him and Hiyori.

Kabuto's suit is really nice. I'm a big sucker for metallic red and I agree that the whole look is very nicely streamlined. I'm also a fan of the cast-off gimmick, which is clearly something made up for the toys but the in-show implementation really works. Part of the fun of seeing new Riders show up in this series is wondering not only what their suit will look like, but what will the Masked Form look like, too. My only real issue is that I still can't figure out how Kabuto has much neck motion if part of his helmet is folded down onto his chest.

More production trivia! The illustrations for this show were created by Mitsuru Karahashi, the actor who played Kaito on Faiz.

https://i.imgur.com/5pfUMB2.png

Somehow I get the feeling Ishida's favorite part of directing is whenever he gets to tell people to light things on fire. Even if it's only for a few shots, he always seems to find that excuse to go the extra mile.

And because that's his kind of style, it makes all the sense in the world to me to go back and find out that among the laundry list of memorable Rider moments I'm constantly discovering he's responsible for, the inaugural Kabuto Rider Form fight is on him too. The Clock Up shtick was obviously just a genius idea executed brilliantly, of course; I don't think the biggest Kabuto hater in the world would deny that much. It's a visual style that instantly sets the show apart. You hear those sounds and see those effects and you know without a doubt you're watching Kabuto. A big thing any Rider show needs to do is find a way to give itself a unique identity, and few of them did it as effortlessly as this one.

And Kabuto is a character is no slouch either! I think when Takaiwa plays an understated Rider like this, it's arguably even more of a showcase of his skill than usual. Perfectly fitting the character of Tendou, the guy who wouldn't even break out his main form until Kagami wouldn't shut up about it, the overall language of Kabuto is all about moving as little as possible. Deeply ironic for the super speed Rider, sure, but you'll notice Kabuto dodges and deflects attacks with no excess movement whatsoever, and his most dynamic poses are all variations on standing in place. This is especially genius when it comes to the Rider Kick. Despite having such a heavy Showa influence that he's the first Heisei Rider to call out the name when doing it, Tendou refuses to even leave the ground to finish off his opponent. Brilliantly in character for the guy; I love it.

But once again, I find myself having things to say about the show and not so much the episode. I've got exactly one observation I feel is worth sharing – and there were a ton of moments like this in the premiere too – but I really do appreciate how bluntly the show portrays the contrast between Tendou and Kagami, in this case having Tendou bragging about how he only needs call the Kabuto Zecter to make it come to his aid immediately followed by Kagami getting totally ghosted by the thing as it flies off to Tendou instead. Great stuff. Got *this* close to eliciting a chuckle out of me! Still had a fun time though, honest!

Oh, and as for your question, Die... I just can't even get behind your terms here. There's no such thing as "too much" beetle crest, so I don't know why you bothered to ask, and while the sounds are cool, the best part of the transformation is when the armor loosens up right before Tendou flips the switch all the way. It's like the high point of anticipation or something.

What I really love about Kabuto's fighting style is that it oozes finesse and swagger like no other. Even the simplest jabs and motions feel efficient and every hits feel like they do some damage. And this is all from a man who just finished playing a high school kid wizard dressed in red and has a phoenix slapped on to his helmet the year prior. :lolol

I didn't hear about this until you brought it up (thank youl it's amazing information!), but it turns out it's even better. Tendou was inspired by Inoue.

(For the record, this whole anecdote is loosely summarized from an archived version of the old Toei website for Kabuto. It's way down towards the bottom.)

Series planning for Kabuto began with deciding Tendou's personality, and according to Yonemura, the basic concepts were:

• Gifted; puts enormous effort into things, but never shows it on the surface.
• Like an athlete competing on the world stage, considers working hard to win such an obvious, natural thing that he never talks about the hard work he does.
• Never gives out flattery or compliments; blunt and unreserved.
• Doesn't speak using polite language; Most courteous greetings are "hey", and "hi".

All of which apparently greatly resembles Inoue's own personality, which caused director Takao Nagaishi to bring this up to a confused Hiro Mizushima when they first met, although it's specified Inoue was totally not the direct model for Tendou – after all, Inoue insists he's nowhere near that nice.

Those flaws are a lot more prominent in the second episode. There's a forthrightness to Tendou in this episode, where it's his attitude towards the vendors in the premiere, but to nearly everyone he interacts with. It's... it's like he's so disappointed in the world, how it keeps not living up to its potential. When he fights as Kabuto, it's like he's doing it to give humanity one more chance to prove itself worthy of being saved.

When he's talking to Kagami, he's so dismissive of him when he finds out that Kagami is so incurious that he hasn't caught on that ZECT is up to something. It's all first impressions with this dude, which is a ton to live up to.

The thing that makes it work for me is... some of it's the performance, where it's done without any malice (just, like, stating a fact that Kagami is a patsy), but a lot of it is in how Tendou relates to Hiyori. He's so insistent that she understand her own talent. It's that thing from the first episode, where realized potential is a gift to the world, and how important it is to nurture and protect that talent. He's got no time for people who'd squander their gifts, but he adores people who use their genius.

Oh, it's totally just for narrative convenience, but that's the problem? It's a thing that makes no sense (currently) that the show needs you to not think too hard about. Seeing something like in the second episode... rough! Hard to accept!

Some Kamen Rider Die trivia! I completely thought the murdered candidate was played by the guy who played Kaido. (Also, I can't read the name Kaido without hearing it in Kiba's annoyed tone: "KAIDO".)

Are there Kabuto haters? I assume there must be, but the worst reaction I've seen people give this series is Okay But Not My Fave. I'm curious what the haters hate about it, but I figure it's likely to be spoilery stuff.

Clock Up is great. Like the Mirror World stuff from Ryuki, it's a way to break up some otherwise standard fights. (I don't love the evolved monster suits here? Sort of basic?) It uses some pretty appealing effects work to transition into and out of your basic fight scene.

I'm struggling with this, too. If I had to give it a food metaphor, I'd say that Kabuto is (so far!) a well-prepared dish with sub-par plating. The first episode was solid if unexceptional in its storytelling, and the second one has a weirdly high number of great moments that refuse to cohere into a great episode. It's not doing anything wrong (I don't care about the ZECT stuff, but that's a personal choice thing), but it hasn't harnessed what it's doing right.

I've seen Hyper Kabuto, so we'll circle back to that "no such thing as 'too much' beetle crest" later.

For your switch-flipping answer, you are right about it being the high point of anticipation. What I love about that alarm noise, though, is that it's the start of the anticipation. That sound says a monster is going to get punished and then detonated!

I don't follow the second part, but a big YES to the first part. There's a precision to how Kabuto fights, where he doesn't need to fight hard because he's already won this fight in his mind.

All I'm hearing is that Inoue is divinely ordained and that sounds about right to me.

What happened was while Makoto Ito(suit actor for G3, Knight, Kaixa, and Chalice) was being the suit actor for Hibiki, Takaiwa was sent back to the Super Sentai department and was Magi Red for Magiranger, the sentai show airing alongside Hibiki. Basically it was Toei cashing in on the Harry Potter craze at the time by having five siblings fight evil using magic alongside a gold armored ranger wizard who has a lamp for a weapon, and the genie is a anthropomorphic cat to top it off. :lolol
FYI Takaiwa was mainly the red ranger suit actor during most of the mid to late 90s and the year 2000 until he got transferred to the rider department in 2001 to play Agito.

Oh, got it! That is a pretty huge change!