Fenix is sponsored by NZXT, thank you.

Anyway yeah, this is very much just a sampler platter for Revice, and for that, it's fun. Vice and Ikki are both pretty on point in terms of their personalities for the most part, the gimmick is shown off, the works.

Somewhere between Kamen Rider Revice: The Movie and Saber Special Issue, Vice learns about fart jokes. If only I was still writing fanfic!

Mostly? I sort of still can't believe they didn't bother getting the whole family together, which is like pitching Den-O and not including the train. We get a scene with Ikki and Daiji, and a scene with Ikki and Sakura (sort of), but I just think the magic doesn't happen until all of those characters are in one room together. With the parents! The parents are sort of crucial!

So your Revice Driver’s pad probably isn’t working because it’s a magnadoodle, which have a tendency to stop working after about a year. It was one of the pre-show gripes people had (along with the casting for Vice and the Legend Rider motif for the forms)

So yeah, the Revice pilot. It’s based off of earlier plans for the series, which leads to some oddities.

The FENIX captain who failed to become Revi doesn’t appear because at the concept stage, he was intended to die in the attempt. But since they got an actor who’d been trying since 2013 to be a main Rider, they felt he?d be perfect for a regular version of that character and the idea subsequently never made it to scripting.

Olteca appears entirely in his monster form with his voice disguised because originally, he would’ve had a cover identity as an unlicensed doctor, ala Taiga. Similarly, Julio would've been a police officer using his position to cover up the existence of the Deadmans. Aguilera on the other hand, would’ve lived her life entirely within the cult, plotting to destroy both FENIX and the entire concept of family (due to her parents having died as part of the Vistamp experiments)

The Spider Deadman here was later reused as the Batta Deadman in Saber’s epilogue.

This is where I forgot about the realtors, but to be honest, it had been a month since I’d seen the episode and this made it seem like they’d be a major part of the show.

And Ikki back-to-the-futuring out of a photo. Keep an eye on that.

Uh, good gripe! Sort of a bummer that a brand-new DX toy from last year is already compromised, and destined to only get worse. Fun lesson for children to learn!

Thanks for the info! I didn't know the specifics, but, yeah, it seems like a few things that the show opted not to go with, or not to make a big deal out of. Sakura doesn't seem to know that Ikki's a Kamen Rider, which the whole family is aware of in the series. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the Igarashis were supposed to all be orphans at this point, rather than just losing their mom in the premiere.

But, y'know, I like how flexible these shows are allowed to be? I like that even a few months before the premiere, with most/all of their cast and sets in place, they felt like they could pivot to a different idea. That's a plus!

I mean, I just assumed this was a tease for Beyond Generations?

Die, you just reached your 5555th post, on the 55th post in this thread, after you watched the movie that the Faiz-themed Vice Ptera Genome shows up in. Did you plan this?!

The main thing I remember about this is that it sat in my unlatched tokusatsu folder for about six months before I eventually decided I was never going to watch it and deleted it.

I don?t know if this is just me hearing more about Revice, less about some other series, or both, but it feels like Revice is the one show that comes closest to OOO in terms of scrapping its original plans and just making shit up as it goes.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz03b.png

Ha ha, plans. In these threads? You're hilarious!

I was reminded recently how much Fourze took its original Kamen Rider Urban Legends plan and buried it on the moon. It crops up in movies and side projects, but never really gets referenced on the main series.

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 4 - “LACKING LOVE BIRTHS DANGEROUS DEMONS”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/revice4a.png

Family are the people who can love you the most. Family are also the people who can hurt you the worst.

There’s a neat complexity to the beginning part of this episode, where emotions and relationships are allowed to be complicated: Daiji resents Ikki’s lack of focus as Kamen Rider Revi; Ikki chafes against Daiji’s value system and selfishness; Ayaka resents her sister’s primacy in their mother’s eyes; Ayaka’s mother is maybe doing a not great job of caring for one moody teenager and one pre-teen celebrity, but is mostly just guilty of some slight inattention. It’s a group of characters that all have valid reasons to be upset, but also are all lacking in the empathy that would let them consider someone else’s feelings. It’s messy! I like a messy storyline where everyone’s a little wrong!

The problem with a messy storyline on a Kamen Rider show is that, nine times out of ten, there needs to be a good guy and a bad guy; things need to flatten out for a clear victory with a side of Rider Kick. What starts off as a nicely nuanced exploration of differing perspectives and emotional needs within a family structure just resolves into Ayaka’s Mother Was Wrong and Ikki Signs With Fenix. It’s two characters subsuming their own needs into what’s best for someone else, rather than anyone collectively learning to respect boundaries and/or prioritize self-sufficiency. In a story that desperately needs to end with a middle ground solution, we’re left with two winners, and two losers.

And even the solution… it’s just Love Them More? It makes a little more sense for the clearly troubled Ayaka than it does for Daiji, but both conclusions feel rushed and somewhat myopic. Ayaka’s got a sister that she imperiled, and a mother who (based on two episodes of appearances) is raising both of these kids solo. I don’t know if Ayaka’s mom is who should be at fault here? And Ikki’s asked to set aside his own convictions (reasonable ones!) to pick up Daiji’s slack and support Daiji’s goals, which is maybe not a great long-term strategy for resolving Daiji’s mood swings. I can respect Ikki opting to put in more energy to meeting Daiji’s demands as Ikki always sacrificing for his family, but alongside the Ayaka stuff, it’s a disappointing solution for a legitimate dilemma.

In the periphery, we get some interesting exposition from the Giffamilia, where the types of monsters (and their scarcity) gets detailed, and Aguilera gets a little scene to emphasize that the enemy group is also a family. It’s not really a ton, and it’s maybe only a few degrees more interesting than the Book Club ever was on Saber, but the Giffamilia is intriguing enough to not write off yet. (I mean, it helps that Aguilera’s performance is so goddamn magnetic. There’s a seductive exuberance to her threats, and a performative petulance to her impatience. She makes such neat choices as an actor!) There’s also George’s robust Kamen Rider collection, which strangely goes unremarked upon, but I’m sure we’ll get there soon.

Overall, I thought this one was a miss. The show reached for an emotionally complex problem, and then solved it in the flattest, least-complicated way possible. Hopefully they’ll get back on track next time!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/revice4b.png

Aguilera's actress originally auditioned to play Sakura, but the producers passed on her because she was too old. They cast her as the villain instead and - I will keep this vague here - ultimately ended up doing a lot more with the character than they originally planned to.

For my part, I'll say that she ends up being one of my favorite characters and the focus of my absolute favorite episode of the season.