Well, my list of anything is heavily shaped by a combination of recency bias, IRL distractions, and free-floating but comedic spite, so a ranking for the KRC from my original viewing is lost to time, and my new ranking isn't complete yet. I hope to be more engaged and appreciative of the various characters that annoyed the hell out of me last time -- I'm already liking Kengo substantially more than I remember from last time, for instance. Here's a tentative ranking, just to put this someplace I can maybe reference it later:

Miu
Tomoko (I'M SORRY!!!)
Gen
Yuuki
Shun
Kengo
Ryusei
JK
Being forced to watch the Tsurugi Goes Back To France episode of Kabuto on repeat, for eternity
Ohsugi

I'm pretty sure I brought this up when I was going through the show last time, but I actually like Ohsugi a lot more than you would think I do, given my usual disdain for the slapstick comic relief characters. Not at this point in the series, mind you; there's a thing that happens which forces the character to refocus and he actually ends up becoming pretty fun.

There is for sure a Phase 2 for Ohsugi where he feels more integral to the story and less like a walking HR violation, but we definitely aren't there yet!

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 05 - “TWO SIDES TO FRIENDSHIP”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze05a.png

My all-time favorite thing in Fourze is Miu as the leader of the club. She just barges in and declares herself leader because she’s the most clever and charismatic girl in school, plus she’s already in charge of everything school-related as Queen… but then the show goes Yeah She’s Right, which is the funniest possible choice. It’s the idea that you can make a decision about the person you want to be – trying out new conceptions of yourself, new identities, new responsibilities – and you’re allowed to see where it takes you in high school. Every day’s a blank slate, and every dream you have is one you’re allowed to nurture and explore with the right group of friends (and friend-adjacent grumps like Kengo) at your side. Miu shedding things she’s outgrown, like Shun and cheerleading, in order to become a superhero supervisor that goes for moonwalks is such a fun concept to play with, and it alone makes this episode a winner for me. Every scene with Miu is fun and surprising.

Also, I guess JK’s in this one?

If you’ve got a big-hearted but impetuous main character like Gen, you inevitably have to do a story where his twin tendencies of seeing the best in people and not really thinking past his immediate desire get him into trouble, so here’s a story where the enormously phony and fawning JK manipulates Gentarou into protecting him from a vengeful Zodiart. JK’s annoying from the first scene of this episode, declaring himself Gen’s best friend and biggest fan and Gen’s the coolest and the most amazing and I hate it. It’s one of those things that haunts this episode in a variety of ways: how the story hits the same buttons over and over, way past where the show has made its point, and into something more grating and annoying. JK’s supposed to be annoying, but I don’t need all of JK’s scenes to be annoying. It makes Gen look a little too naive to be believable, and it’s just not fun to watch play out. JK is performatively awful in this story, but he also makes his scenes awful to watch.

The Ohsugi scenes: same thing! They play the Wacky musical cue under a multi-minute scene of Ohsugi and Sonoda talking about a bunch of things that clearly aren’t clues to anything, or will have any bearing on future storylines in and around this two-parter, like horoscopes, Sonoda being invited to JK’s party, or how to deal with students outside of the classroom. Ohsugi is sweaty and clammy in equal measure, his normal Horny Weirdo character from every other scene he’s had with Sonoda, but the relentless It’s A Joke music underneath was both totally unnecessary, and went on for way too long. The editing and post-production for this episode lack the confidence and cleverness of the previous episodes, layering oppressive musical cues and amplified character traits over an otherwise solid story.

Beyond the Miu stuff – perfect; I could’ve watched a hundred more of them – everything else in this episode felt tuned incorrectly. Gen comes off slightly too dimwitted, instead of sweetly motivated and single-minded in his focus on friendships. JK is wall-to-wall annoying, instead of just suspiciously outgoing and ingratiating. The music is distracting, instead of additive. The balance is wrong, rather than the ideas being bad, so I don’t think the show’s on the wrong track. This is early days, and it’ll take some fine-tuning to get things right. But this one was kind of irritating to watch!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze05b.png

I remember one person pointed out that JK stealing the thing the one person willing to defend him needs to win is stupidity on such a level as to make Starscream look like he has more common sense.

As for our Zodiarts guest star, aside from his two episode stint as Hiromi’s bestie who never gets mentioned before and doesn’t appear afterwards, also went over to the Ultra Series, where he attained a great Victory.

Honestly, everything JK does in this one tracks for me -- it's the way the show portrays it that gets on my nerves. Like, there's a lot to what JK's doing that is pointedly selfish and nihilistic. JK comes across as a guy that's made mistakes, been burned, burned others, and generally become so much of a hedonistic and self-involved caricature that he doesn't see any other way to survive. This is a guy who, much like Kengo, so loudly states that HAVING FRIENDS IS DUMB that he's clearly covering something up. Part 2 will probably help explain his strategy, but I wouldn't be surprised if doing something counter-intuitive and self-destructive isn't just part of his psychology at this point.

https://i.imgur.com/DMj9ePP.png

(I know a Blade reference would be the go-to here, but I figure this thread will have plenty of time for that later.)

I've heard Rider directors say before that being the guy who does the episodes right after the pilot is, in its own way, almost harder than being the guy who does the pilot, because you have to start working before you have a completed pilot to clearly demonstrate what the show is actually supposed to be. I don't usually feel it that much, honestly? But I do wonder if that's got something to do with what's going on here for you, Die.

That being said, the guy who directed these ones IS Hidenori Ishida, and I recall from my rewatch that this was actually the first episode to do the big zoom out to orbit for the transformation? Which I also ~think~ would mostly be contained to his episodes after this, but I know there's at least one exception there. Regardless, it was a really fun idea that the show got to keep building on and escalating throughout its run, and if that was specifically Ishida's idea to begin with, that's a heck of a gift to give this show.

Some of it's definitely that -- a show that's trying to figure out its balance and rhythms without enough past work to reference -- but some of it is also the incredibly subjective thing of me not particularly enjoying JK and Ohsugi even when they're at their best, and then this episode amplifying the things I most dislike about them, while also finding them at their most embryonic and unlikable. I was primed to not have a great time with this one, and the show did not make it easy for me to change my mind. Hopefully next time!

Before I watched the show a second time I remember thinking "you know, JK started off really rough, but I remember him being a real stand up guy by the end of the show." Then I watched the show again and realized that I was wrong.

The one positive to never quite getting onboard with certain characters on Fourze is that there are so many characters -- as long as you at least like Gen, anyone else you dislike is probably not a big enough part of the show to detract from all of the other characters that probably work better for you. On the other hand, if you're watching Gavv, and you don't like one of the main protagonists, you are kind of screwed.

(I'm just picking a recent small-cast show at random! I loved Gavv, and all of the protagonists!)