So the fact of the matter is that the Black Sun did not do it well. Or at least not good enough, because I remember the flurry of negativity that hit the show after the release. To me, he's more of a BvS rider version: few people like him, but those who get hooked just adore him.
Plus, your show is both mundane and extreme at the same time. I doubt that it can be combined in principle.

I didn't have a problem with Black Sun's violence.

I had a problem with it having nothing at all to do with Kamen Rider Black. And being just contrived as hell in the way it ended.

It was definitely a show that thought it was way smarter than it was. I actually liked Shin more in contrast, since it actually felt like a re-imagining of the original Kamen Rider, rather than a pretentious nameslap. (even if it was strangely edited and overstuffed)

I always find it funny that people can declare that a show is too violent when said violence pales in comparison to violence that happens in the actual real world.

The violence in Black Sun is necessary to depict the atrocity and severity of the historical events it is invoking.

All sorts of action movies depict horrendous violence but people are desensitized to gun violence, off-screen violence, or violence against "others" (think about all the fodder aliens in Avengers, henchmen in John Wick, etc). The end result is the same in all these cases: loss of life.

I think people tend to conflate edgey nihilism with the repudiation of tragedy especially when we seek escapism from entertainment. Black Sun took nothing away from the mainline Kamen Rider series, heck we even got a full fledged big budget Kamen Rider movie within a year of its release. Kamen Rider proves to be a diverse property and it's impossible for all of it to land for everyone. I'm glad they tried something different and I think the show adds a richness to the IP.

Which one Shin?

There is a difference between showing violence in a way that is repulsive and enjoying it. The Amazons and the Black Sun try to do the former, but often slip into the latter. In addition to the overtly bloody, violence can also be ridiculous, nondescript or large-scale. Sometimes the unseen scares and impresses much more. Drone operators take far more lives than special forces. More people die from road accidents than in any war. Just compare the death of the Wasp-Aug from Anno's movie to how Darom and Baraom's murders were savored. The viewer does not feel sympathy for these characters, so what is the point of dragging out their demise so much? Or the massacre of Bilgenia with the police.
As for the fact that they kill everywhere and a lot, then yes. And in children's shows, including. In Geats, for example, for some reason, killing a Jamato with the personality of a dead person is normal, but killing a person turned into a brainless Jamato is bad. But just because a problem is widespread doesn't mean it's no longer a problem.

Pontification on the explicit depiction of violence on a show about civil disorder and authoritarian regimes is entirely missing the point. It's like watching a riot and overlooking the cause for the riot because the method makes you uncomfortable. Like, that is the whole point- that violence is ugly, unforgiving, and should not be glossed over. Imagine trying to depict racism without violence; that's a tacit acceptance of being a benefactor of the status quo because they are so innately intertwined.

I would agree that Black Sun tends to heighten violence and gore, but I think it does so commensurate to our levels of desensitization. Take for example the ESRB Game Ratings board and how violent depictions in video games today get much lower T/M ratings than those same games would have gotten in the past.

I would simply ask that you look at why, not how Black Sun chooses the direction it does. Context is extremely important and we often forget that the term edgy used to label media that pushed boundaries.

Here is an article about the hypocrisy in violent entertainment:

https://supreme.findlaw.com/legal-co...hostel-ii.html

It's fairly short and worth a read. I'm not here to say anyone is wrong about their feelings for the show. As someone who abhors violence the more and more I get older, I've had to constantly re-examine my relationship with much of tokusatsu.

Jordan Peele in Get Out did a good job of it.


And that makes it part of the problem. We have low empathy for violence, so movies have to get bloodier to impress us, so the level of empathy goes down even more. This is a road to nowhere and sooner or later you will have to turn off it. Plus, I don?t understand why fantasy is chosen to show extra-violence (this now applies not only to the Black Sun, but in general). In more realistic genres, it would be easier to arouse empathy in the audience.

And the problem is that the Black Sun did not cope with this. Again, the topic dedicated to him confirms this. And the wrong message sometimes only hurts.

I agree with the article for the most part. Perhaps my position is that it is important to understand that hyper-violence does not equal reality. A dystopia is just as impossible as a utopia. As someone who is in a country at war, I can safely say that in war the best and worst manifestations of human nature are encountered in almost the same way and none of them outweigh the others. Actually, even the war itself takes place only so that there is peace in another corner of the globe.

Get Out, a movie that had the villains prey on black people to kidnap them, tearing them away from their loved ones all for racist reasonings, should not be called nonviolent imo, there's still physical violence but that movie is a psychological thriller so I find the comparison to be rather weak, it's like saying Twilight Zone isn't disturbing because it doesn't habe gratuitous levels of violence. As for Black Sun, I feel it's important to know about actual political stuff in Japan to understand why the direction was done the way it was, the Kaijin racists harassing a school is also taken one for one out of stuff that happens in Japan, I saw an excellent video on it a while back so I'll go link it when I find it


EDIT:
https://youtu.be/iGhaQ5P1OBs

I would like to make it clear that my main point here is that I believe the physical violence to be meaningful rather than cheap shock value, it can help to visualize the brutality of the societal issues the show wishes to handle to an audience who may not be affected

I agree with the folks who didn't like Black Sun, but I think I have different reasons.

I thought the hyper-violence was well-executed and genuinely shocking at times. I thought it tried to tackle some interesting, meaty themes. But ultimately, it was atrociously paced. There is virtually no plot development for long stretches of time, and then, just when you think something exciting is about to happen... it is undercut by weak attempts at grounded realism. The lack of momentum would be fine if it had been supplemented with compelling character work, but the main characters are mostly thinly drawn replicas of Professor X and Magneto. It's a lot of retread narrative ground. A lot of been-there-done-that vibes.

I think Black Sun was handicapped by the choice to make it a series instead of a movie. It is a prime example of a story that has enough content for two hours that was stretched out to roughly eight in order to fill Amazon's demand for a streaming series.

The discussion of violence in media and the apparent dichotomy between Black Sun and Amazons reminds me of this article excerpt:

"The final fight against N-Daguva-Zeba is a culmination of the tragedy of being a Kamen Rider. With the threat of his Ultimate Form looming over him, Godai faces N-Daguva-Zeba alone. Their fight is so brutal that they both return to their human forms, resorting to punching each other with bloodied knuckles until only one of them is left alive.....To me, this is what Showa and Early Heisei is really about. Beyond the fun fight scenes and the morals taught to children, it is fundamentally a reminder that despite the appeal of violence in media, it should not be glorified. Being a Kamen Rider is a burden that is nobly carried, and rarely something to be happy about."

https://tokusatsunetwork.com/2021/06...-a-good-thing/