I assume the lack of Saga merch is specifically to allow the non-Saga merch to sell. I mean, Saga's only been in the show for two episodes, and I can't get anyone to talk about anything else! Why would a Seihou Emperor Form sell if there was a Seihou Saga instead?

Yeah, it's certainly made for more propulsive serialized storytelling. We're basically well past the point where anyone's problems are going to start in one episode and end in the next. It makes it feel more of a story about Wataru, him falling apart and it cascading through the rest of the cast, rather than a story featuring Wataru.

I will always be a fan of little short stories that elevate and explore the themes of the series (Shinji and Ryoko forever), but it's a more enjoyable second half when the stories are internally generated.

You're not wrong! Emperor Form, maybe because of those kicks, is also a little bit more of strategic fighting style? It's a form that paces itself a little better, as opposed to Kiva Form's rushing and punching.

I.. was saying this because Mio seems to fare better regarding this to Wataru judging from your comment before, though it makes sense as Mio's the one who put into this difficult situation while Wataru doesn't know fully yet about the situation. I don't know yet what makes you label him as 'not a saint' btw (moreover you continued with 'sweet boy'), though otherwise, I wouldn't want for negative traits to be overlooked, but I'm also not keen into using personal (not saying this is right) argument to make someone (mostly those with 'Rider sensibility') look more ulterior than they're; it's sometimes used to paint something as more realistic.. but it's scummy view. From what I read too, Wataru not spitting out about his relationship with Mio to Taiga is a form of him being nice.

I don't know if Wataru celebrating his break-up with Mio is done by himself or if it's by Shizuka's persuasion (Wataru has developed to not be a total doormat anymore though, albeit Wataru did listen to Shizuka and decides that it's good for him). For Nago well, it seems that he becomes more amicable with Wataru, misguided mentoring in last episode aside, like he even joins Wataru in the bathtub!

Though for above, Wataru not spitting out about him and Mio is him being nice, it's what sparks the problem here for Taiga unwittingly atomizing Wataru emotionally, though Wataru revealing it to him... dunno what would happen. For Wataru not acknowledging it, still I wonder if if he's shy because of going through even worse part of those breakdowns (what he'd experienced here can be a trigger to make someone timid, due to being afraid of dealing with those kind people or situation again), compared to the ones seen in the series like, Dai-chan stuff, Mio stuff here, Kengo stuff (Dai-chan stuff was the one iirc made him adverse to contact with others. He's definitely depressed here, but isn't about shyness I think for breaking Bloody Rose.

Mio is shy yeah, mirror of Wataru, but like I said before I don't feel like the 'Queen' role is actually , when others are the one to control and pressure her into doing what's ruled for Fangire, if Mio isn't shy, her Queen role should be probably able to shake the whole Fangire species, shaping into what she wants (e.g. not forbidden loving humans). Albeit probably, it's the King role in Taiga that decides everything and King has total and full authority including the Queen and making sure that the Queen acts according to the rules set up by the King. For Yuri watching Otoya and Maya making the masterpiece instrument... it's especially that Yuri is a dreadful musician that she's really out of touch for this.

It's surprising that Kengo goes from weaker fighter when he worked for Aozora before, to someone who kicked Nago's ass without problem. That seems to be too fast of an evolution, surprassing a good number of characters like almost instantly from non-fighter self before. Otherwise still, this is probably the one that others talk about Kengo being a jerk, it's this part about him being outright aggressive and distrusting, which you won't know yet that Kengo's still the one with supportive friendship to Wataru. Though btw what differentiates Kengo's change here, to Yuji's change in Faiz at near end to you?

I'd want to know about Bishop's interest in Wataru, as he's another major villain like Rook before. The implication of Dark Kiva is going to be important like other Riders such as IXA, though I wonder about why if it's the 'original', its name has addition (Dark Kiva) compared to the 'imitation' that is only 'Kiva'. The Super Fangire gives me the vibe that she's added up as the Queen's replacement, considering Mio's stint is less than satisfactory.

Boy, I feel like this series is maybe not going to be for you! This isn't the standard Rider series that's about justice, or empathy, or how we work together to support one another. (I mean, some of that is in here, but it's not the focus.) Kiva's a show about personal love, and individual choice, and how those things exist within structures that may not value them. It's absolutely going to feature characters - heroes! - who occasionally make selfish choices and don't deal with their emotions well. That's part of the story that's being told!

Oh, I definitely thought this was all Wataru's decision. Shizuka's just trying to support her son as he's going through a rough patch. She's a good mom!

Yuji was a lead character whose personality and goals completely inverted in the final four episodes. Kengo's a supporting player who the show spent a few episodes deconstructing before bringing him back as Kamen Rider Snipe. It's a big swing, but it's a little less abrupt, and it certainly isn't as central to the show as Yuji's turn was.

I'm appreciating the show's pacing as we move into the mid-30s. The love triangle stuff is taking up multiple episodes, but it doesn't feel drawn out at this point and there are still consistent developments with it. There's definitely a version of the show where Taiga gets introduced earlier and the triangle gets dragged out for 5-10 episodes, but bringing it in this late in the game does add some urgency to it that the Otoya/Yuri/Jiro triad lacked.

In general, I'm finding that the modern era is more engaging for me right now. Otoya and Maya making a violin while Yuri angsts downstairs is an important plot point, but the forward momentum is a lot slower than what we're seeing in the present. Also: damn it, Otoya, if you're going to emotionally cheat on your girlfriend at least have the common decency to do it while she's not sitting there watching it. That's still bad, but at least its polite.

Nice to see that the Fangires are finally, 30+ episodes later, showing some concern about this new Kiva guy that's running around killing them.

The series arc pacing is such an improvement for me over the last few shows. We had a solid start, where the show was more about random Fangire plots. We had a middle section, where it was about testing our cast and finding their limits. And now we're back to the Fangires, but with a sense of them as more of an organizational force, because Inoue. It keeps the show from feeling too repetitive, and the way the show switches from one mode to another has been pretty fluid.

My headcanon is that this is all a very specific kink of Otoya and Yuri's, and it's just that no one told Maya. She's the victim here!

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 35 - "NEW ARRANGEMENT: FLYING ROSE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva35a.png

I really wanted to like this episode! There's a thing it does with Wataru that is in my Top 3 Wataru things for this series! But I didn't like this episode!

It's all over the place, unfortunately. Kengo's in one scene to be installed as the new IXA, and then that's all we see of 70% of the 2008 cast. (Megumi! Poor Megumi!) Jiro randomly appears to Wataru to give him the next instruction for his plotline. Yuri's in the most thankless role she's had yet, and that's saying something. The Super Fangire never coheres as a villain, despite an early-episode twist. (She just... she isn't about anything. She's just a victim who becomes a crazy power-mad monster. It's not saying anything about this show's themes or plots!) It ends with a bunch of CGI nonsense, and I'll never ever care about that. It's sloppy, and overstuffed, and it lacks a throughline.

All of that would be forgivable if I thought the show landed its big Bloody Rose moments, but I don't think it does.

And I like some of it a lot. A lot. The idea of Wataru playing the song his dad always plays, and then adding more music of his own to the end of it... brilliant. Such a perfect encapsulation of Wataru's journey, and a lovely visualization of how Wataru draws strength from his absent father. Incredibly touching, and a thrillingly constructed scene.

It just... it just doesn't connect to the rest of this story at all.

Wataru's dilemma in this story wasn't that he lacked direction, or that he couldn't live up to his father's legacy, or that he couldn't feel his father's presence in his life. That's all general Kiva stuff, but it's nothing that was going on in the last two episodes. What was going on in the last two episodes was that Wataru had his heart broken, and he was pretending everything was fine. Bloody Rose cracked because he was denying his pain. But this episode has the resolution to that problem be a random confession to Taiga in the middle of the episode, and makes the emotional climax something that could've landed at the end of nine or ten other stories. It's nothing specific to this story, and that sucks. It makes a huge emotional breakthrough from Wataru into something generic and perfunctory. It's a beautiful moment that feels haphazardly shoved into this episode.

The Otoya story is sort of the same thing. It's him testifying to his love of humanity, when we're in the middle of a story about him neglecting his girlfriend for another woman. It's a great Otoya moment, something drawn from long-form characterization, that somehow feels dropped in from nowhere. It's possible that you could look at Otoya's story as being about Suffering For Art, what with him looking like Maya's a literal vampire now, but it'd be another random metaphor in an episode that can't keep a coherent theme.

God, I felt so let down by this one. It's getting back into the value of art, the way a family of artists (like, say, tokusatsu writers) deal with their dedication to art, how art has life-destroying and life-saving properties... but all of that comes out of nowhere, when we've had an episode and a half of metaphorical adultery and emotionally-repressed teenagers. It's all stuff I wished the show spent more time talking about, but it inexplicably opted to do so midway through this episode with almost no setup.

Just shoddily constructed. Some good ideas, but clumsily executed. If this was how they wanted to address some of these themes, I'd've rather they stuck to the romantic melodrama.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/kiva35b.png

So here we are, at the debut of Kiva Flight Style in show. And though this song wasn’t specifically written to represent it (I think that was the update of Destiny’s Play), given that the whole theme of the episode is Wataru connecting with Otoya’s music, here’s Wataru’s version of “this love never ends”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6fi-_Gw2ZoA

I wonder how Taiga felt about Wataru having that suspiciously Kiva-looking emblem on Wataru’s bike.

And as for the episode itself, all I can say is “Don’t you just hate it when someone puts random swords in your drywall?”

tfw I came too late to gush over Emperor form (The ONLY Ultimate form I like as much is Mugen Damashii from Ghost) and the best ultimate form theme BY FAR

I think this subplot was never really about her or the mad scientist despite them driving it, but rather Shima, who seems to be pretty strongly against working with Fangires. It's rare that we get to hear his opinion on stuff outside of managing Wonderful Aozora.

I would like to talk about what Flight Style represents for Wataru's arc though. This is what I meant earlier regarding how Emperor Form isn't at its full power yet and this is another step towards reaching that potential, which was significant enough for Maya to detect it from her cave. It's thematically appropriate as well, since conventional vampires are capable of transmogrification in to bats. There's still more to see of Emperor Form!

I haven't really thought about it before, but I suppose the Bloody Rose story does seem a little tangential to pretty much everything about the Wataru/Mio/Taiga triangle, even if that was the catalyst for it. I think it's still a good story though, for how it allows Wataru to make more progress in getting closer to Otoya and understanding something new about himself. But yeah, I suppose it might be at the expense of the main plot, as you say, since even Wataru's confession to Taiga about his feelings for Mio is just a small thing that sets up the next part. Taiga's not going to step aside when he believes so strongly in his birthright.

Plural? Mio fits the description, but the only other main character who's a teen here is Shizuka and she doesn't seem very emotionally-repressed.

Personally, I enjoyed this episode for what it was, but if your judgment is that it needed more of Inoue's classic romantic melodrama, then I can totally agree with that!

BTW, what do you think of 2008 Maya's gothic hermit fashion sense?

Maybe he assumed Wataru was a Kiva fan like Kengo. Or maybe he didn't notice, like how Nago didn't notice Kivat rotated 180 degrees, or how people never notice Tridoron under the SCU emblem. People in this franchise can be very unobservant sometimes.

With how much apocalyptic shimmying Castle Doran goes through, those must be some load-bearing swords.

Never too late!

Maybe? But even then, it's mostly just him saying Please Stop Experimenting On Fangires, and there're really no levels to it.

Sure! I definitely appreciate the idea of Wataru finding resolve in his father's legacy, but turning it into something new that better represents his worldview, and then turning Kiva into something new that reflects his goals. That's great!

I don't like that CGI BatDragon, though. Just... I don't! I can't! I'm sorry!

It turns Wataru's heroic dedication to saving people into some incidental thing, a realization he made accidentally while he was trying to get over his break-up. I'm not saying that he couldn't rededicate himself to Kamen Ridering in the aftermath of heartbreak (in fact, I would love that story), but there's just not enough effort made in connecting the romantic melodrama with the heroic declarations.

Even with no makeup and an eyepatch: that face.

Other than that, I can't say her 2008 cavewear made much of an impression on me. Maybe next time!