Hmm! Tough call. There's a single shot in Ryuki's finale that will probably be in my brain's last firing neuron. I think the metaness of Hibiki's finale, a finale about Kamen Rider finales, is pretty great. I remember Agito and Den-O doing some good work.

But it's either Faiz, which lands its themes with such intensity and precision that it's awe-inspiring; or Blade, which imbues unused park equipment with unparalleled gravitas. Both shows had bumpy roads to get those finales, but delivered when it counted. Not sure I could choose between them, so consider them tied for First Place.

So, Kiva's finale. It's fine. Not the best, definitely not the worst. There's some good emotional character stuff in here with Megumi and Nago and some weird emotional stuff with Wataru and Taiga (the whole "you're reunited, my sons, now beat the shit out of each other to prove your love" bit with Maya is so many kinds of "no"). I don't hate the feral resurrected King as a thing to throw Rider Kicks and Aegis Reflectors at, but I appreciate that he wasn't really meant to be much beyond that, even though I'm still not sold on the Taiga and Wataru stuff.

Honestly, my favorite parts were the brief moments with the '86 cast. Yuri's ghost visiting Megumi was surprisingly touching (and we can officially add "so what happened to Yuri anyway?" to the list of things that Kiva never explains) and Kouhei Takeda absolutely stole the entire episode with his last minute appearance as Wataru's son. I know there are some people who hate the ending and want to see how that fight played out, but I honestly love it for how completely bonkers it is.

This is the end. Hold your breath and count to ten.

To start with, here’s the final song from the Re-Union album, which is, fittingly enough, a remix of the first song on Kiva’s regular soundtrack, Destiny’s Play.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gXx5iwz1csc

Surprisingly, I didn’t think Wataru’s kid appearing was the most random thing about the wedding. For that honour, I went with Kivat yelling “Modigliani Forever!” And on a similar note, the S.I.C canon went and replaced the crazy ending with one that’s slightly less crazy (instead of Wataru’s kid talking about Neo-Fangires, we get Kivat’s sister talking about the Rook having come back as a giant chandelier of doom).

And I’d like to confirm whether or both the Final Stage follows on from this, but I’ve been trying to download the torrent for months with no progress made. This is why I prefer DDLs.

I sort of like that we never meet Yuri's husband, or it's not some random dude from the 1986 cast? (I am extra super glad it didn't end up being Jiro through some convoluted plotting.) She just went on and lived a life, and that's kind of sweet. Surprisingly, her life became 100% less dramatic once Otoya was out of it! Who could have predicted?

And, yeah, very into Masao's random appearance at the end of the episode. The whole thing is a really funny joke, and it's crazy to me that anyone thought that story would/should be continued.

He can't get enough of that long neck! That was my favorite callback, and it felt like it was there just for me. Kivat hasn't had a chance to get horny about Megumi's classically-beautiful neck for the longest time.

I'm glad you agree that Otoya is the true Dark Kiva! He definitely let his life burn bright in the end.

Agreed. Sagarc has been a loyal partner to Taiga since his birth so it sucks that he just gets abandoned in favor of some other bat Taiga's never even met before. I'll admit that Taiga as Dark Kiva makes sense in universe since being King, he was always ordained to inherit that power, but it doesn't have the same feeling that Wataru and Kivat teaming up with their fathers did.

The way that Kivat Bat the Second offered his power to Taiga after the latter "killed" Maya is clever foreshadowing that she was still alive, considering how Kivat Bat the Second went to Otoya cause he "didn't like what King was doing to Maya".

As of this finale, we've seen three out of four generations of the Kivat Bat family. The First is still a mystery.

Now that you mention it, I don't think any of Inoue's KR shows had interesting final villains. It might be intentional. Probably since his shows are more about people vs people than good vs evil, so when something is evil, it's mostly just walking plot as motivation for people to settle their conflicts and fight it together, such as Takumi and Kiba and Wataru and Taiga. I can't defend the defeated offscreen final villain of Hibiki though, from the "non-existent half" as you might call it. I think Radiguet's the most interesting final villain he's written, but then Sentai is a different kind of show.

Yeah, I love that twist ending as well! I feel like anybody who actually hates it for being a cliffhanger out of nowhere are maybe judging it a little too harshly. It would be boring if Masao's introduction was anything less than what it was. It's like seeing Wataru's time trip from the perspective of Otoya. It only seems absurd to us, the viewers, cause we, like Wataru, are also meeting his son for the first time. There's a whole story waiting to be told here and it confirms that Wataru does eventually find love again and pretty soon as well. So be sure to tune in on September 1st 2030 for Kamen Rider New Kiva! (nante ne)

If Kiva was a late Phase 2 show, this would have continued in a V-Cinema. But now I doubt we're ever going to find out what happens next, just like we're not going to find out how/when Yuri's death happened or who the hell even is Kivat Bat the First. But hey, to paraphrase a popular metaphor: When life gives you loose ends, make headcanons or fanfiction!

So this shows that you can criticize someone for their flaws, while still caring for them at the same time, like Megumi still deeming Nago as unfit for being chairman after Nago gets nearly killed. I expect for Nago to make use of Megumi's care of him to still ask for her agreement with him as chairman. The scene about Nago pulling another certificate after Megumi rips one (that's still a rough response to something) is comedic here, but I've seen in other stuff about similar thing like that used for tragedy.

Why I didn't have thoughts that Wataru would also meet Otoya in the series too just like in the movie, Castle Doran's time travel trait is also a thing in the series. This is really thrilling team up yeah, both father and son using their maximum potential as fighters, Wataru with Kiva Emperor (well actually no, the full potential would be Flight Mode I think) as final form, and Otoya with Dark Kiva for his determination. I wanna ask regarding Dark Kiva's true finisher to someone, but here, it seemingly that Dark Kiva's deadlier as it's not only kick with claws on leg, but also trapping the opponent in a Dark Kiva rune. Otoya did good things here for various people like Wataru, Maya, Yuri, Arms Monsters here, but I'd not want to glorify the hero moments too much here, continuing from how you think Kiva's a show about personal choices, individual choices, especially you defining hero as "protecting people you love" here, which can be misused as ignore those you don't love. I mean you said "if you've been dating him", that'd mean women? And instead a double standard gender treatment. Wataru has completely become confident now yeah, making use of his Fangire physique to fight off Fangires without henshin. Wataru doesn't justify Otoya's terrible traits, but this does help him clear up the misunderstandings he had regarding his father.

Like you said even if Otoya is no longer a couple with him, doesn't mean that you can only interact with your significant other, so she would mourn Otoya as platonic partner. I guess that's metaphorical... she says love... love really can be a poison, like if it leads one into toxic relationship or loving someone too much, so she's not really inaccurate on this. ~ Now you claim Otoya moving to Maya is betrayal? Before I talk about how Otoya had playboy qualities to please every woman but you said it's not disloyal as there's a difference between an Otoya who dates women and an Otoya who's in a relationship, which is more focused and less obnoxious. That'd mean it's truly disloyal to move to Maya, albeit of course she suits Otoya better.

This is doing a favor to others (though this is not Otoya's intent) so that they owe you, and will obey you for almost everything you ask for due to that. And that's earned after a long brutal hostility between Otoya and Jiro, due to what Switchblade said, involved in all of this for selfish reasons, wanting Yuri for himself and thus views other men as opposition like Jiro. Otoya even refused to aid them at first (due to not wanting himself wasting his freedom) before they claim it's for Yuri. They're undeniably friends now, but interesting development aside, for Otoya to take this long to build a relationship with them, speaks about his terrible traits.

I mean true that, other stuff than 'paragon of justice' and 'all-the-time good man' can have good influence to others, like someone's sheer power, such as overpowered Rider against muggles, or even other lesser Riders. Or someone's charisma to draw people in, as long as they're not used for bad purpose (neutral purpose can still be benefical such as making themselves famous). Or someone's skill mastery that inspires others to try harder or mere comfort... regardless of morality (such as... public figures in real life which fans don't get to know about them deeper personally, if they have bad personality).

Yes, as I've said before, Otoya being "literal vampire" to Maya doesn't apply; loving Otoya would mean that Maya suffered instead. And not for King's threatening (so her taunt to King has place), but for the Queen mechanic of losing its power, but also (so it's even worse than I thought than losing her Queen powers) her further suffering that the Fangires will likely hunt her, therefore she's been broken that she had to isolate herself from society, staying away from her sons. Other than that there's Taiga's being an abusive offspring for a while to threaten his own mother under his power using his King obligation. I don't know what would you mean for quantity regarding love here? I guess Otoya breeds Wataru with Maya offscreen (with them naming the baby Wataru because of the future version coming) before he finally dies after using Dark Kiva 3 times?

I don't think so? I think she's definitely mourning Otoya as a lover. A lot of Yuri's story in the last few episodes has been about the messiness of love, how it doesn't just start and stop when you choose. She broke up with Otoya, and she's moving on with her life, but she still loves him. Beyond how recent the breakup was, the shared something that'll never really disappear. It won't be the kind of eternal connection Maya and Otoya share, but there'll probably always be a part of Yuri that looks back fondly on her time dating Otoya.

The violin-making was a metaphor. Otoya has been having sex with Maya for weeks!

I do gotta say, for a series I have made my dislike for clear... I did super like this ending and felt it was a perfect last 60 seconds. Just the best possible way you could bring together the generational themes with a dash of Inoue bonkers-ness

There's no way I was going to end the series with anything other than more of that slower emotional music from the OST I love so much, so here's the extremely mournful, final sounding Fate of Parent and Child, which, uh... isn't at all in the finale, unless I missed it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7luprhizA

But hey, at least there's the very last track on the second OST, Clear Sky, essentially a deep breath in music form, which just screams of something written to play at the very end of the show... even though it's not anywhere in the finale either. Hm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bseI_-uNcmI

Granted, there's a chance I simply wasn't being thorough enough going through, but as far as I caught, neither of these two tracks were even used in the entire series, and if I'm right about that, then man, at least I couldn't ask for a better opportunity to point out why I've been sharing all this music. Kamen Rider shows get a lot of talented composers making very high quality background music; it's something I feel greatly contributes to creating the identity of each one of these shows, and as I stated upfront, Kiva is the exact opposite of an exception, thanks to Tsuneyoshi Saitou. There's a lot of music in Rider I don't really appreciate until I've heard it by itself, and in some cases, there's even some you just don't hear at all unless you give the soundtrack a listen, so in that spirit, since this is the final set of tracks I'm sharing from the OST, here's a link to the second volume's playlist on YouTube, just like I did for the first one. Maybe see if anything new catches your ear some time.

(Note that I said this is the final set of tracks I'm sharing from the OST, by the way. I'm not done with this bit just yet.)

As for the episode, I ended up rewatching it in full once I got to the end of my whole process of skimming through the series, and I gotta say, anyone can argue this isn't a perfect finale all they want, but it might still be the perfect Kiva finale?

There's just so much insanity and heart and stupidity and action and it really encompasses so much of what the show was leading up to it. You've got a character journey as charmingly inexplicable as 753 somehow ending up being (I think?) the first ever Kamen Rider to get married, plotting decisions as frustratingly absurd as Shima still needing to be involved for some reason, a fight scene that ends as amazingly as King getting destroyed by Wataru and Taiga using his own dumb yo-yo finisher on him followed by a combo of Saga and Kiva's own killer moves!

...It's a really packed episode! In a way where it's sort of all over the place, but darn it if that doesn't make it the pinnacle of Kiva-ness. I really do think it's everything a final episode should be in that sense, as backhanded as I'm sure some of this sounds. There is a method behind a lot of that madness, too.

You say the Ixa glove bit doesn't add any further depth to Wataru and Otoya's relationship, for example, but I don't think it needs to. It's the same thing as RabbitDragon in Build – a summation of all that you've seen over the course of the story. Just like the core of that show was how a genius physicist and a meathead fighter were always the Best Match, Kiva beautifully encapsulates how the bond between a father and son transcends time by demonstrating that Otoya will always be there to lend Wataru a hand, literally, even if he's only there in spirit.

The stuff with Taiga, though, I mean, I have to give credit to Inoue for writing Ghost before Ghost again, as the main hero (a young man at the end of a journey to gain the self-confidence to protect the people who matter to him) stops the main villain (a member of a royal family led astray by personal issues stemming from his upbringing) with a hug, but at the same time, I can't claim this part of Kiva's ending really resonated with me or anything.

There are things about it I love conceptually for sure, but my most vivid memory of those scenes, my most visceral reaction, was how thoroughly baffled I felt when Maya told her sons to beat each other up so they could "feel each other's souls". In the moment, it was simply because I thought it sort of unnecessarily undercut the fact that they just reconciled, but in retrospect, it's like... what the heck were you thinking writing that, Inoue-san!? What kind of a message is that to send to the kids watching these shows!? And then the fighting isn't even choreographed like casual roughhousing; Taiga and Wataru are kicking the s*** out of each other there! There have to be healthier ways to vent these emotions, guys!

Still, even that is exactly the sort of madness I expect from Kiva. Maya being alive, too, they even foreshadow that by placing the scene in 47 where she's "killed" directly next to Shima telling Wataru that Taiga didn't have it in his heart to actually kill him. It's like one shlocky plot development justifying another!

Putting aside that more negative stuff (and I mean, really, Taiga fake-murdering people doesn't even bother me), I think I'm also a fan of where Nago and Megumi end up here? It's completely ridiculous and yet surprisingly endearing, and the end of the day, that's our Nago-san! Also kind of a fan of his final boss being Bishop, now that I think about it? On the surface, it seems like just a matter of pairing up the characters who are left to fight, but Bishop sorta had the same kind of unfeeling dedication to his black-and-white code that Nago used to, so you could maybe argue it's like Nago's final triumph over his own weakness to beat him here? Or something?

Anyway, yeah, this finale is 1000% Kiva, whatever else it is. That final minute especially is the absolute most wonderful way imaginable to close out the show. It's like the whimsy that went away during the melodramatic back half came back all at once, AND it's thematically on-point to have Wataru's kid show up. Like, yes. Absolutely yes to the Kurenai family just having to deal with wacky time adventures forever now. Why would anyone say "no" to that?

There's a real Here We Go Again comedy beat to it, that... I just love how Inoue's going to make time in the final moments of his entire series for some weirdo riff on Back to the Future. Super on-point, and completely hysterical.

Yeah, I'm not really mad at it. (I really respect how the show actually set it up, by showing that glove floating in the lake during Otoya's fight with King? For a series that seemed way too willing to retcon ever-more-unbelievable plot twists, I like how planned out this twist was.) It's really more that... like, the show pretty much ended the Otoya/Wataru story a couple episodes earlier, so bringing it up again here felt a little tacked-on. Not unwelcome, exactly, but sort of distracting for how it wasn't really what the episode was about.

It's maybe the best thing in the episode, for WTF entertainment value alone. It's so tone-deaf and inappropriate (those two actors are working stiff, to put it in wrestling terms) that it's sort of incredible. The cut to Maya's maternal pride as her two sons are punching each other in the face! Amazing. Terrible, indefensible storytelling that is also the thing I enjoyed the most in the finale.