Kamen Rider Revice Episode 34- "The Demon Calls The Demon!" Discussion
 

The Igarashi family & friends gather to stop the impending apocalypse.

Really starting to feel like the writer is bitter at being made to write in the Holy Wing Vistamp into the plot and is taking out their revenge on Daiji. Like wow! Just relentlessly dumping on this guy!!! My apathy towards him is slowly shifted into a weird form of pity.

Really not feeling the idea that two other characters are basically reduced to lap dogs. Maybe three. I mean Hikaru seemingly has something going on next week, unless it's a red herring, but I'm still on the fence for that.

https://i.imgur.com/Pk3Jfpf.jpg

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's the worst episode of Revice, (the VA eps exist lol), but uh. definitely on the bottom row. Let's get into it.

-The bit with Hana and Sakura hanging out was cute, but kinda a stark reminder that at this point Tamaki and Hikaru just exist to follow behind their respective girls like a pair of lost puppies, oof! I'm not sure what theyre trying to imply sbout how Hikaru feels about Sakura with him adamantly declaring he's her bodyguard when we all know the girl can take care of herself quite fine (esp with her new weapon!), but I don't particularly like where that might lead.

-I'd never thought I'd say this in a billion years but like. The Vice segment...might've been the 2nd most engaging part of the episode???? Of course, 90% of me saying this is purely because of the sheer potenial that lies within the conflict between Vail and Vice, and the matter of "a devil's pride", and making him confront the idea of Ikki discarding him someday. To me, it's a far better "last minute emotional dillema for our heroes to confront pre/during endgame" concept than "ooga booga what if we did that one Den-O plot but like, Worse!" I mean, it's been set up well-after all, Daiji has managed to "discard" Kagerou, so who's to say Ikki won't do the same to him? Really hope they don't drop the ball on this idea.

-Speaking of "dropping the ball", and Daiji, um.......? There's (probably) something to be said about Daiji becoming more....implusive/rash after Holy Live that ties into Kagerou's wishes for him to become more "cruel" mixed with his own desire to combat his feelings of inferiority/weakness...but i cant tell if it's an intentional setup/foreshadowing for an eventual triumph/realization for him or just like. the writers just like to see him lose????

(Anyway, As someone who's always thought the core conflict of Kagerou/Daiji centered around the dangers unhealthy emotional suppression more than anything else, there are a lot of new angles I can take that theory with Daiji's newfound explosive behavior after Kagerou's "death", but I want to see more of what they want to do with the kid before expanding on it.)


-Finally, uh. The Fenix segment. Is it bad I don't give a damn about any of it??? Like I am completely tuned out on whatever the fuck The Director wants to do. He's such a dull villian for me (and sorry dude, becoming 15% more hammy this episode doesn't help!) that the last bit of this episode felt like an unecessary slog. Vail just feels like a better "final boss" in terms of themes and whatnot, so I hope he somehow pulls the rug under both Gifu and the Director to do so.

honestly I WISH they just made Vali the main villain because that's the only interesting thing about this show at this point(Daiji/Sakura could've been good if they ABRUPTLY didn't end their arcs and Ikki could too if they didn't do the "Is ViCe AcTuAlLy EVIl?" arc every 5 episodes)

Pretty decent episode; mostly set-up so there's not much to go into. A very Does The Job sort of thing this week

I just rolled my eyes on the whole scene. Pretty tiring to see what happened to both Hikaru and Tamaki, granted Hikaru now has this thing with wanting a belt, so it may just lead to him finall doing something, but it feels like a red herring.

I'm almost convinced Kinoshita just really doesn't want anything to do with Daiji, everything about him just feels half-baked. Doesn't help that him getting his neck blown off makes no sense when Daiji was in

There really is a difference between hammy that he's fun to watch, and being hammy to the point where it's hard to take him seriously.

Very cliche villain. The actor over reacts on everything like he?s trying so hard to tell the audiences he?s definitely the big bag in control here. The whole deaman trio was wasted tbh if they choose to set up Noah by retconning a lot of previous lore.

Daiji has the unfortunate position where Vice more or less occupies the space of a "traditional" secondary in the narrative while Sakura seems very much to be Kinoshita's baby (it feels like he loves writing for her more than anything), and not enough standalone appeal for fans like George or Hiromi to keep them interested even if the character isn't necessarily doing anything.

They've attempted to do things with him, the unfortunate thing is that the show's far too busy wanting to re-run "Did you know? That Ikki and Vice are besties! :-)" for the 50th time that there's not much room to give any of his development weight? The Kagerou fight, him taking Hiromi's death super hard- they're good concepts set back by not having any time to properly bulid them up!

I'll say this about the episode, the show's threatening, murderous aura went from like a 3 to an 8.5 in the span of its runtime.


It was a fine episode though. I like the whole angle of never knowing when Vail is going to try and pick off one of the family members, and his whole conversation with Vice was interesting and would be a cool way to add some conflict back into the whole Ikki-Vice dynamic. The scene with Sakura and Hana was cute, but I definitely wish Tamaki and Hikaru just had more depth at this point instead of just awkwardly looming in the background like that. I know its probably not happening but I can't help but wonder if Daiji is going to be unceremoniously killed off next week because the writer clearly doesn't like dealing with him much. Dude is bleeding from the neck again and trying his hardest to have a bunch of death flags! Thinking about it, I think the most critical issue with Revice as a whole is that it just can't juggle all these characters. Still, I had fun and I'm enjoying the apocalyptic vibes as we move into the home stretch.

Man to me the peak of Revice end in KR Vail debut.. after that the mysteries of this Series (which is kinda main appeal of the series)kinda end

Now first of all the whole thing about "does akaisi is a bad guy?" Mysteries is weird and super stale.. like we already know he is bad guy like 20 episode ago which make the whole reveal thing is weightless

This Episode supposed to be also serve as "Daiji episode" by this boy can't catch a break not only they shoving off saqulera again they also shoving of the whole Vice-Vail conflict which don't make anu sense to me because at this point Vice-ikki bonds is already strong bit suddenly doubt? I am sorry thats force drama

As for Sakura don't get me wrong i like her as chara and like her journey at first but what we get kinda abysmall if you ask me..

Hiromi at his point ahould be just die there is no room for Him on story the momentum already gone...

The doctor lady while i understand she will help daiji growth also have strange conflict IMO

I dunno this whole episode kinda a mess...

I trully have Fun for Revice especilly the early arc up until KR Vail reveal

A direct reveal of Akaishi being evil... as it wasn't fucking obvious already all the time previously! Well then, it's a direct reveal to the main cast to have Akaishi earn the wrath of all the Igarashis.

So far about Akaishi, he's build up as someone with well-intentioned motive to keep the human race alive, by having them submit to Giff instead of, invoking Giff's wrath and have Giff exterminate everyone. That shows his intentions aside, Akaishi does have villain's typical outlook of humans, to make people fall into despair and crush their hopes, and he'd be someone looking down on humanity and their potential as a whole. His approach reminds me of Micchy from Gaim's, to face an overwhelming villain by pracfically cowardly way of just giving up and letting them win/be their lapdog so that they have a chance to be spared or something, though Micchy only did that for the people he favored while Akaishi's doing that for whole humanity. For now Akaishi has 'good' intention and isn't as bad as Olteca, but he still had the potential from his approach and also the brutality he displayed so far to Akemi and Daiji (who for now... properly henshins..). Daiji bleeding heavily reminds me of Taiga in Ex-Aid nearly killed by Graphite. George here acted under Akaishi's order again to try to lure him into a trap, but now George didn't go giddy and excited anymore under Akaishi's orders, probably again showing how he changed, directly when interacting with Akaishi here.

So regarding my expectations before of Akemi being the show's secondary heroine, it got twisted around not only for Aguilera but for Akemi herself too. Aguilera was the main antagonist but eventually got redeemed to join Weekend, while Akemi was a female with larger presence (other than the Igarashis) on the main organization, but now got turned into Deadman. So actually Akemi wasn't completely immune either to the dark truth, though Akemi's still far less malicious than Chigusa was, she undergoes BSOD phase and apologizing to Daiji for seeing the truth, but it seems that as Deadman her actions are uncontrollable, l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶e̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶D̶a̶i̶j̶i̶,̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶h̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶m̶. And as expected, Aguilera is still haughty as ever, and worse she'd have the good guy position to get away with that behavior (o̶r̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶v̶i̶o̶u̶s̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶g̶o̶r̶g̶e̶o̶u̶s̶). Though her interaction to Hikaru is the first time she interacted normally with others. I don't know if actually her bitchy attitude is reserved only for Tamaki here, but it being played for laughs doesn't negate it being abusive though.

The gag is probably about how the boys (Tamaki/Hikaru) are trying to be bodyguards to females who are actually far stronger/more competent than them (Sakura/Aguilera), but it'd be wasted if the boys, Hikaru likely joining, are only reduced into their lost puppies. Though there's Hikaru feeling down about how he's actually nothing compared to Sakura, as their previous karate sparring has shown, with even Tasuke pointing it out, and wanting to be Kamen Rider itself, while Tamaki has been like this ever since he got separated from his Giftex powers. Well not trusting Revice's direction now to its characters. Other bodyguarding part is what's actually necessary, Vice protecting Yukimi, who isn't a fighter, from Vail actually hunting the Igarashis, despite Yukimi's protest. I guess now Vice had fully atoned for his sins here against Yukimi and now their relationship has been fully repaired, protecting the woman he tried to eat at one point, and Yukimi recognizing that shooing Vice away was probably wrong.

Vail's new psychological game now is about dictating others about how to live like a demon which is again, effective on Vice that got really shaken with Vail's mindgames, distracting him in fight and hindering Ikki (and apologized for that). Vail tried to invoke parental abuse/ageism with him being Genta's devil.... but... now Revice pulls something opposite to "X is X" some Kamen Rider shows pulled, like Inoues... by Vice pointing out that devils aren't the same as the human hosts thus Vail isn't a father that can abuse his position. Then obviously Vail tries to break Vice's relationship with Ikki with the latter eventually leaving him, now I don't personally see this as another question of "Is Vice actually evil", as what the series has pushed to the viewers before, probably it'd be actually Vail really underestimating the bond between Ikki and Vice and it'd be partly his downfall later or something.

To be fair, even the story pointed that out, Tasuke said this.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...meatshield.PNG

Demons are different individuals though, this'd be kinda generalizing of the demons.... like Masumi does. Vice has been buddies with Ikki since ep. 13 and it's clear that they're always on each other's backs since then and they help each other on various things. Kagerou though, has always been cruel and sadistic, just that he excludes Sakura from that treatment due to how she pleases him with her spicy curries. While Kagerou does 'like' Daiji better at the end (and Daiji does appreciate him better), Kagerou's still someone who tried to corrupt him by glorifying cold-detached traits and want Daiji to become like that - like him.

Who says he's not? After Aguilera-Olteca-Julio trio ended, now Revice had a new villain trio of Akaishi-Vail-Giff. Akaishi and Vail are current partners as seen in previous episode, and Giff supplied their powers like Akaishi's current self and manifesting Vail's physical form.

It's true, Kinoshita has expressed that he wanted to keep her "strong" throughout the show, and he had his own history too for it. Kinoshita fought against the strong resistance to having a female rider at all, as he stated that he grew up in a household with a lot of strong women and he wanted the series to reflect that.