Kamen Rider Die rewatches Kamen Rider Fourze
 

Hello, friends. My name’s Kamen Rider Die, and this thread is “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Kamen Rider Fourze”.

I just think Fourze’s a fun show? There’re for sure deeper themes and tragic stories we’ll get into over the next few months of me revisiting this series, but Fourze’s just fun for me. I think Teen Ensemble Dramedy mixed with Superhero Action is a pretty unbeatable combo, more so than any number of combinations utilized by the preceding Rider. The main cast is massive enough to sustain a series four times as long without ever feeling exhausted, and the little two-episode stories we get about struggling teens and their metaphorical problems is the exact right level for a show like this to operate on. We’re given a series with intricately sketched characters who evoke relatable adolescent concerns – every dilemma is personal, yet universal.

All that said, I do not 100% remember if that’s actually the case! I remember liking Fourze more than I remember Fourze, which is one of the reasons I’m excited to crack into this show on a rewatch. I’ve enjoyed the bits and pieces I’ve gotten to see again over the last few years via Legend Rider projects, and now I can finally reconnect with all of my friends in the KRC.

Before we get started, a few minor bits of business!

PLEASE ONLY DISCUSS WHATEVER EPISODE WE’RE ON. I’m frequently guilty of this too, but let’s all try and not get too far ahead if we talk about this show. I like being able to appreciate every step of the journey, rather than just framing it all in the context of the destination. If we can stay within the boundaries of the current episode (or anything prior), that’d make it more fun for me.

I MIGHT MENTION STUFF FROM OTHER SHOWS. I definitely will bring up thematic parallels to other shows when it feels necessary, or random jokes about other shows when they’re unavoidable. (There are probably going to be minor references to Blade, at the very least. Sorry if that is also a spoiler!) If you’re the type of fan who wants to go in cold on other shows, consider this a warning.

FEEL FREE TO CHIME IN, BUT DON’T FEEL OBLIGATED. I always enjoy these threads more when people feel like adding to the discussion – teamwork and friendship are certainly a major part of Fourze! – but I am aware of the dynamics of message boards in 2026, and I will not take it personally if discussion is light. I’m good either way!

That’s it for the warnings and disclaimers, I think? Episode posts will go up frequently, but not daily. I switched to more of a When I Have Time schedule with Gridman and Dynazenon last year, and the flexibility really worked for me. I still like to do at least five posts per week, but there may be the occasional string of days where finding time to watch and write just doesn’t happen. Luckily, TokuNation allows you to subscribe to threads, so you can always get an update when a new post goes up. What a treat!

Okay! It’s time for “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Kamen Rider Fourze”! START THE COUNTDOWN!

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KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 01 - “TRANSFORMING HIGH SCHOOL LIFE”

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There’s a quote from JFK, back in the 1960s when America was pursuing the at-the-time quixotic goal of landing a man on the moon. In a speech, he said that America taking on these scientific tasks was “not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. The point of doing something, in his estimation, is to push yourself, to put yourself out there, to take risks, and do something that changes you and grows your abilities.

And that’s Gentarou, right? He wants to make friends with everyone; not be friends with everyone, but make friends with everyone. He specifically chooses Kengo to be his project in this episode not in spite of the fact that Kengo is a petulant asshole in this episode, but because of it. (Kengo’s first scene is him breaking an unnamed girl’s heart because he’s Not Here To Make Friends!) Gentarou challenges himself to find a way to get Kengo to like him, sure, but he’s also challenging himself to find something to like in Kengo. (Uphill battle for this one!) Forging connections and creating friendships is easy when there’s mutual respect and overlapping interests, but it’s more rewarding when it’s achieved by bridging a chasm of teen melodrama and grumpy disaffection.

Which is another way of saying Welcome to Kamen Rider Fourze!

Great first episode. Everything is there, right in the debut. The core trio feels perfectly aligned: flighty, ebullient Yuuji; raging, forceful Kengo; and dedicated, charismatic Gentarou. While we get a look in at the rest of our soon-to-be regulars – JK providing snarky commentary, Miu flirting with a guy that her boyfriend’s about to demolish, Shun showcasing that the filmmakers are not clear on exactly which football position our resident jock actually plays – the specific energy of our main three is what keeps everything orbiting correctly. (Sorry!) The way that any two of the three can collaborate for a scene on a different wavelength than any other configuration bodes well for a show that’ll mix and match a growing and idiosyncratic cast. Like, Gen and Yuuji have this goofy irreverence to how they approach danger, but Gen and Kengo are more locked-in and aggressive, but Yuuji and Kengo are more inquisitive and excited. Each actor/character alters the formula, so no scene ever feels repetitive or unnecessary, even if it’s just to watch some ridiculous flourish. (Yuuji geeking out over the first Fourze henshin!)

It’s also just so much fun to watch? The big setting of a high school makes all of the action pop more for me – this isn’t typical Kamen Rider Geography where a fight at the stadium rolls into the river rolls into the quarry, you know? We’re at a place, and the fights feel like they both affect the place (damage and explosions) and are affected by the place (locker rooms). Amanogawa High School is as much a character on the show as any of the kids or teachers (arguably more than some of the teachers; Sonoda isn’t much to talk about this time, and Chuuta is Wacky) and you really get a sense of it through this episode. Beyond a quick moon-based prelude, and a tiny detour to collect the Fourze Driver later in the episode, we’re just at school for a day, and that’s exactly what I wanted. Keeping the action to the school feels distinct to this series, and I love it.

Doesn’t hurt that this is maybe the signature Sakamoto show, a guy who’s synonymous with Heisei action… and other stuff. This premiere really gets across the duality of Sakamoto, with tons of memorable action, both superheroic and otherwise – Gen jumping off a bridge in his first scene, the brawl with the Zodiart, and some shockingly good CG on the Power Dizer appearances – wedded to some male gaze-y camerawork. (I feel like Sakamoto just did a find-and-replace through the script, switching ESTABLISHING SHOT with LEGS.) The high school setting feels a little weird at times; teens are horny, and that should be part of the story, but the filmmakers shouldn’t necessarily be horny. Still, it’s never too distracting, and if it’s especially noticeable or heightened from what I remember, this is a premiere, and everything’s a little turned up from how it might work on a recurring basis.

It’s, seriously, a hell of a set-up for a show. Gen/Yuuji/Kengo is an engine that reliably moves the plot and creates melodramatic teen tension (Kengo cursing his body; we’ve all been there as teens, bud) while the superhero action and ensemble conflicts are dropped in with just the right ratio and tone. I can’t believe this thing started off better than I remembered it!

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So once again, you and I are doing watch threads for Rider and Sentai, exactly 5 years on.

But to get on topic, I remember that I started watching Fourze because I couldn’t decide whether to watch it or OOO, so I cut out the middle man and watched both. So they kind of blend together in my memory, even though I took longer to watch Fourze (16 weeks to OOO’s 7). So I’ll have more vivid memories of the second half.

As for what I can discuss, etymology and cast appearing in other shows. The latter won’t start until next time, but for now.

Gentaro is one letter off being an anagram of “Stronger”.

Kengo Utahoshi is an anagram of Takeshi Hongou, the civilian identity for Rider Ichigou.

Yuki Jojima is a modification of Joji Yuki, Riderman’s civilian identity.

Miu Kazushiro is an anagram of V3’s given name, Shiro Kazami.

And Shun Daimonji is an alternate reading of the kanji for Hayato Ichimonji, aka Nigou.

And as for additional trivia, Kengo almost being Fourze before Gentaro steps in has a bit of a real life precedent to it, as Ryuki Takahashi (Kengo) was up for the role of Gentaro before Sota Fukushi (Gentaro) chose him as a partner for a part of the audition that required a second actor to play off.

Overall, I find Fourze to be a very average season of Power Rangers.

There, you now have what pretty much every post I could make on the show would amount to.

I might chime in on a few episodes I find super notable in the future, but otherwise I'm likely sitting this one out. I hope you and whoever else watches along has fun though.

Just gonna drop this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkL9eJWQH3Q

:lolol

This is something that's maybe more relevant to bring up around the winter movie, but the kind of vestigial aspects of this show's original conception as a 40th anniversary exploration of Kamen Riders as urban legends is FASCINATING to me. The names, the KRC as an idea, the movie stuff, the various ancillary videos about the Showa era... like, there's so much floating around this show as an anniversary concept, but literally none of it is in the text of the series. So weird!

Fair enough! It's definitely got both teens and attitudes in this first episode!

An initial draft of the intro writeup had a Saved By The Bell reference, but I was like I'm too old, no one's going to get that, so thank you for making me feel better about my original comparison. There's maybe more Degrassi than Bayside, but I'm glad we're all finding our own ways of drawing out the school setting from this show's DNA.

I wonder if people who have been around longer than me could better get this across, but it's also sort of important to note that Sakamoto was actually only just starting to become synonymous with Rider at the time, since he got involved with the franchise during Double a few years before this. Nowadays, it's like he just shows up to direct episodes and movies and web spinoffs of every toku franchise ever without anyone even needing to ask, so it's easy to take for granted in retrospect, but at the time, it was pretty exciting to see this guy leave Power Rangers and suddenly be making all these projects in Japan that had *this* level of kinetic excitement to nearly every shot. There really wasn't anybody else on these shows doing anything quite like it back then, and maybe there still isn't? This specific period for him, especially, I've always felt was just crazy heightened in a way I feel like he's sort of reined in a bit since. I don't particularly miss his obsession with legs being on such prominent display so constantly, but I definitely still yearn every now and then for how wild stuff like the camera setups could get.

Anyways, yeah, Fourze! Hard to go wrong with this show! Really happy to see you give yourself the opportunity to dig into every episode like this, Die. Going with Aesir for the subs, too, I see! I actually made the same decision during my own rewatch of Fourze, just to mix things up, but the fact that Fourze has so many options available to begin with reminds of what I guess is my first personal anecdote for the thread. I'm grateful to Fourze for a lot of reasons, but one of them is simply that it was the show that gave me the push to try Over-Time's subs after sticking with TV-Nihon throughout OOO, mostly because it was the same place I was grabbing the earlier shows like Ryuki.

Obviously the way Over-Time wrote the lines by comparison was a bit of a revelation and all that, but mostly? It was entirely a matter of them being faster, because I couldn't wait to watch this show. This will all be stuff I've definitely mentioned a million times even just in these threads, but I got into Rider during OOO, which meant Fourze was the first show I was around for from the earliest rumors. I still recall seeing some leaked picture of the dude's spaceship/onigiri looking head and everyone freaking out about how strange and/or lame he looked, because this is back in those pre-Ex-Aid days where it was still possible for lead Rider designs to affect people that way. For whatever reasons, every piece of information that came out about the show just made it seem more and more exciting to me, and when I finally got to watch that premiere, it was everything I hoped for and then some? OOO, I always took for granted, but this was a show I knew right away I was going to be treasuring each and every week of.

The Zodiart fight in this episode reminded me a ton of the first episode for Gavv, which has maybe my favorite opening fight in Reiwa. In both, there's a sense of the show using its pre-show planning to have the first suit fight of the series incorporate a level of action and stunt work that -- if not to the level of a movie -- was far more than you were likely to get on a weekly basis, while still feeling like it was in the range of what this team was proving they could deliver. The crew here makes the action scale reasonably, keeps the stakes appropriate, and tells you what you need to know about how the heroes are going to attack problems going forward. It's memorably excellent!

I wouldn't be surprised, given that Sakamoto was a young international student in America during the early to mid-90s, and shows like Saved By the Bell, 90210, and Degrassi were huge back then.

It's very America-coded for the premiere, at least to my eyes. The cheerleaders, Shun playing American Football... it just feels way more like something from my context than shows like Gotchard or whatever. (I like Gotchard! That's not a dig!) Maybe that's just how universal these experiences/tropes really are!

I'm still flip-flopping about whether or not I want to watch along on this one. I went through Fourze again not too long ago and I have a whole bunch of commentary that I'm already planning on pulling up and re-sharing. It is a really damn fun show, though, and I'm not averse to re-revisiting it (with the probably exception of two specific episodes in the back half).

I won't blame you if you'd rather not watch along, but your opinions are always fun to hear! Either way, we're still friends!

I can't help but speculate Sakamoto's experience in America influencing him to include stuff like it. That said, high school football is supposedly a thing in Japan. High school baseball still has more mass appeal, but they have their version of the Super Bowl called Christmas Bowl, so I suppose it's not too far-fetched. Also, they have a college league and a pro league called X-League as well. Heck, probably why Eyeshield 21 was a thing back in the days.

Yeah, I didn't mean to make it sound like this is American Rider or anything -- I don't see a single Ferbus, for one -- but it feels a bit more like it's leaning into American high school tropes than just "high school tropes".

As to the sports stuff, while I'm sure American football does exist at Japanese high schools, I'd imagine it's like saying kendo clubs exist at American high schools: technically true, but probably not the dominant sport at any school. (Baseball for sure, then soccer.)

Oh yeah, Japanese high school tropes collectively are a whole other ball game.

Yep. The average Taro Tanaka winning baseball for his school in Koshien is not just gonna make him a likely local hero, but give Taro a bigger chance of appearing on national tv the following Monday morning for a brief interview. Still, it's cool that gridiron football has a presence in Japan. I actually saw an X-League game a while back on the internet, stadium might not be overcrowded but was still fun to see.

Rewatch KITAAAA!

Yeah, I'm rewatching along this time, as it's my third favorite Heisei Rider.

As someone who had a typically frustrating high school experience, it's refreshing to me how despite Amanogawa (which means Milky Way, fitting the space theme) having all the cliche tropes that would make it a place of torment, Gentarou manages to make it his own through his unyielding will and mission of friendship. He's like the ideal high school student protagonist that I imagine many viewers wish they could've been! I'm intrigued by the cultural difference in depiction between the idealized Japanese high school and the painful western high school. Even though the work is harder and more abundant and bullying still exists and apparently worse in some cases, there seems to be a friendlier spirit.

Oh man, that takes me back a little. Even though I got in to Rider with Decade, I recall it was around the time of Putotyra that I started following leaks and rumors. After a year of unmoving identical circular plastics, I was immediately drawn to the concept of collectibles that vary wildly in shapes and functions. Four different types of Switch, where even those of the same type activate in a different way. I'd never seen that kind of amazing practical freedom in a Rider System before and while there are similar ones, I don't think I've seen it to that extent since! Honestly, the Fourze Driver is my favorite! I even like the robotic way it speaks, specifically with the deep voice and range in pronunication, unlike the squeaky high monotonous IXA Knuckle which had the opposite effect on me.

Moving on to Fourze himself, it's an awesome suit! The accents of orange, blue, yellow and black work great on the clean white suit. Sure, it's not exactly the most intimidating, especially since the lack of teardrops are a distinction, but then Gentarou isn't that kind of lonely suffering Rider anyway. Kengo would've been that, if he didn't live in the infirmary.

Personally, my favorite Reiwa premiere fight is Geats. Starting with a DGP season finale against a giant CGI monster was an awesome introduction to the setting!

The thing that's especially fun about Gentarou in the first episode is how he gets across the idea that friendship doesn't mean you have to change yourself to fit in, or ask the other person to change for you. It's just about being open, and valuing yourself and other people. That's some heroic spirit!

Geats is my favorite Kamen Rider series, full stop, but I can't ever be that excited about a premiere whose major action sequence is CG. Fun structure to that episode, but definitely not my favorite fight.

Also, I want to reiterate how good the Power Dizer CG looked in this episode? I for sure saw stuff in Zeztz and Gotchard that looked more janky than this, which is not what I was expecting from a 2011 tokusatsu episode.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 02 - “COME ON, OUTER SPACE”

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I don’t know that I ever liked Kengo?

He’s certainly way down my list of Favorite KRC Members. (Maybe last? It’s a bit of a toss-up, since I recall that JK didn’t exactly endear himself to me, either.) Some of it’s the performance – Kengo’s meant to come across (I think) as tortured and driven, desperate to learn the truth about the Zodiarts while his body fails him and a new student antagonizes him, but the onscreen result always read as petulant and needlessly insulting. (Again, first scene for him in the series is dramatically and publicly humiliating a girl who liked him!) But some of it is that Kengo refuses to have fun or engage with anyone in a friendly way, the two things I’m basically watching this show for. It’s one of my least-favorite tropes, the guy who exists to mock and belittle the premise of the series. Kengo’s role is to be an obstacle, but he comes off as more of an irritant. Never really warmed to that guy.

Until now? Maybe?

A lot of it is that I’m happy to be watching Fourze again, and I’m not (yet?) at a stage where I feel like ripping into a part of this show. This episode was incredibly fun, with a a high-energy Kids Adventure version of a by-then-standard Heisei plot, where the heroes try and figure out who the monster is before it’s too late. Can’t say any of the fake-outs distracted me from discerning the culprit this time around, since Tomoko is my favorite KRC member, and the only guest star to have a line of dialogue was jock suck-up Miura. Which, two quick things about this episode’s conclusion:

First, I loved Yuuki and Gen showing up to get answers from Tomoko, because it’s so dumb. Gen is relentlessly bad at investigating things or just generally moving this story forward when he applies himself – furthering the idea that Kengo will be crucial in steering Gen’s nascent costumed heroism – but accidentally great at it because he’s this big, boisterous personality that people can’t ignore. His constant blundering and misapplied enthusiasm ended up being key to uncovering Miura, but mostly because Tomoko found him car-crash fascinating. And then he just screamed at her like he’s in some terrible cop show! It was great! Yuuki has her hands full with this dope!

Second, Miura… if I squint, I can see the parallels between him and Shun, and Gen and Kengo: the idea of chafing under someone else’s charisma, of not being able to live your dream, of being forced to play the back-up. But we only really get one dialogue scene with Miura, Shun Nopes out as soon as the action turns costumed, and the post-fight wrap-up is a chastened nod from Miura. While you could argue that there’s some thematic parallels between the hero plot and the villain plot, the show doesn’t really do anything with it, and it’s maybe just something I’m reading into it. I get that there’s not a lot of room in an exposition-heavy two-part premiere for a fleshed-out Monster Of The Week story, but Fourze works way better for me when there’s a teen trauma to really explore. This one was just That Guy’s The Bad Guy, and then we’re launching dirt bikes into orbit.

Which was really cool! I am surprised by how much I’m onboard with CG junk like Power Dizer, and the way it launches a dirt bike into orbit. While the suit action is still so good that I’m going to probably forget to mention it because it’s just taken as given by this point, I gotta call out not just that thrilling launch sequence, but everything with the Fourze bike? Utilizing it as another weapon in a quick, closed-off battle is more than almost any other modern show would do across its entire run, and I’m so grateful for it. I’m for sure not a Bike Guy, despite coming into the franchise with a series where there was literally a Bike Guy, but I still love it when these shows find a way to incorporate one of the most crucial pieces of Kamen Rider iconography in a clever, exciting way.

And that was this episode, you know? Clever and exciting, all the way–

Oh, hell, I forgot to finish my thought on Kengo. Oops!

So, Kengo. I think he worked for me in this one a little because the vibes on Fourze are immaculate, sure, but some of it is just… like, I get his point? Gen is a nuisance in this episode, to a degree that Yuuki has to drag him out to a lunar crater and go Dude You Used To Be Cool. Gen’s so insistent on beating Kengo that he’s making himself into a troublesome asshole, instead of anyone’s friend. Meanwhile, Kengo has this dingus coming in on his first day and saying I’ll Take It From Here, blundering through a situation he’s too excitable to sit still for. (Although, man, empathized with Gen for suddenly getting exposited at by Kengo! Not the fun part of early episodes!!!) This is an episode that doesn’t exactly walk back Kengo’s prickly nonsense, but – like with Yuuki’s backstory for him – tries to give it all a context that makes his mission feel like the motivation for this season, instead of Gen’s relentless protagonist energy. Shifting Gen from star (of the star of the stars) of the show into just one more member of a club somehow simultaneously justifies Kengo’s standoffishness and anger. It’s a fun trick this episode pulls, and it really worked for me this time out.

Also, Tomoko debut: perfect episode.

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Kengo and Gentarou's dynamic was probably the thing about this show I was most excited to see going in. I recall the basic plot summary when the show was first being promoted specifically highlighting that the Fourze Driver is a thing that belongs to Kengo, but is used by Gentarou, which I just thought sounded fascinating?

I guess it's not a million miles off from what OOO just did with Ankh and Eiji, but the angle there was more about a villain trying to make the protagonist into a tool and getting way more than he bargained for. Here, it's like Kengo is this sort of failed lead character, rejected by the universe he's in for his lack of physical capability and general charisma, despite ticking the very important box of feeling a deep responsibility to accomplish some grand heroic mission and live up to the destiny that is his burden. So instead he has to begrudgingly rent out the actual hero work to this careless and impulsive interloper, who doesn't see the bigger picture, but also sees all the things Kengo can't in turn, and quickly starts to make that heroic identity his own, in a way Kengo never could've expected.

It just sounded like a good story? Gentarou and Kengo aren't immediately what I think of when I think iconic Rider duos, because I think the larger ensemble they're both a part of, in its totality, is the real heart of the show, but I loved getting to see how Kengo in particular ends up being shaped by that week after week. I don't think I ever personally found him grating or anything, but I think, at least at the very start of the show, it's maybe just about right if he does seem a little obnoxious?

Orion Zodiarts still to this day is a memorable kaijin for me in the Kamen Rider series. I personally love how a constellation that involves a belt is the first of its kind since belts are a key element in Kamen Rider overall. Plus, one of the relatively easiest constellations to find thanks to the belt portion of it, I think. Also, can't help but bring up how I loved seeing Miura's actor Masanori Mizuno again since Rescue Fire, where he played Jun Watari/Fire-5 (the light blue hero), the smart and youngest one of the group.

Well, Sunred stole my thunder, but he can’t steal my showmanship.

Tomica Hero Rescue-lert

Being a Sakamoto show, there’s going to be a lot of guests from past Toku shows. Some will be major villains, others won’t be. This is one of the former cases.

Our start villain Miura is played by Masanori Mizuno, who was previously Jun Watari/Rescue 5 in Tomica Hero Rescue Fire.

As for our secondary etymology lesson, Tomoko Nozama’s Rider reference should be even more obvious if you’ve seen a certain Amazon original series, but her forename sounds like “Tomo”, meaning “friend”, which was a major theme of Amazon’s show.

And for something few talk about, Miu’s beta bitches, Jun and Tamae, are named for Junko Tama, V3’s female lead.

We also get some older Riders cameoing via stock footage, though why they chose Super-1 to go with Ichigou, Black and Kuuga is anyone’s guess. The others are new beginnings ones, so I’d argue Skyrider would’ve made more sense.

Even in the second episode, this series is already hammering home the concept that you can't do everything yourself, and you need to find people that can handle the stuff you can't, while you handle the stuff they can't. This show knows exactly what it wants to talk about!

If only there had been a really prominent Spider constellation!

Tomoko just finds them interesting!

Super-1 was likely chosen because he was the first Rider to do space travel. Even if it was brief.

Also because both Fourze and a certain other character who shows up later in this show likely took quite a bit of inspiration from Super-1's' overall style.

I am so morbidly curious to see how your devotion to detailed behind the scenes trivia handles episode 3 and its choice of location filming.

Amazon? I guess I can see it. He's definitely got a Showa look to him.

I decided to play along after all.* Last time I went through Fourze I did my own recap posts (it says something about how long ago this actually was that I called it "pulling a Fish Sandwich" instead of "pulling a Kamen Rider Die"). It occurred to me that it would be fun to look up my posts from then and see how my responses hold up over half a Tsukasa later. **

I got a little more structured after a few posts, but here's the kick off:

For me, I think Fourze maybe slots in just behind Hibiki in terms of being Kamen Rider Comfort Food. It's not my favorite show, but it's one that I think has pretty much the perfect vibe for being just a fun show that I can always sit back and enjoy. Most of it is the cast. Fourze has one of my favorite overall casts, including both the Riders and the supporting cast. I think it says a lot that I still love watching this show when I'm normally completely sick of high school stories and character archetypes.

I'll stand up for the filmmaking and action, too. The classic "3-2-1" henshin sequences are iconic and I think it's a coin toss if Den-O or Fourze is Taikawa's best performance.

Amazon definitely has a strong influence on Fourze. Amazon was mainly known for two things, one of which was gorily dismembering his foes. Fourze uses switches to add weapons to his arms and legs, which are exactly the kinds of parts that Amazon would routinely rip off of his enemies.

There was also a thing about friendship, but that feels like kind of a stretch.

*There is a very decent chance I will fall behind and give up somewhere in the 30s.

**I cannot promise these will obey the "no spoilers" rule because I wasn't factoring that in when I wrote these. I'll see if I can insert spoiler tags for anything that feels like it's stepping over the line.

Unless I forget to.

I will probably forget to.

The Kamen Rider Die Club* adds another member! Welcome aboard, after all!

The thing I love best about the Henshin sequence is how its very simple formula requires the directors and editors to bring something original to the table every single episode, and usually in a charmingly comedic way. (Maybe even multiple times per episode!) Like, there's plenty of cool poses and catchphrases and Ore whathaveyous throughout the many Kamen Rider series, but I like this one for how someone's gotta come up with a visual gag, rather than some dynamic edit or ballsy cut. Like, even the point of the Henshin is to be fun. This goddamn show!

* we're not calling it that, don't worry

Also what makes Gentarou's mission to befriend everybody in school worth doing, as everybody is different and comes with their own challenges and Gentarou loves challenge to engage his strong emotional intelligence. Trying to change Kengo at his core would defeat the point of befriending him.

Geats is my third favorite Reiwa Rider show, after Gotchard and Saber. Used to be Gavv, but I recently decided Geats deserves it more. I'm not surprised that you didn't totally enjoy the premiere though, since you've always had such high standards for CGI monsters.

Congrats on your 6800th post!

The humorous part is that Gentarou says something to him like, "I don't like you, so I'm going to make you my friend." I like how the show's first quarter commits to the difficulty of Kengo through his insistence on not being part of KRC or Gentarou's friend, despite assisting them from its foundation. Like, yeah, he's not only asocial, we can see he's clearly an a**hole as early as his introduction, but I think that sets the level that gives him a lot of room for constructive development and it's probably another meta reason why Gentarou is the protagonist, as Kengo doesn't have that Showa Rider kindness to go with his Showa Rider loneliness. For how I'd rank Kengo as a KRC member, well, I don't have a firm ranking of them since they're such a lovable team, but I'd at least put him above JK and Ohsugi.

That wall-kick in to a kabedon was so crazy, startling poor Tomoko like that! Gentarou cannot make a normal entrance. :lol

Tomoko did cameo before, sitting at the freaks table, but yeah, love to see her helping out the pre-established KRC here while also being the reason it's called that!

Thanks!

Gentarou is the prototype for Fujimi from Zeztz, another protagonist that IMMEDIATELY jumps to the wrong conclusion as to who is behind a supernatural mystery, and commits to that error with a frightening and hilarious intensity. Gen and Yuuki were just going to get more info, and Gen for some reason thinks the first person he sees is a villain he has to scream into submission, which is just a complete and stunning misread of the situation. I loved it. I loved it so much!

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 03 - “THE QUEEN FESTIVAL COMPETITION”

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I wasn’t even planning on watching this tonight? Got home late from a movie (Mercy; awful but so awful it was great) and didn’t feel like I had a ton in the tank for Fourze, despite skipping yesterday due to the Bears game. I don’t love skipping two days in a row, but I’m letting myself take this process as less of an obligation, and more of something I do when/if there’s time. It’s not "skipping days", it’s letting this be a hobby I do in my spare time. It’s okay to say Not Tonight, you know? But, god damn, I love Fourze. I didn’t want to go another night without watching it, so here we are. Getting to talk about this show is a gift, and I want to honor it as such.

Unlike Miu!

Fun episode centering ever more members of the opening title’s cast, this time adding JK and Miu to the mix more prominently. JK’s here to help Gen (and the viewer) better understand the social hierarchy and interrelated anxieties of the students, since 1) Gen just got there and seems to be hilariously/frustratingly status-blind, 2) Yuuki conveys information about social groups the ways one might denote mines in a minefield, and 3) Kengo is perpetually annoyed at the very idea of human connection or social responsibility, so we definitely need a kid that’s capable of weaving folks together, even if it’s sleazy and transactional. JK adds another tool to the show’s narrative toolbox; also, he’s a tool, so we’re just cutting right through it.

With Miu, we’re in kind of a different space. She’s full-on Mean Girl Miu in this episode, assured of her own majesty and disdainful of everyone else in the school, most of all her adoring fans. She’s maliciously ungrateful, which bites her fully on her ass at the climax, where her mid-episode venom is replayed for all of her fans. There’s a little bit of back and forth between her and Gen over the course of the episode, a little runner about him betting her he can Pygmalion some other girl into beating her for Queen of the school (valiant effort from Yuuki, who correctly points out that three dancers in the talent portion should be against the rules), but it’s sort of just Miu being awful, she’s exposed as being awful, cliffhanger into next episode. It’s kind of hard to not just see it as just desserts, you know?

What makes it work is that it feels like the second part of a third storyline this episode, about Gen refusing to give up on the Hopping Switch. Kengo thinks it’s difficult to control and marginally useful, so he immediately gives up on supplying it for Fourze. But Gen refuses to give up on it, pledging to keep using it until a purpose reveals itself – which it eventually does, securing a brief victory over the episode’s Zodiart. It’s a cute bit of heroism and dedication from Gen, but it’s kind of not really about the Switch. It’s about friendships.

Kengo instantly discards people who can’t help him in his mission, and that’s kind of his whole decision-making matrix when it comes to letting people in. With Gen, it’s… like, making friends with everyone means making friends with everyone. You gotta spend time with cool, passionate dorks like Yuuki, but you also gotta spend time with vain, imperious jerks like Miu. You might have to argue with them, or get insulted by them, or directly challenge their status and inherent sense of self, but in doing so you can get to know them enough to find the value in them. Refusing to even try out of dismissiveness or pragmatism isn’t some smart move, it’s laziness and lack of imagination. You never know which weirdo or jerk or sleazeball or constantly-fainting misanthrope could be your next new friend.

…Okay, reading that back, I’m not sure Gen’s right on this one? We’ll find out next time!

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I remember this being one where I had no idea who the Zodiarts could be, since every potential suspect had an alibi.

I did like Gentaro’s enthusiasm in proving that the Hopping Seitch could be practical. To the point Hopping quickly became my favourite (that, and none of the other Switches got such memorable subplots).

And we get our last member of the club (in terms of introduction) in JK, who by process of elimination takes his name (or more precisely, his initials) from Kamen Rider X, Jin Keisuke. And he sets off my regular feature.

Sentai-lert

Sion Tsuchiya, who plays JK got his start as a child actor and he made a Sentai appearance in that capacity, as the younger version of the guy in my signature in two episodes of Hurricaneger.

Even though I'm pretty sure I remember who the Zodiart in this one is, I do appreciate how the episode works hard to give cover to the main suspects. Maybe Gen could solve this mystery by Bad Cop-interrogating random people who try to help!

It'd be interesting if someone who saw Fourze meets Koichi Sakamoto at an event and ask him what school-related shows from outside of Japan did he see to prep for this show.

The whole plot thread with the Hopping Switch is hands down one of the most memorable things in all of Fourze for me. Part of it is probably because it comes so early, but I just think it's a rock solid example of working with the merchandise to tell a story, that in this particular case is also just sorta the perfect tone for this particular show. There's something really charming about Kengo being all like "why does fourze have a pogo stick this is so dumb" and Gentarou being all like "HECK YEAH FOURZE HAS A POGO STICK" in part specifically to challenge Kengo's worldview.

I also love love love any scene in this show where Fourze gets to test out a Switch in that little chamber, by the way? It's a fairly unique thing to this series, I think. Takaiwa's always amazing, but this show gave him a lot of extra chances to flex his suit acting skills outside of the fights, which I think resulted in Fourze being a performance that's even more fleshed out than usual for him. (A lot like being both Den-O and Momotaros, so I kinda see where Switchblade is coming from with that assertion that either could be considered Takaiwa's best.)

I would also love to know this!

I really like that the kids (Gen and Kengo, at least) play around with the Switches? It's obviously wheat the kids in the audience will end up doing with them, but it's just... I don't know, it's cute. There's all this cosmic power bound up in a mysterious vessel that's being slowly analyzed until it can power a superhero who can hopefully defeat the encroaching darkness of stellar adversaries, but also Hey Look You Can Push This Plunger Down And It Goes CLICK. I love how that's kind of this premise in a piece of 500 yen plastic, you know? It's equal parts justice-enabling ephemera, and just something goofy for anxious children to occupy themselves with.

One of my favorite fan theories about Fourze is that Kengo's dad was slowly running out of oxygen when he was designing the Astro Switches, which is why some of them ended up being really weird and borderline useless.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 04 - “CHANGES AND SECRET MOVES”

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Miu! My second-favorite KRC character.

It’s the way that this story kind of drills into her character by making her more icily defiant and self-assured, rather than softening her or making her learn a lesson or anything. The runner for this two-parter is basically Miu Did Nothing Wrong, and I sort of respect that? It’d feel phony, or at least boring, to have Miu become this big-hearted softy who was humbled and humiliated, so she learned to appreciate people. Story ends kind of exactly the opposite: a bunch of sycophants learned that she’s the real deal, and her greatness is the ideal they should be aspiring to, rather than fruitlessly trying to tear down at the cost of their own potential. (Is this a Kabuto reference for the KRC?) It’s a two-parter that burnishes the legend of the Mean Girl, and I love that choice. Miu’s not some lazy bully, she’s a hard-working diva who’s earned every bit of her fame, and god help you if you think you can cheat it out of her hands. A whole story devoted to shaming the audience for suggesting that Miu isn’t the greatest? Okay!

And, like, this one really lets the actors do something nuanced and complicated here, which is so welcome. Gen gets to try out a more subdued and heartfelt version of his normal high-energy support, taking Miu’s setback more personally than she does, which makes for some tremendous scenes between the two of them. (They got chemistry to death.) Meanwhile, Miu has to find a way of being 110% Miu that somehow still has you rooting for her, and I gotta put all of it down to the charisma of the actor. The script is real good, and that speech at the Queen Festival is perfect, but without that specific actor nailing a bunch of tricky scenes throughout this episode – bowling alley, locker room, Festival, bridge, clubhouse – I don’t think this story lands. It for sure needs Gen to do his part, but this is a Miu showcase story, and it really only works if that actor can carry you along. She does, and she does so thrillingly.

The action and humor also continue to be great, counterbalancing the teen melodrama with a collection of outrageous stunts and ridiculous bits of comedy. I have no idea if this was actually in the script, something Sakamoto suggested, or just a blown take that Takaiwa adlibbed his way out of, but I could not stop laughing at this:

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If there’s a flaw to this episode, it’s maybe that immediately following the first story’s A Sidekick Chafes In The Shadow with A Sidekick Chafes In The Shadow (For Girls) is maybe a tad uninspired, but I don’t know that I’d knock too many points off, for a few reasons. First, I think the specific cocktail of Shame/Rage/Resentment/Jealousy is such a teenage thing that I imagine a whole bunch of Fourze stories are going to lean on it. Second, the story in 1-2 doesn’t really provide a ton of character drama around either Shun or Miura; it’s just some face actor for Gen and Kengo to oppose, and Shun just splits. Third, there’s so much specificity to the relationship between Tamae and Miu, especially in the conclusion, that it feels like a massive improvement over the preceding story, rather than diminished returns. Finally, I think I like the idea that the exact same thing happened to Miu and Shun in subsequent weeks, like they’re on a Couples Betrayal or something.

But that’s honestly my only minor gripe about this story? Otherwise, it’s excellent. The drama lands, the humor is welcome, the action is solid, the cast all gets little bits of business, and the conclusion is specific and memorable. (Miu makes friends with her enemy!) It’s the new highpoint of the series, befitting its irrepressible and irresistible monarch.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: The next post will be the first of the Kamen Rider Club Quiz videos, which I'll be dropping in after every fourth episode, just like the old DVDs. Get ready for a group of children and one cubist monstrosity to be baffled and alarmed by Showa!

Have to admit, Tamae’s misdirect fooled me completely.

Also, I didn’t mention this last time, due to my rules on not doing the feature for characters whose actors were prominent in later shows beyond unsubtle hints, but the announcer with the ridiculously huge bow tie was one of those future regulars. He was a bit of a beast who flipped out towards the end is my misdirecting hint.

The show did a good job -- in only the SECOND story -- of swerving the audience with a crucial fakeout. Nice to see the writing team already making these mysteries a little beefier!

And as to your hints, I feel like you could write a book about that actor's roles in toku!

One thing I really do appreciate about how Fourze's Modules help form the show's whole identity is how for the most part, none of them are actually designed specifically to be weapons? I guess with something like Launcher you've maybe gotta squint a bit, but I always loved the idea that even though Gentarou is using all these tools to fight Zodiarts, the actual purpose Fourze was created for is something even bigger than that. Mind you, even judged as a tool for space exploration, I'm *still* not sure how the pogo stick was meant to help, but like, if any Rider could have something so non-threatening as a power-up and have it make sense somehow, it's absolutely this one. Maybe Kengo's dad just wanted humanity to remember to have some fun every now and then?

...Which is a pretty important thing to do early on like this, too. We've already started to establish the idea through Gentarou and Kengo, but having this plot play out like this really underscores that idea of friendship being about finding something in what a person is, and all that.

But yeah, it's a pretty killer two-parter all around? You kinda already got at it in your post, but on my own rewatch, I also recall being really impressed by a lot of the nuances to the drama that I don't think I appreciated as much at the time.

Well, I'm sure somebody out there has at least written some fan-fiction about them! :p