[ShyGuy]

Finished Kiva. I went into it with critically low expectations, as I knew Inoue was the head writer and I think Inoue is by far the worst writer to ever work on this franchise. Maybe it’s partially because my expectations were so low, but I was quite surprised at how much I actually ended up enjoying Kiva. It still had a multitude of problems common with Inoue’s work, but in this case I think the positives outweighed the negatives enough that I was able to enjoy it much more than I expected to.

The most important factor that drove my enjoyment of the show was how likable most of the cast was. This was a pretty big shock to me because Inoue’s character writing usually results in a large portion of the cast being mean, petty, and generally awful people. For the most part that wasn’t the case at all here, the characters in Kiva are genuinely good people and have positive, healthy relationships and aren’t constantly at each other’s throats or trying to stab each other in the back (Mostly). The only one I really didn’t like for much of the show was Nago, who I found insufferably annoying for the first half or two thirds of the show. It was really frustrating to me that Shima put so much confidence in him to be Ixa when Nago demonstrated repeatedly that he was completely unfit for it. He was an unhinged, self-absorbed, violent nut job who was the last kind of person who should ever be given that kind of power and responsibility. I was so glad to see though that this was actually addressed and he was eventually called out for his increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior and this led to his realization of how wrong he’d been and furthers his growth as a character. It was kind of weird how he basically became a sort of joke comic relief character after that but it was definitely better than what he was before.

As for Wataru himself, I didn’t like him at all at first because in the beginning he was just kind of an inept, hapless idiot who had as much personality as cardboard. Once the show started really moving the story along though and gave him real development, my opinion changed pretty quickly. While it takes a while to get there, once his half-human/half-Fangire nature is revealed I think that’s when his material gets really good. I really like how he ends up rejecting both the human and Fangire philosophies of trying to wipe the other out and insists on their ability to co-exist, as he grows increasingly confident in himself and his abilities thanks to the influences of his friends and, towards the end, his father after he travels to the past and meets Otoya. I loved how his big fight with Taiga culminates not with him beating Taiga into submission, but running up to him and hugging him to the point it takes away Taiga’s will to fight. It was so perfectly in character for who Wataru was by that point in the story and was an excellent example of how much he genuinely cares about just wanting both sides to stop fighting and live together peacefully. I thought Wataru’s characterization across the show as a whole was really great and he ultimately ranks among my favorite lead Riders in the franchise.

I have a lot to say about so many other characters, but I can’t fit it all and keep this at least a somewhat reasonable length. But I do want to highlight briefly that Otoya was another character I particularly enjoyed and I think a large part of that is due to Takeda Kouhei’s performance. Otoya was the kind of character who, while charming, could also end up really grating and awful. Takeda played him just right to that specific point where Otoya often is annoying, but in the kind of way that you can’t help but like him because you can sense that he’s a really genuinely good person underneath his outwardly-obnoxious personality. Takeda really deserves a lot of credit for pulling that off so well.

As much as the great cast enhanced my enjoyment of the show, it was certainly not without its flaws. In fact I’d actually say that it’s one of the more flawed series I’ve seen, and it’s a testament to the strength of the cast that they managed to still make the show work. The biggest problem I have is one of Inoue’s most glaring problems in his writing, blatant sexism. I know Kamen Rider is typically seen as a “boy’s show” and that the male characters will get more focus and development, I get that. But Inoue’s writing often goes far beyond that and he treats his female characters quite poorly. They rarely get any agency of their own and are little more than tools to assist in the development of the male characters (Best example of this in Kiva is Mio, who dies just to facilitate growth in Taiga. It feels cheap and unnecessary.) There was also no legitimate in-story reason for either Megumi or Yuri not getting to be Ixa more than they did. In fact of all the candidates for Ixa in both 2008 and 1986 they were actually the best and most qualified, and seeing them relegated to support roles when they were better candidates than the guys who actually got Ixa was really frustrating. The other problem with the show is that so many things are left unexplained. How did Kivat-bat the 3rd and Wataru connect? What even are the Kivat-bats? Where the hell did Tatsulot come from in the middle of the show and why was he not around earlier? What exactly is Kiva, because it explains Dark Kiva is the power of the Fangire King but regular Kiva is never explained. The Fangire clearly recognize Kiva early on and fear its power, but there’s never even an attempt to explain what this second Kiva power possessed by Wataru is.

Despite the problems, I still enjoyed Kiva much more than I anticipated I would. It has a great set of characters, awesome suit designs, good music, a great lead Rider, and splitting the show into two time periods was a unique and interesting concept I liked a lot. The show’s problems are all common issues with Inoue’s writing (Poor treatment of women even compared to KR’s usual standards, messy plot that doesn’t explain things, has no sense of physical space as characters seemingly teleport to wherever they need to be at any given time). It makes me wonder how much better it actually could have been with a better writer, because I feel like Kiva had even more potential than it fully lived up to. While it was still a fun and really enjoyable show, I just think with some tweaks and writing changes it could have been truly great. As it is it will definitely end up as one of the better Rider shows I’ve seen, but falls short of standing at the top of my favorites among the ones like Build, Gaim, and Blade.