[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

So I went skimming back through the A New Transformation special on a whim (I think I mostly wanted to see Ryou punch Houjou in motion), and I just want to take a second to mention that the new-viewer-friendly opening narration (WATCH OUR MOVIE) describes the Riders using what I think were actually like, taglines or something to promote the show throughout its run, but were almost certainly part of the elevator pitch for the show used by whoever thought up the idea to make a Kamen Rider show with more than one lead.

Really really loosely (because you tell me how to translate なってしまった in a way that stays as succinct), they're:

Shouichi Tsugami: The man who is a Kamen Rider.
Makoto Hikawa: The man who wishes to become a Kamen Rider.
Ryou Ashihara: The man who wishes he never became a Kamen Rider.

I love those descriptions so much. They convey so clearly what each character's function in the story is, and exactly how they reflect one another as protagonists. All in so few words. I've raved about this a bit in this thread already, but Agito has such... precision, I guess, in how it uses its at the time unique premise that I can't ever get enough of. Agito was actually one of the last Heisei shows I watched, so I spent a good couple years mostly just hearing about the premise like that, and seeing this perfect, beautiful trio of cool mystic looking dude, mecha-Kuuga, and gross guy, that it built up tons of hype in my mind.

I have to say, it lived up to that hype.

So, that whole thing... it's great. It's a really great summation of the protagonists, what each of them does to explore the concept of being a Kamen Rider. Yes. 100%. But, like, it also spells out a thing I think Agito does better than Kuuga, while still falling into some of the same narrative pits.

Hikawa and Ryou, they want something. Either to be a Kamen Rider or not to be a Kamen Rider, but they are grappling with their circumstances. There's drama to that, as we've seen! Hikawa's stress and constant failures, Ryou's grim determination and quest for meaning, these are strong arcs that propel characters through the series.

But, Shouichi? He is a Kamen Rider. He doesn't want, or not want, anything. He exists. He is. And, yes, that's what's special about his character, the zen nature of the man who loves everyone. But holy shit is it bad at generating stories. It means that Shouichi has to be acted on externally to get a story out of him, and even then it's other characters who go on the journey because of that. Kuuga had the same problems to me at times, where Godai was content to just hang out and cook, and the story happened around and occasionally in spite of him.

I do enjoy Shouichi as a Rider. I do. He's a perfect cinnamon roll of a man, and I'd say he's easily my third-favorite character on the show. (Houjou first, obviously, followed by Ozawa.) But, it's just... he's not a character that generates stories, and that's sort-of the job of the main character? It unbalances the show, at times, to have to depend on the secondary Riders like Hikawa and Ryou (and now Kino!) to actually create drama and stakes for the series.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Kino is definitely a very Toshiki Inoue kind of character that way. It's a thing about his writing style that can bounce between being a positive and a negative, which is just how much he likes to deal in extremes, even as he handles other elements in subtle ways that make it clear he's perfectly capable of using a lighter touch.

I don't know the guy personally, obviously, but I get the feeling if you asked him why Kino couldn't just perform one surgery at a time, he'd tell you "because that's boring".

It's just, double surgery. Double surgery. It's so laughably, stupidly childish. Why wasn't he also riding a skateboard and telling his mom he won't take out the trash?