[Switchblade]

Fourze 47-48

Not technically the end of my rewatch - still have a movie and a cameo to go - but the end of the main series, at least.

For all that they feel like a last minute addition of some backstory, I do like the idea behind the Presenters: a highly evolved alien intelligence that reaches out to other lifeforms via gaudy plastic doodads in order to learn more about the universe. It's a neat concept and it's generally execute well, although I wish it had been brought up at least a little earlier.

The show ends with two major emotional story beats. One of them works for me, other one not so much.

I like how Gentarou defeats Gamou. I'm not sure if I did so much at the time, but going back there's nothing more fitting than for Gentarou to defeat the villain by befriending him. The mini graduation ceremony/beatdown was a good scene that worked so well that even the Rider Girls couldn't ruin it with their bland ballad from the prom episode. I really did feel for Gamou at the end, realizing that he was misguided and that he had inadvertently created a much stronger legacy. It was touching and the show didn't try to oversell it. I used to hate a lot on this ending, but I actually liked it a lot more on a repeat viewing.

Now on the topic of overselling, we get to the other emotional aspect: the death of Kengo. Pretty much everything about Kengo's arc has never worked for me. Obviously it's not going to work now, already knowing how it's going to end, but it didn't work on the first watch either. Sota Fukushi can ugly cry with the best of them, but the show went way too hard into overplaying Kengo's departure and it just fell flat for me as a result. And then the death itself, that part never really affected me. Kengo, Fourze's non-human friend and main support partner, died just a year after the death of Ankh, OOO's non-human friend and main support partner. And Ankh's death, in turn, came a year after the death of Philip, W's non-human friend and main support partner. Philip's death hit me really hard; I actively cried at that scene. Ankh's death hit me hard, especially since there was no immediate reversal. By the time we got to Kengo, all the show got out of me was a "seriously, are we really doing this again?" Hell, if you want a blast from the past, I posted this in the discussion thread for episode 5 of Wizard:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I'm calling it now: in the penultimate episode Koyomi will somehow end up dissipating into magic dust or something in a heartbreaking scene. She will then return at the end of the last episode as a real, live girl.

So yeah, Kengo's death felt like a rerun at the time and it still feels like one now. I know other people find it way more affecting, but for me it's always just an example of the iron grip that status quo had on early-10s Kamen Rider.

I do like the ending overall, though. It's not the strongest in the franchise's history, but it ends in a way that's very uniquely Fourze (when it's not straight ripping off W).

Oh, and before I forget, there is some very Koichi Sakamoto motorcycle jumping in slow motion in front of explosions in episode 48. I got some very bad Kalish-era Power Rangers flashbacks during that scene.

Up next, we jump ahead a few months to five years in the future.