[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 23 - "VARIATION: FUGITIVES FOREVER"



Look, I think we can all be honest with ourselves now. The last two episodes weren't subpar because of regressive gender expectations or toxic masculinity or paternalistic marriage traditions or disappearing supporting cast members or conflict-light subplots or anything. That's all problematic, sure. But the reason the last two episodes were subpar was because Maya wasn't in them, a problem that this episode immediately rectifies.

Yep, Maya's back, and she's brought a doomed romance, way more integration for the burgeoning supporting cast, and just a metric ton of horniness. Obviously, I loved this episode.

It's great, from Maya's on-topic execution of a 1986 Fangire who just wants to be in love with a human, to Otoya's Clawolve-pummeled body being thrown into Japan's scenic Inoue Waterway. The whole thing is clever, watchable, and heartbreaking.

It's also, man, so horny. Everybody is ready to bone in this one. Jiro is serious about ending Otoya so he can have Yuri to himself. Otoya is flirting with every woman he can, while coaching Riki on how to flirt. Riki has fallen for Yuri's "cooking”. Yuri is making Otoya's favorite dish (badly) because she definitely doesn't care about Otoya. Meanwhile, our 2008 cast is dealing with Megumi's possible feelings for Nago, and Wataru's clear (and reciprocated!) feelings for Mio. It's a real summertime episode, with everyone across two decades trying to hook up, for a largely-chaste Kamen Rider value of "hook up”. (Like, maybe kiss, mostly just hold hands.) I've seen romantic storylines in Kamen Rider before, but this one's like everyone is in heat.

And I love that, not just for its comedic value (which is high; there's a hilarious Megumi delivery where she's caught out as a single lady by Wataru), but for how everything in both timelines feels integrated. There's a transition between the two timelines in this one that... I both loved it, for how it linked everything together in a fluid, audacious way, and I also hated it for how it portended an upcoming lack of clarity.

We're in 1986, at Mal d'Amour, and everyone's celebrating Boss's 34th birthday. Jiro's taunting Otoya, Otoya's flirting with Yuri, Yuri's threatening Otoya. And then Megumi steps in front of the three of them, passing over to the other end of the cafe, where 2008 Boss and Wataru are sitting. It's shocking, for how little of the old 1986-to-2008 switcheroo signifiers it uses. We're on the set, and now it's a different year. It's fantastic for keeping the comedic and emotional momentum of the scene, for the breathlessness of the timing. But, as folks were recently criticizing a shift from clearly delineated timelines, it's maybe a harbinger of some messier staging. I thought it worked great here, but I can see it being a problem with a lesser director.

But I'd argue you need to do it more, keep the momentum going, since the show is pulling in a lot of outlier characters into the main cast. We'd already moved Kengo into the role of Nago's Nagofer, helping him navigate a world of sin. In '86, Riki and Ramon get their very illegal and very unsafe massage parlor shut down/razed, so they're pitching in at Mal d'Amour. (How is Mal d'Amour, a restaurant with a maximum of two non-Rider guests at any time, paying three full-time employees? Is W.A.K.E.U.P. subsidizing the place as a front? Is Mal d'Amour just charging 9000 yen for a cup of coffee?) In '08, Mio gets enlisted as a model by Megumi. We don't really get a lot with any of them, but it's a really great start.

It makes for a greater diversity in scene partners, which is always welcome. Getting to see Otoya riff off of Riki and Ramon is a laugh, as is seeing how Megumi acts as a different type of support than Wataru. (If there's a flaw to this episode, it's that the spotlight on the guest stars and supporting cast means there's very little for Wataru to do here.) There's a new energy to a lot of these characters, finding different ways of pushing the story forward.

And, speaking of new characters: Shinji and Ryoko! Oh man!

I loved their little doomed romance. Ryoko's a firecracker, someone who loves Shinji despite his sabotaging nature. She's going to safeguard their relationship, even if she's safeguarding it from him. She's exactly the sort of woman you could see a Fangire risking his life for. She's charming (that smile!), and attentive (she knows how he likes his coffee), and is certain of what she wants. While the rest of the cast, in both timelines, is circling around a growing number of potential partners, here are two people who have found each other in the maelstrom of both human civilization and monster politics. But those monster politics have Shinji a little wary. He tries to end things with Ryoko, but he can't. Partly because she won't let him so easily destroy what they have, but partly because... he just can't. He loves her.

And that's it, you know? That's why this story works. He loves her, and it's present in every single frame. It's quiet, and small, and observed. The little scene of domesticity. The brightness of her smile when they're at lunch, and his stammering inability to look her in the eye and lie about not wanting her in his life. It's a love that isn't grand gestures, despite the perfection of the scene where he pleads with her to take him back. It's about commitment, about having that person that you can't imagine living without, and what it means to see that commitment through.

The twist, sort of, is that sometimes the doom of a relationship isn't in the blood-moon punishment of a supernaturally-gorgeous supernatural executioner. It's in time. We see Shinji and Ryoko in 2008, which means (probably) that Maya never does catch up with them. But Ryoko's 22 years older, and Shinji hasn't really aged a day. Ryoko's in the hospital, though. She's not well. She's probably going to die, while Shinji just goes on forever.

But Shinji's still there, still devoted. It's the thing Maya can't understand at the beginning of the episode: Why? Why love a human? Why devote yourself to something weaker than you? Why entangle your life with something so ephemeral? But there's no answer that the nameless Fangire in the beginning could give, just like there's no answer that Shinji could probably give. It's love. It doesn't make any sense. It's a feeling, and it's something the Shinji/Ryoko story excels at. I think I care more about these two than any other characters on the show right now. And I like the other characters on this show right now!

(The two screencaps I used for this post... god, they break my heart in the best way. The vulnerability of the upbeat Ryoko, to admit how precarious their relationship is, and the steadfastness of the previously-evasive Shinji to affirm his commitment to her? It is unbelievably sweet. It's this economy of dialogue, where the actors and the staging are entrusted with delivering that emotional payload. It's not a writer who feels like he has to spell everything out. It's a faith in the process to let the tone multiply what they aren't saying. I really thought it was lovely.)

I thought this one was fantastic. The comedy was relentless and surgical (that whole birthday thing in the beginning!), and the emotional scenes with Shinji and Ryoko packed a wallop. Extremely balanced storytelling, with the comedy going big and broad so the smaller dramatic scenes could feel fragile and delicate. Really, really great episode.