[Fish Sandwich]

Another double feature this time, as this is absolutely the episode for me to go back and share one last pick from the first soundtrack – Wataru. You've heard this one a lot!

Naturally, this is the 2008 counterpart to Otoya's version of the same thing, which you may remember me sharing waaay back after the second episode. Otoya plays the violin with considerably more flourish, befitting his immense talent and passion for his craft, whereas Wataru is a lot more straightforward; a little more raw, but no less earnest. I've always much preferred this one for how understated it is, to be honest.

(And as a little bonus, since this IS the last piece I'm using from the first soundtrack, here's the YouTube playlist for the entire thing! There's quite a bit of it I never touched on at all, so by all means, give the whole thing a listen sometime if you've enjoyed what I've been posting.)

Getting back to the second soundtrack, it's Kiva Air Battle, which I'd presume is Flight Style's theme, based on the name, and it does play here during that scene, but like with a lot of its music (just ask Saga's theme), the show ultimately uses this one whenever it wants to.

...And it's not hard to blame them for that n this case. It's got such a classic 80's/90's toku/anime hero vibe to it (if Wataru ever busted out a Shining Finger on a Fangire, this would definitely be the music playing), but with all that Kiva polish to boot. It's pretty awesome!

Flight Style itself is something I'm fairly ambivalent towards, in contrast. Like, there's plenty to love about the idea of a Rider who turns into a sweet dragon bat thing, and that was even incorporated into Emperor's design from the outset (it's why his kneepads are feet, for example; that's how the toy works), so I suppose a lot of that is down to how admittedly haphazard its introduction is here. While I ~think~ I would've known it was a thing going in, I didn't watch the movie until after the show, so ending such a genuinely emotional scene with Wataru randomly becoming a CG monster really threw me for a loop! It was also just kinda hilarious?

But the thing is, that whole scene is another one of my most vivid memories of Kiva. Something I feel encapsulates a lot of the show, perhaps even right down to the potentially shoddy plotting building up to it, and the endearingly ham-fisted integration of toy gimmicks that ends it. But I remember Wataru playing that violin, and that counts for a lot. I remember Kiva playing that violin, and it counts for even more. Despite how brief that shot ends up being, I think any Kiva fan can tell you better than I can how striking and unique to this show any variation on that visual always is.

I don't know if I'd be agreeing or disagreeing that the Bloody Rose origin story here feels disconnected (again, a Kiva episode being sloppy would not surprise me), but I can at least tell you I still look back on that scene super fondly years down the line. One other thing I mentioned after the second episode was that your observation about how extra personal the central premise might be to Inoue put a lot of the show in a new light for me, and sure enough, this episode was the #1 thing I was thinking about when I said that.

One other realization I've also had, which is probably obvious to everyone else, is that this episode actually explains why the Bloody Rose tells Wataru to fight? I mean, it seems so straightforward, but I never made the connection that it's literally Otoya's prayer. It's not telling Kiva to go destroy a Fangire; it's specifically encouraging Wataru to protect people's music, and that's honestly really sweet?