[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

That is a pretty great description of how Kaitou does things!

I thought I was going to stir shit again making that declaration, but (good that) actually it gains an approval. I would say though the one who "placed the cat in the middle of the river in the first place" means their act cannot be condoned as (morally) good one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DIE: He's pitched way down, enthusiasm-wise, and I do get why that's the case. It's just, it doesn't modulate a whole lot through the story? Him shouting A-MA-ZON is done at about the same level as him telling Tsukasa that there's nowhere he feels safe. I'm okay with a mopey Amazon (I watched Amazons! Jin Takayama is great, and the other guy is practically comatose!), but this wasn't a story where I felt like the actor was conveying his character's arc very well.

SH RANGER: Haruka and Jin say amazon way too inconsistently though. The guy who says it best is probably the OG Amazon, followed by Tomoko. I suppose he doesn't have a very wide emotional range, but I thought he was pretty sympathetic and otherwise likable character. I liked how his whole problem is a very specific parallel to the problem Tsukasa has about not being accepted. Honestly, I found his simplicity kind of endearing in its own way.

Well it's good that there's an explanation of the Amazon in the episode being seen less favorably... I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶f̶e̶a̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶y̶p̶o̶c̶r̶i̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶v̶i̶e̶w̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶i̶-̶r̶e̶g̶r̶e̶t̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶i̶v̶a̶l̶r̶y̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶y̶e̶t̶ ̶n̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶j̶e̶c̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶m̶a̶l̶e̶ ̶A̶m̶a̶z̶o̶n̶ ̶d̶u̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶e̶m̶a̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶T̶o̶m̶o̶k̶o̶!̶ The Amazon here had the same name as the original Daisuke Yamamoto, but he has different actor for the Decade one Enrique Sakamoto (not "obviously"... Ichigo had his original actor Hiroshi Fujioka back for future reappearences!). I guess this is a nice assessment that, while there are characters that aren't handled the best way, there are some limitations of the reaction to them, like not actually doing something wrong in the Amazon's innocence here, where it'd be too extreme otherwise to, like you said, outright being mad and hating on him, which = being mad at puppy. Though not everyone gets some pass like Amazon here... ._. You may find Amazon's trait difficult to disregard, but not everyone so, like Amazon had a part where he got his trust betrayed to be tricked by Masahiko handing over the Riders to the Great Shocker; being tricked and manipulated is an event I frequently see made people mad of the tricked characters (and heroes are the more likely to be subjected to this). The stereotypical Grim Masculinity... yeah that'd appeal more on those who'd focus on manliness or such, but otherwise I guess it's good that the solution around this isn't necessarily making them dubious (if stays stoic) or turn 180 from stoically to over the top; Amazon's trait is refering to himself as 3rd person though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

SH RANGER: I mean, all the other Riders are quick to call Decade a devil and try fighting him, but Amazon sees him as a friend pretty much immediately, since they're both outcasts to society who want to save it from the real enemy. It's a refreshing approach to have someone actually decide to befriend him. And if there's anybody in the Showa Era who's all about making new friends, it's Amazon. I definitely think Amazon's goals worked. They started as just traveling the world looking for his own place to belong and then he was unlucky to get caught up in Geddon and their alliance with Dai Shocker. Between this arc and the Fourze HBV, I think this is definitely why I ended up watching Amazon as my first Showa Rider show, due to how much I sympathize with him as a character. Like, he's Showa Decade in this world. That's an easy way to get my interest.
They even have their shows being the shortest of their respective eras in common.
Unless we count ZX.

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, I mean, Tsukasa just had two different versions of the exact same guy try to immediately murder him, so it's refreshing to not have go through the standard Decade Is The Devil Wait Maybe Not routine, even if we're still not spared a Narutaki cameo.
It's nice to have a nice Rider on this show!

And also, an appreciation of a... cooperation here, which is true for Amazon and Decade. I mean conflicts are said as the most memorable stuff rather than everyone getting along and like you said, Decade has mostly about the people vilify him, like the Shinkenger, where that'd be for sure a conflict and I thought it'd be better be kept throughout the Decade for more memorable stuff, and that conflict would never become overexposed, while even doing a few getting along part is still treated as mainstream or such. This stands out too to me, both are relatable to each other and flock together of him being another Rider seen as threat by public, it's Showa Decade albeit he doesn't have Decade's unpleasant traits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, I mean, I could spend an hour digging into the hilarious minutiae of Dai Shocker's society (the ability to get whistles out to all citizens speaks to some solid infrastructure), but I also appreciated how it managed to be more than just a joke or a movie tie-in or a bunch of faceless baddies. There's a point the story is trying to make about how people who can't trust each other invariably put that trust into organizations instead, and that's not healthy for society.
Am I reading too much into this? Did you get that out of this story?

SH RANGER: I think that was exactly the point of the story and I can see a lot of the same themes in SHW GP with how Shocker are able to effectively convince a lot of people through propaganda that Riders are evil and can't be trusted. That their chaotic methods of heroism are unstable and can only bring ruin to the world. It's something a lot of Riders have to deal with, having to fight for people who hate them and see them as the enemy and it's part of what makes being a Rider a lonely mission. But it also takes courage to take a leap of faith like that, to trust in people and think critically, without letting your judgment be clouded.

Exclusively talking for Decade episode, this gives me a vibe of something like Paradise Lost before, where the humans are at jeopardy in the world due to the established rule by the scientific organization, seems that the bad guys won in Amazon world. Though this probably would ruin the funny part of yours (well though you also want for it to be more than just a joke), I'd like to know how the Dai-Shocker manages to get a genuine approval from the citizens, they're all fully loyal to a fault to the Dai-Shocker, to the point of being outright zealot-ish. Almost at first feels like the Dai-Shocker may be the villain in name only (which ofc KR followers know not as Shocker is notorious franchise-wide), that they're portrayed as such due to the Riders being hunted for some reason. It's not that, they feel like they suffer or such under Dai-Shocker's reigm, of course except of the victims like the ones being accused as spying, which of course probably Dai-Shocker would try to hide the executions or such, but when there are families who'd feel loss from those executions (like about how one of the members never come back).... Good too that this talk also recognizes the negative impact of the life in Dai-Shocker's rule, despite that this is funny. For Sh Ranger this can't be called "chaotic methods of heroism" as this'd be at best anti-villainy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DIE: It makes for a sweet story, though, where Amazon's indefatigable belief in basic human decency runs up against, like, institutionalized betrayal. I thought Masahiko's story had a nice amount of moves to it, where even after being betrayed by Dai-Shocker, he'd rather give them another shot than admit he was the bad guy in the story.

SH RANGER: Yeah, Masahiko was in denial. It's not easy to admit everything you believed in was a lie, so he chose to hold on to his misplaced trust in Dai Shocker and only saw the error of his ways when they betrayed him a second time.

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I think he'd've probably given them another chance, were it not for the terrifically literal All-Humans-To-Monsters Program.
I adore the stupidity of both the name and the scheme.

Probably not even easier that Masahiko is also a child. Though Masahiko seems to get showered with approval at first from the Dai-Shocker uppers, this seems to be an example of child soldier employment in KR, similar to something like Namba Heavy Industries from Build, a series that tries to bring back Showa flicks such as the inhuman laboratory experiments. Though Masahiko at worst will be an (extreme) anti-villain as Dai-Shocker underling, I'd think it's probably quite refreshing to see a child who doesn't have a bratty attitude, more of the mature and responsible too, if misguided (well, he's not innocent due to being misguided though before the monster experiment). The Showa scheme of turning everyone into monsters... that's seen in several Heisei shows later, like Faiz, Kabuto, Ex-Aid (sort of, turning everyone into data, but lives as Bugster). All of those shows have their own motives of turning all races into their own kind, but for Showa one....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I guess? It didn't feel like this story tried to pull anything new out of Tsukasa. It sort of interrogates the difference between running away and continuing your journey, but that's never really been Tsukasa's dilemma. He's looking for a place where he belongs, just like Amazon, but (excluding last story's badly written first act) he was never abandoning anything or anyone to get it. In this story, he's... I don't know, he's shaken a bit, but he isn't refining his worldview or coming to new realizations. I didn't feel like we saw any new facets of Tsukasa or anyone else from Team Decade in this story.

SH RANGER: There's a very specific scene in there that I can't go into detail about until you watch the movie, but other than that, I still think there are some new sides to Tsukasa. Like he's suffering from the consequences of this journey, that he's destined to be hated no matter where he travels and even if he meets a chill Rider like Amazon, the world will have something else to throw at him. And hearing from Amazon who traveled across many continents and still never found what he was looking for, it makes him wonder about the futility of his journey. The fear that he's never going to find where he belongs. Even though running away wasn't really in the foreground before, I think that's a part of Tsukasa, where he's getting tired of the journey and never actually feeling like he's moving anywhere.

I think that, though Amazon is a parallel character, Tsukasa won't ever be someone who'd be open on his 'weakness', where it had to happen if Amazon would make Tsukasa express more of himself or such. I probably think that Tsukasa won't be shaken on finding certain someone who suffers similar way as he did in a world that rejects them, I mean he had endured that for most of the time, and there's someone who'd be harder to feel (or at least openly) for others if they've gone through as bad or worse problems which'd make them feel that other's problems are small or no big deal in comparison, and probably Tsukasa's that type... I think that also roots from his claim of him being unable to feel the pain from others, and that going through it himself can increase that (or probably the reason) further...continuing from below...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DIE: That's a fair interpretation! I don't know if I'm ever going to love how focused Tsukasa is on discovering his past -- and I think various arcs are pretty ambivalent about it -- but it's definitely the mode this show is in now, as evidenced by this arc.
Anything else from this one you felt like touching on? Onodera gets to Henshin, which feels unusual enough to be worth acknowledging.

SH RANGER: I do have about 4 things I'd like to talk about briefly. Since you brought it up, we'll start with the Kuuga action. And not just any Kuuga, but Titan Kuuga! Sure is nice to see Yuusuke getting into the action in this last third of the show.

..that Onodera's proposed solution to Amazon is even having him join them on their journey, which Natsumi disapproves due to the state of his world (not due to rejecting newcomers), which kinda makes that Tsukasa is the solution to Amazon. People can have their opinions and that I've seen some thinking that Onodera is what defines Kuuga to them, but I think Kuuga's form progression and change is one of the best the series had handled, and it's a shame if people would overlook how Kuuga's form change originated in the series by seeing Kuuga's Titan Form in this episode.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I hate to disappoint you before you even try the show, but those characters are last seen on the ship that takes them to America. We never see them actually arrive.

I mean I've tried until ep. 6 at the time I typed this. Well it's ok, I don't really have any expectations, just wondering if they'd actually film it in America... or having an excuse to not too... kinda expected that it's the latter, using the excuse that it's done on the end of the series.