[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaizin

I was talking about Hiromi exclusively to the show he's in. Ikki and Daiji still have some inner darkness within themselves, sometimes quite literally too. Ikki being possibly an unintentional attention-seeker and hides hidden resentment, Daiji literally having Kagerou, there's just Hiromi who is steadfast, pure, and honest (so far) in putting on the belt simply for protecting the peace and lives of the people. He's also pragmatic, something I like.

Edit: I also like to bring up something I just thought during this same scene. When Sakura said "what's the point of protecting others, if you can't protect your family?", just felt like she (during that time) has no ground in that argument since she's the only one in the room not wearing a belt and going out there fighting. It also kind of looked like she said that other peoples' lives pale in comparison to your own family. Yes, loved ones are important but so are the of others. Hope to see if they might bring them up once she gets her own belt.

I'm still wondering on how the Demons belt work up to this time, but the very first episode established Hiromi as having an inner demon that he can't control, inadvertently causing chaos in his try to henshin, that kinda gives the implication that time that Hiromi too has inner darkness (at least at that time), where the Demons Driver probably mitigated that where he only fought as himself. I (and some others) guess any humans have demons in this universe. And well, this is kinda rare to be brought upon for females, but Sakura's character overall is that she seems to be an edgelord (to/around her family mainly despite that deep down she cherishes them), reacting negatively to almost anything happened and expressing strong, shocking opinions like that, or also approving of Masao's methods before. She's nicer to non-families like at karate dojo but it seems that the next episode can highlight the difference of what people are expected to act (restrained; Sakura to outside family) or what people want to act (unrestrained; Sakura's edgelord phase, or her with superpowers). The only person who got her full respect so far is Daiji.

Quote:

Originally Posted by r4bbitdragon

Obv a little drifting, and hope you don't mind a note from outside, but as someone who also really appreciates classically heroic characters like Hiromi so far... and guys like Tsukasa, as well, that totally tracks for me? Because as much as a Character as Tsukasa can be throughout Decade, he also shows a lot of appreciation for the more classically heroically motivated AR riders he meets. If I like Tsukasa, why not like what he likes as well? (Think you could probably go down a similar logic line with Takumi too.)

In the end, though, I think it's not that one model of hero is always more fun than the other, but having a variety of models to react to and play off of each other makes things more interesting. Which, bringing it back to Revice, is what Hiromi has the potential to be with how much he contrasts the rest of the riders so far!

Actually, that's what I kinda hope, appreciating both classically heroic characters like Hiromi and also the anti-heroic one like Tsukasa. People come in different kind of morality and fiction should allow any kind of them to be represented equally (with the 'good' or 'bad' is about how they're executed instead of character preference), but double standard can happen where the classically heroic ones can get unfair criticism as being generic, unrealistic, one-dimensional, etc. while the morally grey ones are frequently being praised as distinct and recognizable, neglecting that troubled pasts and questionable morals can repeatedly express themselves in the same ways too. It's unpopular, but I kinda got fed up with "generic" as criticism. And I think it's not about being "classically heroic" (the term sounds to paint moral as old-fashioned..) or such, it's about overall moral; if you are heroic and has little to no negative traits (not ordinary flaws like fear or such though), you're straight hero, if you are heroic but has handful of negative, unheroic traits, you're an anti-hero.

Tsukasa's morality resembles secondary Riders more (though for his case, his secondary Rider Kaitou is even worse than him, while for Kabuto, the secondary Rider is the one being straight hero), and many of them warmed up to the straight-up heroic main Riders commonly (so they gotta have appreciation for those mains' morals).

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Originally Posted by Pineapple924

Nah I was just referring to Hiromi in general. Between the two ends of the spectrum that is "Hiromi has the potential to go anywhere." and "He hasn't done anything since he was introduced.", I'm merely in the camp of "I hope they don't make his character gimmick something jarringly comedic in an attempt to balance out how serious he generally has been to this point..."

Oh right, I'm also against giving jarringly comedic traits on a more serious or grounded character; I want people to have better impression on more reserved characters, they quite got a short stick compared to the over the top characters (like one of the most morally upright characters that got universal acclaim is Gentaro), when people are allowed to behave in the way they want and "over the top character being better" is subjective claim, as well as that people misusing "no personality" claims for those more serious characters. But yeah, probably it's jumping to the conclusions too fast to assume that Hiromi has been turned goofy by just smiling earnestly at the end of this episode, to earn the label of goofy one gotta do much more than that. I currently just think that it reaffirms Hiromi's morals here, not someone who's self-righteous and has "shoot first ask later" mentality.