[Daikaijuman54]

I have returned! And now we're further ahead in Revice where I can talk about some of the meat of this show.

So, I'm sure everyone has made jokes about Akashi's weird facial expressions and mannerisms, and with the added knowledge of his origins, I think it's very fitting for him, it gives him this sort of "trying to be human" sort of aura. Which is neat, but also, the moment we saw him, we all collectively thought, "he's definitely evil." I don't mind the fact that he wants to make Daiji his family, as it again, melds into the whole "family" theme this show has been aiming for, buuuuuuut...

Okay, so before I get into that, I'm going to go over some of the other bits in between as best I can. So, Ikki's losing his memories in exchange for his contract with Vice, we had a feeling that there was something up with him disappearing from photos, but I feel like this could have been shown earlier in the show, as it became forgotten and then brought up after the Aguilera, reawakening of Giff, and Weekend's introduction had to get weaved into the story. What's a little surprising is that in the middle of the show we get Ikki's backstory about his Soccer buddy and background and his handling of that, which is very similar to Haruto's backstory from Wizard and at almost the exact same time (unless I'm misremembering both of those). It's kind of amusing how Vice's voice actor cameos into the story with a connection to Ikki, but I felt like it was a two parter that would have been in the first or second quarter of the show, as it felt like it took out the steam of the show.

Weekend, the most suspicious looking group in the entire show, led by the fake family (you could call them The Forger Family! Hah!) and George's daddy, whom George has issues with. At first, I was expecting a three-way conflict when they got introduced and I was wondering what their beef was. So many things that seemed at first but turned out to just be me overthinking. We also have Hikaru taking the mantle of Over-Demons, which at first I wasn't a fan of, but I grew to like it, and Hikaru, who I will proudly proclaim is one of my favorite characters and I was perfectly fine with him being Over-Demons. Especially after the war arc of Revice commences.

Aguilera's "redemption," I thought was a nice storyline (though a little dragged out and rough it was), with the bottom line being "you can't erase your sins, but you can still make amends" which I think is a great line of thinking. And we also have Tamaki with the Weekenders now, which is also nice for how he wants to be of help but gets sidelined by everyone else. And the fact that Aguilera names herself Hana Natsuki makes me laugh knowing that it's not far off from Hanae Natsuki, a Japanese VA famous for his role as Kamado Tanjiro in Kemetsu No Yaiba and the Walrus Taxi Driver in Odd Taxi.

Daiji... Alright, so this is probably my least favorite arc in Revice, for more reasons than you might think. So first off, there's Akemi, someone close to Daiji in his days at FENIX whom Akashi Demons in front of him then setting up Revice to kill her, the thing that bothers me is that Daiji then agrees (albeit reluctantly in some parts) to aid Akashi even with the knowledge that he's done this to many other people before and used FENIX to allow this to happen, and sure, there's also the fact that he baited everyone into creating this whole situation and destroying FENIX to show how powerless everyone is against Giff (please tell me someone sent that one meme about Touma running up the light ladder to Giff while Akashi's shouting "ah! Look at that!"), but with everything that went down, I still feel like Daiji wouldn't be so willing to join him, even if he's been broken too much to reach this point. He just overcame Kagerou to unlock Holy Live (Wings to fry!) and it's a great suit, but even after all this, my main reason for not liking this arc is that it feels like something that would have worked better in earlier Revice like second quarter, maybe making Akashi less blatantly evil to make his revelation as one of Giff's lackeys and destroying FENIX more impactful.

But in spite of it all, the resolution to that arc with Destream vs Vail was beautiful. The fight, the music, all tied up to make it a great fight. Which leads me into one of my issues, I guess you could say, about Revice thus far, the resolutions are good but the road to reach them are very rough and sometimes unfocused. The idea that this arc was about the family falling apart (something that seemed to be building up when we were still sketchy on Weekend) was inevitable and fitting for a story about family, and the resolution was very nice, but the in-between was something I sort of didn't look forward to as the show was airing, because it felt sloppy and didn't fit, at least for me.

The war arc reminded me of Build's, the series felt bleak, uncertain, like an actual war, something rare to see in some media. Weekend's leaders putting their lives on the line to protect everyone they could but still chose to prioritize their son, fake though he may be, it was some of the best moments in Revice, and made Hikaru front and center, unlike his role as the setup for Weekend.

Now for some suits, Revice: I like the design, the addition of a fan on the ViStamp as a reference (or at least to me) to the Showa Riders, specifically Ichigo, but the colors feel a little too garish to me. I don't mind out there color schemes, it looked great on Ex-Aid, but here, it just doesn't work for me, like with Elemental Dragon in Saber, though I that one didn't bother me as much here. Holy Live: Beautiful (wings to fry!). Giff Monster Form: Reminds me of Cthullu, which is great, but he's just kind of... there (more on him later). Destream: Great! Though, I'm kind of sad it came at the cost of Century. Vail: Nice detail with him being just a red Vice without the mask. Crimson Vail: I love Jack Revice, so naturally I love this.