[Kamen Rider Die]

SERIES WRAP-UP



I don’t really want to write the version of this post that most of you probably want to read.

I probably should write it, even though I’m not going to. It’s a version that delineates this show’s many failures: the big and the small, the subjective and the objective, the Hikaru and the rest. It’s a version that excoriates this series for the frustrating choices and the missed opportunities and the inconsistent thematic storytelling and the confusing conclusions to epic character arcs. It’s a version that you could piece together from 50+ posts about a year’s worth of toku broadcasting that made up my end of this thread, and I’d frankly rather you just did that.

Right now, right this minute, I don’t particularly care about the minutiae of this series, or the steps along the way that were failures. What I got in the end was a lovely, thrilling story of how self-care and self-analysis are as heroic as anything, and how the only way to earn forgiveness is to start by forgiving ourselves.

This was a series that mostly annoyed me in its attempts at epic superhero storytelling, but consistently floored me in its thoughtful and passionate defense of the totality of human experience. As a celebration of a franchise that’s spent 50 years arguing for the need to make the darker aspects of ourselves into something that can empower us to do good, I can’t think of a better standard-bearer than Revice. The ways that relationships became less about assigning blame than about allowing for redemption; how accepting yourself in all your complexity was inevitably the last, most crucial step towards a happier tomorrow; the hard battle of acknowledging your flaws and then seeing them as strengths. It’s a show that loves people, even if it didn’t always know how best to convey that love through a year-long weekly superhero TV show.

And it’s a shame that it was frequently ill-prepared for those tokusatsu demands, because the core dynamic of this show is one of my absolute favorites. The Igarashi family is one of the best ideas in 50 years of Kamen Rider, and that’s no hyperbole. After dozens of found families and grim loners and All Dads Are Dead, here we are with a happy, functional family. Sure, they’re tested. Sure, they squabble and leave in a huff and sometimes pull guns on each other. But this show starts with a happy family, and ends with a happy family. No one dies. No one runs away. It’s a show that remembered its greatest weapon whenever things got too weird or maudlin or Giff, and Genta said it best: the Igarashi family can do it all.

I don’t really know how to make this post make sense to the people who hated Revice. I get it, is I guess the olive branch I can extend. Any criticism you have about the plot, the pacing, even the characterization – I understand where you’re coming from. The story is, overall, not a strength. The non-Igarashi elements of the show mostly come off as placeholders; Better Military Organization And Villains TBD. It’s a series where the story is maybe indefensible. But for me, it’s also a series where the characters are unparalleled.

The characters on this show transcended their trappings to make a terrific series, and it’s all because the conflicts were never about monsters and organizations and henchmen and whatever. It’s not a show where the machinations of adversaries were the driving force, and I get why that’s a let down for some folks. I would certainly prefer it if a show was both intelligently plotted and thematically rich! (See: Geats.) But the way every great story from this show was internally generated, either figuratively (Ikki vs Daiji, Kagerou vs everyone, Vail vs everyone) or literally (Vail vs Genta, Daiji vs Kagerou) was what kept me invested in this series. The conflicts were never about defeating a foe, they were always – ALWAYS – about trying to find a way to forgive ourselves for the things we hate about ourselves, and learn to see those things as victories instead of failures. Giff and Fenix are forgettable bullshit; Genta welcoming Vail back into the family after all of its rage and violence is something I will always remember.

I wish that part connected with people more, or mattered more in the fandom’s appraisal of this series. It’s nothing that’s going to keep me up at night; I had my experience, you had yours, and we can’t take those away from each other. But there’s a warmth and joy to this series that just seems to have bounced off of folks, in favor of (generally legitimate!) complaints over pacing or lame villains or who got the Demons Driver or whatever. I don’t know. I can’t speak to why this show didn’t work for folks, not really. You’re all more than capable of doing that, of writing this show’s takedown that I couldn’t. I’d like to read it, even if – especially if – I don’t see it myself.

All I can see right now is a flawed show that never really knew how to tell a superhero story, but still managed to tell a phenomenal Kamen Rider story. It’s a show with heart, if maybe not enough brains. It was Kamen Rider Revice, and I’m very glad I got to experience it.