[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

While we're tackling this directly, though, as easy as it would be to kick in my own misgivings about the sort of fanservice that makes people mistakenly believe "anime" is a genre, I'll instead take the more interesting option of noting that I also, at the same time, have to wonder how much of the long-term success of this series genuinely wouldn't have happened without its two female leads becoming so popular in that way. Did all the statues and everything pay for Dynazenon? How much did the free publicity of all the fanart draw people to the actual show proper? It's easy to sit here all disapprovingly, but I have to imagine there are definitely people out there whose genuine interest in Gridman as a whole began merely as an interest in Rikka's thighs, and I honestly wouldn't want to disparage that? I could bemoan the expectations that seem to come with being a late-night animated series aimed at nerds in Japan all day long (though, similar to what DreamSword is saying, I don't actually find this show itself that egregious), but I guess I also can't help but see some nuance in there, too?

Yeah, I don't... like, it's not like this approach invalidated anything for me, and I hope I didn't make it sound that way. While I don't have a ton of interest in a show that wants to get horny about high school girls, it doesn't really bother me if that's what people want from their entertainment. And I get that merch is required for these shows to survive, and sometimes it can't just be robot action figures and replica transformation devices. (As someone who is expecting two different HG Girls Tsumuri figures in the mail soon, I am not morally opposed to buying tiny vinyl representations of toku girls!)

Plus, even within the specific discussion of lingering shots of certain cast members trying on their swimwear for their digital co-conspirators... like, it still served a narrative purpose here? I'm not gonna say I couldn't've used less of it -- pretty sure I said exactly the opposite -- but it is coming from two specific plotlines that the show has been working on since the beginning: Akane's duality and the fact that these are teens with (horny) attitude. It's not like this was a dour show of trauma and violence, and suddenly we've got teens trying to look cute for each other and/or manipulate one another into divulging secrets -- this is still the teen toku action/comedy! All of that stuff is here for very legible and defensible reasons!

...it's maybe just a little too much, too often, in this one episode for me.