[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Lucha

PART ONE:

*snip* In a sense, we're watching a 25-hour super hero origin story *snip*

A solid argument, but then it only makes me question, 'why do it like that?'. Is there any reason the WHOLE show needs to deal with their origins? I think it'd suit the genre so much better, to have them start as an experience hero and then flashback to how they became what they are.

This is the reason I will argue to the cows come home, that Haruto was a FANTASTIC superhero. He actively hunted down the Phantoms, he started at a point of experience and cared about the individual and attempted to save them. Yes they needed a new Phantom every week to adhere to the genre trappings, so it undermined the point a bit, but I'd rather another Haruto or another Kotaro or another bonified hero, than another Godai going on about smiles while hundreds of people committed suicide as he cooked a fucking curry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Lucha

PART THREE:

*snip* Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? *snip*

The cultural differences are interesting, aren't they? This for me is the most problematic aspect. Because, one the one hand, it feels like Japanese culture is copping out but on another, America makes the battle of good and evil feel so hopeless, it's pointless to try.

I guess at least when Japan personifies evil as a single monster, and suggests that all the evil on the entire planet, an be destroyed in a single warehouse by defeating this single monster, it makes the battle of good evil feel that much more tangible, and defeating evil seems like a goal you can actually achieve.

But I think the American way of depicting the war as a sprawling mass, where one battle is just the part of many, may ultimately make the whole affair seem hopeless and unwinable, but the sense of scale also makes it that much more epic and grandiose.