[Fish Sandwich]

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

Gaim is mostly a tragedy, and this is one of a series of moments in which the tragedy is ratcheted up.

I'd call Gaim a lot of things but tragedy isn't one of them. Sure it's really sad sometimes but the show's message is ultimately a hopeful one. That's what Kouta and Kaito's whole conflict is about, optimism vs cynicism, and the show comes down on Kouta's side. I hear the word "deconstruction" thrown around a lot in reference to Gaim, but it's only tearing things down to build them back up stronger.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

In this specific scene, Micchi is aware of the irony, and it's part of why he's not listening or connecting to Kouta. Kouta's words would just seem hollow. This scene won't pay out until their final battle, when Kouta finally knows who he's fighting, and can make good on his values.

But he isn't talking to Micchi in that scene, he's talking to himself. It'd make total sense if he said what he says directly to Micchi and we get some sort of reaction shot from him, but Kouta is just trying to reassure himself that Kaito is full of crap. The show itself is taking it at face value, not just Kouta, and that's why it's so weird.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

Moral compromise is a tricky theme for a kids show to tackle, so it's no surprise that Fourze was more consistently able to riff off its theme.

A fair enough point, but that's sort of an excuse, isn't it? I'm a lot cooler with what they did now but I don't think it should've been that easy to spend 2 years calling Kouta a hypocrite. I get what they did with him now, but it's pretty sloppily handled, to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

It's stressful, though, because we're led to care about the characters more than I usually do in Rider shows. Amazons is grittier, I guess, but it doesn't register so much with me because I care dramatically less about its characters. (I'm also not finished with it; I haven't been that motivated.)

How far did you get? It only gets better with every episode. The characters in that show actually end up really sympathetic and what makes it less stressful to me isn't that I care less (because I don't), but that the tragedy comes from how a lot of the characters (mainly Haruka) try to live happier lives in spite of their situations. There's an underlying sense of... warmth, I guess(?), throughout Amazons that keeps it focused, but in those last couple episodes of Gaim it's basically thing after thing going wrong until the ending. I can't stress enough that there isn't anything wrong with that, but I still wish they had done it a little differently than they did. As it is, it feels really out of sync with the rest of the show's tone.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

I think part of why you disliked it may have been because it feels distinctly unlike modern Kamen Rider. This is part of why I loved it - Gaim was daring - but I sympathize with people who didn't enjoy it.

That's why it caught me off guard, but it isn't why I didn't like it. For comparison, I adore Kuuga's atypical final fight and whole episode epilogue, because they felt to me like absolutely perfect resolutions to the themes of the show, without me having to think about it for years to come to that conclusion.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

It was also a key moral compromise situation for Kouta. He couldn't just disarm Kaito. Kaito had transformed himself into a supernatural weapon, and Kaito's express intention was to destroy the world and start anew.

Which I always understood, I just questioned why the show was written that way in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

In terms of Gaim being a rehabilitated Ryuki, it corrects the most glaring flaw of that series, which its unwillingness to tarnish its hero, even though the series was about a Rider battle to the death.

But that's totally missing the point. Ryuki constantly tears into its protagonist's idealism at every turn, way more so than Gaim does, showing Shinji's beliefs getting him absolutely nowhere. He spends the whole series talking about stopping the Rider War (when he isn't massively doubting those goals), but he never even can in the first place. Ryuki absolutely tarnishes its hero, just not how you might think.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

I don't actually seek out grittiness for grittiness' sake, which is part of why I'm not loving Amazons, but I do want a series to follow through on its premise.

No seriously, Amazons is not grittiness for grittiness' sake, or else I'd hate it too. I really recommend you finish it up, it's quite good.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

I utterly hated it at the time, I but I think my feelings were also colored by knowing that 46 was Gen Urobuchi's last episode.

I still think it's so unfortunate anyone who likes Gaim would ever choose to ignore episode 47. Urobuchi even had input on it, so it isn't like you can use the excuse that it was just someone else playing with his characters, like with the tie-ins and whatnot. If he had directly wrote it, I don't think it would've been that different from what we got.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

You've clearly thought a great deal about the show, and I enjoyed reading your thoughts on it.

And I've enjoyed reading your response, so thanks! I put too much thought into most shows, but with Gaim I've also looked at it from two completely different perspectives. It's kind of amazing the things that used to bother me about it that just sort of don't anymore, even though I still consider them flaws.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

I think Gaim's a terrific show, but also a messy one.

There are probably Rider shows more messy than Gaim (but I don't think that many), but Gaim is hurt by it so much more because it's nominally a very tightly plotted series, making the gaps in the writing stick out way more than something like Kiva or Ghost, at least in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

Heck, if I were to recommend it to someone, it's be with caveats to skip the Hikaider and ToQger crossovers.

Maybe next I need to make a giant post about why the crossover stuff was actually good.

I know they're inherently sort of incongruous with the show but I think they get way less credit than they deserve.