[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

Putting aside the Cross-Z Charge stuff - because, well, we agree; It's ugly and it's difficult to derive anything from it in a thematic sense. Not much more to say there - I can see where you're coming from about Banjou in general tossing the theme away in his normal design as well, but I kinda disagree on... what is honestly kind of a simple ground.

Sento himself has a lot of duality to him in how he thinks things through; if not more. He constantly has so many things on his mind that's weighing him down and he tries to balance it out as best he can. It's natural that his rider form would be made up of two different sides, and that he'd be the one with the gimmick of finding out which sides are best for which situation and which ones work well together at any given time beyond even the general Best Matches.

Banjou though? He's a bit more simple. He punches things. He's a one-track mind, and so having his design be a derivation of Build where it's just two of the same thing but enhanced works really well to me.


That's not to say that Banjou Kazoouie doesn't have layers or complexities to him, of course; he's one of my favourite Rider characters for a reason (full disclosure? The three biggest reasons Build is my second favourite show is pretty much Sento, Banjou and their relationship), but looking at how he is consciously and how different he and Sento are in how they present themselves, yeah, I feel base Cross-Z makes a lot of sense. Of course he wouldn't bother with using a ton of different bottles and finding which ones go well with what and which one to use at which time; he just needs to know which one's the most powerful, which one lets him punch things, and how he can get two of them!



... also, given the gimmick; you naturally just kinda want to see a what-if scenario of if someone just used one bottle and how they'd do that. So that's cool as well. Going beyond thematic stuff for a second as well; there's actually some really nice touches where the 'inorganic' Dragon side has a few flames on it where the normal organic Dragon side doesn't. And going back to thematic stuff for a second, actually, that works even more with Banjou's differences to Sento. Sento's slightly more reserved side with Banjou's all out I'M GONNA PUT FLAMES ON EVERYTHING side.

Sorry I just love this design a lot lol

I was hoping someone would give an impassioned defense of Cross-Z's design so I could see what people liked about it, so, thanks!

I agree that Banjou and Sento see things differently, and it's good that their personalities are reflected in their suits. That's the attention to detail where Build excels! It's just, to me, visually, if you put the last chunk of secondary Riders in a row, Cross-Z is the one where I couldn't match him to the primary Rider. He's a bit like Accel, in that way, where there's a duality to the main Rider's design, and then the secondary Rider is Some Other Thing. Story-wise, for both Accel and Cross-Z, yeah, it reinforces their single-mindedness and independence, but I wonder if there's a way to that within the show's aesthetic. And, maybe there isn't! I don't know. Cross-Z just doesn't work as well for me as the other show designs.

That said, my absolute favorite part of Cross-Z's henshin is that his cowl and pauldrons come in on a different runner than his suit. I love shit like that!