[Kurona]

Often I don't like trying to do responses to every little bit of a post, because it really ends up resulting in me trying to find things to say when I either just don't or it was already said for me. Fun fact: that's been my experience in a LOT of this thread; a scene you're describing in a post reminds me of thoughts and emotions I had in response to it... and then you lay out those thoughts and emotions for me! It's kind of wild seeing other people have such similar experiences to me; there's something kind of nice about it?

And aside from that, this site's infrastructure unfortunately just doesn't make it easy to do long-form replies. But as it turns out I've got a surprising amount of things to say here, so here we go!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

EPISODE 29: "Crossroads"

This one starts with an absolutely killer cold open. This will be another fairly busy episode, so I don't know if you can say it establishes the central concept, but it is under a minute, and has no dialogue whatsoever. Central or not, it tells you one of the most important things to know about this story, and it announces it with some real impact.



That's right, Chouno's back! And he's being written by Arakawa this time! I told you this show doesn't forget about characters.

...

From there, Kuuga ends up in the usual intense fight with the monster, which ends up being huge trouble for Chouno. It turns out, in the time since we've seen him, he's been moving in a positive direction, pursuing an interest in art, with plans to apply with his latest piece for a chance to be used in a commercial. Right away, I love what this story does with Chouno. It's a direct result of the growth he had in his debut, so credit where credit is due, but it's easier to sympathize with him, and understand his deal, because this time, we see him trying to put the work in. He's making a very obvious and sincere attempt to move forward, and the specific choice of "art" for that is the perfect way to convey all of this to the audience precisely because it's a little stereotypical. You see a guy pouring his heart into a drawing, and you kinda don't need any dialogue at that point. There's a beautiful visual metaphor in there too, that might even be one of my new favorite shots in this whole series. Remember how Chouno was flashing his switchblade in the cold open? He could've just been doing that for no reason other than to alert the audience that he's in the episode, but there actually is a reason for it. He's using the knife to sharpen his pencils.



It's absolutely brilliant. That knife is the symbol of the darkness that's been consuming Chouno, so to have him take the knife, and make it into a tool that serves a constructive purpose, something that builds and creates instead of harming and destroying, making the darkness into light, I mean... I said Inoue didn't quite get Kuuga's storytelling style back when he wrote those first episodes of his, and this kind of stuff from Arakawa is what I'm talking about. This is two scenes, each under a minute, both without any dialogue at all, and they're getting this much across. It's amazing. It also totally gets me rooting for Chouno, which is why it's probably not a good thing the Unidentified Lifeform rampaging through the city is blocking the way to where he needs to go to submit his drawing in less than half an hour.



EPISODE 30: "Fate"

...

Meanwhile, Chouno is desperately running to make it before his deadline, but any hope he has of getting there in time is pretty thoroughly dashed when Gamego knocks him out just as cold as Yuusuke.

...

Chouno's been brought into the hospital himself, waking up to realize, to his horror, that he missed his window. Instead of having him go straight to throwing a fit, he immediately tries to get on the phone with the company running the contest to see if he can still sort this out, but he gets hung up on before he can even try the old "a horrifying monster was blocking traffic" excuse. It's another great moment to build some more sympathy for Chouno, showing him still trying even once things have already gone wrong, but he still has his limits, and this breaks him a little. Yuusuke has already run off to go deal with Gamego, meaning this time it's entirely up to Tsubaki to try keeping him looking forward. He starts out friendlier than last time, sincerely happy to see Chouno making progress, having found out he's been getting his illness treated in the time since they last saw each other. It starts getting a little ugly when Chouno accuses Yuusuke of just smiling his way through life without any trouble, compared to how much he's been struggling. Again, Tsubaki's one of the few people who truly gets what Yuusuke is going through, so that remark gets under his skin a bit. Chouno insists that anyone would be as happy as Yuusuke if things always went as right for them as they do for him. Which, of course, shows how little Chouno is aware of what he's even talking about. Yuusuke's been battered, bruised, beaten, bitten, blown up, shot, thrown off of skyscrapers, poisoned, dead... you name an injury, and chances are he's had it at some point or another. Being #4 has been far from fun and games for Yuusuke. But his suffering goes beyond even that, and Chouno's about to learn why. His conversation with Tsubaki reaches its most tense point when he says he would've been better off letting Biran kill him back in episode 14, which makes Tsubaki lose what patience he has left, snapping at Chouno for his defeatist attitude. This causes Chouno to punch Tsubaki in the face. After this, Tsubaki has just one question. How did it feel?



And of course, it felt bad. Chouno doesn't feel any happier having hit Tsubaki. He doesn't feel relief, or satisfaction. He lost control, and he lashed out, and the look on his face makes his regret clear. All of that is just from one punch. Yuusuke, though, this is what he deals with almost every day. It doesn't always show on the surface, but it's there, no matter how justified using violence to stop the Grongi is. He hates it, and Tsubaki knows this. He knows that Yuusuke really is scared of what he might become because of the Amadam, and he knows the reason he doesn't complain about it, even the tiniest bit, is because he puts other people's smiles first, no matter what. How much of an impact hearing all this has on Chouno is left up in the air for now, as Tsubaki leaves him with one other piece of information about Yuusuke to chew on. He really liked Chouno's drawing.

In his fight with Gamego, Kuuga is doing better than last time, especially thanks to help from Ichijou, who uses that new ammunation to disarm the Grongi. He succumbs to the recoil just like Enokida warned him about, but this action provides Kuuga the opportunity to load Gamego onto the TryGouram's horns, and take him off to a slightly more remote location. You see, this time, Yuusuke is planning to use the gold version of his red form, and he's got a very bad feeling about what all that extra power might do. As such, he's had Ichijou evacuate the nearby area in case it might result in people getting hurt. Very, very good thinking on Yuusuke's part, because Rising Mighty's Rider Kick turns out to have exactly the kind of effect he was afraid of.



Yeah, now you realize why this show didn't want to do monster explosions practically. Kind of makes it harder to gradually up the scale over time. This is an insanely memorable form debut, obviously. It's ominous and intense, and a great way to end a very strong pair of episodes. The story here builds off of everything the series has established up to this point super well, and is packed with great moments. Using Chouno as a vehicle to remind us of Yuusuke's inner conflict was especially inspired, as it perfectly ties in to Rising Mighty's reminder that Kuuga's growing power isn't necessarily a good thing.

I've said far too many times how I'm not a fan of Inoue's writing, and especially on this show I think he wrote some of the weaker ones. And my feelings on his writing in general aside, I think there's a big reason for that -- his writing is very wild. It's goofy, it's over-the-top, it's larger than life and laugh out loud and in your face and wide-angle lenses. That doesn't stop drama and emotional moments from coming through - in fact, at his best, Inoue really knows how to make those work for each other - but it's really not a good fit for a series as minimalist and grounded as Kuuga. And he certainly seems to understand this, because he tries to reel in his normal tropes and style and nail what Kuuga's all about. But while there's times he comes close - there was a pretty damn good one last time - it's often just not the best outings Kuuga has.

And Chouno here is just the supreme example. His more subdued nature here can largely be attributed to his actual efforts in progressing, sure; with that resulting in his having a fair bit more tolerance before he reaches his breaking point. But the way this episode has his emotions communicated through actions and shots and body language; and at that smaller, more relatable motions... which style of storytelling here works best is up to the individual, of course, but in terms of what works as a Kuuga story, this is a vast improvement over Suspicion/Omen. Everything about how he's portrayed hews much closer to how we often see our main cast act out their own characters, and it's to the extent I actually wouldn't mind seeing him a lot more often! After this he makes a single other appearance in the series, but it would have been nice to check in on him a little more often every now and then to see how he's doing. He's an excellent example not just of the type of person Godai wants to help; not just of a different type of victim than Hiraku and Mika are; but also in my opinion... the type of person Godai easily could have become. It's just my personal reading into it, but the parallel between his realisations this episode and Rising Mighty's power are too vast to ignore for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Although we'll have to wait a bit to really find out what he's been up to lately, as after the opening, the other big plot thread for this one is established, as Pops admires the latest additions to his Unidentified Lifeform #4 scrapbook, featuring his fancy new gold versions. The purple one, the green one, the blue one, all looking shinier than ever! No red yet, though. This is another bit of structure the series did I really love. If you'll notice, the introductions of the Rising forms have gone in reverse order, gradually working their way back to Kuuga's main form, and I think that's super smart. It's like a countdown. Rising Mighty is a big deal. It has to be, and the show knows it.

This is ultimately a small thing, and one that the end of the episode shows there's clearly a much bigger reason for; but I SUPER miss this in Kamen Rider. Often when there's some sort of all-forms-upgrade thing like with Wizard's Dragon Styles or Build's Hazard Forms, it's the main form that gets the treatment first (here, Flame and Rabbit/Tank). And I get why of course because it's the most effective way to show an upgrade, but the Rising forms making such a clearly big deal of Rising Mighty in building it up not just makes it exciting to get to what's obviously the most important one, but also makes it feel like a much bigger event -- and one that might have a few secrets waiting in store.

Like, you know it's obviously not gonna stop at Rising Titan being his only upgraded form that he constantly uses... not that I'd terribly mind when it's that beautiful. So that little extra bit of anticipation is super nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Over at the university, Sakurako is still racking her brain over that whole "the sun will be buried in darkness" thing, but that's quickly interrupted by the arrival of Jean, who also happens to be bringing along another returning character. Turns out Mika's back for these ones too! She's in Tokyo to see Gouram, and of course Jean is all too happy to oblige, because he's cool that way. There's also confirmation here that Jean is aware that Yuusuke is Kuuga, having been told by Enokida offscreen at some point, continuing a trend of #4's identity being the very definition of an open secret. Jean also apparently hasn't been stopping by to see Gouram himself much, recently, a subject he seems pretty uncomfortable having brought up. Yet another plot point that'll take a second to wrap back around to, but for now I'll just say he probably wasn't going to that lab every day because he wanted to see Gouram that much.

So I have this really close friend who, when we were growing up, was absolutely convinced he HATED romance as a genre. He just despised it, couldn't stand to see it, and resolved to just have it as little as possible in his own stories he was writing.
Fast forward to as of late, me and him both write quite a LOT of romance actually, and just can't get enough of it in stories like these between two characters that are just close.

So, why is that? ... because the vast majority of romances me and him were coming across in fiction were ones that were incredibly forced.

I'm sure anyone here could come up with a dozen examples. You're watching a cool action movie or an interesting series, and near the end, suddenly The Main Boy Character and The Main Girl Character suddenly kiss. They don't really have the best chemistry at all, it wasn't exactly led up to, but they're just kind of a couple now because I guess that's a prerequisite. It's a pretty common trope, for sloppy romances to be there just because people think there should be a romance with no real actual purpose behind it.

Might seem a bit of a random thing to bring up in a Kuuga thread, but I bring it up because if romance was what they were going for between Enokida and Jean? If the two ended up as a couple? I really, really wouldn't mind! Their scenes together and the fact they talk to each other at all come completely out of circumstance, but in that wonderful Kuuga way where it's absolutely believable and doesn't feel contrived in the slightest. There's no real romantic implications at first, no character going "oh you two look so cute together!!!"; they just naturally develop and find out more about each other as any two characters would. It's maybe a bit early to start talking about this given it's hardly reached its apex, but Kuuga handles character chemistry in such a way where any two characters that are close would feel completely natural being either platonic or romantic! It just helps make it feel that much more legitimate and that much more grounded, and it's a lovely element of the season. There's no "two characters set up to be a couple", or "two characters set up to be friends". There's just two characters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Oh, and I definitely want to mention this: That last post was actually my 2000th on this forum. Nowhere near as impressive as having 2000 skills, but a milestone nonetheless.

I mentioned right in the introduction that the stars lined up to make this thread happen, but I don't think I realized at the time just how true that would turn out to be. This year marks Kuuga's 20th anniversary, and I don't know how much better a birthday present it could've gotten for that occasion than an official western release with extremely high-quality English subtitles. I would've never guessed in a million years we'd get here, but it happened, and I am just... beyond happy about it.

Indeed, I failed to see this coming so hard, I actually had an entire post written I was going to put up between episodes 26 and 27 about the absurdly huge amount of errors I had found from Midnight Crew Subs' releases just in the first half of the show. The number by episode 24 was over a hundred individual lines that were messed up in some way. This is why you haven't seen dialogue on any of the screencaps I've used. I was literally keeping track of this stuff the entire time, and then, not long after I finished putting together that post, that consisted largely of me walking through some of the "greatest" hits I'd come across in an effort to vent my frustrations, it all became completely irrelevant. The last paragraph had a line, that, no joke, read "it's my sincere hope this post becomes obsolete one day. Whether that be due to a newer, more thorough fansub, or even, dare I dream, an official English release that meets a professional standard, it doesn't matter that much."

But that dream came true, and now, that post is so obsolete, I never even posted it. And that's awesome. While I've yet to watch a full episode, I've went and checked dozens and dozens of bad lines from MCS' translation to find, nearly every single time, they're fixed up perfectly. And as an even more pleasant surprise, the dialogue just plain reads great. Very natural and smooth without losing the meaning. Plus, the theme songs are translated to that same standard, so it's even better. There's basically no downside to this situation. Just like Shout's Sentai stuff, it's streaming for free on several different services, too, so it's just as cheap as piracy! The only thing to even consider being bummed about is that the Grongi language is rendered in English, but, as much I'm *firmly* on the side that believes it shouldn't be by default, there are legitimate arguments to be made in favor of handling it that way, and, I'm telling you, it's a total non-issue in the face of how good a job was done. Just think about the implications of complaining about it for a second. The biggest problem with the official Kuuga release is that they did too much work. Well, that, and being in a region where you still can't watch it officially, admittedly. Still! There has never, ever been a better time to watch Kuuga, whether you're new to the show or not, and if you doubt the people making this stuff happen have a real passion for what they're doing, just take a look at what clip TokuSHOUTsu's YouTube page chose to sell people on the show. You don't pick this one by accident!

The Decade-W-OOO-Fourze stretch is what I've absolutely committed to in terms of Rider rewatches. It's too perfect -- I've now watched all the Heisei Riders so I'll understand the context behind Decade more, Decade leads into W; and W-OOO-Fourze is not just one of my favourite stretch of shows but it's been a while since I've seen them and would love to re-evaluate how I feel about them a couple years later. ... jesus, it's really been that long...

But given how good a job Tokushoutsu's done and given your glowing review of it, I'm now VERY interested in a Kuuga rewatch too! I don't think now's quite the time since it hasn't been that long since I finished Kuuga. After all, I finished it while Zi-O was just ending, and that was only...
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Only... 8 months ago...?! HUH????




Either way, you've really piqued my curiosity with your post here about bad translations and how much of a better job Shout's done. As a non-Japanese speaker who's only really picked up what Iwae means, your posts about translations and how different sub teams handled certain scenes are always a very interesting look to me into the translation process. Are you sure there's nothing you'd still want to post from that abandoned project? It'd be really interesting for me to see, especially if compared to Shout's work!