[Magnugiga]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It just... it feels so personal, so auteur in the story it's telling and how it's telling it. Nothing in this show, from the heroes to the villains to the belt to the pacing, none of it feels safe. Like, the most sympathetic people on this show are the literal monstrous killers. Making this show, they are flying on wings of God They're All Terrible People, and if they run the risk of those wings melting from flying too close to the sun, well, innovation sometimes isn't pretty.

Yuka and Yuuji finally meeting up at the end of Ep 4 gave me chills for multiple reasons. At this point, the show had put a lot of effort to make them sympathetic figures and justify their actions, but it's also made clear that these two have cold, deep-seated anger, for the rest of the world (Yuka moreso than Yuuji) and they've basically reached a point of no return in terms of what they've did. It's a brilliant set-up for the eventual collision with our dorky group of 'heroes', and at the time I was watching, I got simultaneously excited and scared for what's going to happen next.

(I dig that you're mentioning the belt, by the way, it has such a noticeably strong presence throughout the series it might as well be a character in its own right. A thematic axis, if you will).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

There's something here I didn't touch on before, and it's the neat Romeo and Juliet-style Doomed Romance the show's got brewing. Keitaro is a pure-hearted good guy who wants to protect smiles and stop monsters, while Yuka is someone who just massacred a gym class. Star-crossed lovers, man! It's a big emotion, and I'm sure this show is going to do something suitably memorable with it.

....not going to comment much on this for fear of accidentally spoiling anything, but yeah, man. Yeah.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Like, it's a testament to how much the show wants to dig into these characters that Keitaro is both a parody of a Kamen Rider AND a full-formed character. As the heroes are slowly won over by his Aw Shucks heroism and, uh, basic human decency, we get permission to see his over-enthusiasm less as a laughable handicap, and more as an innate empathy striving for a way to help others from a dude who unfortunately has zero chill. There's some effort in the early Faiz episodes to emphasize channeling your energy effectively, and Keitaro's a great example of someone who doesn't yet know how to channel his energy.

This show was pretty mean to its characters, and sometimes it does feel like it's mocking them, but I also feel that it's got a lot of genuine love and sympathy for this collection of flawed, broken, people; just not in ways that we'd typically assume from a series of this ilk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I like "Kamen Rider: Jerks and Losers"! It's very accurate! Part of me thinks, and it's something I thought of during the exchange in Episode 4 I screencapped, when Keitaro asks Takumi for help and Takumi rolls his eyes, that the show and hero should be called "Kamen Rider FINE.", all resentment and aggravation on the "FINE.", period as part of the title. Everything I love about the show is balled up in Takumi eyerolls, how theatrical they are, how he could not give two shits about trying to protect people's feelings, let alone their smiles.

One of my highlights in watching Faiz was how my first impression of Takumi as stoic no-nonsense badass was hilariously wrong, as he's in truth just a super theatrical dork. There's like, this Intense Dramatic Action-y Moment, and Takumi just had me rolling all of sudden with his antics (and it's not even framed as a comedic moment with wacky sound effect and all! Takumi doesn't need that to get laffs!). Him being a nekojita is exactly the way I like a comedic character quirk/trait to be written, too; it's such a small and grounded thing, but always made me smile every time it comes up.