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Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I wanted to start this off by talking about how Faiz is a hard series to love. Like its protagonist, it’s prickly, sullen. It has to be cajoled into doing the most basic Kamen Rider shit, and even then it never lets you forget how much it doesn’t care about that shit. Over time, you get used to it, and it opens up more, and it leads to some really emotionally-exposed storytelling. All that taciturn ambivalence is revealed as a mask over a beating heart, and it ends happily, earnestly. You gotta meet it on its terms, but you’ll be rewarded if you do.

Except, man, I don’t know if that was my experience? At all?

I mean, some of it. It’s definitely a show that tries to keep you at a distance. It does a lot of stuff in ways that seem contradictory, or suboptimal. It’s playful, if you’re feeling generous, or scatterbrained, if you aren’t. It’s a complex show, just on a What Story Are They Trying To Tell level.

So I first watched Faiz back in 2009, during my own binge-watch of the Heisei era (minus Kuuga, which hadn't been subbed yet). I was really into it at first, but about two-thirds in I started seeing some of its recurring tropes become more apparent. In the years since then, I've largely let some of its more infamous elements grow larger and more egregious in my memories, helped along by a lot of the general consensus that most people have for the show. For a long time I felt I would never go back and watch it again, and the one attempt I made ended after two episodes.

I'm really glad that I joined you on this ride (pun intended) because it's given me a chance to really re-evaluate the series. There are still some elements that didn't work for me (Mihara) or made my eyes roll (some obvious cop-out fight endings), but a lot more of it worked. I'll definitely say that your own interpretations helped me view some of these areas in a new light, but I also just remembered how good this show's characters could be. I'll stand by my own comments early on in the thread that this is the soap opera Kamen Rider, but I'll be damned if that didn't turn out to be one of its redeeming qualities.