[Fish Sandwich]

So while I was absent-mindedly watching Blade meme vide- uh, I mean putting together my curriculum (nailed it!), I came across this little snippet of some something or other that aired on TV before Blade premiered I figured would be worth sharing.

Obviously it'll be less fun if you can't understand the dialogue, but it does give a little behind the scenes look at the fight scene from the end of episode 4, hence why I'm sharing this now. Apparently it took two whole hours just to film Kenzaki's transformation, which, looking at how many individual shots it uses, I can totally believe. They put a lot of effort into getting one guy to say "Heshin!"

I actually still had things I wanted to say about episode 3 though, even though the thread's moved on. I'm just going to do that anyway, if that's cool.

For all the clunky exposition, I do love what the climax does to further Kenzaki's character. Die pointed out a lot of it, but one specific thing I think is great that he didn't mention was how Kenzaki is fighting at his usual level (terribly)... right up until Tachibana gets hurt. After that, he immediately gets it together and takes down the monster, and I really like what that says about him. All the complicated feelings he must have going on completely melt away when he sees someone in danger, and he has to actively remind himself after the fight he's very upset right now.

It also prompts a that remark form Chalice about humanity's power being "fully unleashed", which seems to be a deliberate reference to one of the show's taglines, clearly meant to be the equivalent to Agito's "awaken your soul", or Ryuki's "if you don't fight, you won't survive", except the series was already bored of it by this point. It was used in the preview, just like those shows... but only in the one for the second episode. I don't blame them for dropping it. Even with the explanation, it's not really as meaningful as those other two. I understand one of the reasons Blade didn't set the world on fire in terms of toy sales and whatnot was because it had a concept that was complicated enough to not be easily digestible, and it's not hard to see why, with a catchphrase like that. Heck, even the card motif uses two sets of suits at once. It's... it's not really as simple to get a grip on as "13 people fight to the death", you know? On the flip side, that makes it more fun to dig into for the diehards, though.

The Deer Undead has also always been my favorite monster design from the show, although ironically is, I believe, one of the few not to be created by the show's main monster designer. Again, episode 3 is a definitive episode of Blade for me, and I can't really tell you why. Maybe I like it because it has the Deer Undead, or maybe I like the Deer Undead because it's in episode 3. It's just always an episode my brain goes to when I think about early Blade, and always a monster I think of when I think of how cool the Undead are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magnugiga

It's a bit weird seeing Kotaro's name, as in I keep defaulting to Kotaro Minami (Kamen Rider Black), before I eventually went, "oh right, the poor man's Keitaro! Er, I mean, the milk chugger!"

They are at least written a bit different! In fact, this post just made me remember that by my own rules, I should actually be writing Blade's Kotarou with only the one "u", so thanks for that!

I think what's really confusing is talking about Tachibana. It's like an instant way to create an awkward moment between old-school Rider fans and new(er than the real old-school) ones.

HEISEI FAN: "One of my favorite characters in Kamen Rider is Tachibana."
SHOWA FAN: "Yeah, he's great. Such an awesome and reliable mentor figure!"
HEISEI FAN: "I uh- I guess that's one way of putting it..."
SHOWA FAN: "And the way he tied together all those different series made him so much more memorable!"
HEISEI FAN: "He- uh... I liked him in Fourze?"
SHOWA FAN: "Wait, who are you talking about?"
HEISEI FAN: "Wait, who are you talking about?"