[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 19 - “STRUMMING WARRIOR”

Okay, back. (It was so good.) Where was I? Oh, yeah, second: is there such a thing as an episode of Hibiki being too tranquil? And I acknowledge that I’m describing an episode where Todoroki explodes multiple giant crabs and Hibiki does sick jumps on a dirtbike as “too tranquil”, but… yeah, not exactly a big, exciting episode of Kamen Rider.

Yeah, Hibiki is known as not being safe around vehicles, and the training he got here is a motherfucking dirtbikes.... And somehow Hibiki's tendency to never stop isn't coincidental with anything, like for example, someone who brute forces through anything and never quit no matter how many injuries in the fight with that reflected on how they ride their bike or something. Todoroki surely watched Sony's E3 2016 conference; though he didn't flip the crab this time.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Or, maybe not over-confident, but… excited to contribute? He’s working his ass off and having a blast, so goddamn pumped to be an Oni that he’s having celebratory rock-outs on his sacred weapon of monster exploding.

Zanki is the one that said Todoroki should just follow what himself wants instead of over-relying on his teachings! Though obviously Todoroki is taking it too far for having celebratory rocks. While Makamou is purified by music, probably having guitar solo like that isn't the way. He keeps track of his killcounts probably as a solution to fight his insecurities, to keep reminding himself that he had successes of killing Makamous.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Which, they do! If there’s a secret connection amongst the cast, it mostly gets brought to light as everyone stops by the restaurant for at least a scene and reveals who they are and what their significance is. (I mean, not to Hitomi, of course. She’s a girl! You can’t tell a girl about monsters, despite literally everyone she interacts with in this episode knowing about them!) It’s… cute. It’s just a very cute episode, full of charming scenes and stray dogs and a sweaty tryhard superhero and a group of men who are a beat away from saying That Boy Ain't Right and not much else.

For bolded one - Kasumi, Hinaka, Akira, Midori: Are we a joke to you?! But yeah... I don't think the girl joke fits here, Hitomi is the minority that didn't know. Otherwise, the Takeshi so far only knows about the Makamou staying in the mountain (though they're progressively spreading) and likely also doing their best to keep the Makamou only occupied in that area, never disturbing civilians (other than those that goes to that mountain). And yeah, I'm someone who is eager to make someone who is unknowingly related to each other reveal themselves in the story; Asumu and Zanki being "members" of Takeshi (but still didn't know that Asumu is Hibiki's "apprentice"), also Todoroki and Hitomi being cousins.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Actually, since this one’s coming up a little light on content, I’m just going to talk about Asumu’s mom, AsuMum.

OK, this is against your rules, but her name is Ikuko Adachi. And she's the older figure that keeps the others together for Hibiki, the counterpart to the likes of Kazari, Kogami, Jun, Haima, etc. And well, most if not all of them have the kooky energy stuff.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Sure, that's all fair. Doofus was maybe a little unkind, but it's difficult to see why both Akira and Hitomi might be interested in him at this point. He doesn't seem like that much of a catch!

For the regret, it's just that The Two Ladies Fight Over A Not-That-Great Dude is such a weird, frustrating trope that I didn't like to see the edges of it blooming in this episode. They didn't really go there, which is great, but just setting it up made me a little disappointed.

I'm pretty sure that each one of us wants to be treated like Asumu, where you can get cherished (not limited to romantic love here, and it's not even known yet if it's romantic love) unconditionally. It just screams hypocrite alert to me for this topic, like if someone talks about how it's difficult to see girls want someone unremarkable, but complain if no girls want to love him unconditionally. Actually it bugs me if girls are expected and always made to only respect and chase perfect boys (at least outwardly).

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I didn't want to put a downer on my favorite arc but now would probably be a good opportunity to mention that I didn't get the point of Mochida's envy. It happened in one scene only to be resolved easily in the next scene she appeared in. Where is the conflict here? Maybe this sounds ironic after Faiz but people are too good at communication in this show! Maybe I'm just spoiled for love triangles by Faiz's love hexagon! Hibiki has a lot of great qualities but this probably isn't one of them.

Now that I think about, I don't really get what Mochida brings to the show? She doesn't know about the Oni and whatever purpose she may have served at the start seems to have been taken over by Akira as the female lead to Shounen's protagonist role. She's like Mizuki in Amazons S1, before she joined 4C.

Yuka snapping at Keitarou was caused by a misunderstanding (which, yes, is very Faiz, but it's a great source of conflict) since Keitarou was given two contradicting messages from "Osada" and Yuka, the first that she loved Kaido and not him, and the second that he should try holding her hand. Yuka didn't know Keitarou was referring to her in the email so she assumed he was being desperate after she friendzoned him.

Didn't realize that you replied on my post earlier. And altough you're spoiled with the conflict part of Faiz don't force to turn any other shows like Faiz? Like I said in previous reply...

"cynical tryhard edgy media with milktoast characters = good " mindset needs to stop, obviously not purge away those completely, but like, this aspect being hailed as something (or worse, considered the only way) to make something appear more complex than it actually is when it degrades and is pretentious in its attempt. Unless you meant for conflict being just any obstacles, struggles, and challenges a character need to overcome (like Asumu's story), then sure why not (like probably Akira being Ibuki's apprentice), which is also something I want to convey, that conflict isn't only toxic characters childishly infight all the time, so no need to degrade characters to create conflicts.

Yeah there, for last sentence, I want to convey that conflict isn't only about characters acting uncontrollably childish and/or depraved, as you damn well know on Gaim. Like, Asumu's personal fight with the exam and what he try to do to overcome that is also a conflict. Also.. who says Mochida is the female lead? She's never that. The female lead is debated between Kasumi or Akira. Mochida is just that school friend character like the Nozomi in Blade, etc. And they're considered side characters.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Tell me about it! I went to see Assassin's Creed in 2016 and I thought it was pretty terrible.

https://screenrant.com/why-video-game-movies-suck/

Yeah, this is a recurring trend to any video game adaptations. There are also bunch of other examples like other fighting games like Mortal Kombat, DOA, KoF, and Tekken, also Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc.