[Kurona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The costumes for the Oni and monsters are all garish, bigger and crazier than anything else in the series. Everything is just… bigger. Louder. More fun. It’s a really great movie.

It’s a shit Hibiki story, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Hibiki's big summer movie focuses on a bunch of lookalikes while the actual characters from the show are moved to the background. That's a flawed premise!

So these two complaints kind of combine for me into why I like the Hibiki movie?

Because a movie like this inherently has to be big and exciting and bombastic and everything that Hibiki isn't. ... so I think it's a pretty smart decision to not make it about the Hibiki characters and setting, but instead make it about the backstory.

And that backstory is really quite nice! I'm able to buy the backstory of this series being a lot more explosive and action-packed because the backstory essentially is about how things became better, about how through the strife and tribulations those in the past went through; they were able to make things much better for their successors through creating Takeshi. This is something I want to get more into at some point, but...
...
Okay, actually, no! We're at the end of this stretch so I'm getting into this now, screw it!


Something very wonderful about the setting of Hibiki that stands out from the superhero genre is Takeshi and the support network it creates. It essentially codifies and brings together all these Oni, gives them all the support they need and has a system whereupon they can quickly back each other up and rely on each other as needed. Something about the superhero genre - that you'll well know, Die - is that there's an element to it where only this hero has this power to save the world; there's something only the main character is capable of and must do it or else we're all doomed, and while unstated a lot of the time, that's a hell of a lot of responsibility. If Ultraman Rosso and Blu have an off-day, the city's getting stomped by a monster. If Kamen Rider Wizard's having a bout of depression, it doesn't matter, he has to fight or someone's going to die. Superman can't ever be sick or the villains win.

So like, that leads to a lot of problematic things about the genre that don't reflect the real situations and the realities of life they're to reflect -- just about any life path that involves life-or-death situations whether it be the fire service, or the army, or medical professions will at any time have a countless number of co-workers who are able to not just back you up, but are able to fill in for you and do exactly what you are capable of. This applies to any corner of life as well, and while of course all of these do have -immense- responsibility, the point I'm making here is that they're not situations whereby the existence and success of it all doesn't rely on a single person with specific unique skills being on standby 24/7. No matter what your potential anxiety and depression says - because, to hell with it, I can fit in a moral lesson here - you not being there during a bad situation does not mean you were responsible or that you were the only one capable of stopping it. There is never, ever a situation like this where you are the only one -- there will always be others like you who can do the same job, and despite all the responsibility you have it is still possible for you to have days off and your troubles and needs met and be able to live like a normal person.

And I want to quickly say here that that doesn't mean this is an issue with the superhero genre so bad it causes it to crumble or that messages and stories can't succeed because of it -- I mean, if I believed that, I probably wouldn't be on this board watching and discussing superhero stuff all the time! I love shows like Kamen Rider Kuuga and Ultraman Orb where the title hero is the only hero around and doesn't have so much as a secondary to back him up! It's something that the genre is able to succeed in spite of, and in my opinion it's a problem that gets mitigated the more non-literal and metaphorical the story is, which is very often the case with Tokusatsu.


And the reason I bring this whole college lecture up is that this is exactly why Takeshi is such, such a triumph of Hibiki for me and why I fell in love with this show and keep loving more the time goes on. Like those real-life professions, Oni do not have to be on-hand all the time, and they can actually have time off and while this specifically isn't gone into, the framing of Takeshi is as such that I could easily see the likes of sick days and mental health issues being covered for. It's an organisation which lets these superheroes live lives that allows them to be the confident comfortable characters they are -- like, fun fact; you know those oni notes you sometimes see throughout the show? We at one point see Eiki's, and among his other notes it states his active days on February: 1st - 2nd and 10th - 22nd. This is a superhero who got TWO WEEKS OFF IN FEBRUARY. That's just utterly mind-boggling and something that I can't imagine happening in any other piece of media in the genre!

Like, even Hibiki, right? Compared to the likes of Agito or W, is he special or unique in his powers and abilities in any way that there's something only he'd be able to do? Well, he definitely appears to be one of the more adept Oni, at least within his region. He's one that the other Oni feel they can rely on a lot more, who is a teacher to many around him, and constant training has allowed him to gain a seasonal power-up. ... So, basically the thing that's special about Hibiki in all this is that he's a duty manager! He's got more responsibilities and abilities than his average co-worker and will take the lead in multiple situations, but ultimately if he were to be unavailable one day; it's not like they'd truly be in danger and it's clear there's other Oni that could be relied on. I just really like that this is a show where it feels like Todoroki could phone in and say he wouldn't be able to work next week, so Takeshi just checks their schedules and asks Sabaki or Danki to cover his workload and Todoroki could make up for it another time. It's a huge part of what makes this show so cosy and laidback compared to most other superhero shows.


And this is why I like the movie, too -- because it shows how it got to that point. It shows what the Oni of the past struggled with; how their lone wolf natures constantly worked against them, how ostracization from the people hurt them, how a lack of support led to the evils of the world gaining so much power and even turning one of their own against them because the world brought so many tragedies upon him he had nothing left. I could go into so much detail about Kabuki alone at some point by the by, he's easily one of my favourite movie riders and in a franchise that hands out redemption like candy, this is one of the few characters I could believably see being redeemed and it amazingly never happens. Regardless, this is why it's such a good movie to me -- it's about overcoming evil by banding together and essentially creating a support network for each other; winning each other's trust and allyship in a way that leads to a new era where Oni don't have to be afraid of the world or each other or of anything, really. And there's a thousand stories like that in Toku, it's part of why I love the genre; but what makes this one truly special and what makes it stand out to me is that we see that beautiful new era, that shining future where everything's better in every single episode of Kamen Rider Hibiki. As backstory movies go, thematically this one is simply phenomenal. Helps that it's pretty fun, too!