[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - HYPER BATTLE VIDEO - THE BIRTH OF GATACK HYPER FORM

Hard to do much more than echo Die's thoughts on this one. It's a Hyper Battle Video that utterly nails what an HBV is meant to be. You get a lot of cleanly delivered exposition on the series, framed around a wacky spin-off plot with a unique gimmick that combines with the recycled clips to give you a good overall idea of what the show is about.

It's especially great how much emphasis it puts on Kagami, even giving him his own Hyper Form, which is notable as the first instance of an exclusive HBV form ever, and it went to Kagami, so in case you needed more proof how central he is to Kabuto, there you have it.

I guess what I'd mostly call out are just all the little things I personally found amusing. I'm a sucker for cutesy talking toy sidekicks in toku, so having the Kabuto Zecter flying around voiced by Tomokazu Seki is just great, and that lecture on all the different Riders with all their personal music tracks playing in such rapid succession was an excellent reminder how much I love TheBee's intense theme. Plus, the lecture itself called attention to Drake's apparent underwater abilities, which made the scuba gear look of his Masked Form suddenly make a lot more sense. See, I even learned something!

There were also some amusing instances of the video's lesser production quality showing through – Hyper Kabuto's transformation is directly recycled from episode 34 to save on that precious budget, and when he later does a Rider Kick, Takaiwa fails to properly close the Zecter back up, resulting in the horn getting stuck, and them just using that footage as though it's not a bad take. I mean, I'm not complaining. If the people making this video were assuming I wasn't here for strict attention to detail, they're entirely correct. I came for some fun gags and a bit of action, and fun gags and action I got.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 36

What really makes that beautiful, deliberately underplayed scene of Tendou and Kagami at the end work so well is just how unflinchingly brutal this episode is for Tendou.

There's a wonderful gravity to him in those final moments, realizing he can't go on the way he's been, and admitting as much to Kagami, because the day he had to get to that point is one of the worst he's ever had. Tendou would have to be insane not to understand that something has to give after what he goes through. Of course he'd come to appreciate the value of having other Riders around after having everything he usually leans on stolen away from him. He can't be the smartest person in the room, because he's surrounded by facts he doesn't understand, and his best friend's dad keeps turning out to be the only person who can outdo him when it comes to evasive answers. He can't even be the measured, confident warrior anymore, because his own Zecter is now running the risk of turning him into a rampaging beast against his own will. Tendou is completely boxed in throughout this story, and I adore it.

The show needs episodes like this, to give him that extra dimension and keep him from being too one-note of a character, and this is a fantastic example of that, with everything imaginable going wrong for him. He's beaten to crap by the end, and still collapses from exhaustion even after managing to pull some modicum of victory out of this trainwreck of an evening. It's a fantastic look at Tendou is a much different, more vulnerable position than usual, going far harder than even previous times he's been shown to be out of his depth.

It's especially helped along by both Mizushima and Takaiwa having such strongly defined performances as Tendou and Kabuto that they're able to turn on their heads, with Tendou being a sweaty nervous wreck and the berserk Kabuto lacking all of the usual grace he fights with. It all leaves exactly the huge impact it should, and it's a great episode because of that. While I remembered the whole Red Shoes concept, once again, basically all of this might as well have been new to me, and, once again, I'm delighted to find myself so entertained by this show... even if I do miss seeing Hiyori's name in the credits each episode.

Yeah, the billing in the opening has been going insane, lately, by the way, as you might expect with the constant shakeups in the cast. Misaki is the third character listed now when she's in an episode, after Tendou and Kagami, but it's really a free-for-all when it comes to who outside of the main duo goes where. Yaguruma in particular has been all over the place in just these past few episodes he's been back, but it's good to see his credit together with his lil' bro, both listed with their edgy new Rider personas now that Kageyama has completed the duo.

They're pretty fun here, especially with all the little inflections Hidenori Tokuyama gives Yaguruma (and more awesome Ishida visuals, of course), but I think Die is better suited to singing the praises of the Hoppers. I can more tell you just how smart I think it was letting them curb stomp Kabuto and Gatack here. Like, obviously the show has a need to shill the new characters and their merch, but these losers so easily defeating the main heroes of the series actually serves nicely to underline how terribly things are going for Tendou and Kagami. Tendou only loses that fight because, technically speaking, he's not even in the fight, thanks to the rampaging Kabuto Zecter.

I thought it was a really great cherry on top of the sundae that is how constantly, majorly, concerningly wrong everything is lately. The show wants to make it seem like things are off-balance in general right now, and it's doing a fantastic job.