[Switchblade]

A thread for ragging on Kiva? I love ragging on Kiva!

I'll echo most of your complaints, dreamcastegirl. Kiva is a show that has some good ideas on paper that it rarely, if ever effectively realized in action. My two biggest issues with the show are as follows:

Wataru is just plain awful. People rag on Ryotaro all the time for being a wimp, but I think he's by far the more heroic protagonist. Wataru is aggravatingly passive. He almost never takes initiative, only leaps into action when the violin on the wall tells him to, and then spends the rest of his time moping, bathing, and moping while bathing. The only time he really seems to be working on his own impetus is late in the series when he decides to erase himself from time because his girlfriend died. I sometimes think of him as being kind of like Shouichi, in that both of them only go off into battle when their Kamen Rider sense starts tingling, but Shouichi has a more complex relationship with his abilities and actually does stuff when he's not in the suit. I am also an introvert, so I can relate on the surface to Wataru's passive nature. I am also not the main hero of an action tokusatsu because I am not temperamentally suited for it, which is Wataru's big mistake.

The other thing that kills the show for me is that it seems to be deathly allergic to the concept of explanation. There is so much stuff that happens on this show for no apparent reason. Some of these are merch related - there's a baby Castle Doran because there's a toy of it, I will grant you that much. There is so much in the plot that never gets a reasonable explanation, though. Yuri and Maya, definitely massive examples of that. Where the hell did Tatsulot come from? Why is he living inside the walls of Castle Doran? Why did he suddenly break out when Wataru had a temper tantrum? None of this is ever covered. Even smaller plots, like why is Wataru channeling Otoya for an episode - never explained. It's really frustrating to watch the show because there are so many times when it just throws shit at you and expects you to roll with it like it all makes sense.

(Ironically, that's part of why I liked the Kiva arc of Zi-O. The whole Kamen Rider Ginga thing was a perfect homage to Kiva being unexplained gibberish. Also, manhole cover serial killer is my favorite original character on the entire show. That woman knows what her bit is and she is 100% committed to it.)

Finally, let me add one more thing because you glossed over him in your post and that's not fair to the character. Kengo is absolutely fucking terrible, not just once but in two separate, equally awful flavors.