[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Yeah, Kiva's sexual politics is... well, I'll say that I wouldn't argue with Kurona that the show has serious problems with women. There are a lot of different shades of toxic masculinity on Kiva and I don't remember how many of them get refuted and how many get reinforced. I know that the show definitely doesn't play it all up as the correct way to treat women, but I would never call the show feminist.

It's a problem for the show, absolutely. There's an aggressiveness to Inoue's writing style (heightened characterization, comedic cruelty, melodramatic backstories) that can make him be a bit of a bull in a china shop when it comes to certain topics. I don't want to get too out on a limb here, since I'm only on episode 5, but he's definitely creating a lot of intriguing conflicts that have a real-world vitality to them. It's just, once it's got that real-world vitality, you need to make sure you're not just exploiting that energy. It needs to have a message, and that message better be worth the uneasiness of the story choices.

Like, for me, I kind of love that the show is bringing up this sort of stuff? Having a huge thread on the show be Navigating A Mixed-Gender Workplace... like, that is an interesting thing for a kids show to bring up! That is pretty fresh narrative ground for a Kamen Rider show! But, boy, really need the show to have some more awareness of how it's using some of these tropes to keep it all from feeling regressive and exploitative.