[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 12 - "FIRST GIG: GOLDEN SPEED”



What a weirdly straightforward episode of Kamen Rider Kiva. I just had to go check the wiki to make sure there wasn't a fill-in writer for the concluding part of this story. Nope, still Inoue, just... not trying real hard?

While last episode was a whirlwind of new characters, new careers, and new IXAs, this one felt like it was all about being as uncomplicated and predictable as it could be. Multiple threads from the last episode conclude with a perfunctory shrug and/or wrap up in a way where no one really has to learn any lessons or challenge themselves to improve.

Like, Wataru and his new career in Ikemen. (I honestly hope they keep the name. I love the idea of a four-piece band named Handsome Boys, where one member is a teenage girl and another member is a woman who works as an actual model.) His arm gets hurt in his previous battle with IXA, and he tries to keep it a secret from Kengo. That seems like it could be a big deal (Kengo smartly refuses to let Wataru's obvious deflections slide), but then when Nago exposes Wataru's injury, there's no blowback from Kengo? It's just What Other Role Can Wataru Have In The Band, it's suggested he sing, now he's the new singer. There's nothing Wataru does at any point in that plot! It's 100% other people acting on him, and he's just, like, present for it. Even the big conclusion, him deciding to sing... it's literally just him deciding to sing. There's no additional strength he draws on from the lessons in this story; no personal growth that culminates in some newfound self-esteem. He's just, like, confident as a singer now. It feels disappointingly unearned, which is sort of par for the course with this one.

Yuri's story is another version of this, where all of her anger and self-deception (including an incredibly fun date montage with a rapidly overwhelmed and terrified Otoya) culminates in her begging Zanki - in the rain - to be IXAlso. He responds by chastising her, then getting hospitalized, which is pretty much the greatest way to get out of turning someone down for a favor.

See, Zanki got picked by Shima to be IXAlso because the IXA System is janky AF, and using it is going to keep harming its users until W.A.K.E.U.P. figures out how to, uh, make it stop doing that. Until then, Shima is more comfortable feeding it randos like Zanki than all-stars like Yuri. It's because Shima respects her so much, and wants to honor her mother, that he's keeping Yuri from being IXAlso yet.

As explanations go, it's fine. I made half a joke about Shima picking Nago to be IXA specifically because it could/would kill him, and that's pretty much exactly the reasoning he used in 1986. It's still a little patronizing (if Shima really respected Yuri and her mom, he'd've just told Yuri it was dangerous and let her make up her own mind), but it's grounded in real consequences and established paternal relationships. It's minorly a bummer, but not a dealbreaker.

The bigger problem is that it's a story that's been putting Yuri through a very specific wringer: she needs to be IXAlso more than anything in her life, and that sort of obsession is intensely troubling. (She even does a Nago callback at Zanki when he declines to quit, telling him she never wants to see his face ever again. Seriously, everyone: if you find yourself saying Nago things unironically, you have emotional issues that need to be addressed.) It's a plot that is nearly breaking her, and then the conclusion is taken entirely out of her hands. Like Wataru, the choice is made for her, and she's just present for it. We don't get to see her confront her obsession, or really deal with what it means to have your dream given to someone else. She's just, like, Yay Men at the end of the storyline, and that's super disappointing.

At least she gets it better than Megumi, who never even once in this episode mentions IXA or Nago or any of it. She shows up to play bass and get used as bait, and that's... it is not my favorite Megumi episode, you guys. There's no more examination of her need to follow in her mother's footsteps, which is an absence that harms her story (in that she doesn't have one now) as well as Yuri's (there's really nothing about mothers and daughters in this episode). It's like Megumi got half a story. She's able to complain about not getting IXA, sometimes hilariously, but then it's like she never wanted it at all. It's a weird omission.

And then there's the IXA/Kiva rematch, which... yeah, not a fan? It's another aggressively straightforward conclusion to the story, where Kiva beats IXA by just basically being stronger than him. There's a new Whistlestle that dispenses CGI Horse Armor for Kiva's bike, which lets it do cool tricks in a tunnel, but that's about all that's even slightly unexpected or clever about this fight. (Also, man, a Kamen Rider bike race where one of the bikes is completely fake? It's like this episode is trolling me.) It's just... Kiva just beats him. Cold. They do simultaneous Rider Kicks and IXA loses. Even Nago's like Wait I Just Totally Lost Clean. It's a disinterested shrug of a conclusion, where Kiva's victory isn't because of cunning or spirit, and IXA's loss isn't because of Nago's innumerable personality flaws. One guy was just stronger than the other. The end.

It's an episode full of uninspired decisions like that. No one really learns anything or works hard. Fights go how you'd think, and everything pretty much works out for the people it should work out for. Usually without them really doing anything to improve their chances, but like, whatever, I guess. There's some nice performances (I really love how Nago can be a gracious and genuine human being as long as he is in the afterglow of proving his dominance; immediately afterwards he's setting coworkers up for monster kidnappings) and I liked the few lines of dialogue Kengo got (I cannot say enough about how excited I was for Kengo to push Wataru to be honest as a friend), but this whole episode needed at least one twist to it. As it was, there's almost nothing here to be shocked or surprised by, and very little of the fun vibes of the previous part to make up for it.

Pretty big drop from the last episode for me. A letdown, for sure.