[Fish Sandwich]

It doesn't ~particularly~ fit this exact episode or anything, but Otoya is at about the right point in his arc that I feel it's time to talk about another of my absolute favorite Kiva songs, This love never ends.

Remember all the times I've said I knew Kiva's characters through the songs before I knew them from the show? Well I think there's a legitimate chance I only like Otoya as much as I do because this was my first impression of him. Like, the overall sound of it is way up my alley, beautifully mixing that poignant violin with the rocking beat in a way that just screams Kiva to me. It's obviously cool that it's Kouhei Takeda is singing it himself. But those lyrics, man! So good! Fujibayashi just goes hardcore on this one, to the point I'm inclined to jokingly say she's my favorite writer for Otoya, except I'm not sure how much that would be a joke?

Obviously the song can only happen by the grace of the show and the hard work that went into that first, but a good character song is all about distilling the raw essence of that character into its purest, most idealized form, and, even more so than usual for Kiva, that's the case with this anthem for Otoya. It's a notably flattering depiction of the guy that gets at the real core of his role in the story as someone who is just genuinely thrilled to be alive and following his passion, and it brings across how big that personality truly is by straight up starting the first and second verses with him dismissing the stories of Icarus(!) and the Tower of Babel(!!) respectively as being totally lame and less grand than the love he shares with... well, with a generalized "you", but I like to think of the song as being specifically directed at Yuri myself, since it's all about how Otoya is willing to become a warrior – to become stronger – for his love, which is very much his story with her. A song about single Otoya definitely would not sound this heroic, you know?

My absolute favorite bit of the lyrics is from the chorus, which starts with this brilliant bit about dying the blue sky a deep red, which is a great use of figurative language to further illustrate how important Otoya sees everything he's singing about as (red being the color of passion and all), but it goes beyond even that. Even though the concept of the song was apparently to essentially be his version of Supernova, this is also kinda Individual-System OTOYA Ver. when you get down to it, except Otoya's irrepressible spirit is so strong it just becomes a unique thing that's entirely his own. So if you remember what I said that family name means, those lyrics make extra sense if Otoya Kurenai's role as Ixa means far more to him for personal reasons rather than for the wishes of the Blue Sky Group, yeah? Maybe I'm overthinking it? It goes to show you how much I love this song, though. Kiva has a great soundtrack! I actually have to remind myself every now and then that This love never ends is one of the songs that didn't make it into the show, because it feels like it deserves to be somewhere.

Getting back to what IS in the show for a second, I have to agree I think the action loses a little something around the point Emperor shows up. The funny thing about Kiva's base suit apparently being a huge strain on Takaiwa is that they had him doing some exceptionally energetic stunts to get across how this is a more bestial Rider than usual, with my particular favorites being the rapid punches he'd always do, and any time he enters a scene hanging down from the ceiling, because he's a bat. And again, those stock footage finishers were genuinely glorious, and the momentum conveyed by the surreal exaggeration of the perspective on his original Rider Kick is simply not going to be beaten by Emperor Form's much more traditional variation. Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot of effort there to make everything look super cool (Garulu Fever makes his sword into a rocket, for example), and we have not run out of finishing moves for me to praise in this show yet, but, yeah, I do think the show struggles a little to keep up the standards it set early on.

Also on the subject of changes to the show's style, this is the first episode where Kivat and Tatsulot do a plot recap instead of the trivia, which is, just like the action, an understandable yet sad change for me. It makes sense to try and keep viewers aware of an increasingly complex plot, but the way early Heisei Rider loved to throw you into the deep end with an out-of-context replay of the previous week's climax was always charming to me, and having a cartoon bat giving unrelated educational fun facts over top of that was once again, a very distinctive element that I would've liked to see continue the whole way through. There are still a few more episodes with trivia before it totally switches over to the recaps, but still, it's a bummer.