[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 35 - “NEW ARRANGEMENT: FLYING ROSE”

The Super Fangire never coheres as a villain, despite an early-episode twist.

I think this subplot was never really about her or the mad scientist despite them driving it, but rather Shima, who seems to be pretty strongly against working with Fangires. It's rare that we get to hear his opinion on stuff outside of managing Wonderful Aozora.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It ends with a bunch of CGI nonsense, and I’ll never ever care about that. It’s sloppy, and overstuffed, and it lacks a throughline.

I would like to talk about what Flight Style represents for Wataru's arc though. This is what I meant earlier regarding how Emperor Form isn't at its full power yet and this is another step towards reaching that potential, which was significant enough for Maya to detect it from her cave. It's thematically appropriate as well, since conventional vampires are capable of transmogrification in to bats. There's still more to see of Emperor Form!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

All of that would be forgivable if I thought the show landed its big Bloody Rose moments, but I don’t think it does.

And I like some of it a lot. A lot. The idea of Wataru playing the song his dad always plays, and then adding more music of his own to the end of it… brilliant. Such a perfect encapsulation of Wataru’s journey, and a lovely visualization of how Wataru draws strength from his absent father. Incredibly touching, and a thrillingly constructed scene.

It just… it just doesn’t connect to the rest of this story at all.

Wataru’s dilemma in this story wasn’t that he lacked direction, or that he couldn’t live up to his father’s legacy, or that he couldn’t feel his father’s presence in his life. That’s all general Kiva stuff, but it’s nothing that was going on in the last two episodes. What was going on in the last two episodes was that Wataru had his heart broken, and he was pretending everything was fine. Bloody Rose cracked because he was denying his pain. But this episode has the resolution to that problem be a random confession to Taiga in the middle of the episode, and makes the emotional climax something that could’ve landed at the end of nine or ten other stories. It’s nothing specific to this story, and that sucks. It makes a huge emotional breakthrough from Wataru into something generic and perfunctory. It’s a beautiful moment that feels haphazardly shoved into this episode.

I haven't really thought about it before, but I suppose the Bloody Rose story does seem a little tangential to pretty much everything about the Wataru/Mio/Taiga triangle, even if that was the catalyst for it. I think it's still a good story though, for how it allows Wataru to make more progress in getting closer to Otoya and understanding something new about himself. But yeah, I suppose it might be at the expense of the main plot, as you say, since even Wataru's confession to Taiga about his feelings for Mio is just a small thing that sets up the next part. Taiga's not going to step aside when he believes so strongly in his birthright.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

emotionally-repressed teenagers

Plural? Mio fits the description, but the only other main character who's a teen here is Shizuka and she doesn't seem very emotionally-repressed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Just shoddily constructed. Some good ideas, but clumsily executed. If this was how they wanted to address some of these themes, I’d’ve rather they stuck to the romantic melodrama.

Personally, I enjoyed this episode for what it was, but if your judgment is that it needed more of Inoue's classic romantic melodrama, then I can totally agree with that!

BTW, what do you think of 2008 Maya's gothic hermit fashion sense?

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

I wonder how Taiga felt about Wataru having that suspiciously Kiva-looking emblem on Wataru’s bike.

Maybe he assumed Wataru was a Kiva fan like Kengo. Or maybe he didn't notice, like how Nago didn't notice Kivat rotated 180 degrees, or how people never notice Tridoron under the SCU emblem. People in this franchise can be very unobservant sometimes.