[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 38 - "ERLKING: A MOTHER-SON REUNION”



INOUE FOREVER.

This one had it all, man. Heartbreaking drama! Hilarious comedy! Secret siblings! Rider team-ups! New Zealand-born actor Kerry Bishe revealing herself to be not only King of the Fangires, but also some sort of dark Kiva! I paid for the entire seat, but I only used the edge!

It's not one that's expressly about anything (I mean, beyond the regular Kiva themes of parents passing their traumas down to their children, or how difficult it can be to find identity in the world your parents built, or the ways systems ignore feelings in favor of results) but WHO CARES when there's so much to enjoy in this episode.

I almost don't know where to start, since this episode was packed with incident. I guess maybe we can start with the confirmation that Maya is Wataru's mother? And the revelation that this confirmation also means that Taiga is Wataru's half-brother?

It's something that had been rattling around in the back of my head for the last couple days, the connection of Taiga to Maya and (possibly) Wataru to Maya, and the transitive property leading me to Secret Siblings. It's a tough idea to even grapple with, since it comes maybe four seconds after Wataru and Maya meet for the first time since she left him as a child. (Like, I really hope the show at least nods in the direction of an adult who was responsible for a maybe six year-old Wataru. Jiro didn't show up until last week! Shizuka was maybe four months old! Unless Shizuka is some sort of immortal pre-teen? Is she from some weird pixie race? Have I ruined Episode 39 by mistake?!) But it's a firehose of reveals in this episode, so why not keep adding stakes and connections to this plot?

It's maybe the most I've been into the final act of a series arc in... god, a long while. Blade, maybe? Everything in this story is personal-sized, everything feels intimately connected to Wataru. Whether it's his family, or his romance, or his species, or his claim to the Fangire throne, every new reveal adds more complications for Wataru. Everything seems designed to unsteady Wataru, and that makes every episode more exciting than the last.

And while the Taiga/Wataru Secret Sibling thing doesn't really get a lot of room to be explored this episode, Maya's ill-fated Bring Your Sons To Work Day reunions are fantastic. Fantastic.

While every plot point spokes off of Wataru's character, it's really an episode to look at Maya. We get to see her feelings of superiority in 1986, as she taunts King with her infidelity. We get to see her joy at a visit from Taiga in 2008, even as he's disgusted by her fall from grace. We get to see her horror at Wataru's joyful reappearance, since everything she's done for the last god-knows-how-long was to keep him safe, and he has made them all incredibly unsafe. And then we get to see her in 199X, tearfully telling her son that he has to live by himself in his dead (?) father's house, and that he needs to forget about her for his own safety.

It's an emotional roller-coaster, and Maya nails every hairpin turn. There's this flirtatious teasing in her scene with King that could not be further from her chastened regret in the cave, which couldn't be further away from her raw anguish under the surface of firm instruction that she shows to Wataru as she leaves him for years. This is an episode that is asking an actor to basically carry multiple huge reveal scenes on her goddamn back, and she never falters. It's intense performance after intense performance, and it was a gift to watch.

The thing is, this was also the episode where Nago maybe became the series MVP for comedy? He's killer in this, as much a bravura performance in comedy as Maya had in drama. The basic idea, that Nago wants to coach Kengo because that makes Nago feel powerful again, it's fine. It's the sort of story we've seen play out before, most recently when Nago discovered that Wataru was Kiva. If Nago can't have glory, he will make do with reflected glory. (I know that Nago's saying he wants to be Kengo's coach, but this type of plot has real That's My Son stage-dad sort of vibes to it. It reads as a type of controlling parent, which keeps it firmly inside Kiva's discussions on parenting and imparting lessons.) So Nago trying to make Kengo subservient to him, sure, that tracks.

But Nago showing up with matching t-shirts that spell out Nago-san in numbers (complete with IXA Knuckle at the waist and IXA helmet on the back!), and then badly coaching Kengo while IXA defeats a Fangire? Both of those scenes are brilliant, Top-5 Kiva Scenes material. It's HBV level good, you guys. (The gag of Nago coaching Kengo to do one thing, and then Kengo doing the exact opposite thing, I lost it.) There's a maniacal dedication to Nago's character that is only now allowed to be played for intentional laughs. He's completely pathetic here, and it's the most I've ever liked him. The facial expressions! They are all so good!

This whole episode worked for me, and it worked gangbusters. All of the big reveals had unpredictable payloads (Maya tries to embrace the evil son and pushes away the good son!), nearly every character had a thrilling moment (Weird Uncle Jiro trying to slap some sense into Wataru! Yuri realizing that it's never going to work between her and Otoya!), and so many scenes had unnecessarily beautiful establishing shots. (You don't need to have a skywriter spelling out 2008 when it's a scene with Wataru and Mio! That's the only year they're ever in! Also, I can't believe Maya was given a 2008-vintage wine! That is maybe more inhumane than her disfigurement!) It's a truly exceptional episode, befitting its status as one of the most pivotal in the series.

I'm really loving this show right now. Inoue forever.



p.s. If I'd been watching this show last year, I absolutely would've paid $43 for a Nago-san shirt from Premium Bandai. Easy. No hesitation.