[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 39 - "SHOUT: TARGETED BROTHER”



Maybe my favorite final act for any Kamen Rider ever. I've liked Kiva as a series, but I love the show right now. Literally every episode is better than the one before it, and the one before this one was transcendent.

Some of it is in the general approach of an Inoue Rider show, and some of it is in the specificity of the characters.

The general approach stuff... Inoue likes to talk about systems, and how they don't account for individual choice. They provide a strict framework that can't stand up to the messiness of existence. They're good in theory, bad in practice. But we live in a world of systems, so what do we do about that? Do we destroy them, since they're so ill-suited to our true desires? Or do we work within them to bring about change, risking becoming the very thing that was hurting us? Do we work towards integration, or do we try to win a war?

Inoue's answer is frequently that you can't think at that scale, or you'll go crazy. You can't think about your actions as something that would sway a society. You need to be true to yourself, just like everybody else, and hope that something positive will come from your example. Trying to control or destroy systems is a sucker's bet. Living your life as a good person, and finding some way to wring a little happiness out of the endeavor, that's the best any of us can ask for.

It's a smaller-scale look at heroism, and a more pragmatic one than I assume most tokusatsu fans are looking for. It's acknowledging that the world is a series of interlocking systems that one person isn't going to alter, but a caring society can incrementally improve through individual actions. We make ourselves better, and then we make each other better, and then we make society better. That's it. That's all we can really do.

So, an episode that starts sketching out those themes? I love it. I love when I can feel Inoue start to make his point. The structure of the series, a hundred little choices, end up revealing a diagram that has built our hero into something that reflects us as people, in a show that reflects us as a society. That's my favorite part of an Inoue series.

And, god, to do it with this much precision, through characters this complex and compelling? You guys. It is not my birthday until November.

The last episode was wall-to-wall revelations, and this one is all of the consequences. It's all of our characters trying to deal with what they learned last time, and discovering that they can't all get what they want. Having an entire episode where Wataru is let down and betrayed by nearly everyone in his life would seem like a bummer, if it weren't for how hard the show has worked to get everyone to this point.

It starts with Wataru, who is as sweet as ever. While he's initially mopey about his new Fangire heritage, his mother (or a vision of his mother?!?!) reminds him that his culture isn't more important than his identity. He's a human, and a Fangire, and the son of Otoya, and the son of Maya, and a Fangire prince, and a Kamen Rider. But all of that is incidental, things he didn't ask for or couldn't choose. He's Wataru, and that's the part that matters. To fall back on the old Inoue Tautology that we're probably an episode away from someone actually saying, Wataru Is Wataru. He doesn't become any more or less that based on new information. He can still be who he wants to be, no matter the new circumstances.

With that idealistic confidence, he decides to forge ahead with a new mission: unite the worlds of Fangires and humans. It's a great plan with only a single, minor flaw. Namely, literally no one on the show but Wataru wants that to happen.

Shima's happy to look past Wataru's Fangire blood, since Otoya's blood is also in Wataru's veins. (It is sort of insane to me that no one in the last ten months told Shima that Wataru's last name was Kurenai. It was not a secret! Boss knew it! It's definitely come up before! Maybe Shima was just too focused on the deep consideration he was giving to picking IXA's bearer to bother to ask?) But the second Wataru's like Maybe I'll Use My Power To Unite Our Two Cultures, Shima is picturing the crosshairs on Wataru's forehead.

Taiga, pleased to finally have a brother, hugs Wataru close as he offers him the chance to enslave and devour humanity as a Fangire. When Wataru is aghast at Taiga's offer, and defends humanity, Taiga basically laughs in his face. He's already trying to figure out how to draw out the Fightin' Fangire Spirit from Wataru's weak human exterior.

And Mio! Mio, who Wataru has been trying to protect, also hugs Wataru as she destroys his soul. She's as happy as we've ever seen her, because Wataru's new identity as a Fangire prince is going to help both of them. He just needs to kill Taiga, become King, and everything will work out for them. Easy peasy, Zanvat swingy.

The Mio one hits the hardest, but they're all pretty demoralizing. (I super duper love how the Mio/Wataru part is played by her like a lucky break, and by him like a terminal prognosis.) It's everyone opting for a world of violence and cruelty, and they'll kill the sweet boy fighting for love. Even Mio is basically killing the part of Wataru that she fell in love with. It's this entire show looking at Wataru's hope for everyone getting along, and then deciding the only thing they agree on is that he's wrong.

There's a little hope, though? Megumi and Nago, of all people, refuse to follow Shima's orders, buying Kiva a little time in his fight with IXA. (We are so far from the days of Kengo's friendship with Wataru that the show doesn't even hint at there being any conflict or hesitancy in Kengo. He's totally okay murdering Wataru now!) That also falls apart - because it is that kind of episode - as Bishop unlocks Wataru's Fightin' Fangire Spirit, complete with a cool stained-glass mask piece that the Emperor Form Seihou doesn't even come with so I'm canceling my preorder at site sponsor Tokullectibles. It's a huge, ugly rebuttal to Wataru's hopes, and I'm into it. I'm into this show challenging Wataru's idealism, and really stacking the deck against him. He wants to change the world, but the world isn't built to be changed. But he was able to change Megumi and Nago - by accident, by being himself - and maybe that's a good start.

I can't believe how good this show is right now. It's as addictive to me as any Kamen Rider I've ever watched. It's firing on all cylinders as it tightens the net, if I can mix some metaphors. Absolutely obsessed with what this show is doing as it winds down. Thematic weight and compelling characters? Be still my beating heart.