[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 41 - "LULLABY: RELEASE THE HEART”




When I describe Inoue's work on Kamen Rider as being "accidentally progressive”, thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis is pretty much what I'm talking about.

Like, maybe it's the Pride Month talking, but this whole Otoya/Maya story could easily be read as a story about finding love wherever you want, regardless of society's expectations. Similarly, Wataru's story could easily be read as a story about gender fluidity, and the rejection of binary labels in favor of defining yourself as Yourself. These are stories where characters opt out of impossible choices that don't reflect their truths, instead finding solace in the knowledge that they're following their heart. They love themselves, and that's better than pleasing someone else.

I mostly don't care if I'm reading too much into this episode. I love it, that Inoue's work has these sorts of interpretations available to it. One of his big theses is that Labels Are Dumb, and combining that with his usual passions like Self-Actualization and Systems Don't Care About You gives us these episodes that have some heartwarmingly queer interpretations. It's the sort of story that allows characters to define themselves according to their own feelings, rather than mold themselves into an unwanted shape. Having this sort of big-tent humanism randomly pop up in the same episode where Saga has a flying saucer fleet and Jiro in Garulu Form fails to murder Otoya while they're both bathing, it's such a pleasant surprise. I will always be grateful to Inoue for crafting something I'm able to find such positivity in, even if it's by accident.

It takes a minute to reveal itself, though, which honestly just makes it all the more rewarding. Shima's abysmal leadership causes Kengo to realize that he's been trying to hurt Wataru as a way of covering for his own self-loathing, and I'm not even sure if that's a point in Shima's favor or not. (He basically tells Nago that his leadership style is belittling his employees until they get better or quit, so that dude can just go completely to hell.) It leads to a truly beautiful scene of Kengo trying to mend fences with Wataru, telling him that Kengo only sees him as a human, and would it be okay if they were bros again. It. Is. So. Lovely. It immediately made me forget the last however many episodes of Kengo being a dismissive prick, because him and Wataru are bros. They are. And you can see it on Wataru's face! He is smiling through the tears... as he tells Kengo no. No, they can't be bros, because Wataru can't live as a human.

He has to tell Taiga no as well, in the very next scene. No, he can't join the Fangires. He's saying no to everyone, because they want him to ignore a part of himself. He can't be the human that his friends need, and he can't be the Fangire that his family needs. He's locked himself away from the world because it's full of people who want him to conform to their idea of him.

And then he gets a visit from his mom, in a dream, and it's perfect. She's doing that perfect Kiva thing of letting someone else pass along Otoya's advice to Wataru. Otoya was in love with a Fangire, but he never cared about that label. He didn't love a Fangire; he loved Maya. He loved her soul, and he knew that she loved his soul. The specifics, the way society viewed that love, he couldn't have cared less. And that acceptance, that ability to see past the nonsense of systems to find the truth of a person, that's what made Maya realize that she was really in love with Otoya.

So when she sees her son unable to fit into either the Fangire world or the human world, and how worthless that makes him feel, she imparts that wisdom of his father. Wataru isn't human or Fangire: he's Wataru. Live in the world, and be true to yourself. Don't let anyone make you be anything you don't want to be, and don't let anyone make you feel less than yourself for not adhering to their labels. It's a pep talk that's a million times better than it seemed like it was going to be, because it just side-steps the tokusatsu dilemma in favor of something universal and sensitive. Wataru just needs to stop caring about what the world wants him to be, and find strength in being what he wants to be.

It's just a really beautiful episode. I loved how it wrapped in the Otoya story in such a thoughtful way. We're hitting the end of the show, and this episode clears the air enough to let our heroes fight for what they believe in. Otoya's seen his monster buddies all get turned into roleplay items by King, so he's ready to fight. Wataru's back to believing in himself, and that means opposing Taiga. This feels like a well-earned level-up for our heroes, and it's clearly arriving just when they need it most.

Brilliant episode. Inoue forever.