[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 43 - "WEDDING MARCH: A TIME OF PARTING”



Maybe the worst episode of Kamen Rider I've ever seen?

I hesitate to ever call a piece of art Bad. Bad's an objective term for something that's inherently subjective. So, no, I don't think this was necessarily Bad. If someone out there found value in it, awesome. For me, it was bereft of merit, an almost stunningly inert and misguided attempt at telling a story about love and sacrifice.

I hated watching this. It's disappointing in a way that's worse than all of the weirder problematic decisions Inoue might make in the course of a show, because this wasn't some huge swing that fell apart because it was too singular, or too unprecedented. It didn't invite debate or condemnation. It's just shoddily done, with a half-dozen decisions that undercut whatever it's been building towards, at exactly the wrong moment. Like, god, if I weren't the type of person to follow through on a series, this would've been my last episode of Kiva. It mortally wounds the show, robbing me of any confidence that this thing is going to be landed with grace. This episode was so hamfisted and clumsy that I almost can't believe it.

Centering half of the story on Shima, a character the show never spent time on, and then letting Taiga kill him off to anger Wataru... why? Why make such a huge deal about Shima's views on Fangires, when it's never felt relevant to a story? We never really got the feeling that Shima was anything more than a soldier. The last couple episodes have tried to reinvent him as a genocidal fanatic, but that's super recent and barely explained. His backstory with Taiga would maybe enhance it, but it's just never given the specificity and history to come across as anything other than some late-game retcon. When the show previously wanted to tell a story about a fanatical good guy who realized that Wataru was more than just his Fangire heritage, they chose Nago, so it mattered and it worked. To contrive this ridiculous story about Shima, all to say nice things to Wataru (a kid he had maybe four scenes with in the entire series), and then get killed by Saga in the middle of the episode... it doesn't work! It's too rushed, too inconsequential. It's a waste of time.

But Mio's death... man, that was a failure of storytelling that was consistently funny, right up until I realized they ruined the show.

The staging on all of the Mio and Taiga stuff was surprisingly tone-deaf and amateurish. That wedding! What in the hell was going on with the directing where that wedding scene wasn't completely reshot! Taiga looks ridiculous, like instead of hosting a vampire-themed wedding, he just decided to dress up like Dracula at a normal wedding, but he would not spend more than $25. The Fangires were always vampire-influenced, but this is just sad. I expected more weirdness from a man who henshins into a snake-UFO-cathedral. His costume here was shockingly basic, and that lack of imagination filtered down into everything in that scene. For a wedding that was supposed to unite the Fangires, why aren't any of them there? I know this is the two of them, like, eloping, but why is Bishop skulking around instead of actively participating? How is this even a ceremony if no one's there to see it? The show made a huge deal about how this event would solidify Taiga's reign as King, and to not even have that addressed was disappointing.

It was a scene I was laughing at (TAIGA'S HAIR!!!), and that just kept going when Mio just up and stabs Taiga in the guts. The little blue blood that comes out of the wound, and Mio staring at her hands, and her screaming I'M SORRY... I laughed hard. Nothing about the score or the acting contained even a trace of subtlety or nuance, and it could easily pass for parody. I loved Mari in Faiz, and this level of work is beneath that actor.

It's all so broad, this entire episode. It's big melodramatic moments that feel completely untethered from the dramatic stakes of the show, and are working in a totally different cadence than what Kiva has been using for the last 42 episodes. Worse, it's really all stuff that only matters in how it affects Wataru, and he's mostly sidelined in this episode. Shima doesn't exactly mean anything to him personally, so the one scene they have was, like, Tell It To The Dog. Tell that dog you were proud of him, because that relationship is established. The Mio/Taiga wedding should be a huge deal to multiple characters, but a) Wataru never even finds out about it, and b) it's treated like the third-most important subplot in this episode. It's something the show has been building towards literally since Taiga's debut, and then all of a sudden it's some weird thrown-off moment.

Nominally, it explains Mio's decision at the end of the episode, but I didn't buy that for a single second. Taiga's decision to spare her made sense. This is a guy who desperately wants to believe that he is loved, even if he has to get his guts pulled out to prove it. He also has based his entire sense of self-worth on being King of the Fangires, so he is heavily motivated to salvage his relationship with Mio. (Also, trying to kill your loved ones is a pretty big part of Fangire culture, so maybe this didn't mean the same thing to Taiga as it meant to Mio?) So Taiga denying Mio's attempt on his life? I buy that. I do not buy Mio sacrificing herself to save Taiga for even a fraction of a goddamn second. It's utterly incomprehensible, and I am always willing to give Inoue the benefit of the doubt when it comes to character motivations. Mio hated Taiga! She loved Wataru! Wataru wasn't crazy about her wanting him to kill Taiga, but it's not like they broke up or anything. There's no reason, in this episode, for her to risk her life to save Taiga's. It's a decision that doesn't make sense to me at all.

And now, since she died in process, we'll likely get Wataru feeling monumentally guilty about something that wasn't his fault, and Taiga swearing revenge for something that wasn't Wataru's fault. (Like, Mio doesn't do anything to try to stop this fight before jumping in front of a finisher! She doesn't plead with them first, or anything sensible. She just dives in front of a Wake Up Fever! That is like trying to put out a fire by diving on top of it. Not that helpful!)

It just sucks, as someone who (up until last episode) was really loving how this show was wrapping up. It was doing some smart, character-based storytelling, with empathy and tricky personal dilemmas. Now it's some bullshit fridging, and two men fighting over Their Woman or whatever, and I suddenly couldn't care less about the 2008 storyline. I hate nearly every decision this episode made with those characters. (The Shima/Nago "fight" was great, though. No complaints.)

It bummed me out so much that I can barely muster any enthusiasm for the 1986 stuff. That was generally okay, even if it's sort of rushing through plot developments. Maya hearing Otoya's song while Yuri couldn't was a great touch, but I wish the scene of Maya losing her powers wasn't something that happened without Yuri and Otoya around. It's the same problem I had with the Mio/Taiga wedding, where it's this huge moment the show has been building up to.. and then it just happens in isolation, like it's ticked off of a checklist and that's all that mattered.

God, I hated this episode. I thought the episode of Kabuto where Tsurugi flies home to France was going to be my nadir for Inoue, but it's this episode. Absolutely gutting, if it's not too soon to say that. (Sorry, Taiga!)