[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 12 - “WEAKNESS IS STRENGTH!? THE UNBEATABLE JEANNE!”

Vice was the embodiment of the life Ikki wouldn’t let himself live in the name of being there for his family: adventurous, self-involved, thrill-seeking. Evil was the embodiment of everything Daiji hated about himself: vindictive, jealous, manipulative. Naturally, Lovekov is the embodiment of the parts of Sakura that she thought were weak about herself: unbridled joy, affection, vulnerability. The show’s thesis statement is the hollowness and failure of an unexamined life, so it’s time to see what Sakura’s been keeping from us.

As Sakura's debut becoming Jeanne, yeah, time for the other characters to bring up about Sakura's edgy behavior, with Yukimi stating that she does like to act tough (and confirmed more by her noting that she's obviously anxious, but covers it up by acting mean and provocative to the family), and Ikki approaching her to tell her to drop her tough act (instead of holding her back again). As she's a teen, I guess the show doesn't pull its punches on showcasing teenage puberty in a rather negative light, culminating in her lashing out in bratty-like manner at the beginning (albeit Daiji was also too strict and harsh). The resolution would be, of course, for her to accept reality that she's not unbeatable. A situation where someone is powerful but helpless, showing that one can't solve every problem just by being what they're an expert at, but there's lessons like how one can gain somehow by losing, or there's great value in expanding one's expertise.

By accepting her human weakness she'd open to more improvements, like accepting the power of Kamen Rider in addition to her karate skills so she can properly fight, and gimmick-wise, getting in touch with her demon Lovekov (her name being Japanese syllables of "cobra" - コブラ rearranged backwards), literally showing her weakness to others with Sakura not having any problem for that, just asking others to take care of the literal punching bag.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It all leads to a thrilling action sequence, likely on par with the climax of this weekend’s Beyond Generations. Sakura’s fighting abilities, coupled with the Libera Driver, trounce the rapidly multiplying Deadmans. (Very nice of this story’s bad guy to create so many scrubs for Jeanne to one-shot!) Aguilera’s there to show her support and cheer on her girl, which is adorable. Hiromi's there to randomly mention his backstory and motivation, like he wanted to get it on the record before Sakura overshadowed him for good. Ikki and Daiji are there to show the difference between teammates and siblings in a perfect closing scene. It all wraps up beautifully.

Jeanne of course had to be made the hand-to-hand combatant to make full use of her karate skills, where in comparison previously Gaim had Yoko, a spy combatant, becoming a Rider that mainly relies on bow instead. I do admit that while I expected that, her fighting here does surprass my expectations to make a great debut like what others said, with neat variations of punches and kicks that she gave to the Giff Juniors like juggling one of them to the horde of enemies. Albeit it's not perfect that karate uses strong stances and hard, direct hits. Jeanne turned the battle against bigger horde of Giff Juniors in heroes' favor as a karate master. In the Revice previews, they mentioned Sakura having greater potential than her 2 older brothers.

There's more about Hiromi shown in this episode, that it's revealed that his backstory had him being bullied and hoping for a hero to save him, but there were none, so he became his own hero. Reminds that you better not wait around hoping for something you want but work on it (of course, being successful or not is another matter..). The reveal is very abrupt though in my opinion, Hiromi suddenly talking about his backstory out of nowhere, and like, it's in the middle of fight before henshin, that can left them open to the Giff Junior's attacks. Otherwise, I guess Hiromi resembles Spider-Man as human too, not only as Rider. I guess I didn't see it coming for George's reaction to Jeanne, from his potential excitement of stating that Sakura had a demon inside her, but he's instead enraged here, shouting his way off to Daiji too, and he states that Libera Driver is something he scrapped.

Amahiko lives up to his title as the "savior of Deadmans" where he rises their level by mass producing phase 2 Deadmans, but as usual, he didn't learn about how obsessed Aguilera is with Giff, thus making a joke about becoming Giff himself is a bad idea. That'd mean Amahiko's proper goal is still unknown despite being questioned here. Like usual, she'd ignore words coming from anyone beneath her, continuing from how she's bossy and hates being ordered. Aguilera making a decent point here that happiness can come in many forms, but that probably can be another temptation for Sakura that it's a relief she takes her brother's words instead. And a hint of her backstory as well that she was raised by Deadmans since toddler and apparently "thankful". She's also instead excited at Sakura's performance as Jeanne despite her wiping out one of the larger Deadman squad. Again, this gives me Parado vibe regarding how he interacts with Emu and is interested at seeing him come at the top.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It’s my favorite episode of Revice, and not only because Lovekov finally validated this show’s existence. It leverages every Igarashi kid in interesting and dramatically compelling ways, from Ikki’s pep talk at the playground, to Daiji’s inability to not ruin an emotional moment despite trying to be cool and worthy of respect, to Sakura’s growth into a woman that is okay acting like a girl occasionally. It’s sweet in its portrayal of family, smart in its exploration of vulnerability as a part of a healthy psyche, and glorious in its incorporation of toku action in the midst of all of the above.

I guess Ikki still had some ways to go on putting faith on others, where as shown here, against his parents he tried to claim that Sakura is fine, but actually the parents would also know her better that she's even more despondent as usual that she didn't ask for Yukimi's guidance like she usually does. And now the english name of Igarashi's onsen Happy Spa is also fully canon with Ikki wearing a shirt with that name written. There's a lesson for Daiji as well that him being professional can make him too uptight or even patronizing, against Sakura here, and that he may need to loosen up and acknowledge that something outside of legal can work well, or even better, sometimes law can be on the way to accomplish good instead. Again for Daiji to Sakura, like Daiji and Ikki before, both parties have their share of blame instead of only one having full blame. Other than the rehabilitation Seiko gets, she had to learn here that there are various help you can go for, with she almost giving up on Ryou, like how here, Fenix would be the one to try taking care of Ryou.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I guess I don't see it that way? Sakura strikes me as a fairly normal teenager: someone who had a conception of herself at a young age that doesn't match the woman she's turning into, which is going to be a bumpy road to navigate for a little while. (Tillie Walden's memoir Spinning is a great insight into a young athlete who finds herself less fulfilled in her teens by what was once her passion, and I highly recommend it.) Like, she knows it's weird to only get stronger, but she doesn't know what else she should be yet. That's why she throws herself into these weird conflicts that could get her killed; maybe this is the reason she worked hard to become stronger.

I guess there can be various ways on how teenagers operate, what's realistic or natural shouldn't be conformed into certain things only. I get your interest in her regarding how she incorporates convincing teenage traits (as I wrote above), though this does kinda sound like how you appreciated bratty kid character before. But a behavior being natural and normal doesn't mean that it can't warrantee a criticism from others (but I'd disagree with outright bleak view on whole kids or teenagers due to these stereotypes). Wonder what'd be something actually counts as wrong coming from kid/teenager though.

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Originally Posted by DreamSword

In extension to that, these episodes really had me turning on Mama Igarashi. Her blatant double standard of insisting that Ikki has to go out and save the world despite his own desires, yet telling Sakura that nothing in the show is Sakura's' responsibility despite Sakura wanting to contribute really rubbed me the wrong way. I don't care if it's human, or realistic, or accurate representation of a family unit or not, it's still a double standard and I found it very annoying.

Actually I agree too that Yukimi's behavior doesn't sit well with me here, about her being overprotective to her though she is quite underage. While Yukimi is often a voice of reason with impeccable wisdom, I wouldn't want if anything she does is automatically considered right (+also because she's older figure). And Ikki's behavior is addressed annoyingly by others as a busybody. Though I do get softened on this stance due to later events.

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Originally Posted by Layton13

And it all comes down to how the moral and growth resolves. The show calls her overconfidence childish, so when she starts talking about how she now realizes that she was weak, it feels completely antithetical to that message when she adds right after: "But now that I realise my weakneses, I'm invincibile"

No, you are not invincible, you learned nothing at all!

You are back to square one with your problems and overconfidence with believing yourself strong!

This one line turns the meaning of the arc meaningless and undermines it entirely, because now she is praised for not growing in the slightest!

Sakura being compared with Ren isn't something that I see often... I usually saw Ren being compared with Micchy from Gaim (Ren a.k.a Micchy) if comparison happens. Though Ren has actually performed morally questionable actions from his belief, while Sakura was limited to supporting bad actions. Otherwise, I thought that there are times where characters' problems aren't immediately solved in that one episode, and this is still the beginning of Revice. Though ofc how this is handled before can change things.