[DreadBringer]

Damn... missed some episodes, gotta be some work to do to reply.

Though fortunately I already watched this show, thanks to my country airing it on TV, and did my (almost no reply) own writing starting here.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 1 - ?W?S SEARCH: TWO DETECTIVES IN ONE?

That?s my favorite thing about this premiere, how much it foregrounds the dynamic of Akiko and Shotaro. While the series as a whole is memorable for our two-in-one Kamen Rider, I found myself endlessly delighted by the way Akiko?s snarky self-regard ran up against Shotaro?s performative cool. She?s new in town, and just wants to avoid Encyclopedia Brown But A Junon Superboy Contestant as much as she can. Shotaro?s attempts to be suave and sophisticated just bounce right off her disinterest, while still creating a sense that she?s sort of intrigued by his dedication to helping the people of Fuuto. It?s? like, it could easily come off as grating ? generally no fun when someone shows up to shit all over the star of the show! ? but Akiko?s insults land pretty well on a doofus who could not be less manly or cool if he tried.

Shotaro strives to become a hardboiled detective, hence the name of W's motorcycle, but Shotaro can instead become too tryhard instead for that, as Akiko noted, where she's his boss, (ab)using her authority to get Shotaro to comply for her needs like evicting him. However this behavior of Akiko also led for Shotaro to mistake her for middle schooler, which riles up Akiko further, and revealing that she's the daughter of the Chief that was killed a year ago. Further character reveal for them is that, Shotaro seems to not giving out hard truth by claiming the Chief won't be coming back, while Akiko is obnoxiously curious by shrieking something at something she doesn't know. Despite her bratty traits against Shotaro, Akiko doesn't seem to be all bad here though by her scene greeting some passerby before. The scene also establishes both of them as comedic, over the top expressive characters with Akiko's antics and Shotaro spitting water at revelations.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Shotaro? he?s so great, in how performative all of his noir detective shit is. He?s a child?s conception of a world-weary gumshoe. His office is littered with toys and trinkets. (There?s a wagon full of junk in a corner! He looks like he has his office in a day care!) He?s a kid acting like his idol, to distract from how massively unprepared he is to be a man. It?s charmingly vulnerable, even as it lends immediate credence to Akiko?s frustration with him. Like, he sort of sucks at making a case for himself, while constantly demonstrating both his dedication to helping the people of Fuuto, and his analytical prowess. He?s a great detective in the body of a child that wants to come off like a great detective.

Shotaro got a clue about Windscale (on a hat) being the place Togawa used to work, but Shotaro is confronted by a cop named Shun Makura for interfering. Wanting to be hardboiled, Shotaro snarks back to him even refering to Makura as 3rd rate cop, escalating a fight. However it only makes them seem like cat and dog in front of Mikio Jinno, a senior detective. Shotaro got photos as more clues, while suspecting that it's related to Dopant, to Akiko's dismay of not knowing about it, even choking Shotaro with her slipper to force him to explain. To make it better for Shotaro there, Akiko doesn't actually wear her slippers, she wears sneakers. Shotaro calls Phillip for further investigation but the Magma Dopant actually appears, with Shotaro escaping and insisting Akiko to stay home for safety. Shows that Shotaro is equipped with detective gadgets like grappling hook.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

And, hey, speaking of Actual Children, it?s Philip! (Of all the cast, I would actually believe he?s in middle school. Shotaro?s insulting the wrong cast member!) He?s a fun source of mystery here, but not exactly a fleshed-out character. For what little time is spent on him, though, he?s a fun third part of the equation. He?s the exact opposite of Shotaro ? all id, no ego. He pursues his passions without caring what anyone thinks of them. It makes for a fun balance with Akiko?s audience-surrogate curiosity and Shotaro?s generally-embarrassing Dashiell Hammett cosplay. Collectively they?re all kind of a formidable team? Sort of?

Phillip is someone focused on explaining and gaining knowledge, asking for Akiko to not interfere while he's focused, and he's interested in learning new topics, but the ones he'd view as interesting, but not for those he already knows. He can get distracted to learn about takoyaki from Akiko's talk however, to Shotaro's dismay. Other than comedic moment there, so far Akiko holds back the case solving in 2 occassions in Shotaro and Phillip's (here) scenes and I get the division of her opinion comes from of her being hindrance. Shotaro finally explains about Dopants to Akiko, while confirming that there are sales about Gaia Memory. After very lengthy octopus explanation, it's revealed how the detectives work, Shotaro gives the keywords to Phillip, while Phillip searches for further information with Gaia Library, possessing seemingly endless information dump.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

But it?s really Philip and Shotaro who have to combat the forces of evil, leading to the debut of Kamen Rider W. It?s one of my all-time favorite designs ? the split vertical shape, the green/black/gold/purple motif, the scarf, THE SCARF ? and the debut makes it suitably memorable. (I mean, the modern-day debut, I guess. The prologue sequence almost feels like a tease, for how hilariously EXPLOSIVE it is.) It?s that killer catchphrase, wedded to a sense of investigative justice, all wrapped up in form changes and a (clunkily-animated) Rider Kick. It?s a little showy, you know? The show makes it feel like W arriving isn?t just a savior to innocents or a thrilling climax, but the successful solution to a mystery. It?s W as AHA moment, and that feels nicely unique to this show.

At Windscale however, Togawa is revealed to be the exact Magma Dopant, injecting the Gaia Memory in a spot of his body to change. Shotaro henshins into W CycloneJoker, using the pronoun "we", as he invites Phillip to get into battle. With the Riders being 2 person in 1, it employs both methods of using the Rider Belt the franchise is known; Shotaro wearing it manually (like Faiz), and the belt materializing around Phillip (original KR), and Phillip falls unconscious when they henshin, with confused Akiko taking care of his body. I also like about how the form's logo appears when they henshin/change forms, with W using CycloneJoker and then changing into LunaJoker (which can stretch right limbs like rubber) as Magma Dopant gains upper hand over his range.

Shotaro supplies W's weapons, while Phillip supplies W's powers, and the weapon side is the left part of W, accurately referenced in Shotaro's surname Hidari, which means left. W ends the fight with Maximum Drive attack Joker Extreme, though not that flashy, still a neat idea of literally splitting W's body into both halves for.. doubled finishing kicks, double the damage. Dopants fight wouldn't kill the humans using it, it'll revert them back to human while wrecking their Gaia Memory. However, Togawa is then taken by a T-Rex Dopant, and RevolGarry from the secret room emerges, taking Akiko and Philip along.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I wish I could explain how bizarre it was to enjoy Akiko's high-energy antagonism and broad mugging. It's all the shit I usually hate in Kamen Rider, but now... I don't know, it really clicked with me? And it's not even in the sense of With Later Context, because boy did I not find myself missing Akiko when she rolled up in Girls Remix. She never worked for me on my first viewing, and she SUPER didn't work for me by the end.

The more surprising one to me would be you finding Akiko annoying previously, cuz throughout your watches you do enjoy these kind of high energy antagonism characters, like the plethora of bratty childs from phase 1 Heisei, and how you like Nico (she's even worse as she goes towards morally ambiguous territory, being another Rider starting out as anti-heroic), while the one you dislike would be more of the "wooden" "boring" lack of high energy stuff. Of course I gotta know you'd like Akiko based on previous that.

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Originally Posted by DreamSword

Akiko was and still is what made is hard to really sink my teeth into act one of W. It's alot easier nowadays thanks to the power of hindsight, but yeah, when I first watched it all those years ago, the early parts of the show felt pretty rough to me, so we'll see how much that impression holds up assuming I get to continue rewatching the show.

Well, I guess even I do think she's more unbearable at this stage compared to later on, even though I don't think she's as bad as some people make it out to be (thanks to watching the brats in phase 1 Heisei or something like Nico). Dunno if I'm surprised or not that she's often nicer when not riled up (well... and Shinpei and Onari is someone as nice as many primary Riders) and does actively help the clients and people (more than Philip), while Nico (someone usually brought up to compare with) only does so at near the end (like characters such as secondaries), so overall she feels more like type B tsundere characters (e.g. Amy Rose).

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

As far as first episodes go, I think W's premiere is one of the all-time greats. It's relatively rare that we start with an established Rider instead of someone getting the belt for the first time, but it has some advantages. We do get a bit of Begins Night to start with, but mostly we're looking at a Shotaro whose fully realized as a detective and a Kamen Rider, with Akiko serving as the audience surrogate who's just seeing this world for the first time. I like this because it allows the show to focus more on the mystery and how Shotaro and Philip handle their cases, saving the recap of how they first met for later. It's a better primer for W's premise.

Yeah it'd be rare, though not W's distinct thing to have experienced protagonist. I do wish that sometimes there can be more experienced and moral protagonists rather than the newcomer everyone looks down upon. Though neither approach is good or bad, just perhaps having a moral and experienced protagonist may will have the message of these shows appreciated better rather than being dismissed by audience. Though even then Shotaro too is made fun of being half-boiled, another case of moral victim as it's done due to his innate compassion regardless of tryhard nature.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

That's why Shoutarou has that line about punishing anybody who would make the city cry. Of course, a city cannot cry in the literal sense, but figuratively, Fuuto is composed of the people who live there, so it's still alive in its own way. Like, there'd later be Saber's story about saving lives vs saving the world and how those lives are what make the world worth saving, which I think is even more at the core of this show's theme. Double being powered by the wind of the city is cool symbolism, as well as a pretty unique reference to the original Kamen Rider and giving a clear image of Shoutarou's type of heroism, while his co-protagonist Phillip's more mysterious and a self-proclaimed devil for now.

It's Shotaro's take of "want to protect others' smiles" but kinda in opposite version, about not making people cry instead. For Philip, at the beginning he can be anti-heroic, with his "logical" ideas can involve something pragmatic and ruthless, but that doesn't seem to be brought up often unlike secondary Riders that also share equal dynamic to the lead Riders. Seems that lighthearted stuff made people think everyone in the cast is squeaky clean but just "quirky", if they have goofy interactions or such, not even Philip only but also people like, the Taros in Den-O, or Banjou in Build. And it's understated that Shotaro also acts like, his anchor by this to disagree with those ideas.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Honestly, I like Akiko as the cheerful and goofy heart of the team, like Mei for SOL. When you're literally sharing a body with another dude, teamwork is pretty important, way more important for Double than any other Rider. They have to be in sync in both mind and body for every fight, but Shoutarou's impulsiveness and Phillip's stubbornness can often cause them to clash. Akiko, being the daughter of a man who Shoutarou and Phillip both respect, in addition to having a surprising empathetic side, makes her a strong mediator necessary for resolving their conflicts. Also, her slipper is an iconic weapon.

I brought up Akiko in Saber thread before to you when talking about Mei (about her being similar to Mei yes), but you didn't address those (particularly about Mei's admiration of Rintaro part) so didn't know. I understand that Mei is the heart as she's even more optimistic than Touma, for W though, Shotaro is the certified heart of the team, it's what acknowledged by his companions like Philip much later on, and also what transforms a hate-filled men like Terui into someone fighting for love of Fuuto. And despite above, I think Shotaro and Philip typically gets along well and interact in pleasant manner, they almost never got into intense fights. Dunno if Akiko also ranks up high/peak among heroine list like Mei, of which, I wondered why do you think the bar of heroines (not female Riders) is low.