[AkibaSilver]

Kamen Rider Fourze Episodes 35 and 36 - "Monster Live on Air" & "Our Last Performance"



I was originally going to open this with a fake Krusty the Clown quote about JK episodes being death, but this one was a lot better than expected. Not perfect, and JK willingly teaming up with a Zodiarts at this point in the series is a choice, but I think the emotions involved mostly justifies it. I remember what it felt like finishing school and moving to uni, and wondering if friendships would last, and how people drifted apart, and this episode is getting at that. Because JK isn't wrong - the KRC is important now, but will it last? Is it wrong to look forward to the future? It's similar to the Shun/Mio episodes previously. There's also something here about familial expectations that isn't super explored, and I like the detail/implication that JK doesn't use his full name because of that family issue. It's more than what I expected to get (JK uses it cause he thinks it's cool (It's not)). The basic music biopic structure works well enough, and a lot of that is hinged on JK having that pre-existing friendship with Capricorn. In his head, he's not selling out to the Zodiarts, he's just defaulting back to older friends. The fact he's even apologetic to Gentarou about leaving the KRC is more than the JK of 30 episodes ago would have ever done. It's still weasel behaviour, don't get me wrong, and not realising the Zodiart's power might be cursed is genius level behaviour, but he's 16.

Relevant to like three messages ago, there's some lore stuff here, as the show remembers to have an overarching plot, and Gamou's looking for the Core Swtch, whatever that is (I was online during 2012, I think I know but won't say). They seem to be building to a rivalry between Meteor and Leo, which is fine, Ryuusei needs something new to do after Jiro came back to life. I'm finding myself in a bind, because generally here, the MOTW stories are way better than any lore, but the longer they keep putting off developing any lore, the less satisfying it's going to end up being. So I wait and see.

And finally, it's incredibly funny that all it takes for the Cosmic Switch to give up is JK breaking up with Gentarou in the politest way possible.