[AkibaSilver]

Kamen Rider Fourze Episodes 37 & 38: Selecting the Star Pupil & And The Winer Is...



So Switchblade, bless her, has been warning me since I started about Yuki's slow slide into madness, and I think I finally hit the point of no return. We've had Hayabusa, we've had the Hayabusa song, and now we have her praying to the rocket gods. And I don't think it helps that I'm kinda struggling to see her role in the series at this point? When we started off, she was Gentarou's oldest friend, the positive ball of energy to Kengou's scientific know-how and the one he could relate to the most. But now, the show has moved over to Kengo and Ryusei as his closest allies (because 2012 boys show) and with the rest of the KRC are much more clear roles, I think the show's leaning on her most manic ditzyspace-obsessed traits because what else is there, besides maybe being "Gentarou but a girl we guess"? Even this episode only uses her as an annoying force, with the conflict being mainly betwee Elleen (Erin?) and Gentarou's POVs of Yuki. It's not great use of what is ostensibly our main heroine, and I do think a flaw of Fourze in general in how it uses the secondary cast.

I do like that the show makes use of its space theming a little more, and I was quoting bits of Deep Space Homer to myself occasionally during the training (Elleen has big Frank Grimes energy). Leo takes some pro-activeness in trying to kill Gentarou for being a goofball and hugging the big bad of the series, which is something for him to do, so I take it. The Elleen / Gentarou plot is nice enough, and it's cool to see a respectful final-duel between the two, but that might be in spite of Yuki rather than because of her.