[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The thing that's especially fun about Gentarou in the first episode is how he gets across the idea that friendship doesn't mean you have to change yourself to fit in, or ask the other person to change for you. It's just about being open, and valuing yourself and other people. That's some heroic spirit!

Also what makes Gentarou's mission to befriend everybody in school worth doing, as everybody is different and comes with their own challenges and Gentarou loves challenge to engage his strong emotional intelligence. Trying to change Kengo at his core would defeat the point of befriending him.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Geats is my favorite Kamen Rider series, full stop, but I can't ever be that excited about a premiere whose major action sequence is CG. Fun structure to that episode, but definitely not my favorite fight.

Geats is my third favorite Reiwa Rider show, after Gotchard and Saber. Used to be Gavv, but I recently decided Geats deserves it more. I'm not surprised that you didn't totally enjoy the premiere though, since you've always had such high standards for CGI monsters.

Congrats on your 6800th post!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 02 - ?COME ON, OUTER SPACE?

I don?t know that I ever liked Kengo?

He?s certainly way down my list of Favorite KRC Members. (Maybe last? It?s a bit of a toss-up, since I recall that JK didn?t exactly endear himself to me, either.) Some of it?s the performance ? Kengo?s meant to come across (I think) as tortured and driven, desperate to learn the truth about the Zodiarts while his body fails him and a new student antagonizes him, but the onscreen result always read as petulant and needlessly insulting. (Again, first scene for him in the series is dramatically and publicly humiliating a girl who liked him!) But some of it is that Kengo refuses to have fun or engage with anyone in a friendly way, the two things I?m basically watching this show for. It?s one of my least-favorite tropes, the guy who exists to mock and belittle the premise of the series. Kengo?s role is to be an obstacle, but he comes off as more of an irritant. Never really warmed to that guy.

The humorous part is that Gentarou says something to him like, "I don't like you, so I'm going to make you my friend." I like how the show's first quarter commits to the difficulty of Kengo through his insistence on not being part of KRC or Gentarou's friend, despite assisting them from its foundation. Like, yeah, he's not only asocial, we can see he's clearly an a**hole as early as his introduction, but I think that sets the level that gives him a lot of room for constructive development and it's probably another meta reason why Gentarou is the protagonist, as Kengo doesn't have that Showa Rider kindness to go with his Showa Rider loneliness. For how I'd rank Kengo as a KRC member, well, I don't have a firm ranking of them since they're such a lovable team, but I'd at least put him above JK and Ohsugi.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

First, I loved Yuuki and Gen showing up to get answers from Tomoko, because it?s so dumb. Gen is relentlessly bad at investigating things or just generally moving this story forward when he applies himself ? furthering the idea that Kengo will be crucial in steering Gen?s nascent costumed heroism ? but accidentally great at it because he?s this big, boisterous personality that people can?t ignore. His constant blundering and misapplied enthusiasm ended up being key to uncovering Miura, but mostly because Tomoko found him car-crash fascinating. And then he just screamed at her like he?s in some terrible cop show! It was great! Yuuki has her hands full with this dope!

That wall-kick in to a kabedon was so crazy, startling poor Tomoko like that! Gentarou cannot make a normal entrance.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Also, Tomoko debut: perfect episode.

Tomoko did cameo before, sitting at the freaks table, but yeah, love to see her helping out the pre-established KRC here while also being the reason it's called that!