[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 36 - “OUR LAST PERFORMANCE TOGETHER”

It’s also what makes this all so poignant, because – much to his surprise and chagrin – he’s not as self-serving and as cowardly as he appears, even though JK himself isn't aware of that. JK’s made too many real friends to be okay throwing them aside for fame, and he’s sacrificed too much as a member of the KRC to be okay with a bunch of kids wasting away from cosmic shredding. High school is about finding out who you are, and JK discovers that he’s not Gene, because Gene was the dream of a kid who wanted fame at any cost, and was desperate to escape the reality of his limits. But that was a long time ago, and holding onto that fear and desperation, it’s JK forgetting about how he’s grown, and the reasons he wanted fame in the first place.

I guess, what's specifically wrong in this story is, about Capricorn harming others in pursuit of fame, and as what Gentaro puts it, being a phony who took a shortcut with Zodiart power to be famous. But still, dunno what's really wrong to go into separate ways from a friend to chase after dream by itself. As long as it's not using underhanded method or faking it. The ending would be obviously, the usual "right" way of leaving away your dream to spend time with friends (albeit different future path compared to past can be a good lesson too), albeit Gentaro told JK to not give up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Naturally, it’s Gentarou who gets it, after learning who Gene really is; not the pseudonym, but what the identity of Gene really meant to JK. It was about fame, sure, but it was more about being able to express himself, and be seen for what he could be, and connect with others… which is all the things the KRC is already letting him do. He thought he needed God’s Zodiart ability to reach people and be loved, but here’s Gentarou spending a day learning the song that made JK love music, just for a chance to let JK show his authentic self to an audience. JK missed all that in the rush to become a star, hollowing himself out just like his brainwashed fans. He tossed aside the goal for the dream, but luckily his friends were there to remind him of what he really had to offer.

As JK thinks friendship is only temporary and a fraction of someone's life, seems that the solution for JK is the usual modeling good behavior for your friends that has happened before to Ran, and to a lesser extent Ryusei (ep. 28), in Gentaro acting as JK's dad to him, and at the end when JK didn't expect to be forgiven by the KRC, which seems to prove about what you said here of him being loved. Still, this doesn't dispute about how when graduating from high school, people won't see each other anymore, despite being close in high school. I mean, there's Miu and Shun being still a part of KRC, but still it's not addressed (albeit it's only because their college is close to AGHS).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Again, it’s a sweet story of high school, and how easy it can be to hold onto your past when the future is pointing you in a different direction, which is sort of exactly what JK was saying last episode, just 100% reversed in its meaning. It only works if you think that JK is shallow enough to team up with a horned cosmic guitarist at the possible cost of dozens of lives, but lucky for this show, JK is the worst, and so we can see it – but even more lucky for this show, we can see that JK is capable of changing for the better, and maybe he’s been changing this whole time without us even noticing.

Dozens of lives due to the brainwashing of Capricorn... but for another case of seemingly mass brainwashing/life force draining, like Clotho using the Zukyumpire power for this, it's seen as how the villain never killed anyone, has completely clean hand, thus wasn't really bad/wrong (for redeemable talk). It seems to be a hot take for me to think that the bodycount only didn't happen because the plan is foiled in the heroes taking care of those people or beating the villains, but it's seen by people as them purposely not killing. It'd be pointless for the heroes to try to stop them if, according to that view, the villain isn't a real danger with them never having the heart to kill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Beyond that, this is a pretty good episode of tokusatsu storytelling? The larger Zodiart stuff continues to feel like a series of developments happening without much build-up or foreshadowing – much like JK’s issues with his dad are brought up last episode for the first time literally ever, we get two episode of Horoscopes talking about the lost Core Switch as a big deal that no one really brought up before. (It’s… maybe this was the Horoscope stuff from this story I ended up not liking? Like the Hole in Kyoto, we get zero build-up, and then suddenly it’s all anyone can talk about. There’s got to be a more organic way to set some of these escalations up!) But the smaller Zodiart stuff still works just fine, like the battle between Meteor and Leo. I love any fight where the Rider wins through strategy over power, so I really liked Meteor attacking Leo’s literal Achilles Heel, forcing Leo to abandon a fight that Meteor definitely couldn’t’ve won. It’s also a great way to see some of those old Horoscope suits again, even if the usage here felt a little superfluous. (Leo did not seem to have much of a problem kicking Meteor’s ass in his normal form!)

I guess this is a decent showing of a Rider fight where the choreograph mostly disappoints me, that Ryusei refuses to give up despite Tachibana insisting him to due to how powerful Leo is, and he at least proves Tachibana wrong by making a small step in his rematch by injuring a fragile point of Leo, thus while Meteor didn't beat Leo yet, it made Leo uncomfortable to retreat from the fight. Some cuts like that can be an inconvenience while not being life threatening. Also, there's another Switch combination from Cosmic States, and it's on the theme for Beat, combined with Net, the Beat soundwaves form a net to capture Capricorn's wave and then trap Capricorn inside it along with its own attack.