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01-08-2023, 04:07 PM | #91 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Anyway, yeah, Saber is still very much in its early weird messy phase with this one, which leaves my thoughts on it, going from memory at least, pretty much identical to the prior episode. Fantastic introduction to a new main character, lots of breezy fun action, surprisingly strong world-building under the hood, all packaged together in a very strange way that's almost certainly going to drag the overall experience down for people who aren't just inherently on the show's wavelength the way I am.
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01-08-2023, 05:41 PM | #92 |
Standing By
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KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 3 - ?A FATHER, AND A SWORDSMAN?
The thing that elevates the story is that, like many adults, he finds the flightiness of young men in tokusatsu series to be an endless frustration, so he immediately dislikes Touma?s fascination with the narrative power of his life. He doesn?t have the bandwidth to think about the thematic relevance of his duties; he?s got too many duties. For a Saber that?s all about the power of storytelling, and a Blades that?s all about the impossibility of living up to the stories that taught us, here?s a Buster to show us what it?s like when indulging in fiction can cost you everything. Regarding Buster, honestly, I think the suit is pretty meh. I especially dislike Gekido though, since it doesn't have any gimmicks or alternate modes like the other Seiken Swords. It's literally just big, like that's its whole thing, it's big. It doesn't give me the feeling of elegance or style that Rekka or Nagare do. Quote:
The Watch Threads were originally just a thing to get me current; I was inevitably going to catch up, and that point arrives with Revice this spring. Any post-Revice shows... we'll see? There'll be a slowdown -- I want to spend the second half of the year reformatting all of the posts TokuNation broke, and then putting them on my own site for safe-keeping -- but I'm interested in spending a few years (!) covering all the Heisei shows I never wrote up, and trying out some other franchises. I can see there being a Rewatches Geats Etc series of threads, but I'll probably give them some distance first. Geats would be... god, maybe 2026? At the earliest?
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I guess I get what you're bringing up here, as I too feel uncomfortable with Touma making a promise that sounds too big to be fulfilled in getting Ryota's parents' back from a place too dangerous for normal humans. I do think that promise can be big-mouthed to make as not only confidence, it also feels as if you can see the future. And the danger if it goes unfulfilled... but what if it fails not due to it being purposely broken, but due to Touma's death trying to fulfill it and (what-if) Rintaro's failure aftermath? It'd still have similar outcome to those purposely breaking it. Though as usual, I'd probably think, one shouldn't only blindly cling to principles, as there are also bigger pictures one also should see.
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Yeah... I like overdesigned stuff (or to be specific, those that are detailedly designed), not that I don't have limit though. I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶I̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶K̶a̶m̶e̶n̶ ̶R̶i̶d̶e̶r̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶u̶i̶t̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶S̶e̶n̶t̶a̶i̶'̶s̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶U̶l̶t̶r̶a̶'̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶s̶ ̶(̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶a̶v̶o̶r̶i̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶F̶u̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶U̶l̶t̶r̶a̶s̶)̶.
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01-08-2023, 06:27 PM | #93 |
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Personally, I have no problem with Tendo's feelings, I would say that his concern for Kagami and the sisters is the best thing about him (and also most likely brought by his grandmother). My main problem with him is that he did not do even the 10th part of what he could. When the policemen died in Kuug, it happened because the rider did not have time to come to their aid. When ZECTroopers died in Kabuto, the reason was that the rider was simply not in a hurry.
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01-08-2023, 07:00 PM | #94 |
Warrior of Delusions!
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Yeah, I can also only chime in to say Ogami is a great character, and has a great suit! He also shows off the first new weapon / driver, and I think it's cool but shows the first weird limit of the props - the wildly differing scales between the books and the swords. You have this huge, obvious slot for a whle ridebook that comes from scaling up the toy, and the WRB just sits right in the middle! This isn't a serious crtique or anything, it's just a little funny.
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01-08-2023, 09:08 PM | #95 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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After a decent introduction as a cool Swordsman and loving father, this is the part that made Ogami lose a few points, at least in this episode anyway. Like, I don't really sympathize much with his whole "kids these days!" attitude, where it becomes apparent that he's not quite as easygoing as he first appears. He's quick to dismiss Rintarou's concern for taking Sora in to battle and his apathy towards Touma's fascination with his narrative potential kind of makes him seem more mean and cold than he needs to be. His behavior imprints on Sora as well, since Touma and Mei have to be the ones who educate him on the wonders of books, when that's something a father should do.
Regarding Buster, honestly, I think the suit is pretty meh. I especially dislike Gekido though, since it doesn't have any gimmicks or alternate modes like the other Seiken Swords. It's literally just big, like that's its whole thing, it's big. It doesn't give me the feeling of elegance or style that Rekka or Nagare do. Quote:
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Yeah, I can also only chime in to say Ogami is a great character, and has a great suit! He also shows off the first new weapon / driver, and I think it's cool but shows the first weird limit of the props - the wildly differing scales between the books and the swords. You have this huge, obvious slot for a whle ridebook that comes from scaling up the toy, and the WRB just sits right in the middle! This isn't a serious crtique or anything, it's just a little funny.
(Also, the in-show WonderRide books have QR codes in them, and it takes me out of the scene whenever I see them. Just a Me thing.)
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01-08-2023, 09:52 PM | #96 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Watching Episode 4, and I accidentally figured out what the Touma/Rintaro dynamic reminded me of:
Not sure if this makes the show better or worse for me?
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01-08-2023, 09:57 PM | #97 |
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Rintaro as Boyle is an incredibly cursed image, thank you for bringing it into existence.
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01-08-2023, 10:15 PM | #98 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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01-08-2023, 11:54 PM | #99 |
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KAMEN RIDER SABER EPISODE 4 - “THE BOOK WAS OPENED, THAT IS WHY”
I thought this one worked pretty well? There’s a lot of weird mystery stuff in here that I’m largely immune to (I definitely spend brainpower more on figuring out characters than I do figuring out mysteries), but the confident way in which it was presented kind of got me on its side. I’m pretty much just talking about Desast. Immediately fills the villain void this show was in, while also making Calibur someone worth caring about. Desast has such devastating charisma, right from the start. He basically tells Calibur, the guy who summoned him, to go screw. He’s excited to duel with Buster. His loss is taken with a laugh; he seems to relish the idea of having an excuse to fight again later. He’s just fun, in a way that Calibur’s quiet menace and the trio of book gangsters had yet to manage. He comes into Buster’s story of a terrified parent and goes Man You Got Old. It’s great! (His name's also, like, "disaster", which is cool as hell.) It, again, even makes Calibur cooler? After a rousing Desast duel and a goofy Megid fight, Calibur’s last-minute attack on Touma and Rintaro strikes the right chord of predatory malevolence. Everything that was done was to separate out the various members of the Sword of Logos, tap their strength, and leave them vulnerable to Calibur’s power. It’s a cunning tactic, a world away from the last few episodes of random beatdowns and crossed-fingers from our troupe of terrorists. This is a guy who knows what it’s going to take to get what he wants, and is capable of doing it. Also great! The remainder of the episode was solid, if less exceptional. Ogami’s storyline, him seeing past Touma’s artistic facade for the dedicated warrior inside, was nice. It’s mostly just a standard Warrior Respects Warrior thing, but it’s landed effectively. I wish they’d found a different angle on it – something where Ogami finds value in Touma’s sweetness, or studiousness? – but what they gave was at least coherently done. I don’t know that I loved the Sora resolution? The metaphor is strong, about the wonder of imagination and the worlds a book can take you to, but let’s be really real here with ourselves: that kid was excited to see a superhero do a form change and detonate a monster. Unless that kid’s going to take a Reading Rainbow to Kamen Rider Spirits or whatever, I’m not sure he’s going to get the same sense of wonder in his life. It’s a nice message, but it’s kind of not what Sora experienced. I’ll let it go, though, because as a fellow bookseller, I was glad to see Touma do the coolest aspect of the job: getting a minor piece of information and figuring out what book it’s from. There is no more superheroic feeling as a bookseller than having someone offer a tiny detail from something they half-remember, and you spending a couple seconds in thought before going Oh It’s A Book Called “Friday”. That’s such an electric charge moment, and I’m glad Touma was able to showcase it for a generation of children. Overall, this wasn’t a perfect episode, but everything in it seemed to work a little more effectively than last time. The villains are cooler, the fights are stronger, and the mysteries seem a bit more appealing. Pleasantly surprised! — HOME FROM WAR So, that happened. There are times in your life when change feels incremental; a series of barely-perceptible alterations that are only identifiable if the time frame is measured in months and years, rather than days or weeks. Diets that seem to bounce off layers of fat, savings that never quite seem to become usable funds, home improvements that only manage to create long-winded excuses to guests about unforeseen developments and arguments at hardware stores. Kouhei was used to those types of change, for better or for worse. But when a blank plastic book transports you to the stomach of a mythical beast in a magical forest, and an excitable ditz shoots fireworks that summon superheroes… it feels like the universe is sending you a sign that it’s okay to drastically reexamine your life. It might even be a demand to do so immediately, because you might not get a second opportunity. Changes came rapidly for Kouhei after that afternoon. He threw himself into his family with the same energy he used to avoid them. Gone was the fear that he’d hollowed out his hopes in favor of stability; returned was a confidence that he had a family that needed him, and a family that wanted to be there for him. The man who used to chase away feelings of parental inadequacy with self-delusion – that he was still taking care of his son, even if his son couldn’t understand that – looked at his actions with a newfound honesty. What could he do right now, today, for his son? Family dinners were no longer something to sleepwalk through. Games were played in the small backyard: stories of superheroes and monsters, even if Yohei never quite knew where some of the finer details of swordsmen and lizardmen came from. (It was to Kouhei’s relief that his family never inquired after his renewed dedication to them; it meant he hadn’t been as lost as he’d thought.) Weekend excursions broadened Yohei’s horizons and cultivated new passions in the young boy. Kouhei finally felt like a father again. This weekend’s trip was to a small bookstore another parent had recommended to Kouhei. A local mother (Yu, he thought, or perhaps Kaoru) had been by recently, and said it had some charm to it. Yohei’s interests lay more in the physical – that jeweled Sentai show certainly had him careening through the house most days – but maybe there’d be something to keep the boy’s attention. It was a pleasant weekend afternoon, so the tiny bookshop – small had been underselling it – was crowded with a few other families. Yohei had found a corner of the store to rifle through a shelf of picture books featuring bugs, dinosaurs, and all manner of creatures to win the heart of an outdoor-loving child. Kohei browsed aimlessly, mostly waiting until his son had made a selection. “That one yours?” Kohei, startled, turned to the voice behind him. The man was a decade older than him, with close-cut hair and a weathered face. He had on a white polo, collar turned up like he’d stepped out of 2008, under a navy military coat that looked like he’d stepped out of 1808. He half-expected the man to invite him to a Napoleonic reenactment. Or a kegger. “Hmm? Oh, yeah, that’s my son. Yohei.” The man nodded approvingly, as though having a son had earned Kouhei the privilege of further conversation. “That’s mine over there, Sora,” the man said, pointing towards a boy on the opposite side of the room. The boy was dressed like a miniature version of his father: white shirt, jeans, elaborate boots. (Kouhei presumed that the military surplus store was having trouble sourcing a child-sized captain’s coat.) The store’s owner was excitedly recommending various fables and fairytales to the boy, who marveled at each of them. The gruff man shook his head slightly, but smiled throughout. “I don’t know where he gets this from, all this book stuff. Just the other day, he was crazy about the outdoors, running and playing, and now he wants to come here all the time. Touma, the kid who runs the place… good guy, but, man, I don’t know. Hard to see the point to it, you know?” “Heh, yeah, maybe,” Kouhei said, surprised at the man’s casual unburdening to a stranger. “I think it’s good to get some different perspectives for kids. It…” Kouhei didn’t know the man, but if they were getting stuff off of their chests, well… “It’s good for any of us, really. Best thing about having a son is letting it push you to find other parts of yourself. Hard to change for me, for my own problems, but it’s easy as anything to change for him. If that’s the case, why stop him from trying to change? Does that… does that make sense?” The man squinted a bit at Kouhei, who wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. Had Kouhei overstepped, broken some Naval code of conduct? Was he about to be punched in the face, or keel-hauled? That lazy grin came back to the man’s face, and he punched Kouhei causally in the arm. (So he had read the situation correctly enough to predict being punched; it’s nice that he didn’t miss the social cues entirely.) There was a mild chuckle, and then: “Yeah… yeah, I get that. We get to be here for the whole thing. Nothing better than that, man.” Kouhei saw that his son had decided on his book (a giant picture on the cover of a grasshopper was no surprise), and took the opportunity to excuse himself. The gruff man nodded once, and then walked to wrangle his son away from a growing mountain of books. It was a pleasant conversation, if somewhat sudden and almost alarmingly honest. He hoped the man was a good father, even if he seemed to be a strange one. Either way, he was ready to gather up Yohei and leave for home. These days, he was always ready to leave for home.
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01-09-2023, 12:14 AM | #100 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
Join Date: Aug 2015
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Oh Desast... Desast, Desast...
He's like one of my absolute favorites in the show if I'm being honest, and I'm glad he made a strong enough impression for you to like him right off the bat. There's just a lot to him almost immediately and you're right, he very much strikes a different chord than Calibur and the Megid Trio in a very good way. I definitely think the trio do get a bit better moments later but Desast I feel is the strongest of our antagonists at the moment. I really can't wait for you to continue because just... again Desast is so good, it's hard to actively describe how I feel without getting too far ahead of myself. Just know that of my two major Fanfics I do, Desast is like Top 5 in the characters I love writing about. Anyway yeah, overall a pretty solid resolution to the episode. I'd like to shout out Mei who actually owns up to her mistake and tries to find a way to help our heroes even if she can't fight. It's a big step up than how she's been in the past few episodes and it's enjoyable to see. We also get a few more standard form changes and such, the highlight being Saber finally using all three book slots for Dragon Hedgehog Peter. In which we get to see Tinker Bell (a female wrestler/body builder I think?) just pin a salamander monster to the ground to finish it off. As for the story this time... I was curious to see if you'd do a follow up since you know despite you leaving it on a technical cliffhanger there was no guarantee. It was nice to see that follow up and how this insane event managed to change Kouhei's perspective. His little ramble to Ogami at the end and the two having that like fatherly understanding and stuff was also rather sweet. |
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