[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Oh, you must be referring to that episode where Yuki got poisoned by Scorpio so Miu feigned betrayal to get the antidote. I'm surprised Die never talked about her impressive act, being such the Miu fan.

I gotta do everything around here? I thought we were a team! A team of five to six color-coded heroes!

[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I gotta do everything around here? I thought we were a team! A team of five to six color-coded heroes!

I already have my responsibility to praise Tomoko!

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 40 - “OF VALUES AND PASSION”



I like the little friendship between Tomoko and Emoto. It’s cute, and fragile, in an episode that’s otherwise ridiculous and melodramatic. It’s an oasis of two people finding a little bit of connection amidst cosmic machinations and post-traumatic witch disorder, and I really appreciated that this strange association, of all things, was the way into the reveal that Emoto is Virgo.

It’s something I’m sure we’ll be talking more about soon, but I liked how it all ended up getting revealed, and I like that the show chose this specific episode in which to reveal it. We’re in a story about guilt, and love, and bad choices made in the aftermath of tragedy, and how dreams can get warped into something more nefarious when left to curdle, so that is exactly when you do a little subplot revealing that the generous and kind scientist is actually a Horoscope who may or may not be working to enact Gamou’s villainous schemes. Perfect place for it!

The rest of the episode… I don’t know, it wasn’t for me? There’s kind of three main things going on here – the Emoto/Tomoko/Virgo stuff, the Gentarou/Sayaka stuff, and the Meteor/Taurus/Golf stuff – and they’re all working at such different tonal levels and placed in somewhat haphazard ways, so the end result is more about picking through what’s offered, rather than enjoying a complete package.

Like, in nearly any other episode, “Meteor duels a Horoscope in golf to free the enslaved souls of Amanogawa High” would be the climax of the story, because it’s BY FAR the most memorable and iconic thing to happen here. It’s Meteor! Playing golf for the first time! To defeat a bull-themed fascist! And he wins by using his power-up’s cartoony finisher!!! Instead, this episode drops it in the middle, where Taurus refuses to accept his defeat, and the episode just rolls on to a histrionic climax that’s more about Virgo's warnings than anything else. I can sort of see the episode trying to tie together its various threads this way, turning each resolution into a new problem, but the result just makes each preceding element seem like it was a distraction from the current one; the golf thing didn’t matter, then the Taurus thing didn’t matter, now here’s Virgo.

It didn’t help that the Sugiura/Sayaka stuff just never clicked with me. It’s, again, I can sort of see where it works: Sayaka’s hurt by Sugiura’s overly-permissive take on school governance, and he lets the Zodairt Switch’s cosmic power warp him into a malevolent view of safety through obedience and control, which is the natural enemy of the KRC’s more individualistic ethos. That’s a natural story to tell – safety through control versus happiness through freedom, and the balance to be found within them. But what we get over these two episodes is way too absurd to find much emotional weight: Sugiura’s cosmic breakdancing, Sayaka’s nightmare hospital (???), and the general This Is Over The Top tone to every nominally dramatic flashback scene. It’s a whole bunch of choices that didn’t work for me, in service of a story that wanted to do way too much, without much sense of how to best arrange its pieces.

(Also, man, so many weird questions about this episode! Where were any of the teachers for this story of the school being taken over by Sugiura’s army? Why was Sayaka in the Hospital Of The Damned like she was supernaturally cursed, instead of just fell down a flight of stairs? Why didn’t anything come from JK’s scene of being cheered for his fascism? What happened to Ohsugi? Why does Tomoko not tell anyone else in the KRC that Emoto is Virgo? Why am I expected to care about the love between Sugiura and Sayaka, when they’re both repellant creeps in this story, and only Sugiura has an excuse for it?)

Still, Tomoko and Emoto! Those were some cute scenes.

[Switchblade]

I love it when Kamen Rider does genre homages/parodies. Nothing will ever touch the absolutely bonkers episodes where Kabuto became a wuxia movie centered around competitive cooking, but Fourze becoming a zombie horror movie for a couple of episodes was also pretty fun. I want to give some very special love to the scene where the class president is bundled up in bandages and an eye patch in a dark, creepy hospital. Bonus points for the characters wondering out loud why the hospital was so dark and creepy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Fourze 39-40

Like I said last time, we are officially into the part of the show that I don't remember very well. At least, that's what I thought. I got about halfway through the first of these episodes and my long-term memory managed to start pulling the rest of the plot out of storage: the injured girlfriend, Taurus going crazy, JK an Gentarou dressing normally. I will admit that I forgot about the golf showdown, which is certainly one of the weirder moments in the arc, but I remembered a lot of the main beats. I'm curious to see how much this continues happening as I finish off this last block of episodes.

I liked these two, by the way. I tend to have a strong dislike for stories with authoritarian regimes and stories where the heroes get turned upon, but I like these episodes. Part of it is that it's Fourze, so even at it's darkest it's pretty goofy (Sugiura's main power as Taurus isn't brainwashing, it's a complete defiance of physics). I also just really like the emotional core of the story, culminated in the confrontation between Sugiura and the class president on the roof. You really feel bad for him when Virgo shows up and sucks him into that wormhole. Even knowing the plot twist that's coming up next episode, it's still pretty sad.

Speaking of things I forgot: Virgo transporting Nozoma away. Again, something that loses a lot of drama on the rewatch, but it's still a really well-played scene. I like this last part of the series for Nozoma, where she gets to stop being creepy and start being more insightful. Speaking of the KRC, I forgot how much Miu and Shun are barely in the show anymore. More than before I'm really wishing they'd just replaced them with the swimmer girl and her friend. Having those two graduate really makes it hard to keep them relevant to the plot.

I stand by my comments on the ending of Sugiura's arc: it was a really good moment and it sucks so much for him. At least they didn't go with the convenient amnesia to hide Gamou's identity again.

[Androzani84]

One reason the Emoto reveal works is because while the franchise has had male passing monsters revealed to be women, they’ve never done the opposite. And in another case of anagrams, Emoto is “Otome” (Japanese for virgin, in the female sense) backwards.

Also I didn’t point it out when he first appeared, because I couldn’t come up with a decent enough gag to hint at it, but I’ll just straight up state here that the guy playing Emoto went on to appear in the Geats/Revice movie as Seeker’s dad.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I stand by my comments on the ending of Sugiura's arc: it was a really good moment and it sucks so much for him. At least they didn't go with the convenient amnesia to hide Gamou's identity again.

While I don't necessarily love Sugiura's quick redemption*, I like him immediately coming to the aid of Fourze, even at the cost of his imprisonment in the Zodiart Zone. I may not like his redemption, but I like what he does when redeemed!

*I think one of the problems I have with this story, and maybe the ones right before it, is that there's a difference for me between a Zodiart and a Horoscope -- while the Zodiarts are shown as wounded souls being preyed upon by folks like Scorpio and Libra, the Horoscopes are largely presented as making a conscious, albeit misguided, choice. Sugiura is warped by both the Switch (ostensibly) and his love for Sayaka (definitely) but he still serves Gamou and Hayami while enslaving the school. It's neat that Gentarou's typically able to see past Sugiura's poor choices to find the big-hearted kid beneath them, but his actions were still cruel and villainous. I don't know that eventually regretting them should absolve him of whatever enmity the rest of the school may have for him, and it's kind of pushing it for me for Gentarou to forgive him on behalf of the whole school. If he were just a Zodiart, maybe; as a Horoscope? I feel like we are narratively outside the bounds Pobody's Nerfect! Feels like Sugiura should have to earn his enslaved classmates' forgiveness! I am pretty sure we were just in a two-episode story about the value of independence and personal decision-making!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Also I didn?t point it out when he first appeared, because I couldn?t come up with a decent enough gag to hint at it, but I?ll just straight up state here that the guy playing Emoto went on to appear in the Geats/Revice movie as Seeker?s dad.

Another untrustworthy-but-maybe-misguided father figure!