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05-06-2021, 04:43 PM | #11 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,411
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Whoa, this crept up on me. Honestly didn't expect this until next week. Glad I went ahead and downloaded the episodes in advance a few days ago. Haven't started the rewatch yet, so I'll likely have more to say tonight.
That said, let's start with my overall thoughts going back into this: I'm legitimately looking forward to it. I got into Kamen Rider back in '09, while Decade was still airing, and I followed the same path you've been on for over a year now of going back through the whole Heisei era before watching Decade (Kinda. Kuuga hadn't been fansubbed yet, so I only watched a couple episodes of that before moving on to Agito). Back then, I remember that Kiva was THE, all-caps, SHIT. Everybody loved the show and even some of my friends who I didn't know watched these shows were raving about it. I didn't get around to it personally for months, but at the time I wasn't a fan. In fact, until Ghost this was the show that I always ranked as my least favorite. I had a lot of problems with it and I suspect I'll be revisiting them over the next couple months. That said, I know I've also forgotten a lot of the show's specifics and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of material that hits me differently, twelve years later. The big thing I'm going into this with is one thing I said back on TFW2005's old Rider Kick thread, which was basically that I disliked Kiva more, but I'd still rather watch it again than Faiz. Then last year I finally rewatched Faiz and fell back in love with it. I'm really, really curious to see what happens when I go back and give Kiva a second chance. I generally talk a lot of shit about Kiva, but I will never say an unkind word about the opening. Break the Chains is a banger and the opening visuals are fantastic. |
05-06-2021, 05:21 PM | #12 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
Whoa, this crept up on me. Honestly didn't expect this until next week. Glad I went ahead and downloaded the episodes in advance a few days ago. Haven't started the rewatch yet, so I'll likely have more to say tonight.
That said, let's start with my overall thoughts going back into this: I'm legitimately looking forward to it. I got into Kamen Rider back in '09, while Decade was still airing, and I followed the same path you've been on for over a year now of going back through the whole Heisei era before watching Decade (Kinda. Kuuga hadn't been fansubbed yet, so I only watched a couple episodes of that before moving on to Agito). Back then, I remember that Kiva was THE, all-caps, SHIT. Everybody loved the show and even some of my friends who I didn't know watched these shows were raving about it. I didn't get around to it personally for months, but at the time I wasn't a fan. In fact, until Ghost this was the show that I always ranked as my least favorite. I had a lot of problems with it and I suspect I'll be revisiting them over the next couple months. That said, I know I've also forgotten a lot of the show's specifics and I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of material that hits me differently, twelve years later. The big thing I'm going into this with is one thing I said back on TFW2005's old Rider Kick thread, which was basically that I disliked Kiva more, but I'd still rather watch it again than Faiz. Then last year I finally rewatched Faiz and fell back in love with it. I'm really, really curious to see what happens when I go back and give Kiva a second chance. Neat to hear that Kiva was well-regarded(-ish?) back in the day, since it's another show I didn't really hear too much about when I came in. I mean, some negative talk, but nothing too egregious. It was just something I thought of as An Unpopular Show, based mostly on how long it took to get a Seihou or whatever. Interesting that, when it was recent, it was more appreciated. Definitely a show I'm not finding too disagreeable so far!
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05-06-2021, 05:53 PM | #13 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Kiva is a show I have a bit of a weird connection to. I guess it's maybe relevant to give that personal context of me getting into Rider during OOO and – in contrast to what Switchblade just said about a couple years before that – I recall "Inoue is a washed up hack" being a fairly prominent opinion even in 2011, and while that didn't stop me from finding out fairly quickly that I'm a big fan of Faiz, it did mean there wasn't a lot pushing me toward watching Kiva. So for a very good while, I didn't watch it. It ended up being the second to last Heisei show I caught up on (Hibiki ended up going last, if you recall), and that was much later, while Gaim was airing. I'll hopefully have plenty to kick in about my opinions on the show proper as you go along, but before I get there, suffice it to say, Kiva was not a series that was calling out to me for whatever reason.
Except it's also been a constant presence for me ever since I became a Rider fan. You see, Kiva is every bit as much about music as Hibiki was. Arguably more, even? This is glaringly apparent from the episode titles alone, which use musical notation instead of hyphens or whatever, as though the first word always being a musical reference wasn't enough. You'd kinda hope at that point they were taking the music in the show more seriously than usual, and I think they very much were. Kiva has a soundtrack that is full of absolute bangers, and I was listening to those theme songs ALL the time well before I sat down to watch the show they were produced for. In a way, I already felt very familiar with the show not even having yet seen it. This stuff is legitimately formative for me, and that being the case, I knew that when you got around to making this thread, I wanted to pay tribute to that weird connection I have with Kiva by spotlighting all that high quality music in some way. Which is an excessively elaborate way to say I'm just going to try and make a point to talk about each song a bit as they come up. I mean, I know basically nothing about music, so even if I wanted to do something fancy here, I couldn't. Naturally, Break the Chain is first up on that list, and hoo boy is this a good theme song. I mean, man, right from the title alone, it's just killing it. That's like the whole show in three words right there, which makes sense when it's pulled right from the tagline. And that extremely direct relation to what the series is about extends to the lyrics by Shouko Fujibayashi, a lyricist for a huge swath of Rider tunes who I find to be very good about that sort of thing. Break the Chain has this fun thing going on where it's pretty specifically being sung at the protagonist as much as the audience, rather than simply being sung about Wataru and the show, and I find this massively increases the punchiness of the song. The actual instrumentation is a mix of smooth harmonies and much more aggressive sounds, so it matches perfectly. It's a song that kinda gets up in your face and makes you like it, you know? Again, there's only so much I can do to describe the "why" here, but yeah, I really love this one. Just a total jam that always gets me pumped. (I also might as well mention here that since the premiere was directed by Ryuuta Tasaki, I believe this is yet another case of the tight visuals of the opening being thanks to him.) ...Plus! While it was pretty specifically the vocal tracks that were filling my ears long before I watched the show, the BGM is every bit as fantastic. It seems the guy who composed it, Tsuneyoshi Saitou, has a background in classical music, and he makes it work so well here that it pains me this is the only toku show he's ever done. The only reason I don't call this guy a favorite composer for me is because I know it would hurt to get too attached. Still though, that one toku soundtrack is maybe all you need when you nail it that hard on the first go. There's naturally a heavy emphasis on strings throughout, which is very thematically appropriate and all, but I mean, why bother even attempting to explain why it's good when I can just put this right below and tell you it's merely Kiva's normal, regular battle theme you hear all the time: Anyway, always good to see another one of these from you, Die! I look forward to the Somwhere In Spring To Eventually Summer of Inoue!
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05-06-2021, 05:58 PM | #14 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,510
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Regarding the 1980s section of Kiva, the 1980s was for Japan a special time called the Bubble Era, where everyone had beaucoup money and economic abundance was at an all-time high. It is a fascinating decade cause they had so much money they bought the freakin' Empire State Building. THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.
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05-06-2021, 06:02 PM | #15 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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God, I've always loved that battle theme and could never find it anywhere. It's got this real unique vibe to it I could never pin down
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05-06-2021, 07:11 PM | #16 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wait, you dont know either?
Posts: 5,825
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I remember checking out the first 15 episodes of Kiva, years ago now. I remember enjoying it enough, I just kinda stopped after a while for the same reason I did with lots of things back in the day - I'm bad at watching stuff! I'll just drop into say that Break the Chain is the best Phase 1 theme song, and Kiva's design is very, very good. The literal chains might be a touch too much, both aesthetically and for the suit actor, but they sure look cool. Plus, you know, thematic, Waturu's sealing himself away from humanity inside this bat-themed killing suit, it's all a metaphor.
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05-06-2021, 11:01 PM | #17 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
My biggest regret from the Hibiki thread was putting in song lyrics. Wish I'd saved it for a show like this one. See, I went into Hibiki expecting a show About Music. The main Rider's a drummer, the other Riders all play musical instruments, there's that opening scene, Asumu dreams of joining his school's band... it's going to be a show About Music! I should lean into that! And then, after just a few episodes, it started to become clear that Hibiki was going to be a show that was About Camping more than it was ever going to be About Music. Music was an affectation, a part of the experience that became less and less relevant as the show went on. There was an episode where three Oni needed to combine their finishes to destroy a monster, and I'm like Oh They're Playing As A Band, This Is Going To Be About Them Achieving Harmony, and then the show just layers their three finishers on top of each other in the most discordant way possible. Even when the music metaphor was teed up for them, they ignored it. It was a show About Dads, not a show About Music. So having this show be the one that's About Music (and probably About Dads! Hilariously!)... definitely feel like I should've saved the music stuff for this one. Not a huge surprise that this one's going to be more about music, honestly. That's an Inoue thing, expression through art. But, yeah. Goddamn it. Wish I hadn't assumed that Hibiki was going to be About Music. Quote:
Regarding the 1980s section of Kiva, the 1980s was for Japan a special time called the Bubble Era, where everyone had beaucoup money and economic abundance was at an all-time high. It is a fascinating decade cause they had so much money they bought the freakin' Empire State Building. THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.
Yeah, this show (being an Inoue joint) don't hurt for metaphors to unpack. Good point!
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05-07-2021, 01:22 AM | #18 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,411
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Okay, having properly gone through the first episode again, some musings.
I really wish Yuri was the main character. I have some thoughts on the split timeline element that I'll probably get to later, but even without it factored in, I think Yuri is by far the most interesting character in this episode. Maybe it's the part of me that watched Buffy back in high school/college, but I would be absolutely down for a series about a badass woman with a Castlevania whip fighting vampire monsters in modern-ish Japan. It's a pity that she's not the primary focus of the whole series. I say that in part because Yuri is great, but also because Wataru does not make a good first impression on me. Ryotaro was kind of a weenie, especially at first. Wataru feels like Inoue saw that and gave it a "Hold my beer." I am not drawn in by the panicky dude in the mask, gloves, and coat crawling around for discarded fish bones and communicating via signs. Now, in fairness there is a reason for this. Wataru is meant to be a hikikomori - an extreme social recluse. This was an issue that was gaining a lot of attention in the 2000s. Basically, it's a population of young Japanese adults who are essentially hermits, having minimal contact with other people and rarely leaving their house. It's an interesting social phenomena but a really weird trait to have for your super-hero protagonist. It's a decent premiere, I think, although starting with Wataru already having and knowing how to use his Kiva abilities does mean that we're thrown into the deep end right from the start with a lot of stuff that doesn't immediately make sense. Some of this will be explained later. The rest of it... well, it's Kiva and Kiva doesn't always feel the need to explain things. |
05-07-2021, 01:36 AM | #19 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
I really wish Yuri was the main character. I have some thoughts on the split timeline element that I'll probably get to later, but even without it factored in, I think Yuri is by far the most interesting character in this episode. Maybe it's the part of me that watched Buffy back in high school/college, but I would be absolutely down for a series about a badass woman with a Castlevania whip fighting vampire monsters in modern-ish Japan. It's a pity that she's not the primary focus of the whole series.
Quote:
I say that in part because Yuri is great, but also because Wataru does not make a good first impression on me. Ryotaro was kind of a weenie, especially at first. Wataru feels like Inoue saw that and gave it a "Hold my beer." I am not drawn in by the panicky dude in the mask, gloves, and coat crawling around for discarded fish bones and communicating via signs. Now, in fairness there is a reason for this. Wataru is meant to be a hikikomori - an extreme social recluse. This was an issue that was gaining a lot of attention in the 2000s. Basically, it's a population of young Japanese adults who are essentially hermits, having minimal contact with other people and rarely leaving their house. It's an interesting social phenomena but a really weird trait to have for your super-hero protagonist.
Quote:
It's a decent premiere, I think, although starting with Wataru already having and knowing how to use his Kiva abilities does mean that we're thrown into the deep end right from the start with a lot of stuff that doesn't immediately make sense. Some of this will be explained later. The rest of it... well, it's Kiva and Kiva doesn't always feel the need to explain things.
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05-07-2021, 02:00 AM | #20 |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2019
Posts: 462
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Quote:
It's a show that, while I've only got one episode as a sample size, really straddles the Phase 1/Phase 2 line a lot more than Den-O did. Kiva feels equally indebted to the horror-esque vibes of Faiz and Blade, as it does the goofier antics of Double. There's echoes of later Phase 2 characters (Wataru looks like Takeru's twin and feels like the inversion of his character, more to come on this topic later), but there's plenty in the supporting cast that makes me think of Kabuto (whoever Yuri and Megumi are working for) and Agito (Shizuka has serious Mana From Agito vibes).
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