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03-30-2024, 09:25 PM | #531 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 49 - “GOODBYE TO E - A BOUQUET OF JUSTICE FOR THIS CITY”
I’d’ve probably hated it for something like Revice or OOO, though. This one immediately undoes the stakes of the previous episode, with so little distance in between the consequences and salvation as to be comical. The pain of separation – the sort of thing we’d normally have as the time between a series finale and a winter crossover film, or eventual V-Cin – is a point dropped in through exposition. The delay in Philip’s return is as brief as the barely twenty minute wait in this episode for the theme song to play us out. Quote:
With that in mind, I really enjoyed this final adventure for Team Double. It’s a quick one, the only single-episode story for our crew, and it’s mostly here to illustrate how hollow things are for Shotaro on his own. He’s capable of defending the city, but it doesn’t mean as much without Philip. The brief Akira/Yui story is here to tell us that it’s important to keep going when we’re on our own, while acknowledging that it’s better when we don’t have to shoulder those burdens alone. It’s cute, and, again, not complicated. This isn’t the show that’s going to send you off with a downbeat finale, or even one that delays your gratification for too long.
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So, yeah, fifteen minutes or so after vanishing into the Earth’s memory, Philip is resurrected by Wakana and given a second chance at life. (This part actually was weirdly complicated, because it’s not until way late in the episode where it’s revealed that the Wakana scenes are happening shortly after Episode 48, not concurrent with the events of the rest of this episode.) It coasts on the warmth of this being a final episode, even if your level of investment in the Sonozaki family drama may render this more exasperating than cathartic. Nice to see Philip get the kind of family reunion he always wanted, but it’s hard to square this beatific version of a USB drug metaphor crime family with the one we encountered over the last 48 episodes. They all had their deathbed repentances (for Sonozaki versions of “repentance”), but it’s just weird to see them all so chummy.
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Who cares, though? Philip’s back, Shotaro’s half-boiled, Akiko’s toting unconscious data humans, sins are being counted, and a pleasant breeze is blowing through Fuuto. It’s not an episode that wants you to feel anything other than light humor and easy drama, which is pretty much the mission statement of Kamen Rider W. Not a great epilogue for similar shows, but just right for this one.
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-This wasn’t a huge episode for Fuuto as a whole, but I like that this finale gave us the entire crew of allies and informants, even if it was for something as innocuous as yelling at a pet store clerk on Shotaro’s behalf. They didn’t really matter to this particular story, but it’s a good reminder of the deep world that W had constructed around the edges.
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-The group of youths who were trying to do Gaia Memory cult crimes – it’s fine! I am never going to feel like surly youths don’t need a good ass-kicking from a superhero, so they were exactly the proper level of menace for a quick epilogue that did not have nearly enough room to tell a nuanced Dopant Dilemma story.
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03-30-2024, 09:37 PM | #532 |
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Shotaro does have occasional meanness in his tryhard(-boiled) flick of pretending to be cool or such, but he did that, in greater scale of meanness than what's ever seen from him for outright petty reasons as in being overly aggressive for not getting the cat food he needed; which is like when a bratty child's needs is neglected, and mocking Akira who's on similar situation where he's useless without Yui, telling him to face it himself as a man.
For how he tries to give Akira manly advice... that's just him trying to act like Sokichi, instead of acting like Shotaro.
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03-31-2024, 07:59 PM | #533 |
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KAMEN RIDER W FINAL STAGE
Look, I don’t know how objective I can be on this one: it’s a stage show that gave a prominent role to Mr. Fuuto, the best suit in all of W. That concept – Akiko has accidentally become a Fuuto Dopant, represented by the honest-to-god Mr. Fuuto suit – is brilliant. It takes the lemons of The Actors Are Definitely Not Starring In This (short a couple brief Akiko scenes) and makes transcendent lemonade out of them. Seeing that suit bumble around alongside Double, Accel, and a slew of other great suits from the breadth of W… so great. Exactly the sort of thing that’s going to defeat my critical faculties. Which is not to say this wasn’t a fun story otherwise! I like the idea of centering this Greatest Hits suit spectacular on how Akiko feels about Fuuto, since – as Terui points out – we’ve never really heard how Akiko feels about the town that the other three heroes have sworn to protect. She’s an Osaka girl, and it’s a nice reminder that her roots in Fuuto aren’t that deep. The story doesn’t really go anywhere significant, though, in that its resolution is that Akiko loves Fuuto, but still loves Osaka, but I like that this stage show at least kept Akiko central to the narrative. Nice to see all the villains again, too, even if most of them have briefly reverted to their basic criminal/monster templates. Beyond Kirihiko taking it on the chin yet again as Saeko’s most pathetic suitor, the Dopants are just there to be fun enemies for the heroes to defeat. (It is galling to me that Kirihiko doesn’t express any anguish over Isaka of all people using Kirihiko’s son Mr. Fuuto in a villainous plot. Kirihiko raised him better than that!) Clay Doll continues to be one of my favorite suits, and it’s neat to see Eternal get a cool (and completely silent) fight with Skull. Every suit! They used every hero suit in this thing! They even used them in an especially fun way, which is kind of the main criteria I have for these older stage shows, the ones that can’t lean on the chemistry of the live actor performances. (Build, basically.) Having the Fuuto Dopant materialize all of the basic Double configurations was pretty fun to see, but even better was that they grouped them by Philips for one attack run, and then by Shotaros for the final attack run. There was actual logic to it! Instead of just a scrum of suits! What a treat! Seriously, this was one of the better stage shows. The plot doesn’t exactly make a lot of -slash- any sense (Isaka is just from another world? But he remembers the villains of this world?), but the Akiko-centric story blends well with every goddamn suit, providing a visually-impressive send-off to Kamen Rider W. Everything you want a Final Stage to do.
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04-01-2024, 05:52 AM | #534 |
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Honestly, my favourite bit from this was Invisible Man Isaka trying to get Akiko out of the picture by… bribing her with plane tickets to Osaka.
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04-01-2024, 09:25 AM | #535 |
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Quote:
KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 49 - ?GOODBYE TO E - A BOUQUET OF JUSTICE FOR THIS CITY?
With that in mind, I really enjoyed this final adventure for Team Double. It?s a quick one, the only single-episode story for our crew, and it?s mostly here to illustrate how hollow things are for Shotaro on his own. He?s capable of defending the city, but it doesn?t mean as much without Philip. The brief Akira/Yui story is here to tell us that it?s important to keep going when we?re on our own, while acknowledging that it?s better when we don?t have to shoulder those burdens alone. It?s cute, and, again, not complicated. This isn?t the show that?s going to send you off with a downbeat finale, or even one that delays your gratification for too long. For a meta reason, there's the inevitable crossovers to consider and of course we need Double for that, not only Joker. I mean, sure, you could only revive Phillip temporarily, but that would just feel open-ended and unsatisfying. If the show had aired in the 00s instead, permadeath may have been more likely, but that depends on agreement between the writer and producer. Yeah, you should! Actually, I need to rewatch Zyuohger sometime soon as well, it's been 8 years after all and an awesome season! But I also need to rewatch Kakuranger for the 30th anniversary and potentially whatever Sentai Die's going to watch.
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04-01-2024, 11:12 AM | #536 |
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For a meta reason, there's the inevitable crossovers to consider and of course we need Double for that, not only Joker. I mean, sure, you could only revive Phillip temporarily, but that would just feel open-ended and unsatisfying. If the show had aired in the 00s instead, permadeath may have been more likely, but that depends on agreement between the writer and producer.
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04-01-2024, 01:21 PM | #537 |
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The weird continuity problem in Philip returning a year after Episode 48, though, is that it makes the timeline of Movie War Core maybe not work? If OOO is happening in 2010-2011, that means Philip wouldn't return until that show's finale. (Which is kind of hilarious to think about -- Eiji mourning Ankh's disappearance, just as Philip arrives to say he's been alive this whole time in a DX bird toy.) Unless every series after Double is perpetually taking place one year in the future?
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04-01-2024, 01:22 PM | #538 |
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The weird continuity problem in Philip returning a year after Episode 48, though, is that it makes the timeline of Movie War Core maybe not work? If OOO is happening in 2010-2011, that means Philip wouldn't return until that show's finale. (Which is kind of hilarious to think about -- Eiji mourning Ankh's disappearance, just as Philip arrives to say he's been alive this whole time in a DX bird toy.) Unless every series after Double is perpetually taking place one year in the future?
Ghost's main plot occurs over 198 days exactly, so how does EX-Aid appear in the finale when he's not supposed to be active for another 6 months? Rather, how does he appear on a planet of dead people in the summer movie? Or, like, there's the entirety of Super Movie War Genesis.... EDIT: Ninja-ed by Switchblade.
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04-01-2024, 01:38 PM | #539 |
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There's also Saber's 6 month interval that occurs between the final battle and epilogue, where Beyond Generations somehow happens and yet nobody questions how Touma is alive or how the Seiken Swords are still functioning?
Ghost's main plot occurs over 198 days exactly, so how does EX-Aid appear in the finale when he's not supposed to be active for another 6 months? Rather, how does he appear on a planet of dead people in the summer movie? Or, like, there's the entirety of Super Movie War Genesis.... EDIT: Ninja-ed by Switchblade.
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04-01-2024, 01:53 PM | #540 |
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You know Die you bring up a good point, it is odd that despite having Kirihiko there, they didn't think to do some kind of bit with him reacting to Futo-Kun being the form of the Futo Dopant.
Anyway this was a blast. From Akiko as Futo-Kun, to getting to see all of the Ws and of course my favorite Rider of all time, Kamen Rider Skull. I also found AR Isaka amusing, if only because he ripped off Shroud, and I like how it continues W having ties to Decade. We have an AR Skull out there somewhere, why not an AR Isaka? Also while silent Eternal was funny, I found Terror Dopant who yells and sounds nothing like Ryubei even funnier. Cause at least there's this mystique to Eternal being silent, with Terror it's like, "Uh wait, who is this?". |
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