[Kamen Rider Die]

Hi. I’m Kamen Rider Die, and this thread is “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Kamen Rider W (and watches Fuuto P.I.)”!

If you’ve been a part of one of these threads before, welcome back. (If you’re brand-new… gimme a minute! Got some old business to clear out first.) I super-appreciate everyone’s patience over the last few months, since I wrapped up the Revice thread. It’s the longest break I’ve taken since I started doing these threads regularly, and while it felt weird to not be getting into a new show after a while, I definitely needed the break.

The joke was that it was a break from writing about Kamen Rider, but not a break from Kamen Rider itself. I spent the intervening months cleaning up all the weird formatting errors in previous threads, as well as any migrated image links, so all those old threads should be substantially more readable now. (I mean, they’re definitely more legible; as for readability… like, I still wrote them. This is my only gear!) I also finished setting up an archive of those old threads over at KamenRiderDie.com, complete with some snazzy header art by TheRaizin. Every post on that site links back to the discussion here, so hopefully it retains some of the conversational feel that made these threads such a blast to be a part of. (For me, at least.)

I also finally got in some cabinets to display a closet’s worth of Figuarts, which took a little while to build and populate. Pictures are here, if you’re curious how much this franchise has entered my bloodstream.

So, yeah. That was my second half of 2023. But it’s 2024 now, which means we are back to watching Kamen Rider, back to writing about Kamen Rider, and back to talking about Kamen Rider with all of you.

As charted out in the final Revice post, this is the start of Phase 2 for the Kamen Rider Die Watches threads. The first Phase was me watching all of the shows from Heisei and Reiwa that I never watched; this Phase is me writing up all the shows I’d watched before. Specifically, we’ll be covering W through Ex-Aid, alternating with some other franchises I’ve never seen. (Full details here!) First up, Kamen Rider W and Fuuto P.I.

W was… I think it was the third Kamen Rider show I ever watched? Ex-Aid was first, then the first season of Amazons, then W. It’s been literally hundreds of episodes of Kamen Rider since I was watching W, which makes thinking about it sort of weird. First, I basically remember almost none of it. I don’t retain these shows super well. (I frequently need to consult Wikis to recall names of characters I’ve spent months writing about.) Each new show obliterates the one before it, and I’ve watched probably 20 shows since W. It’s atomized. I think there was a hat? Maybe?

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I loved W, from the all-time great opening song, to the charming performances, to the utterly unconvincing romance between Terui and Akiko. (Well, maybe I didn’t love everything.) I liked the two-episode mystery format. Sawa from Build is in a follow-up V-Cin? Again, random details, not much memory of individual episodes and/or how they slot together to form a season-long narrative. It’s largely going to be new to me, but new to a much more knowledgeable fan than the guy who first watched them.

Which is the second weird part to these threads: I have a much better grounding of the franchise’s tropes and patterns than I did when I was coming off of a show and a half in 2018. I’m rewatching W, but I’m also doing it through the lens of the ten Heisei shows before it, and the nine after it, and the five Reiwa shows that are in progress. It’s… it’s like a reunion, more than a rewatch. It’s an older me, encountering a piece of art that was significant to my development as a fan, trying to see if there’s nuance I’d overlooked; if there’s a change in my palette. (Maybe I’ll even find Akiko and Terui’s relationship to be layered and believable! WHO KNOWS!) I’m interested to find out how much that’s the case.

And speaking of cases… Kamen Rider W! I’ll be watching the whole series, as well as any ancillary material, in as close to broadcast order as possible. (I’m using the OZC-Live subs for the main show, if that matters to you.) Here’s what my viewing order is going to look like over the next few months:

W 1-4
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 1
W 5-8
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 2
W 9-12
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 3
W 13-14
Movie War 2010
Special Event supported by Windscale
W 15-16
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 4
W 17-20
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 5
W 21-24
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 6
W 25-28
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 7
W 29-32
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 8
W 33-36
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 9
W 37-40
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 10
HBV: Farewell Beloved Recipe
Gaia Memory Library
W 41-44
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 11
26 Rapid-Succession Roars of Laughter
W Forever *
W 45-46
Hardboiled Delusion Diary 12
W 47-49
Final Stage
Movie War Core *
Accel
Eternal
Fuuto PI 1-12
Fuuto PI The Stage (???)

The stuff with an asterisk is a thing I’ve written up before – those’ll get reposted, maybe with some updated commentary. I’ve never watched the HBV(s), the stage shows, or the Hardboiled Delusion Diaries, so that’ll all be brand-new for me. Fuuto PI is also new, and we’ll watch that after the live-action stuff. If I’m lucky, maybe someone’ll even post the Fuuto PI stage show!

Posts will go up daily, except for Wednesday. (Tuesday used to be the toughest day to post, but now it’s Wednesday.) I’ll always try and give a shout if something’s going to cause a day to be skipped, but I try to make that as rare as possible. I like keeping a steady cadence to this stuff!

A few quick ground rules for the new phase of these threads:

PLEASE TRY AND KEEP DISCUSSION TO THE CURRENT EPISODE, OR ANYTHING POSTED PREVIOUSLY IN THE THREAD. While I’ve seen the whole series and may occasionally bring up later details, I’d really prefer to keep the discussion to where we’re at in the show. Like, if I just posted Episode 12, let’s try and chat about that Episode, not what’s going to happen in Episode 14. We’ll get to 14! But the individual episode posts should hopefully invite discussion about that episode’s plot points and developments.

STUFF’S GOING TO GET SPOILED, THOUGH, MAYBE. I’ve already spoiled one plot thread already, and this is only the introductory post, so. Again, I don’t want to constantly be talking about upcoming storyline turns or character developments, but it’ll probably happen. Think of these Rewatch threads as a fan commentary: You would never listen to a commentary before you watch the movie, so maybe watch W before getting too deep into this thread. (Unless you don’t really care about spoilers, in which case – go nuts!)

ALWAYS BE A GOOD PARTNER TO YOUR THREADMATES. I’ve spent years being delighted by all of your generosity and inquisitiveness, and I’d love for that to continue in this thread. Be polite in your disagreements, effusive in your praise, and patient in your debate. We’re all here because we love Kamen Rider shows, even if we don’t like the same things about them.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE. The writing on these threads are always… uh, let’s be polite and say “idiosyncratic”. I just write down my reactions to Kamen Rider shows, in hopes that it’ll evoke discussion. I don’t write well, and I don’t really write concisely. This… it’s all like this, but about Kamen Rider, and over a multi-month span. Please don’t look to this thread for a synopsis of every element of every episode; please be okay with me spending an entire episode post gushing about a single scene. Also, it’s been months since I was last doing this all regularly, so it may take me a minute to get those muscles working correctly. Might be some mental sprains! Might get lost inside a paragraph! Please bear with me, but please don’t hope for too much!

THE KEYWORD IS “PARTICIPATION”. It’s always fine if people prefer to read and lurk, but the true joy of these threads is when folks jump in with their own takes. The memories, the pet peeves, the personal anecdotes, the interpretations… it’s all so great to experience. My posts are only ever a jumping off point for discussion, which means they’re only useful if people respond. The more we get a discussion going, the more I want to talk about these shows. Your posts are the wind powering my criticism city! That’s the metaphor you get if I don’t have anything to respond to!!!

I think that about does it! Now it’s time to count up our sins with KAMEN RIDER W!

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 1 - “W’S SEARCH: TWO DETECTIVES IN ONE”



Kamen Rider W is a story about a city.

It’s a thing that very few Kamen Rider shows are about, honestly. There’re shows about companies, and schools, and all of Japan. There are shows about families, both biological and found. But this one… like, Fuuto is the main character, in a way that feels completely fresh.

There’s an identity to Fuuto that separates it from the generic Tokyo I Guess of previous Heisei shows. There’re wind turbines everywhere. The clothing comes from WindScale. The defining monument of the city is a gigantic windmill. It’s the most fun way to enter a new series, because it feels new. It’s not just adjacent to the last show, some neighborhood that looks slightly different; it’s a complete identity for its cast to define themselves against.

The concept of protecting a definable city helps add quick and fascinating shades to our two main characters – Akiko and Shotaro.

That’s my favorite thing about this premiere, how much it foregrounds the dynamic of Akiko and Shotaro. While the series as a whole is memorable for our two-in-one Kamen Rider, I found myself endlessly delighted by the way Akiko’s snarky self-regard ran up against Shotaro’s performative cool. She’s new in town, and just wants to avoid Encyclopedia Brown But A Junon Superboy Contestant as much as she can. Shotaro’s attempts to be suave and sophisticated just bounce right off her disinterest, while still creating a sense that she’s sort of intrigued by his dedication to helping the people of Fuuto. It’s… like, it could easily come off as grating – generally no fun when someone shows up to shit all over the star of the show! – but Akiko’s insults land pretty well on a doofus who could not be less manly or cool if he tried.

Shotaro… he’s so great, in how performative all of his noir detective shit is. He’s a child’s conception of a world-weary gumshoe. His office is littered with toys and trinkets. (There’s a wagon full of junk in a corner! He looks like he has his office in a day care!) He’s a kid acting like his idol, to distract from how massively unprepared he is to be a man. It’s charmingly vulnerable, even as it lends immediate credence to Akiko’s frustration with him. Like, he sort of sucks at making a case for himself, while constantly demonstrating both his dedication to helping the people of Fuuto, and his analytical prowess. He’s a great detective in the body of a child that wants to come off like a great detective.

And, hey, speaking of Actual Children, it’s Philip! (Of all the cast, I would actually believe he’s in middle school. Shotaro’s insulting the wrong cast member!) He’s a fun source of mystery here, but not exactly a fleshed-out character. For what little time is spent on him, though, he’s a fun third part of the equation. He’s the exact opposite of Shotaro – all id, no ego. He pursues his passions without caring what anyone thinks of them. It makes for a fun balance with Akiko’s audience-surrogate curiosity and Shotaro’s generally-embarrassing Dashiell Hammett cosplay. Collectively they’re all kind of a formidable team? Sort of?

But it’s really Philip and Shotaro who have to combat the forces of evil, leading to the debut of Kamen Rider W. It’s one of my all-time favorite designs – the split vertical shape, the green/black/gold/purple motif, the scarf, THE SCARF – and the debut makes it suitably memorable. (I mean, the modern-day debut, I guess. The prologue sequence almost feels like a tease, for how hilariously EXPLOSIVE it is.) It’s that killer catchphrase, wedded to a sense of investigative justice, all wrapped up in form changes and a (clunkily-animated) Rider Kick. It’s a little showy, you know? The show makes it feel like W arriving isn’t just a savior to innocents or a thrilling climax, but the successful solution to a mystery. It’s W as AHA moment, and that feels nicely unique to this show.

Still, it’s Fuuto that makes this thing feel the most like itself. There’s a moment, during W’s Henshin to take on the Magma Dopant, where the wind flares and the turbines spin and it’s all very powerful. I think we’re meant to read it as W’s power exploding onto the scene, ready to defeat the monster and save the day. For me, though… I like to think of it as Fuuto itself applauding the arrival of its superhero. It’s the city saying that it wants this team to succeed.

I get where it’s coming from.

—

DIE-A MEMORIES



Hey, how about a little section to talk in a more spoilery way about my experience coming back to this show after watching a dozen other Kamen Riders over the last few years?

-They are all such skinny children!!! Especially after watching Girls Remix last year, it is insane to see how young our main trio was once. And this show does not do them any favors in the Please See Them As Functional Adults department – those shortpants they put Shotaro in for the prologue! Jesus! He might as well have been wearing a diaper!

-I really love how Akiko comes off in this episode, which couldn’t have been a bigger shock to me than if I'd somehow hated the theme song. (Nope! Still a classic!) Akiko’s someone that I kind of always thought was annoying and too cartoony, but she’s far and away my favorite character in this episode. I love how badly she treats Shotaro!

-The Sonozaki family… definitely appears in this episode!

[GrandComplete]

W is a show that I always reccomend for newcomers and part of it is the city of Fuuto is as much of a chracter as it is a setting. To me show ground itself with this city and by the time show ends you would want to look online a try to book trip to Fuuto, Japan but only to cry over the fact it not a real city just like how you can't actually enroll into Hogwarts or visit Metropolis.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrandComplete

W is a show that I always reccomend for newcomers and part of it is the city of Fuuto is as much of a chracter as it is a setting. To me show ground itself with this city and by the time show ends you would want to look online a try to book trip to Fuuto, Japan but only to cry over the fact it not a real city just like how you can't actually enroll into Hogwarts or visit Metropolis.

I do not know that I'd want to go to Fuuto! Sometimes buildings randomly collapse and also you can't use an umbrella!

[Switchblade]

Oh shit, here we go. Time to go grab my W folder off of the external HDD.

[Androzani84]

Okay, I watched this myself weeks ago, I can probably lay say something.

It is a fairly unique premise for a two parter to have two monsters across the two episodes. And that’s a good introduction to one of the motifs of the show. Duality. They even have a separate suit actor for when the camera focuses on Phillip’s half of W.

Anyway, I’ve carved a niche discussing where else you can see the actors in these things (inspired by a feature in Doctor Who Magazine known as The Fact of Fiction, which at one point would dedicate a mini section to documenting other works the actors had appeared in), and Double has an actor who was in Sentai every other episode (a result of the producer having primarily done Sentai before W). So here we go.

Our client this week, Marina, is played by Meibu Yamanouchi, who previosuly had a recurring role as Rin/Heavenly Saint Lunagel in Magiranger.

Minori Terada, our main villain du jour appears in Gaim’s Zangetsu V-Cinema as another wealthy asshole dad who motivates the villain. But aside from that, he’s had a few guest appearances on Ultraman, dating back to the original series in 1966 (yes, he’s that old), with the most recent being last year’s Ultraman Blazar.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Oh shit, here we go. Time to go grab my W folder off of the external HDD.

Ha ha, I meant to start a week ago, but things got sort of hardboiled, so I finally kicked things off today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Our client this week, Marina, is played by Meibu Yamanouchi, who previosuly had a recurring role as Rin/Heavenly Saint Lunagel in Magiranger.

Minori Terada, our main villain du jour appears in Gaim?s Zangetsu V-Cinema as another wealthy asshole dad who motivates the villain. But aside from that, he?s had a few guest appearances on Ultraman, dating back to the original series in 1966 (yes, he?s that old), with the most recent being last year?s Ultraman Blazar.

Neat! Thanks!

[DreamSword]

You should add the W Novel to the list since it recently got translated. It seems to take place right after episode 36 if you're curious. It's a fun read!

Anyway, I'll try to keep up with the thread, but I make no promises. I will definitely be sure to sound off about certain, uh, developments that happen at certain points of the show though. And you probably already have an idea about which ones, haha.

Hope the rewatch(and new watch in Fuuto PI!) ends up being fun for you!

[Sunred]

Me after seeing Kamen Rider Die will also review Fuuto P.I.: *gets out bowl and popcorn*

Yeah, while doing something new at the time such as two individuals being one rider, I agree that this show definitely is a nice starting point for newcomers, like GrandComplete pointed out, to get introduced to the core aspects of Kamen Rider from the recent batch of shows. Of course, if said newcomers then are interested in Showa stuff I'd suggest OG Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Black, and Shin Kamen Rider. And by Shin Kamen Rider I mean the recent Anno film, not the 1992 body horror rider.

[DreamSword]

Rewatched episode 1, and boy, I had almost forgotten how much I used to dislike Akiko.

It's not just the way I found alot of her behavior obnoxious, but it's that alot of her internal logic really confounds me.

The part that really got super under my skin, even now, half a decade later, was when, after Shotaro saves her life from the Magma Dopant, her response is... to put even more effort into evicting him. Scumbag move.

And this is after already using it as leverage to follow him around on the case. Was she just doing that for kicks? Was the fact that detectives get paid not even once on her mind? And how is she so clueless about her father's' own business office when she's the landlord? It's frustrating.

Akiko was and still is what made is hard to really sink my teeth into act one of W. It's alot easier nowadays thanks to the power of hindsight, but yeah, when I first watched it all those years ago, the early parts of the show felt pretty rough to me, so we'll see how much that impression holds up assuming I get to continue rewatching the show.

But again, hindsight helps, because even here in the first episode there are alot of elements that would help W to stand out in the long run. One of the things nearly everyone praises about the show is its world building, and yeah, even here in the premiere there's alot of effort put towards that. From the set design, to the various bits of iconic imagery such as the Gaia Bookshelves. And such aspects would only be built upon as the show continued.

The quirks of Shotaro and Philip are of course always fun, and we even get my favorite form of W right upfront with LunaJoker. They knew just how good that form was! They also knew just how good the switch-in attack for W was. That cyclone hits so hard! I played Memory of Heroez; I would know!

The short of it is: It's a fun premiere, if a bit of a drag at points because of one character who really rubs me the wrong way in the early days.