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Thread
:
Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Den-O
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04-27-2021, 01:52 PM
#
837
DreadBringer
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,288
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
Nobody wants you to leave. I mean,
I
definitely don't want you to leave. It's just, sometimes a joke is unhelpful, or inconsiderate, and that's something you need to understand. Generally all it takes is a quick apology, and everyone moves on. As long as it's not something that gets repeated, I'm not going to hold it against you. Welcome back!
That's actually what was my aim in my seemingly objections against jokes, for example, like the glorifying of people in Rider series making others miserable and thriving on their suffering because of those depraved acts being funny, like in certain parts of Inoue's work, which can make people get free pass to act inconsiderate and awful all they want without any regard to others, because of how entertaining it will be. I know KR is fiction stuff for me bringing up comedic sociopathy, but I also think that the shows one watches regularly can indeed gradually influence their behaviours, mindsets and worldviews, even though one may be confident think that he or she is immune to those shows' influences. My intention of that joke (though done at wrong time) there also was a plead to not dehumanize someone who is unremarkable, "waste of space", and annoys others due to that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
KAMEN RIDER DEN-O - SERIES WRAP UP
Den-O is a very much a series about how we live with ourselves. There are other people in Ryotaro’s life, and he cares for them, but the series is focused with laser-like precision on his (and, separately, Yuuto’s) journey towards self-actualization. It’s about Ryotaro controlling the various aspects of himself, illustrated by the Imagin, and coming out the other side a hero. It’s about memories, and how we should try to draw strength from even the worst of them. It’s about the trap of nostalgia, and the danger of ignoring the present. It’s about the future as a thing that we’re
working towards
, not a place that’s waiting for us. All of that is an internal journey, a process we each have to navigate in our hearts and minds.
It’s kind of amazing, for a show almost
defined
by its phenomenal ensemble, that it ends up being a story about the hard work we end up doing in secret.
Like other Kobayashi's Rider series, Den-O also had a theme revolving around wishes, where Ryuki had battle royale which granted a wish to the winner and OOO had Greeed which feeds off human desire. Den-O portrays it in the Imagin who are genie-like monsters who possess a host and asks them for a wish that can be granted. But for the sake of MOTW fights, the Imagins are mostly by default chaotic evil with the exception of Deneb (a part of backstory) and Kintaros (would've disappeared if not for Ryotaro). Imagins don't only represent Ryotaro's aspect played to the extremes where it turns to be severe flaw, but for the contract holders, it seems that Imagins portray that contract holder (unless they're already evil) in their darkest where they would stoop as low as they can without any regard to anyone else to get what they want, and likely to me, an example about how power can corrupt people, that they're free to do anything without consequences (as monsters only Toku stuff can combat them in Den-O), shown in Imagin with all the monster superpowers and having the contract holder's wish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
I get why folks who watched the show already are, at a minimum, able to look past the series-arc to see the astonishingly good character work. There’s a ton about the story that only makes sense in retrospect. Almost all of the context for everything that’s happening gets explained in the final six episodes. (
If then!
) Once you know what Sakurai’s up to and how Yuuto fits in and why Hana’s alone, it just becomes pleasant background noise. Wallpaper to occasionally acknowledge while you laugh along with your multi-colored monster friends.
I can talk about how the plot and setting can be important even if not presented well in some series before, but I have harder time to find the crucial aspect of implementing this. Kai wants to ensure future for Imagins by locating and destroying the Junction Point which is Hana, where Sakurai and Airi fights back by the former giving Zeronos power to Yuuto at the cost erasing himself and Airi letting her memories get erased so Hana can't be located by the Imagins (who can possess people and access their memories). It feels like just one of the methods that can be used by the heroes, instead of a total necessity, the main means is just keeping away Hana from Imagins. The Imagins operate by possessing someone as contract holder and acts according their wish by time travelling to the past, and Den-O crew got the Riders and DenLiner/ZeroLiner to time travel and fight them off. Kai's final defeat is also the usual villain got killed, albeit not directly but Kai releasing Death Imagin that erases him from existence after he's defeated, which can also be done with usual Rider fight/DenLiner time travel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
Ryotaro somehow makes the most soft-spoken, unassertive character in Kamen Rider history feel believable as an apocalypse-averting hero. He never really becomes the type of hero who’d carry the world on his shoulders, and that’s for the best. So much of Ryotaro’s story is about letting other people fight their own battles, and it’s nice that the show honors that version of heroism. He’s a hero who never wanted to be a fighter, and he saved the day by remembering the things he cared about. I’ve never watched a superhero show with that sort of character at the center. Ryotaro is the beating heart of this show.
I̶'̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶a̶c̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶c̶r̶i̶b̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶"̶b̶e̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶r̶t̶"̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶l̶e̶t̶e̶ ̶b̶o̶d̶y̶ ̶o̶r̶g̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶ Ryotaro's story is actually him starting as a weak, clumsy loser, but actually his adventure as Den-O gives him more confidence and determination. So he does get to be the type of hero who'd carry the world on his shoulders, maybe not completely, but he does approach that. Ryotaro's also clearly assertive when he deals with Yuuto's philosophy, he always talks back like pointing out weak isn't an excuse to sit around, or forcefully taking away Yuuto's cards. I think the one thing, at least in main series, that Ryotaro doesn't get compared to other heroes is that he never becomes really good fighter even at the end of the series?
Ryotaro may have constant bad luck and was a dropout, but he still had the wish-fulfillment aspect that he's one of the most important person in the show as a Singularity Point and goes on adventures with an ever-increasing group of friends. One thing that I find Ryotaro different from pure hero archetype is that Ryotaro is really against sacrifices, where people usually glorify heroic sacrifices and even going on wrong conclusion that “self sacrifice alone makes one 100% heroic, irrespective of any amoral or unheroic things that one also did”.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
Momotaros!
Why would you ever not put Momotaros in other projects!
Momo was the first Den-O character I ever met, in an Ex-Aid film, and I get why he was worth bringing back on his own. He’s the other half of Den-O, really. Similar to what we’d get a few years later with W, these two characters are, collectively, a superhero. Momo brings the energy, the danger, the humor, the boldness. It’s right that the biggest, best scenes in Ryotaro’s story are with Momo. The story of them valuing each other’s contributions, of them carving out a partnership from happenstance, it’s easily worth sitting through the worst of the series-arc stuff. Momo is the beating heart of this show.
Collectively they're superhero, but I feel like Momo focuses more on the "super" part (not that Momo's completely lacking of heroic traits), and Ryotaro focuses on the "hero" part, and them as collectives can be used as my point for people's mistake that people think hero is merely about saving people and the world, nothing else, and Momo's the one mostly doing superheroics by fighting as Rider to kill Imagins that attack humans. But a hero is supposed to display many morally good trait and deeds in addition to “saving people”, like being generally friendly and helpful towards strangers, even in little things that non-super characters can easily do; Little acts of kindness y'know, which is something Ryotaro often does to the contract holders for instance.
Like you said about KR's appeal being helping people psychologically, society without monsters, like real world, is already full of many ppl who need healing, care, love, compassion and help (doesn't mean you can excuse people's bad action due to having plausible reasons for it!). Claiming saving people as the only thing about heroism is using the definition too broad, and that aspect of heroism Ryotaro has can't be diminished or overlooked, though I feel Ryotaro being overshadowed by Momo or other Taros Imagins speaks about people having that mindset...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
I’d have to dig all the way back in this thread to know for sure, but I’d bet I was dismissive of Airi when she first appeared. She comes off as one ingredient too many; an anchor for a show that’s sprinting away from Kamen Rider tropes. She’s the sibling who runs a coffee shop. Who cares? Well, me, a lot, as it turns out. Airi is the innocence the show is trying to protect, and the world-weariness that comes with that protection. She’s someone who has sacrificed so much to create a future for people she can’t even remember. She’s heroism as infinite empathy, the ability to care about people you’ve never met for reasons no greater than because everyone deserves to be cared about. Airi is the beating heart of this show.
Well yeah you do. And for a sibling who runs a coffee shop, that's a running thing in Kobayashi's shows, with the role filled by Sanako in Ryuki and Chiyoko in OOO. All three of them are spacey and eccentric cafe owners who are rather motherly to their employees, but all of whom turn out to be wiser than they let on. And well, you said there that Airi had infinite empathy and the ability to care about people you've never meet because everyone deserves to be cared about..... but that will obviously extend to her treatment to... Ozaki and Miura, like the time where she took Miura to hospital for the accident
And reminder that the second half about the show is about learning
both
Sakurai
and
Airi, not only Sakurai, seems biasedly picky to only bring up Sakurai for the second half talk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
Yuuto and Deneb are an unstoppable pair. Comedic to an enviable extreme (I could watch an entire series of Yuuto being so embarrassed by Deneb that they wrestle), and a brilliant look at the comfort of a moment. Deneb doesn’t exist beyond the boundaries of his service to Yuuto, and Yuuto isn’t remembered by the world he’s been saving. All they have is one another, and that’s shown to be an incredibly precious thing. It’s not some half-life either one of them is living, but a joyous trip through time, friends forever, always
now
. Yuuto and Deneb are the beating heart of this show.
Yuuto being embarassed by Deneb and inflicting comic violence is one of the Den-O's running gags, and Den-O is a gag Kamen Rider, so you already watched an entire series about that! Just that there's also squabbles between Taros Imagins and Ryotaro's bad luck and naming sense as Den-O's other running gag for DenLiner Crew. Yuuto also had Ryotaro (as a Singularity Point who wouldn't forget him) and Airi as he's a young version of Sakurai, but well, dunno if you will touch a Den-O side media revolving this, but there's Episode Red to talk about Airi and Yuuto in current state after Sakurai is erased. Deneb outright defected from Imagin and joined Sakurai via free will, his sense of justice is already there since the beginning, he's a severe oddball among other Imagins who are 95% malicious. And I don't know again if you will touch other parts of Den-O, but if you think Deneb's gentleness is a hindrance to Yuuto's pragmatism in battles, think again, there's a Den-O media that will dispute that. Deneb's nickname from Taros Imagins odebu is a mockery of him, as it's a deformation on his name, which literally means "tubby".
The two main forms used by Zeronos are called Altair and Vega, and Vega specifically is accessed by cards tied to Sakurai (Yuto's produce Zero Form instead). The names are also the stars associated with "The Weaver and the Cowherd," one of the most famous sets of Star-Crossed Lovers in folklore, and underlines the impossibility of the original Sakurai ever returning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
The other DenLiner Imagin, any one of them could’ve taken Momo’s place without this show being anything less than watchable. Ura’s scheming gave way to a keen mind that wanted to protect his more gullible friends. Kin’s steadfast guardianship kept every other lunatic from literally pushing the train off the tracks. Sieg’s nascent view of family was as unexpected as it was heartwarming. And Ryuta’s childlike rambunctiousness transitioned, through the tough lessons of community that come with growing up, into something approaching teamwork. Those Imagin were the beating heart of this show.
Other than the respective folklore reference like Momo's Peach Boy and Ura's
Ura
shima no
Taro
, Imagins are related to the Three Musketeers where Momotaros represents Athos, Urataros represents Aramis, Kintaros represents D'Artagnan, Ryutaros represents Porthos. And possession gives them a new haircut and a dye job, like the Imagins in Den-O, and later, in OOO for Ankh's where the change was blond hair, curly on one side, and close cut on the other before a thin braid runs along the side. While Ryotaro's bad luck transfer over to Momo, the other Imagins unwittingly give Ryotaro bad luck, where Ura gives him awkward situation to deal with girls, Kin is not made for normal human operation to break things easily due to super strength, and Ryuta is volatile to create collateral damage and him being trigger-happy to kill someone. The trivial things they have for gag is that Momo can't swim, has strange reactions to red peppers, and is terrified of dogs, while Ura has the opposite where as a turtle, he's an expert swimmer. Ura excels in things that women would find appealing like kendo and piano. Kintaros employs tissues to serve his cry catchphrase and reacts strangely to spicy things. Ryuta draws and fills entire room with those. Sieg will be known more in the side medias, but he's a stuck up brat but the solution is to fight back then he'll be amazed by those who doesn't submit to him (Hana with her super strength can, but not likely for ordinary humans who can't measure to monsters).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
Hana… boy, a hard character to praise. Recasting the actor consigned the character to also-ran status, as useful to the storytelling as Naomi or Owner. She served a
function
, but they never really told a story about her character after the recasting. Even at the end, when her secret origin is revealed, it’s just a weapon Ryotaro uses against Kai. Hana doesn’t say it, and we never get her reaction to it. There’s a ton of potential in her character, and some fantastic emotional beats in the early going (I’ll probably remember her reaction to Kin’s sacrifice from the early days of the show long after I’ve forgotten the rest of her contributions) (I mean, that hostage story is pretty choice, too), but there’s no real
arc
to her story. She wasn’t the beating heart of this story, unfortunately.
She seems like the easier character to praise on the surface that she's gorgeous, acts harsh and rough towards the Imagins (also being in charge in DenLiner crew like her to Ryotaro), has super strength, and frequently shows it off by beating up the Taros Imagins, while producing (another one of running gags in Den-O) gags in that antics. Those seems to be what general audience typically asks for regarding female. The Junction Point reveal, yeah I feel that too, it's weaponizing her (not via her super strength or battle) against Kai that they just make the final revelation of Kai's failures before Kai got destroyed for good. Hana has unwittingly protected her uncle by that reveal too (but still not using her Junction Point traits), and that means they literally can't be shipped then. Another Hana's trait is that she has multiple clothes outside of DenLiner, she'll wear random and varied clothing other than her maid-like uniform outside DenLiner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
The second half of this series wasn’t so much for me. It was more about junction points and Sakurai and Time Nonsense, and I didn’t give a shit.
See above
, you know?
But, man, all them little stories in the first half.
Loved
them. I loved the little lives that needed to be saved, the micro-traumas to be resolved, the hopes renewed. That was when the show was unbeatable. The loss of those stories, or the space to tell those stories, that’s my biggest disappointment over how Den-O turned out.
For me, the series peaked with that Shouko story. 41 and 42 are, in my mind, the finale of the show. It’s the absolute pinnacle of what this show did well. There’s this little story about valuing the present instead of regretting the past or hoping for the future, with a character I believe in, and some heroes who need to learn that lesson. It’s more powerful to me than a hundred Imagin bringing about Armageddon. It’s the last moment I felt fully invested in this show. Everything afterwards felt compromised, like I was sifting through dirt to find flecks of gold. But when this show wanted to tell a human story in a world of imagination monsters from the end of time, it was
electric
.
The first half was formulaic about various Imagins possessing contract holders and acts according to their wishes with DenLiner and ZeroLiner crew travelling in time to stop them, with the running gags like Deneb embarassing Yuuto in-between. I thought the second half's overarching plot can be ignored like the monster fights in first half, especially that the second half still has the complete running gags, but I guess the IOTW, even if formulaic, is investing enough to get to know about the contract holder and Imagin's relationship to them?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kamen Rider Die
Despite mostly not feeling too great about the second half, and having basically negative patience for Time Nonsense, Kai is maybe my favorite endgame villain in Kamen Rider. Like,
full-stop
.
I think, and I’m honestly not joking about this, it’s because he
also
doesn’t feel too great about the second half of Den-O, and he
also
has basically negative patience for Time Nonsense. For a show full of half-explained mysteries that the series cannot stop obsessing over, here’s Kai explaining his origin and motivation:
That’s it!
And it’s perfect!
He doesn’t give a single shit about explaining himself or threatening our heroes. He’s just doing some dumb job he doesn’t care about, and he’s okay with you knowing that. His body language is always bored. His schemes are repetitive, because why bother trying to be clever. He’s this show’s combination of fascination with and ambivalence for an endgame, but as a tall and lanky boy. He’s fully committed to a thing he can’t muster much enthusiasm for, and he’s okay just blowing it all up at a certain point. He’s the best villain that a show
that resolutely did not need a villain
could have.
Well sorry but I like details, and again talking about it here. About Kai's past being shrouded in mystery, how he got his Time Master powers, how he ended up working with the Imagin, there's also a good plot reason, where from his heavily degraded mental state and how many of his own memories he's erased in the process, it's likely even Kai himself can't remember anymore. He's a literal representatino about how the dark side will make you forget, he's destroyed a large number of his own past selves, and a good chunk of his memories along with them by sending Imagin back in time. While it's implied he at least started with good intentions, by the time he appears he's more or less gone completely insane due to this.
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