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:
General Kamen Rider Thoughts
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04-07-2020, 08:31 PM
#
26
Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
Here comes a thought.
What do you think Kamen Rider is about these days?
(Like, what do
you
think. You don’t need proof from some producer’s interview or whatever, just your own thoughts. Not to get all Death Of The Author, but once the show gets made it ceases to matter what the intent was in production. You can decide what you think a piece of art is saying to you. Similarly, no wrong answers. An opinion can’t be wrong!)
So, and I’m not a Showa dude, it seems like the popular answer is
Fighting Darkness With Darkness
. Right? Shocker takes a man, turns him into a monster, but that monster uses his power to protect instead of harm. He’s the monster that destroys monsters. He harnesses his misfortune and becomes a hero.
And, that’s still a prominent part of the franchise. I just, I don’t think that’s what I get out of Kamen Rider.
For me, the theme I’m seeing is
The Value Of Empathy In A World Of Violence
.
More and more of Kamen Rider seems to be about finding connections, taking the time to understand monsters, to try and reform people who do wrong. Secondary Riders need to be brought into the fold, tensions in the group need to be resolved, villains need to be reached out to, etc. A lot of the storytelling is given over to the idea that fighting isn’t always the answer, that hearing someone out nearly always has value.
And, I think the Value Of Empathy theme, it’s not a clean break from the Fighting Darkness theme, but an evolution of it. It’s about how much more nuanced the storytelling has gotten, the sense that teaching children to Fight Evil isn’t a fair lesson, isn’t conducive to a healthy society. That it’s more heroic to try and find the good in bad people, to show them
how
to be good, than it is to just fight bad people. Not everyone needs to be Rider Kicked, and you can’t know that until you try to understand them.
The Fighting Darkness With Darkness theme, it’s about a hero who uses his pain to destroy the source of pain. But that’s not really how pain
works
. It’s not something that can be punched or kicked, it’s something that needs time, support, understanding. The Value Of Empathy theme, it’s about recognizing that everyone’s in pain, and that by
recognizing
that we can try and deal with our pain together. That we aren’t heroes and monsters, but people who need each other to be our best selves.
I’d cite some examples, but they might be spoiler-y. (But: Drive, Ghost, Ex-Aid, Agito, Double, Fourze, Build) Plus, this is just what I’ve been getting out of Kamen Rider, not necessarily a bulletproof theory. If you don’t see it this way, that’s totally cool.
I
do
want to know what everyone is getting out of Kamen Rider as a franchise, though. What do you think Kamen Rider’s about these days?
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