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03-16-2024, 08:28 PM | #421 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
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Quote:
-But? why did they use ?Nobody?s Perfect? over a montage of Akiko and Shotaro canvasing the city? That?s the song you play just before a battle when Shotaro?s doing something half-boiled, or overcoming his flaws ? not when he?s doing basic detective work just after the opening credits.
Anyway, this is the second two-parter in the show that I forgot like 99% of. But whereas I blocked out the Akiko two-parter in Act 1 because I found it so insufferably annoying, this one I realized I blocked about because, frankly, it's so frikken boring! Like, I was basically rolling my eyes throughout the entirety of it. The love triangle I gave no craps about. The forced Evil Wakana stuff. The mystery that barely even qualified as one. Just, all of it. And like, I normally love Ishida's' directing, but I wish Sakamoto had directed this one, because atleast then there'd likely be alot more energy to these episodes overall. Pretty much all I got. Though I will note that I'm not sure why Makura is getting extra heat here? Dude's' shtick has not changed from the second he was introduced.
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03-16-2024, 08:35 PM | #422 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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It's so dull. I got two paragraphs into a write-up, and then had to call it. I was staring at the open document for a good several minutes, drawing a blank on anything else to talk about. The stuff with Rui and Uesugi... they're so bland! I don't care about either of them! Ever!
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03-16-2024, 09:41 PM | #423 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
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03-16-2024, 09:42 PM | #424 |
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You're right! I was confusing him with Asumu. Sorry!
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03-17-2024, 03:53 AM | #425 |
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So, the yeti randomly appearing in the middle of a Japanese town in the early summer’s been mentioned, so I’ll get my other major thing of note off my chest. Wakana keeps threatening to bring Phillip over to her side, but despite knowing where he lives thanks to the Violence Dopant case, and having wrecked the place as base Claydoll (ie. Her less powerful form) in the Puppeteer two-parter, all she does is make vague threats. C’mon, Princess. What’s stopping you?
Last edited by Androzani84; 03-17-2024 at 06:00 AM.. |
03-17-2024, 10:38 AM | #426 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,426
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Quote:
So, the yeti randomly appearing in the middle of a Japanese town in the early summer?s been mentioned, so I?ll get my other major thing of note off my chest. Wakana keeps threatening to bring Phillip over to her side, but despite knowing where he lives thanks to the Violence Dopant case, and having wrecked the place as base Claydoll (ie. Her less powerful form) in the Puppeteer two-parter, all she does is make vague threats. C?mon, Princess. What?s stopping you?
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03-17-2024, 10:41 AM | #427 |
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That they still have too many episodes left in the season.
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03-17-2024, 07:17 PM | #428 |
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However, Makura kicks out Shotaro that his visiting time is over and that Jinno needs a medical checkup from a doctor. Makura just have a too rigid approach for the cop station, that Shotaro's stalling gets them to an argument again, and he had a big ego to use that as his golden age... by abusing your power? The attitude is seen on some of the police brutality to throw their weight around in the most nitpicky things, only that there are no violence here. Jinno's the one who unwittingly saved the day here by being the Agency's client, without even getting into the action, and Rui got Jinno involved due to him being guillible, thus she had to keep him safe from the potential lies from Uesugi, and flashbacks show her as one of the people who got affected by Jinno's infectious aspect of being gullible, going along with him even if he's fooled (though tbf, the 'lie' she told him of her friend being held hostage isn't a really obvious one unlike Look Behind You), thus redeeming her delinquent aspects, not fighting anymore, owing him for that. And as Jinno is cleared of his charges... of course, Makura sucks up to him, claiming that he knew he's innocent the whole time, but still he doesn't seem to value others as friends, only being an opportunist to get himself on spotlight.
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 42 - “J’S LABYRINTH - A DAMAGED DIAMOND”
I think the problem for me with this two-parter’s Dopant Dilemma (kicking myself that it took me two months to come up with that) is that there’s just too much of it. W’s a show that kind of needs more room to stretch out, to let Philip, Shotaro, and Akiko really get their teeth into a problem. This is a hangout show, and there’s no room to really hangout with them in this one. Quote:
There’s just so much to go over with Rui and Uesugi, which at times leads to them shouting their constantly-shifting backstory at one another for the audience’s sake. It’s all classic noir tropes – the criminal is secretly the victim, the kind-hearted friend is secretly the criminal, and all narrators are unreliable – but there’s a density to them that crowds out the places where Shotaro might make the connections for the audience. He has his moments, but too much of the show gets turned over to characters like Jinno and Rui explaining the past, and its significance, rather than letting the atmosphere build around the actions of the heroes. (It sincerely does not help that so much of this story is beholden to the elaborate backstory of characters we've never met before, and will never see again.) It’s a good story, by the end, but it’s one that Team Double isn’t much of an active participant in.
Uesugi explains another aspect of his that he's a perfectionist, his twisted mindset comes from how the flaws of something he liked stands out more, including Rui's, thus he wants to get rid of it. This episode had a twisted sociopath take of it, but it does can happen, like some people at a fanbase of a media that starts to get nitpicky over every single thing that is 'bad' to them, outright losing their ability to appreciate the actual good stuff over time (not that people cannot criticize, but accentuating the negative is imbalanced). Uesugi decides to throw Satoru into the sea, but Accel Trial saves him, and it means it's the 2nd time he saved Uesugi's "friends", as he also saved Rui before with Trial's super speed. Accel describes Uesugi's overall plan is making Rui look guilty with Shotaro and Akiko as witnesses. Shotaro unwittingly helping Uesugi was the reason that Rui mocks his guilibility before, though actually Shotaro reveals that he finally figured it out at the wharf, looking at Uesugi hiding the detonator in the arm cast along with the Jewel Memory. So the series' method of exposing the manipulator is the usual single mistake that blows their cover.... kinda an easier take. Quote:
And, like, that’s sort of it for me and this one? Everything I said last time carries over to this one, without a really killer fight to save things. (There’s a flaw in the diamond!) Your ability to enjoy the actions of a schoolyard love triangle to a greater degree than your enjoyment of Team Double breaking a story will determine how excited you were by this one. I didn’t hate it, but it was just too crowded for me to care about. Not mad, just bored.
At least he's a famous model who has a good publicity. Though didn't recall Uesugi wanting to kill Rui, just making her the guilty one.
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03-17-2024, 08:25 PM | #429 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 43 - “THE O CYCLE - ELDERLY DETECTIVE”
Wow, what a rapid recovery this show can make! After the last two episodes bored me to tears, I thought this one was an all-around winner. Fun stakes, clever exposition, great gags, and some genuine drama for Shroud. Perfect episode, maybe! It helps that the Dopant Dilemma is both straight-forward in its consequences – a kid got turned into an old lady; that's bad – and absurd in its context. Like, there’s just this scumbag selling aged revenge? And he’s just at some table under a bridge? It’s such a flavorful antagonist that almost anything that would come out of it would be an improvement over last story, and it’s all the right mix of seedy and horrifying. This guy doesn’t care about anything, so everyone’s at risk. The Old Dopant is like a Terror Dopant that’s also sort of short-sighted and lazy, which is the perfect level of threat for a W two-parter. And the story with the little kid… like, it’s a solid problem to solve to begin with, but it gets so much better when it sprawls out into this story of stage moms and traumatized children, because it’s looping in the larger story of this episode, which is the collateral damage that comes from selfishness and rage. Both of the little girls are getting victimized by this story: Miyu, for getting turned into a granny; and Kumi, for witnessing her mother’s villainy. Whatever Kumi’s mom thinks she’s getting out of this, the consequences make it all too horrible to be comfortable with, and bound to cause bigger problems down the road. This thing’s about people putting into motion revenge, and how uncontrollable that ends up being. Which is to say, Shroud. Shroud’s a ridiculous character, whose single-minded devotion to killing Ryuube through hate AND ONLY HATE is so tiresome that even Philip can’t help but roll his eyes at her continued insistence that Shotaro isn’t hateful enough to be part of Double. She’s a dumb character, and she’d need to be at least 20% less theatrical to come back into the range of feeling like a real character you could take seriously. Luckily, this episode correctly decides that Saeko is maybe the best Sonozaki going right now, and gives her the task of selling Shroud’s Machiavellian bonafides, which almost instantly makes Shroud weirdly compelling. The idea that Shroud has ulterior motives is self-evident – her name is Shroud – but the idea that she’s been creating monsters specifically to build more furious heroes is… it’s pretty great? It’s the best possible motivation for an opposing force in a noir-inflected Kamen Rider show, to have her be just as monstrous as Ryuube, but In A Good Way Maybe Question Mark. She’s unconcerned with anything other than getting her revenge, and little things like “enabling Isaka’s serial killing” are just the cost of getting the job done. Sometimes little kids have to get turned into old ladies, and sometimes a young detective’s family has to get flash-frozen. The steadiness of that theme of collateral damage makes sure that there’s no fat on this thing – every single scene is helping tell the same story, and it’s a great story. (Saeko and Terui in a scene is CHEF’S KISS.) Assured storytelling in a compelling package, from bell to bell. It’s so great to see this show be this good, this close to the end. — DIE-A MEMORIES -This thing is also SO FUNNY. The old man gags with Shotaro are a blast, turning Makura into a reliable source of laughs, but the FangJoker fight is, like, peak Takaiwa. Nothing is more fun to me than that dude playing two different roles through two different halves of his body. Crazy to think that a tense fight scene can still find room for such a clever bit of physical comedy. -We’re also seven episodes from the end of the series, so it’s time to remind everyone that Akiko has a huge crush on Terui. While that’s rarely my favorite thing (she is her most childlike when she’s trying to get Terui’s attention, and it’s just sort of creepy), I like how this episode continues to subtly imply that it’s more reciprocal than Akiko thinks. The bit where Akiko has a picture of them together, and Terui’s like Don’t Question Me… I mean, he’s just being bashful! He likes the Chief! I don’t know if this was ever going to be show where they got real romantic about it – god knows those two ain’t the characters for it – but I like how the steady accrual of small details actually makes their relationship feel like it comes from someplace other than the clear blue sky.
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03-18-2024, 06:46 AM | #430 |
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So this is an episode I actually have a great deal of stuff to talk about in. So for now, it’s time for the cast alerts.
Rider-lert! So both of our feuding mothers were in separate episodes of Kiva. The one who calls the gang in (Ryoko Yui) appearing Yonemura’s two-parter as the older version of the girl Otoya was teaching, while the one behind this case (Yuki Higashi) appeared in two separate episodes as Yuri’s mother (Megumi’s grandmother), who appeared in a flashback solely to die. Both also got appearances in later shows, Yui as Neon’s mother in Geats and Higashi as Haruto’s mother in Wizard (who appears in a flashback solely to die. She really needs to stop doing that). Aside from those two, one of the fortune tellers is a cameo from Satoshi Morota, who’s been a director for Rider since Blade (though the only series where he’s been the main director was Ghost). He’s had a few “Hitchcock” moments since he started, with the most notable being a recurring teacher on Fourze named “Mr. Morota”. |
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