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03-03-2023, 02:57 PM | #941 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Yeah, it's... there's a thing in Kamen Rider, and I don't know if it's a modern development or something innate with the pacing, where so much fun storytelling and characterization for the main Rider gets jettisoned as the series grows its cast and defines its villain. Basic stuff like Touma Writes Books and Touma Runs A Bookstore take on decreasing relevance as we get more Riders, more Megid, more masterminds, more backstory, more revelations, more toys, etc. It's like the show treats all of that original conception as a mix between a recap and a metaphor -- something to occasionally reference as a way of contrasting with the current stakes -- rather than an active part of the character's life or story.
Not necessarily a criticism! Just... very interesting, right?
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Last edited by Kurona; 03-03-2023 at 03:00 PM.. |
03-03-2023, 04:00 PM | #942 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
Yeah, I... I've also been feeling something like this for a while, and never quite had a way to bring it up. It's like these things are considered the identity of the show and hence the personality it takes on in marketing and the go-to for premises of crossovers, small stageshows, stuff like that? But it's an identity that is only kind of there in the beginning and is phased out quite quickly beyond Q1 either by stakes taking prominence or characters developing beyond that. The result is an image and conception and idea of the show that just doesn't match up at all with what's actually in it.
Not necessarily a criticism! Just... very interesting, right? It's always something I think about, when these shows kick off for me. Whatever I like about the early approach -- the little mysteries, seeing how the terror intersects with everyday life, characters juggling different responsibilities -- is bound to be a fleeting joy. It doesn't make the show bad, or even wrong to abandon that stuff, but it's a... like, an innocence that these shows always leave behind, and that's a little sad.
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03-03-2023, 07:12 PM | #943 |
Best Match!
Join Date: Apr 2021
Posts: 62
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Wonder if that's part of why shows like W and Fourze are such perennial favorites too? Those two certainly never stop being a noir detective show and a high school show. Helps for both of them they were back when Rider plots were allowed to be more episodic though.
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03-03-2023, 09:26 PM | #944 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KIKAI SENTAI ZENKAIGER EPISODE 20 - “THE SWORDSMAN AND THE PIRATE’S BROTHERLY OATHS”
Wow, this was… really great? Like, really great. I’ve seen one other episode of Zenkaiger (the one with the kotatsu), and I vaguely recognize the main guy as also playing a character (the same character?) on DonBros, so I’m not coming to this thing totally cold. But it’s also not a series that I was prepared to dig as much as I did this time out. It’s utterly delightful. I mean, a lot of that is the way it subverts the Damsels In Distress schtick that the Specter special sadly leaned into for its finale. When Magine and Reika showed up to the big battle at the pier, having already broken themselves out – because they are both superheroes, of course they could break themselves out – I was so goddamn happy. I like that this episode of a completely different show addressed the weird way these guys seem to, like, take ownership of women in the name of protection, instead of treating them with a modicum of respect and dignity. Zenkaiser (I don’t know any of their names except Vroom and Magine) helps center Ryoga by getting him to have faith in his sister, rather than succumb to fear and anger out of a lack of control. It’s very smart, and incredibly appreciated. And also: I like that Reika has a new friend at the end of the episode? It’s such a cute, sad moment. I don’t think Reika ever had a friend before. Her brother was up on a pedestal, and I definitely got the impression that everyone at work hated her. With, y’know, good cause, but still. So it was nice to see her make a friend (or more, your call) of her fellow superheroine hostage, and for her to have absolutely no idea how to communicate that to Magine. It was adorable, and one of my Top 10 favorite Saber things, even if it didn’t actually happen in a Saber episode. Despite that high praise, I still don’t feel like I’m any closer to being a Sentai guy. It was all very charming, and a blast to watch, but it also sort of gave me a headache? It’s very on. There’s a manic energy to this episode/show/franchise that’s fun to dabble in as a tourist, but I don’t know if this level of energy is what I’m looking to experience over fifty-odd episodes. It’s– it’s a lot. I am a grown man with the interests of a hyperactive child, but I am not actually a hyperactive child. This is probably a great show to watch while you run around your living room, but I’m too tired to do that. Still, a very fun little team-up of some outgoing Sentai guys I don’t know super well, and the two most unfriendly and taciturn swordsmen that Saber had to offer. Very clever to build the two-parter around Orihime and Hikoboshi, since it gives you two similar enemies to fight across two different shows. It’s honestly set a pretty high bar for Super Hero Senki to clear, but this episode’s deft handling of mismatched teamwork has me feeling fairly confident in its chances. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow! — YOU! ME! DANCING! An excited Rintaro pulled Ryoga aside. “I heard you and your sister were taken to a parallel world?!” Ryoga stopped his patrol of the Northern Base’s main meeting room. “That is correct. I detailed it completely in my after-action report. You should have been included in the message chain.” Rintaro was animated, more so than Ryoga preferred. Of the many swordsmen of the Northern Base, Rintaro was one of the few that Ryoga thought had potential in the Sword of Logos. To see him so… unprofessional, it was disappointing. “Oh, I read it thoroughly,” Rintaro said excitedly. Well, it looked like he wasn’t a lost cause yet. “I found it fascinating. The mix of cultures, the strange machine-people, the similarities to our own history and traditions…” Rintaro seemed to gaze off into the distance. “I was wondering if I could ask you some further questions about your adventure.” Hmm. Ryoga wasn’t fond of the word “adventure” to describe a military operation. It smacked of the same overly-romanticized nonsense that Touma’s imagination had infected the Northern Base with. However, Rintaro was one of the few swordsmen to take his duties as seriously as Ryoga and his sister, and it would set a bad precedent to rebuff him now. Better to let this run its course. “You may ask,” Ryoga agreed. Rintaro leaned in closer to Ryoga, and asked with a hushed voice, “Were the heroes of that world always dancing?” “They were,” Ryoga said gravely. “And there were songs, and declarations, and poses. So many poses. It was horrible.” “But, weren’t they able to help you defeat the villains with those same dances? And didn’t you participate in one of the declarations? I just thought, with all of the danger that Storious and Isaac pose, that we might see if it was possible to integrate additional fighting styles or techniques into our training. Perhaps a small dance tutorial could–” Ryoga gripped Rintaro sharply by the shoulders to stop his rambling. “Rintaro, no. You can’t go down that road. I honored the customs of my hosts, to help save my sister. I would suffer any ignominy for her, even dancing, although I’m thankful it never came to that. But we must be vigilant as soldiers of the Sword of Logos. We must maintain our dignity. We cannot sing and dance before a battle, no matter how much we might want to. This conversation is over.” Rintaro had a confused look on his face. “‘No matter how much we’... did– did you *want* to sing and dance before a battle, Ryoga?” Ryoga decided to patrol Liberation, immediately. “I SAID THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER.”
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03-03-2023, 09:45 PM | #945 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,580
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Probably one of the best episodes for the Shindai siblings if I'm being honest. Both of them being fish out of water in a very different setting made for a really nice and cute story.
And I love how despite Saber titling the first half as a non-numbered episode, Zenkaiger embraces the Zenkai-Brain insanity and pretty much says "Yeah no this is canon and within the episode count and it's the introduction of our sixth's super form". Now while I get that Sentai can be a bit much, I am curious if you'll ever get back to Donbrothers at some point? Since, having seen both, it's a very different beast than Zenkaiger. And I'm curious if you'll indulge in some Donbros-Poisoning. (Note: Zenkai-Brain and Donbros-Poisoning were terms actually used by the production staff of Donbrothes I believe) But yeah, overall a surprisingly solid episode for Ryoga and Reika, in which I saw a lot of people who weren't usually hot on the two, actually enjoy this episode because of how they were portrayed. Also glad to see more Ryoga short stories, the idea of this super serious guy actually getting infected by the over-activeness of a Sentai and letting it slip is rather fun. |
03-03-2023, 09:53 PM | #946 |
Warrior of Delusions!
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Wait, you dont know either?
Posts: 5,826
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You writing Ryouga as the overly officious email guy is making me want a Durendal So-Do to put with my gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss So-Do Sabela, stop doing the work of an 18 month old Kamen Rider show and selling the merch.
But yeah, while I skipped on the Zenkai episode, I'm glad they decided to bring back the crossover for the special anniversary? I know someone mentioned it being a waste of a week which could go to a "proper" episode, and we've been ragging on Kouta sending Mai off to be a ToQger (She'd have been a great ToQger! The Shadow Line would have never turned her heart into an apple, or whatever!), but the Gaim/ToQ special back when I first saw it all those years ago was a nice change from the Super Hero Taisen "Everyone must fight for no reason for the first 90 minutes of movie" model, and while the others were alright - even if I'd completely forgotten there was a whole Ninninger/Drive one, yeesh - and this one comes closest to that ideal I have in my head of what a crossover between Rider and Sentai 'can' be? The heroes complement each other, without just shouting about heroics or justice or abstract ideals, and they're fun!
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03-03-2023, 09:56 PM | #947 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Oh, 100%. Inoue Forever, which supersedes the Sentai of it. I only fell off of it because of other stuff, but I plan on bingeing it this summer. I liked the five or so episodes that I watched!
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03-03-2023, 10:01 PM | #948 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
It really hits the notes of a summer crossover in a much more pleasant way than the various Taisens. There's a tendency to be more playful and comedic, with less of a pressure to shoehorn in Legend Riders or every form change or the Sentai Red Class Reunion at the quarry. These are just little overlaps of character traits, and everyone leaves at the end like they attended a heartwarming LARP camp. Short and sweet. What's not to like?
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03-03-2023, 10:42 PM | #949 |
Kaiju or Hero?
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Even I Don't Know Anymore.
Posts: 1,397
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Kamijou... IT'S SHINDAI YOU MORON!!! YOU DONKEY!! YOU DOOFER!! *Slaps myself with a plastic sword*
I didn't think you'd straight up go for the Zenkaiger one, and yet, here we are. Not like it's too much of a challenge, since Zenkaiger doesn't have a plot you need to know fully to understand, which I do enjoy. Now, as stated before, I absolutely ADORE Zenkaiger. It's probably one of my favorite shows ever. So, all the shenanigans from the cast gave me joy, and seeing the Shindai siblings have to deal with it kind of made me like them a little more than what we see in Saber? They even got to have a role call! Heck, as I was told, Sabella hugging Magine at the end was because she was a fan of her, which is such a sweet and wholesome moment that is just one of the many reasons I love this show. So, anyway, I love Zenkaiger a little too much.
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03-03-2023, 11:14 PM | #950 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Fish Sandwich also watched Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger Episode 20
Okay, a lot to talk about with this one! First of all, the real reason you describing the Saber chunk of this thing as "incredibly fun" was so amusing/spooky to me was because I consciously said it *wasn't* that as a setup, where the punchline was me in the next post immediately describing the even more enjoyable Zenkaiger half of this crossover as, you guessed it! Quote:
How much do I love her, you ask? Let me put it this way -- she's just about the only thing in a thread about Kamen Rider Saber I'd rather discuss than Kamen Rider Saber. Yeah, that much. Like, I'll attempt to spare you all from me getting too deep into it right now, but for the sake of Die having context, since I'm pretty sure he hasn't heard any of this from me before, Magine is just the best. It'd be underselling it to even say she's by far my favorite character in Zenkaiger. Indeed, even over the course of a whole year of writing posts about Zenkaiger episodes, I never truly found the words to properly express just how much literally every aspect of her character appeals to me. Even right now, I'm still defaulting to enthusiastic yet vague rambling, which always seems to happen when I try this. But I'll keep trying! I'll take any chance I can get to talk about Magine, because even far enough removed from Zenkaiger for Donbrothers to already be over, my bottomless affection for the most adorable tokusatsu hero of them all will never waver. There is one person out there, however, who I must humbly admit surpasses even my own excessive infatuation with Magine, and that happens to be Reika's actor, Angela Mei, which should start explaining a lot about this episode. She was extraordinarily vocal about it on Twitter from pretty much the moment Zenkaiger started, as far as I know. Just week after week of constantly making sure to mention how cute Magine was in a given episode of the show, or just like, in general. Just as a random example, here's her happily displaying the papercraft figure of Magine from an issue of TV-kun she made during breaks in filming. Just, nothing but the deepest raw affection, all the time. The woman is literally the self-proclaimed mother of Magine. And clearly the staff on these shows caught wind of that, because Nobuhiro Mouri was kind enough to write a script that seemingly exists at least 50% solely as wish fulfillment? It wouldn't be that surprising if Reika hugging Magine was just some improv bit, but no, it was right there in the script and everything! The episode is already great on its own merits, but that extra meta context really elevates it into something even more heartwarmingly fun. My favorite little anecdote about this whole situation is that Angela Mei apparently couldn't quite work up the courage to ask Magine's suit actor to take a picture with her, only for the staff to be right on the ball with that too, with the end result being a Tweet with the two resulting pictures, and text that reads simply "My Tanabata wish came true." This is what living your dreams looks like, people. So yeah, that's... uh, wait, I guess I barely talked about the actual episode, didn't I? Ah well, past me can cover that stuff again. I'm going to go ahead and use what little attention I can bring myself to give to anything besides Magine right now to mention the other thing that's important to me personally about this one, which is that this crossover changed the whole way I watch tokusatsu to a level I can only appreciate now, in retrospect. I forget exactly what my motivation for doing it this way was (I think just the fact that the discussion thread was one thing?), but I made it a point to write the posts about each episode together, and post them back-to-back, really embracing the crossover nature by making it a kinda-sorta crossover of the way I wrote posts about both of those shows. (Zenkaiger happened to be another show I was already writing about every episode for.) There was just one problem with me trying to do that on good ol' Saber Sunday, though -- fansubs weren't out for the Zenkaiger part yet, which meant I simply watched the episode raw. Despite having a functional enough knowledge of Japanese to ~mostly~ follow stuff unsubbed in a pinch, I was still making it a point to wait for fansubs of the latest Rider and Sentai episodes, because, like, I'd been doing that for about a decade. Why stop now? This was the very first time I'd ever broken that little rule I'd kept for myself, and it ended up becoming a whole new habit. I had a whole side-project going during Zenkaiger where I was writing about every Sentai premiere ever, and as those posts got longer and longer the closer I got to the end, I started watching Zenkaiger episodes raw more and more often simply to get those posts written earlier, and give myself more time to work on whatever tome I was writing that week. Somewhere along the line, my attitude completely shifted, and I was watching Donbrothers raw from the get-go just because I wanted to. I'm literally not even sure who in all is subbing Kamen Rider Geats, because I've only watched one episode of that show with subs. It's worth noting that even before all this, I'd often watch random spinoff stuff (like the Ghost crossovers!) raw simply because I don't want to forget I still need to watch them by the time they finally get subbed, but this random episode of Zenkaiger still marked the start of a pretty dang significant shift in how I engage with these shows. Just one more reason to look back fondly on it!
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