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05-23-2021, 06:29 AM | #301 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Oh, wow, I didn't realise it took Dogga this long to get here! I swear it was in the single-digit episodes... more importantly though it looks cool as hell; easily one of the best designs in the show
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05-23-2021, 08:36 AM | #302 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,108
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something about the way Dogga Form is held off on for so long combined with the timing of its use in the story make it especially memorable to me. Like, Wataru is swinging that hammer around for Kengo, man! It stands out a bit, despite not being a particularly elaborate fight scene.
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05-23-2021, 09:10 AM | #303 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,562
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So let's address the elephant in the room.
Of course this has been common practice in previous seasons but I think it is worth talking about. Personally it is interesting how certain design elements resurface in future seasons. Also fun to tease and comment how one iteration looking similar to the previous, etc.
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Last edited by Sunred; 05-23-2021 at 09:21 AM.. |
05-23-2021, 09:27 AM | #304 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Makes sense, honestly -- everything about Kuuga was perfect, so why not take a few leaves from its book?
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05-23-2021, 09:32 AM | #305 |
Ex-Weather Three leader
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,562
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I would like to add a reminder that the key difference is that Garuru is associated with wind and Bassha with water, while Kuuga Dragon and Pegasus is the other way around.
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Last edited by Sunred; 05-23-2021 at 09:49 AM.. |
05-23-2021, 11:05 AM | #306 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 1,290
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 14 - “POMP & CIRCUMSTANCE: THE SHOCKING PURPLE EYE”
I liked the Wataru story, incidentally. It’s not a very robust part of the narrative (it’s basically just Shizuka getting Megumi to tell Wataru that Kengo’s getting fleeced and may have his dreams of stardom devoured by a decorative vampire monster), but the emotion behind the final fight with the Rhino Fangire was nice. We’ve seen plenty of fights where Kiva was competent, and a couple where he was reluctant, but I think this is the first one where he was righteous. He’s not just defeating a monster; he’s punishing an evildoer. That side of Wataru… I mean, obviously, not something you want to see all the time (he’s a very sweet boy!), but it's like Otoya’s new strain of self-sacrifice and quiet heroism: it’s adding dimensionality to a character that you could feel like you’ve already seen all the sides of. It’s an episode that wasn’t really twisty in plot, but had a few surprising character turns. Quote:
Like Otoya not blowing the whistle (or Whistlestle) on Jirou! Took me a minute to figure out why he wouldn’t just show up at Mal d’Amour and go This Man Is A Clawolve, but I think I get it. (Well, the main reason why he doesn’t say anything is to prolong this story, but I think there’s some narrative cover for the decision, as well.) Otoya is trying to protect Yuri from Jirou, and that’s heroic, but it’s still Otoya being heroic. There’s a top layer of heroism now, but everything underneath that is still The Worst. He doesn’t want to, like, tattle on Jirou. That’s cheap, and unmanly. It’s cowardly. (It’s also exactly what Jirou does.) Otoya wants to defeat Jirou, to end his threat against Yuri with his own hands. He also needs to do it in secret, because this, strangely, isn’t about showing off for Yuri. It’s about keeping her from harm, but a patronizing A Woman Shouldn’t Bear This Pain type of harm. He’s toxically masculine, in his need to shield Yuri from painful knowledge. It’s more bullshit paternalism, but it’s also exactly the sort of bullshit paternalism that Otoya would reflexively go for.
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It makes for an episode that just, like… delivers. Nothing was a huge surprise, but the fundamentals were rock solid. It’s another episode where the visuals are insanely good (there’s this shot of Jirou lounging on the roof of Monster Squad Massage that is disgustingly clever), the humor is whip-smart (Otoya’s answering machine greeting!!!), and the character relationships are specific and engaging (Shima and Megumi trying to, like, manage Nago’s fragile but bottomless ego).
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It’s still a middle installment, though, so I don’t really have a ton to comment on, really. It’s weird to see Kengo spurn Wataru, but there’s some impatience in Kengo that was bound to bristle against Wataru’s sweetness at some point. There’s Nago’s new Ixcavator, or whatever, but I think my feelings towards CGI monstrosities are abundantly clear by now. And then there’s Kiva’s new purple Whistlestle, which turns him into Titan Form With A Hammer. (I liked it, but: it’s literally just Titan Form With A Hammer.) Good stuff, all of it (well, Ixcavator), but nothing I have a lot to say about.
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05-23-2021, 11:34 AM | #307 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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I have to say that I was kinda disappointed with this one. Not that it was bad, because it wasn't, but because my favorite moment played out differently than I remembered. The way I remembered Yuri's phone call with Shima was that Otoya had randomly created a massive street dance in the background. I hadn't realized at the time that the dancers were already there and he just joined in. Still adorable, but less perfectly random and bizarre.
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It's a very appropriate debut for sure. I'd also like to point out how the lightning backdrop in his finisher could be a metaphor for anger, symbolizing Wataru's anger towards the Rhino Fangire for sadistically destroying the dreams of his victims and attempting to do the same to his new friend. The other symbolism is of course Frankenstein but I mostly like what it says about how ticked off Wataru is in this scene. It's the same anger that Kiba felt when he fought Owl Orphenoch.
(One tiny thing that cracked me up, though, is when Wataru gets to the Rhino's shrine. Wataru is looking for confirmation that the Fangire is preying on Kengo, and Wataru has to look over the entire shrine multiple times to pick out his best friend from a group of two dozen people. Is Wataru face-blind? Was he so stressed that he briefly forgot what Kengo looked like? It's a small thing, but it made me laugh just before the darkest part of the episode. I would maybe have edited that scene differently!) Quote:
Nago gets his just desserts for shifting the blame for his defeat to IXA, which Shima pointed out that it can be Nago not capable enough to bring the best out of IXA . Other than that, it's seen again for Nago's self-righteous extremism, that he gives excessive punishment to a human criminal that even Megumi had to stop him as he can potentially kill the human. Again, unfortunately some people are like-minded with Nago here to kill anyone who does bad, because likely being influenced by media negativity to think the law is never competent even once for dealing with criminals (them getting off scot-free) for one of the reasons.
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05-23-2021, 12:31 PM | #308 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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But really, I think it ended up being great timing to reuse that concept, since Kiva was the last just kinda "ordinary" Heisei show before the big anniversary celebration Decade came along and then Double went on to create a new normal shortly thereafter. They essentially had the perfect amount of distance from Kuuga for it to not be redundant, and frankly, with a design aesthetic THAT radically different, you're not exactly going to mistake one Rider for the other. Seeing them all together like that in the image Sunred posted really gave me pause to think about how crazy the franchise had already gotten from that relatively humble rebirth in 2000. I do really love the idea that Kiva's motif is just monsters, by the way? It's such a direct example of a Kamen Rider being a hero created from something evil, and then you throw in stuff like edgy rival Ixa as the light to Kiva's dark, ironically heroic in a way that's more creepy than Wataru could ever hope to be, and it's just so— The theming in this show is amazing, is the point. This isn't even the first time I've gone on a tangent praising the aesthetics. Probably won't be the last, either. Quote:
One of the things it does, and it's a tiny detail that I love in Rider weapons, is that it changes form via physical manipulation. Like, IXA transforms it by hand between the two modes. It gives it such a playful, DX feel that I find it very charming and engrossing. I like the reality of it, I guess.
I specifically remember being rather enamored by the Ixa Calibur when I was first getting into Rider. Weapons in toku that transform from guns to swords are a dime a dozen – and for good reason – but something about the elegance of the way this particular one changes shape entirely by jamming the magazine up into the rest of it really caught my eye. I feel like it's a perfect one weapon crash course on how fun, smart, and creative the toy designs in Rider can get.
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05-23-2021, 12:46 PM | #309 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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I specifically remember being rather enamored by the Ixa Calibur when I was first getting into Rider. Weapons in toku that transform from guns to swords are a dime a dozen – and for good reason – but something about the elegance of the way this particular one changes shape entirely by jamming the magazine up into the rest of it really caught my eye. I feel like it's a perfect one weapon crash course on how fun, smart, and creative the toy designs in Rider can get.
But the other thing is sort of how cathartic that feeling is (it just feels good to smack that gun, exert some force on something), and how that reflects on what IXA means to Nago, and also how ingrained the idea of catharsis is to the show? Like, Nago becoming IXA is an outlet. It's him shedding his human form in favor of a purer distillation of his worldview/psychosis. (YMMV.) Kiva is sort of the same thing for Wataru. It's him getting to express the aspects of his personality that he has problems articulating outside of being a Rider. The IXA Calibur being a release valve for Nago is one of those little background touches that feels too aligned with the series themes to be accidental, you know?
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05-23-2021, 02:28 PM | #310 |
The Immortal King Tasty
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Every diner you've ever been to.
Posts: 3,833
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Hey, I love to point out that the notoriously uncommunicative Kamen Rider Faiz draws his superpowers from a phone, so I'd believe it! Having designs that can also speak to the story is a ton of the fun of Kamen Rider for me.
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