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06-07-2021, 06:45 PM | #481 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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This is a pretty dang good episode for Otoya, by the way. I have a feeling you'll say everything I could want to way better than me over the next few weeks, Die (this IS an Inoue show we're talking about), but I'll readily agree the current '86 love triangle is preferable to the old one. Like, by far.
The thing I'm liking most about the newer love triangle, even beyond the fact that it's got 2-4 really intriguing romantic groupings (who wants to lie and say that Yuri and Maya didn't have some sparks in that beach scene), is that it all feels a lot more grounded and relatable than the previous triangle. The story could go in a lot of different directions, but it feels like the show's already laying tracks to talk about things like dependability, passion, accountability, trust, chance vs design, and a bunch more. It's already full of things that anyone that's been in a relationship can recognize, from the excitement of figuring out how someone fits into your life (and vice versa) to the weird trepidation that comes with figuring out if you're in love with a person, or with chasing a person. I wish we didn't have to go through all of that Jiro stuff, but I'm very excited to see what the show wants to do now. But Nago's learned that it's okay to deceive people in pursuit of his goals! What could possibly go wrong?
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06-07-2021, 07:22 PM | #482 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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...He says, before immediately proving my point.
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06-07-2021, 07:54 PM | #483 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Oh, man, it's another one of Inoue's Guys: Truegami from Agito! That terrible human-supremacist cop from Faiz! (And a Worm in Kabuto, I think!)
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06-07-2021, 09:18 PM | #484 |
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 27 - "80s: ANGRY RISING BLUE”
I don't know that I really liked this episode very much, but there's a thing I really respected about its construction: It's a Nago spotlight episode, and that extends to its storytelling. Nago's a dude who does not stand for obfuscation or dissembling or introspection, and so neither does this episode. It's blunt in a way that... yeah, I didn't really like the experience of watching it, but I sort of respected its bizarre principles. Like Nago! It's an insane episode, though, for how the plot unfurls. Gotta commend it for that, too. It starts off with Megumi getting arrested for a crime she didn't commit, eliciting a heartfelt and supportive You Probably Did It But I'll Make Certain from Nago. Then Shima gets nabbed for a crime he didn't commit, and Nago's like Ugh Fine There's Maybe A Chance This Is All A Setup But I'm Not Convinced. (I absolutely love how Shima doesn't consider the possibility of someone framing W.A.K.E.U.P. agents until he gets pinched. He is totally okay with Megumi getting sent to jail on bullshit charges!) From there, it's only a quick monster fight until Nago himself is made a target of the police. The best part of this whole sequence, beyond Kengo's delight at officially becoming Nago's student, is how stock this story is - heroes framed for a crime by a villain! - until you make Nago the protagonist. He's so colossally unsuited to freeing wrongly accused friends, since a) he doesn't even believe in the term "wrongly accused”, and b) he doesn't even believe in the term "friends”. Megumi and Shima might as well be asking Rook to free them. Putting Nago in a position of altruistic heroism is so uncomfortable for him, and it's a really cool starting place for this story. It's also the best section of this episode, because, uh. The first thing to go wrong is Rising IXA, which... I mean, what the hell is even going on with Rising IXA. It's got a cellphone that appears out of thin air, like we're watching Faiz or something (it even unlocks with a variation on Kaixa's 9-1-3 code!), and then it's just a mess of a suit. The chest panel is now some red starburst furnace? The helmet is a samurai? There's a heart-shaped choker?! And the color palette, man. Red and blue and white and gold and silver? Crazy. Way too busy. I don't know why I was expecting more from the W.A.K.E.U.P. design team that gave us the Ixcavator, but I suppose I was. I guess some things just peaked in the 80s. Well, maybe not everything was great in the 80s. After getting rescued from the cops by Tanahashi, a painter who IXA nearly killed back in '86, we finally get the details of this scheme. Tanahashi blames IXA and all of W.A.K.E.U.P. not just for his injuries, but for the mysterious disappearance of his muse: Maya! Since his recovery in the late 80s, Tanahashi has - and I swear to god that this is his explanation - trained to be a cop, spending decades rising through the ranks, all to have the kind of authority that would allow him to frame multiple people for crimes. Like, what. WHAT. Even for an Inoue plot, it's completely bonkers. This guy fought crime or pushed papers or whatever, for 22 years, so that one day he could ruin a bunch of lives. I'm not even going to get into the whole So Did You Never Care About Helping People part of him being, I'd assume, a fairly great cop. (He got promoted a ton, so he must've been effective.) He considers what he's doing is justice, I'd guess. I mean, it's just vengeance, nothing special, but it's clear he thinks he's doing the world a favor. It's just... dude was a 30-something painter in 1986. Is that the sort of recruit that's going to fly up the ranks in the police? And, shit, why look at an organization you despise and say The Only Way To Defeat Them Is To Dedicate My Life To Justice And Then Subvert It? Like, it's three people who do all their work out of a cafe! Just open up a competing cafe and you can end their whole group! You could be out of the Vengeance racket in way less time! But anyway, Tanahashi just straight-up tells Nago all of this in maybe my favorite moment in the episode. It's a ridiculous, laughable scheme, but Tanahashi isn't looking to trick Nago with subterfuge or anything. He wants IXA to know that he's doing all of this so that IXA suffers the most. It's a total supervillain move, giving the game away specifically to taunt the hero. It's theatrical in all of the best ways. It's the exhilarating cherry on top of an idiotic sundae. It gets worse/better, though. Oh, does it ever. So, Nago's boxed in. Tanahashi's already taken out 2/3rds of W.A.K.E.U.P., and confiscated the IXA Knuckle to boot. If only IXA hadn't ruined Tanahashi's life 22 years ago, none of them would be in this mess now. If only Nago could go back in time and fix things! Which, he can? Thanks to a not-trapped Jiro? And a Castle Doran that was underground? And Castle Doran's heretofore-unmentioned Time Door? That sends Nago back to 1986, to interact with Otoya and Yuri? I'm pretty sure this is the point where I completely checked out of this episode. I admire the goddamn brass balls of Inoue to resolve a complicated problem with Time Door, but, come on. It's such a massive cop-out that I could not have been less interested in what happened next. The entire plot ceased having any appreciable stakes or consequences, because, like, what if there's a Nago Wins door, too. It's phenomenally lazy, even by Inoue standards. Just... Time Door. Man. Whatever. The rest of the episode is the rest of the episode. Nago is judgmental about Otoya and Yuri moving in together, Maya has that face, and Wataru tells an absolutely out of nowhere story to Shizuka about a friend he had as a child that I find difficult to believe he never once told Shizuka about his literally only ever friend before her. The Taiga stuff would be ham-fisted in any other episode, but in this one it was just another baffling story element that floated along without feeling tied to any story or character logic. (Seriously, this never came up before with Shizuka, but it suddenly does now?) Not a great episode! Started off pleasant enough, with the sort of head-down, business-first attitude we'd expected from a Nago-driven story. But then Time Door, and it's not really about much. (It's a Nago story! He's not deep enough to support a story about anything! And he prefers it that way!) It's one of those Things Happen tokusatsu stories, where it's not really doing anything fun with allegory or metaphor, but it's all-in on bizarre circumstances and poorly-explained developments. It's fine as a time-waster, but I honestly thought this series had progressed beyond that type of story by now. Who'd've thought that a story focused on the most aggressively unlikeable Kiva character (2008 Division) would end up being a disappointment? Shocking development!
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06-07-2021, 09:43 PM | #485 |
Showa Girl
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06-07-2021, 09:44 PM | #486 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Location: Chicago, IL
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06-08-2021, 01:46 AM | #487 |
I have a problematic type
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Posts: 10,410
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So this episode and the next set up my favorite personal head canon for Kiva. A corrupt cop goes after the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization and goes after all of its members: Shima, Megumi, and Nago. Just them; nobody else. I don't think there is a WBSO. I think it's legitimately just some weird dude and whoever else he can convince to fight Fangires for him.
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Wataru tells an absolutely out of nowhere story to Shizuka about a friend he had as a child that I find difficult to believe he never once told Shizuka about his literally only ever friend before her. The Taiga stuff would be ham-fisted in any other episode, but in this one it was just another baffling story element that floated along without feeling tied to any story or character logic. (Seriously, this never came up before with Shizuka, but it suddenly does now?)
Quote:
It’s one of those Things Happen tokusatsu stories, where it’s not really doing anything fun with allegory or metaphor, but it’s all-in on bizarre circumstances and poorly-explained developments.
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06-08-2021, 03:50 AM | #488 |
Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 2,546
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So here we are at the appearance of my favourite random shot form the series: golden mouthed IXA.
One thing I like is that we get to see the new upgrade in the first fight of the storyline rather than the last (the only other cases of this I can think of are Grand Zi-O and Geiz Majesty). And instead of some personal journey, heroic willpower of friendship, or being invented because the last fight had no conclusion, they’re just “you have a phone now. Use it”. If it had defeated a monster in its first fight, my happiness would’ve been completed. And since there are not one Fangire, but TWO Fangire (does a Count von Count laugh), here’s this episode’s Fact Fangire-le. Crab Fangire True name: The Decoy That Imitated a Sternum and a Dictionary (辞書や胸骨を模した囮 Jisho ya Kyōkotsu o Moshita Otori) Human identity: N/A Class: Aqua Rank: Pawn Actor: Takayuki Masada (voice) Cicada Fangire True name: The Dressing Table Grieving the Half Brother's Strange Attitude (異母兄の衒奇を憂う化粧台 Ibokei no Genki o Ureu Keshōdai) Human identity: N/A Class: Insect Rank: Pawn Actor: Takeshi Mito The time door here exists as set up for its much bigger role in the movie. Deleted scenes this time: Megumi tries to plead her innocence and then tries to break the jail. The key word both times being “tries” |
06-08-2021, 08:21 AM | #489 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,089
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Quote:
KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 27 - “80s: ANGRY RISING BLUE”
The first thing to go wrong is Rising IXA, which… I mean, what the hell is even going on with Rising IXA. It’s got a cellphone that appears out of thin air, like we’re watching Faiz or something (it even unlocks with a variation on Kaixa’s 9-1-3 code!), and then it’s just a mess of a suit. The chest panel is now some red starburst furnace? The helmet is a samurai? There’s a heart-shaped choker?! And the color palette, man. Red and blue and white and gold and silver? Crazy. Way too busy. I don’t know why I was expecting more from the W.A.K.E.U.P. design team that gave us the Ixcavator, but I suppose I was. I guess some things just peaked in the 80s. But before that, I will mention that the IXAriser phone comes from his mouthplate, which may be a Showa reference to Kamen Rider X's detachable Perfecter mouthplate, considering that X is the middle letter of IXA and their given names are both Keisuke as well, except with slightly different kanji. Save and Burst Mode give the impression of a high-tech modern crusader, which is perfect for being exactly what Nago considers himself to be. But Rising just kind of exists as a purely technological upgrade without adding anything to the theme. Honestly, I think all those electronic details make it look more generic and take away from the chivalrous knight design. It looks less Nago, which is the opposite of what it should look like! I mean, it's not quite Beast Hyper levels of lame, but I think it just does everything wrong. Frankly, I'm impressed you were even able to infer a samurai motif from the head, cause with so much going on, I can't tell what I'm looking at. Quote:
So, Nago’s boxed in. Tanahashi’s already taken out 2/3rds of W.A.K.E.U.P., and confiscated the IXA Knuckle to boot. If only IXA hadn’t ruined Tanahashi’s life 22 years ago, none of them would be in this mess now. If only Nago could go back in time and fix things!
Which, he can? Thanks to a not-trapped Jiro? And a Castle Doran that was underground? And Castle Doran’s heretofore-unmentioned Time Door? That sends Nago back to 1986, to interact with Otoya and Yuri? I’m pretty sure this is the point where I completely checked out of this episode. I admire the goddamn brass balls of Inoue to resolve a complicated problem with Time Door, but, come on. It’s such a massive cop-out that I could not have been less interested in what happened next. The entire plot ceased having any appreciable stakes or consequences, because, like, what if there’s a Nago Wins door, too. It’s phenomenally lazy, even by Inoue standards. Just… Time Door. Man. Whatever. It's totally just a plot device without any explanation and I'm not even going to try and justify its existence, but at least the plot that it facilitates I think is pretty good in this Nago focus arc. First of all, Nago accepts an offer from one of his arch enemy Kiva's friends. This shows that his development from the previous episode, feigning humility to be deemed worthy of IXA, continues here with him being willing to use the enemy's resource to accomplish a better long-term outcome, even if it makes his soul feel unclean for having to resort to that. Secondly, Nago's adventure in 1986 allows him to have interaction with Otoya, similar to how Megumi met him in 2008 through Wataru as a medium, so this will be a chance for Otoya to tell Nago how much he sucks and what he needs to do to get better. Nago is here on his quest to fix the past, but again, that's just the story of this arc providing an admittedly lazy plot device to further the overall plot of the show. I think the best we can do here is work with the plot on its own terms and enjoy what happens between the characters. Cause if there's anything that Inoue excels at, it's character interactions.
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06-08-2021, 02:54 PM | #490 |
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Not sure I'm taking your point here, but I don't think Otoya's really shown to be disloyal here. There's a difference between an Otoya who dates women (so many women) and an Otoya who's in a relationship. Relationship Otoya is more focused, less obnoxious. His flirting is all to entertain Yuri now.
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Yeah, there's a real positive change in the two triangles, where we now have one with two fantastic people fighting over one generally-decent person, which is a better dynamic than Yuri needing to choose between An Abuser and An Unreliable Clown. I much prefer two competent, compelling women trying to navigate their feelings for a funny, passionate champion of justice!
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KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 26 - “METRONOME: MIRACULOUS MEMORY”
The Yuri/Otoya one is very sweet. Maya wants to see what it means to Otoya to be in love. She’s lying to him, pretending she’s Yuri, but it’s just to get him to talk about what it means to love Yuri. Maya doesn’t want Otoya to love her (yet!), but she wants to know what loving her feels like for him, how it motivates him. For Otoya, love’s about sacrifice and dedication, despite his normal womanizing ways. As he plays his violin, it connects him to his feelings for Yuri, and a promise he made to find her mother’s ring that was lost at a beach. The first thing he remembers about Yuri is a vow. Maya gets at the other side of the equation when Yuri tracks them both down at the beach. Maya wants to know what it feels like to be loved. Yuri’s answer is Otoya’s answer, but with words instead of actions. Being loved is motivating, it’s empowering. It gives you the strength to be your best self, to be better than your best self. Loving someone and being loved, they’re a power. Quote:
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There’s a third look in at The Power of Love, and it’s delightfully off-beat. It’s Megumi using the Fangire’s love for her against it, delivering an unbelievably overdue kick to its balls as she swipes back the IXA Knuckle for Nago. It feels like it’s going to be a story where Megumi and Nago find that the spark from their teamwork is maybe more than they thought, but the show swerves away from that. Instead, Nago uses his love for power to give himself the strength to lie to Shima’s face, claiming contrition (he even fake cries) so that he can retain the IXA Knuckle. It’s Nago as an Individual System (!!!), his own relationship, and using that to push himself to achieve his goals.
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I don’t know that anything here really blew me away, but there’s really nothing I can point to as subpar. I thought the IXA fight was fun (those hand puppets on the IXA suit are… did they put them in the Seihou?!), and I thought Mio’s justification for killing the Fangire was fiendishly clever. Beyond that, the story was just relentlessly well-executed, front to back.
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Most egregious? I have to disagree with you here, since I think that both of the 1986 love triangles are easily some of the most exciting that Inoue has made. While Yuri did become a passive role in the Otoya/Yuri/Jirou triangle, that propels her in to a more active role in the following Yuri/Otoya/Maya triangle where she shows a lot of resistance to stop Maya from trying to homewreck them. It's not even done in a spiteful way, since as the current gf, Yuri has every right to want to stop Maya and defend her position in the relationship. I actually support both Otoya/Yuri and Otoya/Maya. Otoya loves Yuri, but he loves freedom as well, so it's difficult for him to be content when there are two very interesting girls in his life and I think Inoue does an excellent job at showing why they are both viable options and why Otoya is so conflicted between them.
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