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03-30-2021, 09:46 AM | #551 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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This is the core of why I like this bi-weekly monster story so much. The whole concept of someone disappearing because of an Imagin rampage in the past and nobody remembering them in the present is such a neat idea. It's a great example of the show's theme of memories and it ties directly into everything that's going on with Yuuto, too. Plus it leaves us with that haunting final note (pun intended) of Piano Hobo boarding the Denliner to drift along through time until he can find his place again. I really love everything that's going on with this concept.
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03-30-2021, 01:23 PM | #552 |
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KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 34 - “THE PIANIST OF TIME”
I swear to god, I feel like this show is trolling me. Not a day after I write a whole bunch about how excited I was for the new Yuuto/Kohana team, and how excited I was to see some real movement on their shared dilemma, HA GODDAMN HA, I get this episode. It’s one where Kohana and Yuuto share (if memory serves) absolutely zero screentime, and where their shared dilemma is addressed with, to quote Reverend Lovejoy, “short answer ‘yes’ with an ‘if’, long answer ‘no’ with a ‘but’.” Literally everything I loved about last episode got chucked out the window, and what I’m left with… well. Quote:
I liked the ending? There’s a sweetly pure idea about memories being both sacred and illusory. The idea that forgetting people can be like a death, but that we remember things we’ve forgotten all the time. No one’s ever really gone, as long as we’re quoting prolific voice actors. Someone can disappear for ten years, and then rekindle a connection to the world in an afternoon. It doesn’t take a lot. It’s a tragedy, to be forgotten. But it’s not really fatal, not really the end. If we stay true to ourselves, and reach back when someone reaches for us, it can all work out.
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Some of it is because, like a lot of problems I end up having with Den-O, it takes forever to explain what the hell is really happening in the story, and then it rushes through the exposition because there’s no time left for subtlety. Every flashback scene with Piano Man and Coma Man was, honestly, pretty abysmally acted and written. The dialogue is just this guy shouting all of his thoughts at a stranger, and the performance is him SHOUTING ALL OF HIS EMOTIONS. It reads as nearly psychotic, instead of as two kindred spirits finding a connection. And that accident scene! I was not meant to laugh at it, I’m pretty sure? But, man, come on. Coma Man dashes in front of an oncoming car like he’s secretly two dogs standing on each other’s shoulders and wearing a sport coat. It’s a ridiculous moment, and it nearly sunk this story for me.
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The regular cast is weirdly deployed in this one, with special disappointment for how unintegral Kohana is. There’s a scene where the DenLiner crew reacts to her new form, which was funny, but she’s largely irrelevant to the Imaginvestigation. She doesn’t do anything that helps Den-O save the day, and she disappears from the plot about halfway through. Her aside, it’s really just some Urataros smooth-talking (one scene?) and a little bit of Deneb possessing Yuuto to keep things lively. The rest of the episode is a lot of piano playing, and not much story.
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Mostly didn’t care about the fight at the end of this one (the Imagin has, like, an army inside him why?), but I’m pretty sure that office building got used in a good Ryuki and/or Blade story for a fight. That is, uh, that is how into this episode I was: fondly half-remembering Blade and Ryuki fight scenes.
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03-30-2021, 01:47 PM | #553 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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But this is something already established before, that Imagins can go out of control and go apeshit with stronger form, a la Ex-Aid's Bugster Union form. Something new I got that is worth attention was the train collaboration and circling to end the biggest threat yet.
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03-30-2021, 07:38 PM | #554 |
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I remember watching this the first time and thinking WTAF It has not seemed any less weird to me at any point since then. That having been said, the juxtaposition of the bizarre-escalation line and your Den-Oh signature image made me laugh out loud
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03-30-2021, 08:23 PM | #555 |
The Immortal King Tasty
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I'll just start off by dropping this in first:
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This arc is by far the most memorable Victim of the Week plot to me. It's another one of those plots that really defines Den-O to me, that begins with a concept as simple as a man playing a piano, and tells a fairly bittersweet story that still ends on an optimistic note. The show draws some comparisons from there to Yuuto's dilemma, but for once the emphasis doesn't feel completely lopsided in favor of the main characters. Which is great, because for a guy with no name and not a lot of dialogue, it's hard not to like the piano man. There's a real melancholic atmosphere to a lot of these episodes, which is something Den-O excels at creating in a way I don't think any other Rider show does.
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So I think it is safe to tell that other motif behind Zeronos as of this episode. Zeronos's other motif aside from Ushiwakamaru and Benkei is the Asian folklore behind the Summer Triangle made up of Altair, Vega, and Deneb, and most importantly the myth behind the Jujly 7th festival celebrated within Asia, known as Tanabata in Japan.
- And naturally, the clever of idea of Deneb being what allows Altair Form to turn into Vega Form is yet another cool thing about Zeronos. I'm telling you, they went all out with the theming on this dude!
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03-30-2021, 09:23 PM | #556 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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...and then say that, despite reading your thoughts on some of the tonal issues kicking up vague memories of me maybe having the same reactions, this is another episode set I really like. That amazing piano version of Double Action lodged itself in my brain the first time I saw those episodes and basically never left, though, so that might account for my extra attachment to it.
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03-31-2021, 11:21 PM | #557 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 35 - "THE CARD'S TRAGIC REVIVAL - ZERO"
God, aces episode. It starts off being a look at how Ryotaro processes responsibility, then transitions into a look at how Yuuto processes responsibility, then wraps those two threads together in an astonishingly ambivalent and sad look at the costs of being a Kamen Rider. There's jokes in there, too, and they're great. The whole training montage is shot beautifully, and had me in stitches: Momo mistaking Ryotaro's desire to learn to fight better as a request to fight more, and basically declaring war on the yakuza as sparring practice; Ura using Ryotaro's request for help as an excuse to just hardcore flirt with five women, with some light deception to keep himself in fighting shape; Ryuta opting to be no help whatsoever, and letting his advice to a struggling Ryotaro be Don't Lose; and Kohana, muscling all of these dinks into a shape that could, at the very least, not get Ryotaro killed. So it's down to Kintaros to train Ryotaro, an idea that goes on exactly as long as it could. Kintaros is too well-meaning to get Ryotaro into the kind of trouble that can fill up an entire episode, so what we get with him and Ryotaro is some cute callbacks, some good physical humor, and a chance to get at what's really bothering Ryotaro. The whole Getting Better At Fighting thing is mostly a cover. Or, not a cover, but it's Ryotaro not really dealing with his guilt over Piano Man's transitional state. Ryotaro can't really deal with the fact that some people don't get saved, even when Den-O saves the day, so he thinks if he can maybe fight harder, no one will get lost in time. But Den-O doesn't work that way, and Ryotaro training harder isn't anything more than Ryotaro trying to put his guilt somewhere. It's not productive, and Kintaros eventually needs to address that reality with Ryotaro. (Kohana is less likely to challenge Ryotaro than the Imagin, which is an interesting idea that the show doesn't really explore. It's maybe about how protective Kohana is of Ryotaro, as his bodyguard, in a way that the Imagin can be more blunt? Dunno. Not a thing the episode feels like dwelling on, unfortunately.) Kintaros sees that Ryotaro is looking at his guilt as a dereliction of his responsibility. Ryotaro thinks he's feeling this weight because he's not been as effective a Den-O as he should be; this guilt is his punishment. But it's because he's so invested in protecting people, so wounded by one displaced soul, that Kintaros can see that Ryotaro is plenty strong. His feelings of responsibility and duty are what makes him effective, not the other way around. But that's only half of what this episode is trying to say about guilt and responsibility. For the other half, we turn to Yuuto, who is more or less shifting full-time to Retired Brat. He can't really help Ryotaro any longer, since he can't transform into Zeronos. He's given up his future to save time, and now he's free to make new memories. Protecting time and saving people, that isn't his responsibility any longer. He's free of that burden. Until Sakurai shows up with a new deck of Zeronos cards, and an unspoken explanation of Yuuto's role in this story. (It is, predictably, my least-favorite part of this episode. I get that Sakurai is probably wrapped up in whatever endgame narrative Den-O has been barrelling towards since Episode 1, but it is Episode 35. You can give us a little bit more to go on than Silent Double-Hatted Future Selves and Portentous Stopwatches and Crestfallen Allies. It would not hurt this story to spell out some of these mysteries! If you need to drag it out this long, it maybe is not that good of a story to begin with!) Yuuto has to decide if it's worth losing what little life he's managed to nurture, just to keep fighting as Zeronos. It's the flipside of Ryotaro's personal strength being his advantage. It's less about believing in yourself and leaning on your friends, and more about self-sacrifice and self-negation. It's Yuuto being asked to scourge himself of hopes and dreams in favor of The Mission. It's exactly as sad as Ryotaro's story was uplifting. Yuuto's story is tragic, and he's seen the arc of that tragedy. He gets to immolate himself, slowly, in the fires of Zeronos, and in the end his reward is that no one will care. But the alternative is for Yuuto to put time itself at risk, to know that he could have fought harder and chose not to. It's the guilt of inaction, and it drives Yuuto to destroy himself. It's a feeling of responsibility that lacks perspective, lacks any ego. There's a great inversion for Ryotaro and Yuuto this episode. It starts with Ryotaro beating himself up for not being flawless, and Yuuto finding some happiness in a future without responsibility. But then Ryotaro learns that there's solace in feeling loss, and Yuuto burdens himself because he can't do anything less. It's an episode about the ambivalence of responsibility, and about the limits of guilt. It's not a happy ending for anyone in this story. Yuuto is doomed, Deneb is crushed, and Ryotaro is frustrated. For the Shocking Return Of Zeronos, it's a remarkably somber episode of Den-O. I loved it. A great, hopefully permanent, return to form for this show. THE BAGGAGE CAR -Awesome twist for this episode's contract holder. His whole story was incredibly slight, and was mostly there to keep this episode looking like it was going to be all about Ryotaro Learning To Be Strong. As such, it doesn't really do a lot. (There is some stuff contrasting his ridiculous nonsense with two men who have actual problems and are handling it with more dignity, but that's not focused on too much.) But! Laughed my ass off at this guy's motivating loss being at a singing contest. That is some A+ humor writing. Hilarious twist. -Really thrilled with how screwed this episode made Yuuto's existence out to be. The idea of your future self showing up in a beige trenchcoat and saying, basically, TATAKAE (because that's what you do if you wear a beige trenchcoat on a Kamen Rider show, I don't make the rules), robbing you of all hope... that is rough! Even for a franchise of doomed heroes, Yuuto literally dies a hero or lives long enough to see himself become a gigantic asshole who keeps wrecking his own life! That! I mean, THAT!
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04-01-2021, 01:19 AM | #558 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,410
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Yeah, this is a really good one. I loved all of the stuff with Kohana and Kintaros. Kohana really is sliding into her role on the show very smoothly here; she feels like the same character, just smaller and a bit sillier in how she approaches disciplining the Taros.
I'll let Androzani handle the voice acting angle, but I do want to highlight this episode's Imagin. The Mole Imagin is going to go on to be one of the most heavily reused suits from the show. It appears in almost every Den-O movie from here on out and in a number of the Rider team-up films during Phase 2. It's a really good design, to be fair, but get used to seeing it. |
04-01-2021, 03:01 AM | #559 |
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Yeah, despite there being three different VAs for the th Mole Imagin, only the one with claws had a VA I felt was worth talking about. So here we go.
Kōichi Sakaguchi Notable Anime roles: Arbok and Mr. Contesta in Pokémon Notable Tokusatsu roles: Zu-Gumun-Ba in Kamen Rider Kuuga: Special Chapter, Duke Org Yabaiba in Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger, Five Venom Fist Rinjuuken Yamori-Ken Moriya in Juuken Sentai Gekiranger. Notable dubbing roles: Silas in Transformers Prime. I will point out that the dojo master is played by Jiro Okamoto, the suit actor for Kintaros (along with several characters on Rider and Sentai since 1985, to the point that CSHT had a sight gag where one of the tournament matches is Team JIRO vs Team TAIKAWA). And since he’s already in every episode, I’m not breaking my taboo. And yeah, Zeronos’ return. I saw it coming, even without my habit of checking Final Form toy compilations on YouTube (my personal favourite is one where Kaixa’s final form is the Kaixa Driver on a beach covered in sand). That said, it’s not entirely the main focus of this two-parter, hence why I’m bringing it up here. |
04-01-2021, 07:58 AM | #560 |
Standing By
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I'll let Androzani handle the voice acting angle, but I do want to highlight this episode's Imagin. The Mole Imagin is going to go on to be one of the most heavily reused suits from the show. It appears in almost every Den-O movie from here on out and in a number of the Rider team-up films during Phase 2. It's a really good design, to be fair, but get used to seeing it.
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