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01-28-2024, 04:49 PM | #111 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 11 - “V FOR VENDETTA - INFECTED VEHICLE”
Lemme start with that one good scene, though! It’s the interrogation room scene with Makura and Jinno. I love that Makura’s all We’ve Got You Now Shotaro, and then Jinno just comes and makes Makura fetch them lunch. (With double portions for Shotaro!) It’s a charming way to incorporate the police into a story that has a rapidly rising body count, while delivering some early clues for Shotaro to investigate. I just… man, I like the energy between Shotaro and Jinno. Jinno’s has such a professional camaraderie with Shotaro, while never really treating him like a peer. He just sees a well-meaning guy who can make his own job easier, and that’s worth some of his time. It’s a fun energy, man. Quote:
The rest of it was all just sort of there for me. Kouhei’s looking for revenge, the gangsters are clearly culpable, and there’s only a little bit of discussion as to whether killing a bunch of dudes is justified. (Spoiler: it isn’t!) The gangsters don’t stick around long enough to be more than a body count, and Kouhei’s defined solely by his need to vehicularly manslaughter for a sister we’ve never met. It’s all the vague shape of The Hollowness Of Pursuing Vengeance, but it never rose above that for me. There were no fun details, or clever moments to become more than just A Story About Revenge. (Even Akiko’s illness thing… fine, whatever.) Kirihiko showing up might as well be to fill some quota, for all he contributes to the plot.
The twist at the end, that the Virus Dopant is a different person altogether… good twist! Interested in how that rolls out! But it’s nothing that made the first 22 minutes of this one more fun to talk or think about.
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01-28-2024, 06:37 PM | #112 |
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This arc had me thinking about The Little Sister, the fifth of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels and the one that's often cited as being the most cynical and misanthropic. I won't give away too much, but it ends with Marlowe confronting the real culprit behind the book's crimes and realizing that he can't prove it, meaning that they're going to get away with everything they've done. On the way out of the building, he passes by another character from the story who's pretty clearly on their way to kill the aforementioned culprit. Marlowe just lets him walk on by and keeps going about his day.
I was thinking about this a lot as I watched Shotaro trying to save the gangsters who ran over the sister. Marlowe, at least in that novel, wouldn't have gone out of his way to try to save those guys while Shotaro dives onto that foreign model car (a term that, as an American, amuses the hell out of me to see applied to a fucking Chevy Trailblazer) because he doesn't want to see even a criminal get hurt. So half-boiled. |
01-28-2024, 08:49 PM | #113 |
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Still: abrasive doofus. Quote:
I was thinking about this a lot as I watched Shotaro trying to save the gangsters who ran over the sister. Marlowe, at least in that novel, wouldn't have gone out of his way to try to save those guys while Shotaro dives onto that foreign model car (a term that, as an American, amuses the hell out of me to see applied to a fucking Chevy Trailblazer) because he doesn't want to see even a criminal get hurt.
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01-28-2024, 09:24 PM | #114 |
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SHOTARO HIDARI HARDBOILED DELUSION DIARY EPISODE 3 - “WHAT IF AKIKO WAS A MAID?”
It is, uh, very interesting that Shotaro’s daydream involves a subservient Akiko and a subservient Philip fighting over his attention. Most of these stories so far have been about how little anyone respects Shotaro and how he wishes Akiko was more competent – a familiar fan refrain! – and this one’s no different on the surface. But the idea of the competent and dedicated Akiko fighting with the competent and dedicated Philip over who is the only one Shotaro needs? I mean, that definitely trumps Shotaro’s need to envision Akiko in a maid outfit as The Thing I Want To Mention From This Short. Besides that, this one was as enjoyable and brisk as the preceding installments. Shotaro does the Ryubei scene from Episode 9! Philip duels with the stem of a rose! The Virus Dopant shows up as a referee! What else could you want?
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01-28-2024, 09:35 PM | #115 |
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The highlight of this one was Shotaro doing a Ryubei impersonation, mannerisms and all.
If anything the first portions of these little shorts are a nice look into the every day life of the Narumi Detective Agency, where as the latter portions are usually the actors getting to goof around and perform differently than how they usually do. |
01-29-2024, 08:25 PM | #116 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 12 - “V FOR VENDETTA - RAGING BEAST”
The failure of the previous episode, as I thought more about it, is that it put way too much of the narrative on Shotaro’s back. Philip was doing his dumb Idiots Don’t Catch Colds research, Akiko was worthless, Kirihiko was barely involved, the other Sonozakis were absent entirely, and there was only one City Of Fuuto scene (which was terrific). The monster plot felt thinly sketched-in, with both victim(s) and perps coming off as ideas rather than characters. That left Shotaro to carry the plot and the story, and it’s just asking way too much of a cosplay detective. Quote:
And those details are, without exception, incredibly fun. Like, the scene with Saeko and Kirihiko! Where he thinks he’s cracked the code on something that’ll win Saeko’s respect and solidify his place in the family hierarchy (basically, making him more valuable than Mick), and she’s like We Already Found Out That Was Worthless? Amazing. So fun to watch her destroy his ambitions and not-so-subtly remind him of what a disappointment he’s been as a husband/flunky. And that’s just the first thing that was more delightful than most of last episode – we also got a fun Queen/Elizabeth scene (Queen teasing Elizabeth about maybe hooking up with some art creep!), Philip handling the investigation into Sachi’s motivations, a couple fun monster attacks, and a few intriguing twists.
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If there’s a thing that doesn’t work in this episode, it’s that those twists are maybe a little too convoluted. Sachi being the one who’s motivating this story, through the applied rage of her brother… that’s all fine. (It sort of makes the brother incidental to the overall plot, since he’s not a factor in this episode, and Sachi would’ve just killed those dudes anyway. There’s maybe some narrative value in viewing her vengeance like a virus, but it’s not really a thing that passes through multiple characters. Kouhei wants revenge for his sister getting run over, while Sachi wants revenge for that AND a completely separate thing that Kouhei never knew about.) But there’s a bunch of stuff that comes up in Sachi’s explanation/confession that’s just weird and coincidental – they can show it a hundred times, but it never feels logical or believable that she’d shove the Virus Memory into her arm instead of diving out of the way of an oncoming car. (Also, the Memory seller just happened to walk down the stairs when she saw her fiance cheating on her? What?) I appreciate that the story got significantly more complex than Family Vengeance, but it’s stuff that maybe would’ve worked better spread out across both episodes.
Yeah he's ruled out by Virus Dopant appearing separately from Yushima and wreaks havoc, which means Yushima's the Dopant's target instead. The one causing problem here is just a scumbag normal human, but yes he does fair share of villainy outside of Dopant fighting as well, like using women for his art, conning people into marrying him, and tossing the girl he's with into the monster to escape.
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01-29-2024, 08:35 PM | #117 |
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Didn't expect a criticism about Shotaro here, considering that, well, it's W, from my experience (albeit some have different ones like Mesnick) is that, this is one sacred cow series where it's the perfect golden standard for KR shows and people seemingly can't criticize it (except Akiko who is divisive).
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01-29-2024, 11:05 PM | #118 |
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KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 13 - “Q ON THE RADIO - PRINCESS UNDER FIRE”
A+ episode, pretty much all the way through. Wakana is my favorite Sonazaki member, and I feel like this episode is a great reason why. This is a story where she’s being targeted by a deranged Dopant stalker (the Gaia Memory is “Violence”? What?) and yet the tension for her isn’t physical danger or a loss of security – it’s that she likes her dumb radio job, and this psychopath is ruining her reputation. The story is adamant that that all the things we saw before are true for Wakana – the brattiness, the hostility, the manipulation, the haughtiness – while asking us to find some sympathy as she risks losing the one escape she has from a supernatural crime family. And it totally works. Some of that, of course, is because of Wakana’s interactions with Shotaro and Philip. She completely doesn’t remember Shotaro from earlier in the season, which punctures his ego in exactly the right way. He basically immediately falls out of love with her, because he always needs to be seen as A Cool Guy – he even does his internal narration back to her as a pick-up line! (Also funny is that Wakana seems to have already forgotten that Akiko was her wacky maid a couple weeks back, and I think I love that script oversight -slash- genius narrative decision.) But Philip, that’s the interesting part. She respects Philip, and Philip consistently has her back. He never doubts the need to protect her from the Violence Dopant, and he never takes the bait of Shotaro’s badmouthing. Between Shotaro’s uncharacteristic ambivalence to saving a beautiful woman, and Philip’s uncharacteristic insistence on working this case, Wakana’s presence shakes up the W format in really entertaining ways. And, like… a lot of it is the performances. Everyone’s doing their best work this episode, perfectly nailing exactly what the script requires of them: Wakana turns on a dime in most scenes, switching between Performative Innocence for dopey dudes and Petulant Menace for anyone stupid enough to get in her way; Kirihiko is always colossally out of his depth, while giving off an unearned air of superiority; Saeko is Just Trying To Help, but generally trying to ruin Wakana’s happiness for sport; Shotaro is crestfallen that a woman he didn’t know is different than he imagined, which is a perfect trait for a half-boiled detective; and Philip mixes his usual genius focus with a rare bit of pride in his results, since they seem to make Wakana happy. Everyone in this is great, to a startling degree – like, this is only the 13th episode! They should still be a little rough around the edges! But no, they’re all great, and even the mystery is a fun little runner for the episode. It’s a mystery where each stage gets the cast involved, rather a problem they have to deduce well after the fact. It’s more Escape Room than Crime Scene, you know? Fun energy. This one was… man, best episode so far? Really, really great. I could watch Wakana do that little side-mouthed *TT* for another half-hour, easy. — DIE-A MEMORIES -Hello, story-right-before-the-winter-movie! Creepy skull-faced urban legend makes a fiery appearance in the first radio show portion of the episode, while the Masquerade Memory makes a quick, laughably-underpowered showing against Clay Doll. -Pretty sure I remembered the culprit(s) of this one, so I didn’t want to talk too much about the effectiveness of the actual mystery part of the mystery plot. Feels pretty obvious who the main Dopant is in this one, at the very least. -Huge episode for Philip’s secret past, obviously. Nice to see the show playing fair with the eventual reveal, even if Philip’s need for secrecy seems to flare up in direct proportion to Wakana’s presence in the plot. Double hasn’t connected the dots yet on Wakana being a part of the organization that Philip was rescued from, so there’s kind of no major reason why Philip can’t be seen by Wakana… other than Massive Plot Reasons.
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01-30-2024, 06:39 AM | #119 |
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Yeah, this is also a favourite two-parter of mine, partially for putting the focus on Wakana, but also because after 12 episodes of instant reveals, obvious suspects or a lack of real buildup, we have an actual mystery, complete with our bad guy using a voice changer so it’s not immediately obvious.
And now, a double dose of the main feature. Ultra-lert! The late Shion Nakamaru, who appears here as Wakana’s radio host rival had two major appearances as antagonists in the Ultra Series. Specifically, the ill-fated Riko Saida/Dark Faust in Ultraman Nexus and Alien Pedan Harlan in Ultra Galaxy: Mega Monster Battle. Rider-lert! The director of Wakana’s tour is Tomonori Okano, who played several minor roles in Heisei Rider, but is most notable as Old Man Sakurai in Den-O and its movies. |
01-30-2024, 05:31 PM | #120 |
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I got another bit of Raymond Chandler deja vu thinking about this episode. Chandler's first novel, the Big Sleep, concerned a wealthy older man with two daughters. He hired Marlowe to find out what trouble the younger one, an unstable wild child, was getting into, but it turned out that the older sister and her husband were the ones that were tied up in much more nefarious dealings.
The comparison completely breaks down after this point, especially if you watch the movie, which has a much more flirtatious dynamic between Marlowe and the older sister that is 100% not reflected in Shotaro's interactions with Saeko (especially since I honestly don't remember if they ever have a conversation with each other). And while Marlowe does have to drag the younger sister out of a pornographer's studio/opium den, she at no point gets smashed into dozens of tiny shards (probably; it's been awhile since I've read the book). Still, I have to feel that, assuming the writers read up on their Chandler while prepping the show, the book may have had at least some influence on the Sonozaki family. Wow. Did not recognize him without two hats stacked on top of each other. |
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