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Reaction Post: Kabuto 11-20
Okay, so this is the point when I started saying, "Oh, fuck it. It's Kabuto." The issues I had at the start are continuing, other than the Jesus Flare--Tendou is still a flat, uninteresting egotist with far too few humanizing moments. And the fight scenes are still boring. I didn't mention it in the first reaction post because I figured it was only the first ten, so naturally, things would be awkward. But damn. It's just basic punches and kicks with no energy to them, and the camera footage is sped up. That's not how you should use Clock Up. I really prefered Faiz Axel Form, which mostly saved the super-speed for finishers. Or even Accel Trial, which had stupid fighting skills but actually displayed them well--moving quickly, landing attacks faster. Not fighting on fast forward. I think all the fighting energy of Den-O was just the stunt company reacting out of boredom and going, "Hey, you know what would be good? Making Seiji Takaiwa fight with four different styles at once."
So I guess this is more secondary Rider-based than anything else. It gets one hell of a flood of new Riders, even faster than Ryuki, which is saying something, given there are 13 of them there.
We met the first TheBee in the last batch, so there's really no point in mentioning him. After that whole debacle and giving up TheBee because he won't fight Kabuto, Kagami kind of gives up on his desire to be a Rider, which is kind of interesting, but much better explored with Goto in OOO. Now, Kageyama, formerly a Shadow agent who'd been injured and cared for by TheBee #1, Yaguruma, has become the third. In the thirteenth and fourteenth episodes (the hilarious shoutout to Ryuki I already mentioned), Yaguruma returns to try to protect his former subordinates. Kageyama thinks he might be the assassin, but he realizes it's not him, and Yaguruma leaves at the end of 13. Kageyama really aggravates me every time he's onscreen, since he's such a thoroughly detestable person. To root out the mole among Shadow, he's perfectly willing to sacrifice Kagami and let Kanzaki shoot him because "he's just a subordinate." He kidnaps Kazama's little Sidekick Girl and is just so damn unpleasant...he's like Kusaka of 555 in terms of scheming and everything, but without all the rape. Henceforth, he is Not-Rapey Kusaka. Only nice thing I can say about him is that he at least adds some STYLE into his fighting, so it's not completely boring.
The second new Rider is Drake, Daisuke Kazama. Who I really hate and dubbed "Shittard." Want to really ensure your audience will hate a character? Have him ready to help save a hostage, only to ignore it when he realizes the hostage is a man. And all the focus on how women are suddenly just totally into him because he does their makeup nice, and the only ones who aren't into him are Misaki and Hiyori, who are notably "different." Sets off my feminist ranting about unfair portrayals in fiction, but I'll spare you that. The only thing resembling a conscience that Kazama had was this little girl he called Gon (which was short for something that translated to "Nameless"). She was the brains of the operation, and though she was critical of him, she pretty much looked up to him as her only parental figure she could remember. Her story built up to episodes 17-18, written by Toshiki Inoue and surprisingly very emotional. It's got problems, but I actually thought it was good with how it handled her, Tendou, and Hiyori. Gon is attacked by Not-Rapey Kusaka and almost kidnapped, but Shittard doesn't believe her when she tells him. She's so scared that she's jumping at every sound and messing up while trying to help him. He kicks her out. She runs to the only other person she felt safe with--Hiyori. Hiyori, who lacks social skills, doesn't feel comfortable around people, and has a horrible social anxiety disorder of some kind, empathizes with her and tries to help. And Tendou shows some damn good humanizing moments when he sees Gon crying and immediately runs to her with Hiyori, trying to help. The guy's got a soft spot for little girls, and it makes sense, given his own sister. He even calls out Shittard on being a piece of shit and treating Gon like that, and both he and Hiyori try hard to help her remember when they realize that ZECT will continue to target her as long as she's with Shittard. Shittard redeems himself, yes, but when Gon regained her memories (her real name was Yuriko, and her mother had been searching for her after they were separated after a Worm attack and bus crash), I felt worse that such a good character was leaving so soon, rather than feeling anything for Shittard.
And finally, we meet Tsurugi Kamishiro, who is designed to be Tendou 2.0. The feeling I get with all of these Riders is the writers realized how overbearing Tendou was and that there was no way the audience would be able to take him seriously, so they said, "We know he's bad, but he's better than these guys as the alternative." But where Tendou can sometimes see what's going on (so far, at least when Inoue's writing him), Kamishiro doesn't. He doesn't realize he's being overbearing until he sees how much his butler, Jiiya, is apologizing for him. He doesn't realize that he hurt people in a car crash because of his irresponsibility until Tendou explains to him that his sister was hurt in the crash. Having had a sister who was killed by a Worm, Kamishiro sympathizes and apologizes. It's a sympathetic backstory, but it's not enough to make him a sympathetic character. It would be a start, except for one thing: At the end of his introductory episodes, he learns that he was the Worm who killed her all along, and the original Kamishiro probably died trying to avenge her. I'd feel a lot more sympathetic if I got to know him better. This whole rushed aspect is a problem with the show as a whole so far. And to be completely honest? When we get good character development, it tends to be from Toshiki Inoue. The guy everyone complains about. The guy who wrote Agito and Faiz and kind of failed at character development there. Technically, he might derail Tendou's character, but he derails him into something nice.
Finally, about ZECT and the Worms. Okay, first? Given that Tomohisa Yuge plays the ZECT #2 there and temporarily becomes TheBee, and that he's going to be in Gaim, I'm wondering if he's just coming back to Kamen Rider until they finally let him be a permanent Rider.
Second, the Worms: What do they want? I'm not sure if this is a complaint or just me being used to the way monsters do it in the Heisei Rider shows I watched. Every bad guy since Kuuga had a motive of some kind behind their attacks. For the Grongi, they were playing a game. It doesn't have to be a GOOD motive, but it worked great. The Unknown were targetting people with the potential to have supernatural abilities. The Monsters ate people, and the other Riders were fighting to grant their own wishes. The Orphnochs and to some extent, the later Phantoms, were trying to create more of their kind and had to kill humans in order to do so. The Imagin were trying to create their own destroyed future. The Dopants and later Zodiarts typically had a grudge against their victims. The Yummys were creating Core Medals for the Greeed, who wanted to become "complete." The Worms? Well, they replace humans. Okay. Maybe a matter of trying to make their own world. But why do they take a page from the Grongi and sometimes target only specific types of people? I don't know. Maybe it'll be explained, maybe it won't.
And at last, I come to my complaint about ZECT: It is a poor replacement for Smart Brain in 555. I hate doing comparisons, but really, I feel like they were trying to go for another Smart Brain, but got lost somewhere along the way. Smart Brain and the later Kougami Foundation felt powerful because they were legitimate corporations making enough money to engage in shady enterprises and take over the world (Smart Brain for evil, Kougami for good). We constantly saw people working for them. We saw WHERE they worked. We saw products produced by them that weren't Rider-related. ZECT doesn't have that. It feels like two guys in a dark room--Kagami's father and Goro (I refuse to learn his name because it's Tomohisa Yuge essentially playing an evil version Goro)--some Red Shirts (the ZECTroopers), some Crimson Shirts (Shadow, who are Red Shirts but fancier), and Kagami, Misaki, and Tadakoro. Hell, why do they even HAVE Tadakoro--the only time he feels necessary to the team is when he gives them a cryptic explanation of where ZECT is holding Gon. He doesn't know Tendou's identity, he says he trusts ZECT absolutely but helps that one time and the trust vs. distrust isn't enough in either direction to make him interesting, and he really just serves to be in the van. Why not have Misaki and Kagami working directly under Goro? That'd be some dramatic tension. I kind of don't see why this character exists--they don't have a reason for him that I can see other than the occasional "He's useful in this situation" moments in a few episodes. And overall, ZECT fails to give me the sense that it SHOULD be rich and powerful and in control. It's too shadowy to feel like it should be as in control as it should be. The more we know about an organization like Smart Brain or the Kougami Foundation, the more power we realize it has. But we know almost nothing about ZECT, and it feels like it's half-assing everything.
Still, for all the groaning I've done? It's better than the crying I do throughout Agito. I'm interested, even if it turns out to be a trainwreck, which is far more than I can say for Agito.
Blue Beetle is up next, so I'll try to speed through those episodes and check back in.
So I guess this is more secondary Rider-based than anything else. It gets one hell of a flood of new Riders, even faster than Ryuki, which is saying something, given there are 13 of them there.
We met the first TheBee in the last batch, so there's really no point in mentioning him. After that whole debacle and giving up TheBee because he won't fight Kabuto, Kagami kind of gives up on his desire to be a Rider, which is kind of interesting, but much better explored with Goto in OOO. Now, Kageyama, formerly a Shadow agent who'd been injured and cared for by TheBee #1, Yaguruma, has become the third. In the thirteenth and fourteenth episodes (the hilarious shoutout to Ryuki I already mentioned), Yaguruma returns to try to protect his former subordinates. Kageyama thinks he might be the assassin, but he realizes it's not him, and Yaguruma leaves at the end of 13. Kageyama really aggravates me every time he's onscreen, since he's such a thoroughly detestable person. To root out the mole among Shadow, he's perfectly willing to sacrifice Kagami and let Kanzaki shoot him because "he's just a subordinate." He kidnaps Kazama's little Sidekick Girl and is just so damn unpleasant...he's like Kusaka of 555 in terms of scheming and everything, but without all the rape. Henceforth, he is Not-Rapey Kusaka. Only nice thing I can say about him is that he at least adds some STYLE into his fighting, so it's not completely boring.
The second new Rider is Drake, Daisuke Kazama. Who I really hate and dubbed "Shittard." Want to really ensure your audience will hate a character? Have him ready to help save a hostage, only to ignore it when he realizes the hostage is a man. And all the focus on how women are suddenly just totally into him because he does their makeup nice, and the only ones who aren't into him are Misaki and Hiyori, who are notably "different." Sets off my feminist ranting about unfair portrayals in fiction, but I'll spare you that. The only thing resembling a conscience that Kazama had was this little girl he called Gon (which was short for something that translated to "Nameless"). She was the brains of the operation, and though she was critical of him, she pretty much looked up to him as her only parental figure she could remember. Her story built up to episodes 17-18, written by Toshiki Inoue and surprisingly very emotional. It's got problems, but I actually thought it was good with how it handled her, Tendou, and Hiyori. Gon is attacked by Not-Rapey Kusaka and almost kidnapped, but Shittard doesn't believe her when she tells him. She's so scared that she's jumping at every sound and messing up while trying to help him. He kicks her out. She runs to the only other person she felt safe with--Hiyori. Hiyori, who lacks social skills, doesn't feel comfortable around people, and has a horrible social anxiety disorder of some kind, empathizes with her and tries to help. And Tendou shows some damn good humanizing moments when he sees Gon crying and immediately runs to her with Hiyori, trying to help. The guy's got a soft spot for little girls, and it makes sense, given his own sister. He even calls out Shittard on being a piece of shit and treating Gon like that, and both he and Hiyori try hard to help her remember when they realize that ZECT will continue to target her as long as she's with Shittard. Shittard redeems himself, yes, but when Gon regained her memories (her real name was Yuriko, and her mother had been searching for her after they were separated after a Worm attack and bus crash), I felt worse that such a good character was leaving so soon, rather than feeling anything for Shittard.
And finally, we meet Tsurugi Kamishiro, who is designed to be Tendou 2.0. The feeling I get with all of these Riders is the writers realized how overbearing Tendou was and that there was no way the audience would be able to take him seriously, so they said, "We know he's bad, but he's better than these guys as the alternative." But where Tendou can sometimes see what's going on (so far, at least when Inoue's writing him), Kamishiro doesn't. He doesn't realize he's being overbearing until he sees how much his butler, Jiiya, is apologizing for him. He doesn't realize that he hurt people in a car crash because of his irresponsibility until Tendou explains to him that his sister was hurt in the crash. Having had a sister who was killed by a Worm, Kamishiro sympathizes and apologizes. It's a sympathetic backstory, but it's not enough to make him a sympathetic character. It would be a start, except for one thing: At the end of his introductory episodes, he learns that he was the Worm who killed her all along, and the original Kamishiro probably died trying to avenge her. I'd feel a lot more sympathetic if I got to know him better. This whole rushed aspect is a problem with the show as a whole so far. And to be completely honest? When we get good character development, it tends to be from Toshiki Inoue. The guy everyone complains about. The guy who wrote Agito and Faiz and kind of failed at character development there. Technically, he might derail Tendou's character, but he derails him into something nice.
Finally, about ZECT and the Worms. Okay, first? Given that Tomohisa Yuge plays the ZECT #2 there and temporarily becomes TheBee, and that he's going to be in Gaim, I'm wondering if he's just coming back to Kamen Rider until they finally let him be a permanent Rider.
Second, the Worms: What do they want? I'm not sure if this is a complaint or just me being used to the way monsters do it in the Heisei Rider shows I watched. Every bad guy since Kuuga had a motive of some kind behind their attacks. For the Grongi, they were playing a game. It doesn't have to be a GOOD motive, but it worked great. The Unknown were targetting people with the potential to have supernatural abilities. The Monsters ate people, and the other Riders were fighting to grant their own wishes. The Orphnochs and to some extent, the later Phantoms, were trying to create more of their kind and had to kill humans in order to do so. The Imagin were trying to create their own destroyed future. The Dopants and later Zodiarts typically had a grudge against their victims. The Yummys were creating Core Medals for the Greeed, who wanted to become "complete." The Worms? Well, they replace humans. Okay. Maybe a matter of trying to make their own world. But why do they take a page from the Grongi and sometimes target only specific types of people? I don't know. Maybe it'll be explained, maybe it won't.
And at last, I come to my complaint about ZECT: It is a poor replacement for Smart Brain in 555. I hate doing comparisons, but really, I feel like they were trying to go for another Smart Brain, but got lost somewhere along the way. Smart Brain and the later Kougami Foundation felt powerful because they were legitimate corporations making enough money to engage in shady enterprises and take over the world (Smart Brain for evil, Kougami for good). We constantly saw people working for them. We saw WHERE they worked. We saw products produced by them that weren't Rider-related. ZECT doesn't have that. It feels like two guys in a dark room--Kagami's father and Goro (I refuse to learn his name because it's Tomohisa Yuge essentially playing an evil version Goro)--some Red Shirts (the ZECTroopers), some Crimson Shirts (Shadow, who are Red Shirts but fancier), and Kagami, Misaki, and Tadakoro. Hell, why do they even HAVE Tadakoro--the only time he feels necessary to the team is when he gives them a cryptic explanation of where ZECT is holding Gon. He doesn't know Tendou's identity, he says he trusts ZECT absolutely but helps that one time and the trust vs. distrust isn't enough in either direction to make him interesting, and he really just serves to be in the van. Why not have Misaki and Kagami working directly under Goro? That'd be some dramatic tension. I kind of don't see why this character exists--they don't have a reason for him that I can see other than the occasional "He's useful in this situation" moments in a few episodes. And overall, ZECT fails to give me the sense that it SHOULD be rich and powerful and in control. It's too shadowy to feel like it should be as in control as it should be. The more we know about an organization like Smart Brain or the Kougami Foundation, the more power we realize it has. But we know almost nothing about ZECT, and it feels like it's half-assing everything.
Still, for all the groaning I've done? It's better than the crying I do throughout Agito. I'm interested, even if it turns out to be a trainwreck, which is far more than I can say for Agito.
Blue Beetle is up next, so I'll try to speed through those episodes and check back in.