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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.
no subject
Daisuke is... yeah, kind of a piece of shit. He also has the single worst gunslinging I've seen in a Rider series - I swear, he just stands in place and slowly shoots things half the time, and the dude has worse hand-to-hand skill than KITAOKA. He will also vanish completely from the show around episode 22 for twenty episodes and reappear for two more in the early fourties. Because his actor's singing career took off and he quit the show, I kid you not.
Kageyama... is just a sad, strange little man. He's not nearly COMPETENT enough for me to hate him the way I do Kusaka. (And at least Kusaka, prick extrordinare that he is, has a backstory that partially explains (but in no way justifies) why he's that way. Kageyama's just a jerk because.) Also, the inexplicable giant chest tattoo TheBee gives Kageyama and Kagami which never happens with any other Zecter just cracks me up.
As for ZECT and the Worm's motivations... they're hilariously nonssical when they eventually come up. Takadoro at least eventually gets some really cool character expansion starting around the time Gatack shows up.
ALso, for all the shit people give Inoue, outside of Movie Wars Core's OOO section, what I hear of Agito, and some of his Ryuki filler... I really don't get why people bag on him so much. He's got issues... but dear god, there are so much worse writers in Sentai/Rider. So. Much. Worse. And at least he TRIES with doing something involved with his characterization and plots as opposed to taking the easy way out.
no subject
I will be perfectly happy if Shittard just LEFT and didn't come back.
I think also what holds back Kageyama is that I'm not entirely sure his actor is fully embracing the total evil douchehole thing, the way Kusaka's actor did. That guy knew he was scum incarnate and LOVED every second of nastiness.
I said before that Inoue is a good writer. However, I do think he needs to be reined in a bit by a good cowriter, and here's why: He's excellent at plot, but he flounders on character. 555 and especially Agito were big on that. It's clear that he's got his ending in mind when he starts writing, but he doesn't take the character development into account, and that leads to things like Yuji's sudden character derailment toward the end of 555 and even to some extent in Paradise Lost. The idea of Takumi and Yuji starting off as enemies who should have been friends, then becoming friends after all that hard work, and then ending bitterly as enemies once more? That's great. But the way he got to it didn't work after all the development they'd gone through, and I've got to be honest: Yuji probably should have just been killed off before they got to that point in the series. And I say this about one of my favorite characters. I sympathize easily with Inoue because I made this mistake all the time when I started writing, and I still have to watch myself for it. Also, it's very clear which characters he likes the most because he will tend to warp other characters to make his favorite look cooler--something that happened a lot with everyone around Asakura in Ryuki. He's a fan--with all the good and bad that comes with it. Sure, he's predictable, but hell, so is Kobayashi, and she's one of the most beloved writers toku has to offer. Give him a cowriter, and I think he'd probably do a lot better--someone to watch over his use of character and help him get to that massive endgame he envisioned. But the string of episodes he did to this point in Kabuto prove that he's capable of fixing some characters too, since I prefer Tendou in his episodes rather than in Yonemura's.
no subject
Daisuke is just a bad idea for a character in general in relation to the plot. His personal drives (Gon and his, uh... shitheadness) have absolutely no connection to the rest of the plot, which he makes it his goal to actively avoid. It's just bizarre to bring a character into a series who has nothing to do with the plot and actively wants to avoid it.
With your reaction to Kageyama, I just have to smile and wait for you to hit episode 32-36 or so.
Man, Faiz is one of the biggest splits in opinion I've had on a series. When it's bad... it's BAD, but I really like it when it's good. Honestly, the entire end of Faiz is a mess with the Orphenoch King and the whole need for him coming right the hell out of nowhere. One thing Faiz and Kabuto share is a sheer inability to nail down a credible Big Bad threat. (Seriously, Smart Brain is SO DUMB. There's a reason my friends still make fun of the "Well, you're an Orpenoch and you've killed someone. WELCOME TO LUCKY CLOVER!" bit.) Kiba gets such a raw deal in that series...
Also, with your mentions of Asakura in Ryuki - I know from your previous posts that you find people's love of him odd. Frankly, I just enjoyed Asakura because he's just so damn much fun to watch his actor have the time of his life. Still, he's not my favorite Ryuki character... which is Mitsuru Sano (followed by Kitaoka and Shinji). Yeah, from your Ryuki coverage, I know you have the opposite opinion on that character (and admittedly, my interpretation of Sano is entirely based on reading a few of his lines as him having been suicidally depressed due to loneliness and confusion over his dad disowning him.)
no subject
It's not that I find people's love of Asakura odd. I can see why he's a well-liked character--badass character played by a damn good actor who's just putting everything into it and loving what he's doing. But the problem was that he was not well developed. There was too much being built around making him look super-awesome, and he ended up overblown.
no subject
Also, on the subject of Lucky Clover: how did they figure out Mr. J has three lives? No other Orphenoch has this power, so how did they test for it (or know to)? I'm still half convinced that entirely occured so they could make two less suits... On the other hand, Murakami (Rose Orpenoch) makes so many dumb moves as a villain, I can see him occasionally just killing Orphenoch employees to see if they somehow come back from the dead.
Oh, and to be fair, there is a Faiz rider I dislike more from a meta-perspective than Kusaka. Shuji Mihara. He just... does nothing. Ever. And has to be pushed into fighting by the much more awesome lady who was Delta for a bit. (It's also a shame as Delta is my favorite Rider suit in the series design-wise. And bike-wise. You can always use more Jet Sliger.) It's just such a waste of time at a point when the series is clearly struggling to get all its plot threads wrapped up in time, and nothing interesting ever occurs with him.
I never felt like Asakura was overblown, *shrug* but I can see how that would come across that way. You can pretty clearly see where they intended to kill him off when Knight Survive was first introduced (the scene just ends anti-climactically right after Survive is introduced with him escaping). I am glad he didn't die there - having Ren kill him there would screw up his character in my mind, and it frankly gives a mad dog like Asakura too much credit to go down swinging against a hero who just recieved a powerup. I much prefer his actual death in the series being shot by the police like a rabid dog in his madness.
Out of curiosity, since we've been talking about Rider writers, how do you feel about Gen Urobochi writing the next series, Gaim? (Personally moderately excited, because I love Fate/Zero and to a lesser extent PMMM, but on the other hand, I loved Gurren Lagann, and when it's writer did Fourze, I couldn't stand that.)
no subject
I agree that killing Asakura there would have been the wrong move, both for Ren's characterization and for Kitaoka's sake. If anyone deserves a shot at the guy, it's Kitaoka, and they did a damn good job denying us that final battle at the end.
I actually have not seen anything that Urobuchi has done, though I've heard a lot of good things about him, so I'm looking forward to Gaim. Of course, because of what I heard about Madoka, I've already made the jokes about there already being a Madoka-style Rider series.
no subject
*shrug* While a final fight between Kitaoka and Asakura could have worked, I like what they went with anyway. Poor Goro, though...
I remember reading somewhere that Urobochi has actually cited Ryuki as an inspiration on Madoka. Mind you, while there are some amusing parallels, there's enough differences between them to make them pretty unique series. Honestly, my biggest problem with that series is the first few episodes are a bit too cute about trying to trick the audience into thinking it's a painfully standard Magical Girl show... resulting in an opening and ending theme I find painful. At least they replace the ending theme after episode 2...
no subject
Yes, I really did like the end product. And Goro sacrificing himself to fulfill Kitaoka's last wish made perfect sense, heartbreaking as it was. He'd already given up everything for him. Why not his life too?