Kabuto. Finished.
Sep. 25th, 2013 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
IT'S OVER. IT'S OVER. OH THANK GOD, IT'S OVER.
If anyone had told me when I first started this series that Kabuto would end with a ripoff of both 555 and Doctor Who and completely fuck it up and then rip off Tuxedo Mask in the process? I'd never have believed it.
Holy shit. So I walk out of this wondering why the Natives didn't kill Bitty Tendou when they had the chance if they knew the whole Kusakabe family was a risk. Why the hell did they make that kid they turned into a Native mimic Tendou? Why did he end up a crazier siscon than the original? How does he cross time without a time train? When was Goro anything but loyal to Kagami-daddy? Why did they think we'd even care about the Dumbass Bros? And then on top of it, God Speed Love never factored into the backstory at all--every explanation the show bothers to give us totally contradicts what we see in the movie. Hyper can't travel back in time by flying backwards around the Earth. Native Kusakabe gave Tendou the Zecter to save Hiyori. Hiyori ain't even human. What was the point of that ending if it wasn't going to tie into the series?
God. Ugh. Just...god. I miss my zombie werewolf so much. And ugh. Seriously. If there are any true fans of Kabuto, please explain to me what I'm missing. I'm not trying to sound patronizing or anything--I genuinely want to know how it is so many people are passionate about this series. What don't I see? I really did try to enjoy it, but everything I started to like got completely destroyed. I don't find Tendou anything resembling sympathetic or likeable. His whole obsession with Hiyori--I've seen better. Namely from Andros from Power Rangers in Space, but that's beside the point. He calls her his sister, but he's anything but a brother to her. She's the genetic mimic of his unborn sister. Okay. When was he there for her? The whole conclusion he comes to and convinces her to leave Kusakabe/Dark Kabuto/Crazier Siscon for is "I have never been there for you and I can't promise I ever will be." So...why does he have the right to care more than Kagami, who knew her longer? Than Jyuka, who may not have known her much but was kinder to her? Than Yumiko, who offered her a job and tried to help her grow?
And I can't buy the argument to watch it for Kagami because the series goes out of its way to shit on him in a way that the next season, Den-O, which shits on Ryotaro and Momotaros for laughs, would consider cruel and excessive. Even in the final battle, when he's been stabbed three times--at least one time more than Tendou--is bleeding and barely alive, he gets up, talks back to Goro and Evil Native Guy whose name I never bothered to remember, gives a Patrick Stewart Speech that both Stewart and David Tennant would be proud of...and he still extoles the virtues of Tendou, who had every chance to tell him what was going on and ask him for help and generally just not be a total douchehole, and didn't.
I really don't know what more there is to say. I gave it my best shot. I survived. I got nothing out of it. So please, if someone else has a much more optimistic view of this series, please. Help me see why.
If anyone had told me when I first started this series that Kabuto would end with a ripoff of both 555 and Doctor Who and completely fuck it up and then rip off Tuxedo Mask in the process? I'd never have believed it.
Holy shit. So I walk out of this wondering why the Natives didn't kill Bitty Tendou when they had the chance if they knew the whole Kusakabe family was a risk. Why the hell did they make that kid they turned into a Native mimic Tendou? Why did he end up a crazier siscon than the original? How does he cross time without a time train? When was Goro anything but loyal to Kagami-daddy? Why did they think we'd even care about the Dumbass Bros? And then on top of it, God Speed Love never factored into the backstory at all--every explanation the show bothers to give us totally contradicts what we see in the movie. Hyper can't travel back in time by flying backwards around the Earth. Native Kusakabe gave Tendou the Zecter to save Hiyori. Hiyori ain't even human. What was the point of that ending if it wasn't going to tie into the series?
God. Ugh. Just...god. I miss my zombie werewolf so much. And ugh. Seriously. If there are any true fans of Kabuto, please explain to me what I'm missing. I'm not trying to sound patronizing or anything--I genuinely want to know how it is so many people are passionate about this series. What don't I see? I really did try to enjoy it, but everything I started to like got completely destroyed. I don't find Tendou anything resembling sympathetic or likeable. His whole obsession with Hiyori--I've seen better. Namely from Andros from Power Rangers in Space, but that's beside the point. He calls her his sister, but he's anything but a brother to her. She's the genetic mimic of his unborn sister. Okay. When was he there for her? The whole conclusion he comes to and convinces her to leave Kusakabe/Dark Kabuto/Crazier Siscon for is "I have never been there for you and I can't promise I ever will be." So...why does he have the right to care more than Kagami, who knew her longer? Than Jyuka, who may not have known her much but was kinder to her? Than Yumiko, who offered her a job and tried to help her grow?
And I can't buy the argument to watch it for Kagami because the series goes out of its way to shit on him in a way that the next season, Den-O, which shits on Ryotaro and Momotaros for laughs, would consider cruel and excessive. Even in the final battle, when he's been stabbed three times--at least one time more than Tendou--is bleeding and barely alive, he gets up, talks back to Goro and Evil Native Guy whose name I never bothered to remember, gives a Patrick Stewart Speech that both Stewart and David Tennant would be proud of...and he still extoles the virtues of Tendou, who had every chance to tell him what was going on and ask him for help and generally just not be a total douchehole, and didn't.
I really don't know what more there is to say. I gave it my best shot. I survived. I got nothing out of it. So please, if someone else has a much more optimistic view of this series, please. Help me see why.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-25 05:22 pm (UTC)Sadly, Kagami still suffers less than Gills in Agito, from what I hear. Poor, poor Gills.
I swear I thought GSL tied more into the plot, but I didn't notice those inconsistencies.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-25 05:24 pm (UTC)I looked. I really did. But everything contradicts it. The movie is totally noncanonical, according to every explanation given in the series. They have their own explanations for Hyper, for Hiyori, and for Tendou.
Decade Kabuto
Date: 2013-09-25 11:30 pm (UTC)The other amusing note is the episode indirectly credits this to Tendo's parents surviving and raising both of them (teaching Tendo something vaguely approximating empathy and humbleness). Juka's a lot less eccentric/irritating too in that universe - I'm wondering exactly how Tendo's grandmother screwed them both up so badly...
Re: Decade Kabuto
Date: 2013-09-26 01:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-29 07:42 am (UTC)And I survived by skipping all of Tendou's Lens Flare of Jesus scenes. Wait, that's like half the series. Yeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-29 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-06 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-07 01:32 am (UTC)While I appreciate what the series tried to do, and damn did it have a good go at worldbuilding--it takes balls to blow up a major city and have THAT be your setting--the plot was weak and the characters were pitiful. The Worms and Natives really didn't have a REASON to do anything, and every Rider villain has had a reason, ranging from something as simple to "taking over/destroying the world" to "encouraging/preventing humanity's evolution." Hell, the Ryuki Monsters just want lunch--that's fine. I never understood why the Worms wanted to kill and replace humans, and I never understood the Natives' problem with them. Okay, the Natives think that humans are terrible at being humans because all we do is create war? Okay. Could lead to something interesting--maybe the fear that they're just becoming what they hate by waging war on humans. But turn humans into Natives so that they're all the same and war can't happen...what? Why are you waging war against the Worms again? Why are you aiding humans in their war against the Worms? And the red shoes system only factored in once and we saw some Natives and Worms who were as human as could be, and there really should have been this emphasis that it doesn't have to be your body that makes you human, it's your heart and ARGH.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-08 06:58 am (UTC)Two years since I last watched it and I still rant, sorry.