Kabuto. Finished.

[akinoame]

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.

Comments

[gourdcaptain]

...yeah, I really don't have a more positive view than you, but I think I found it a lot more amusingly bad than you, who appear to have had a large round of deep hurting from it. To be fair, I was also watching it with a friend and we spent the entire time MST3K-style riffing it, so that probably helps inform my opinion of it.

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.

[akinoame]

Yeah, the king of getting shat on is still Gills. But Kagami's a pretty damn close prince.

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

[gourdcaptain]

Yeah, I just remembered the Decade AU of Kabuto made Tendo's character a lot more likeable in that version. Mostly by merging Juka and Hiyori into a single character (making his deal with her secret make more sense, as they still grew up together), and by having him in general be much less massively dickish and selfish. I really want to see the series that was from instead. (Seriously, I like your theory that Kabuto is the self-insertion/possession sue version of a better series. It really does read like bad fanfiction in how messed up the morality can get.)

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

[akinoame]

To be honest, I wish my one theory from the beginning had been correct: That Tendou was a Worm the whole time. Because then it would have been justified why he acted so strange, and there would be this great chance to explore what makes you human--again, like in 555, but in Kamen Rider, I think that's a theme really at the heart of the hero himself. If your body is a machine or a monster, does that mean you are a monster? Or can you have a human soul?

[linkaria]

I watched Kabuto because I wish to follow Kagami's story to the end. Yeah, the ending shits on him, but I condition myself into thinking that "Kagami is just such a good person that even when people screw him over repeatedly he can still like them". That makes me appreciate the character a lot more in Kabuto's world where almost every other Rider is a douchebag.

And I survived by skipping all of Tendou's Lens Flare of Jesus scenes. Wait, that's like half the series. Yeah.

[akinoame]

I really tried, and while I did like Kagami, what I don't like is that he's got pretty much the same raw deal as Gills in Agito: the universe is taking a dump on him. And it's Taco Night. What really aggravated me at the end was his final battle. It should have been his moment, and he really did awesome. But then, when he delivers the Patrick Stewart Speech...it's about how awesome Tendou is. So no stopping and saying, "No, YOU'RE the awesome one. You tried to see all sides. You fought even when you were conflicted. You believed in something, and even as you were tested, you came out stronger." But nope. Need to schill Jesus Flare Boy.

[linkaria]

I don't suppose you can write any sort of Endpoint Analysis for Kabuto, other than "THANK GOD IT'S OVER" that is? XD

[akinoame]

Yeah, this is pretty much it. I'll put my thoughts in again when I review the tribute episode in Decade, if only because by then I'll have calmed down and I might be able to see it a little more fairly (or with a little more anger in hindsight).

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.

[linkaria]

I swear this series sets up like a million plot points, then looks all of them over when it gets to the end and goes LOLNOPE gonna screw all the viewers up by NOT RESOLVING 90% OF THEM. It's like the writers didn't even bother to draw up any sort of plan before starting and just cooked shit up as they went. The number of irrelevant details (and characters, even) is just /incredible/ and yet they try so hard to make us care. (And there's that dude playing his stupid violin and saying cryptic messages that are supposed to be deep but just turn out pretentious as heck. Or maybe it's the subtitles... god let it be the subtitles.)

Two years since I last watched it and I still rant, sorry.