(SPOILER WARNING!!)
6 episodes in and I'm going cold turkey with current Kamen Rider. Not even Ghost made me do this.
Kamen Rider Zi-O has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster, despite the 6th episode just recently airing. The characters are either one dimensional planks of wood or despicable, sociopathic idiots. The story is derivative of other Kamen Rider seasons that told it's story far better. The action scenes are a drag and never involve any creativity or narrative flow. The constant power ups in each episode and the reasons for those power up are either idiotic or not very well explained.
But it's the most recent episodes that have pissed me off the most.
To summarise, our "heroes" are investigating a series of disappearances at the Amanogawa High School (the setting for Kamen Rider Fourze), in the year of 2016, the common link between the victims being 18 year old girls born as Libras. The last of these girls, Karin, has a connection to the Another Rider of these episodes, Another Fourze, in that it's her friend from different high school in 2003... when they were both 18. As revealed later, Karin originally died in 2003, and her friend has been trying to keep her alive by stealing the life force of other 18 year girls born as Libras. As such, Sougo and Geiz try to stop him in both timelines, as he has the powers of both Faiz and Fourze.
So, why do these episodes piss me off? Because they completely piss over the continuity of Faiz's story, as two of the central players (Takumi Inui/Faiz and his enemy Masato Kusaka/ Kaixa) are in this episode. Masato, keeping in character, tries to kill Karin to stop the Another Fourze, whereas Takumi is trying to save her.
The problem, however, comes down to this; near the end of episode 6, where they finally beat the Another Rider and Karin is allowed to pass on, Takumi, when he SAVES Masato from having his neck snapped by the Another Fourze, says that the two of them... are friends.
THAT FUCKING DOES IT!! NO MORE BEING CALM!!
Never, EVER, would Takumi or Masato consider either their friend! Why? Because in Faiz's storyline, THEY WERE TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER SEVERAL TIMES!! At best, the two just had a mutual disdain for each other, at worst full on hatred! Throughout the series, we saw Masato try to undermine every single step that Takumi had taken to be a better person; Masato would lie, cheat and manipulate the facts just so he could forcefully take the affections of Mari, a woman who would NEVER see him as more than a petty twat! Masato would kill anyone who stood in his way, just because it was fun, and if given the chance that would also include Takumi! I think the ONLY reason Masato never got the chance to kill Takumi is because Kiba/The Horse Orphenoch snapped Masato's neck first! And in these episodes, we see Masato trying to kill Karin time and again just to stop the monster, which is perfectly in character for someone who tried to kill a KID to stop a bunch of monsters!
And now, 15 years after all of that, Takumi is suddenly deciding that he and Masato are life long best friends just because of the connection to Fourze, a series wherein one of the core things that brought the team together was the power of friendship?!
Nostalgia Critc, would you mind?
This is not only out of character for Takumi, but it doesn't even make any sense in the episode's context! When, at any point, was it established that Takumi or Masato had any respect for each other? Hell, I thought Masato was gonna be revealed to be Another Faiz, as that would be a perfect means for Masato to try one last "fuck you" to Takumi and the rest of the Faiz cast, and this would also fit thematically with Faiz's story as the Rider Belts in that series were passed around more than a game of Chinese Whispers!
Fuck, I just thought of something that could've in-story justified Masato going after some random girl he otherwise wouldn't care about, if there was one thing changed; MAKE KARIN AN ORPHENOCH!! That would've been the PERFECT justification to see Takumi and Masato go at it again, as Masato has an unfiltered hatred for Orphenochs, bordering on racism, and Takumi himself is the Wolf Orphenoch! Excise this stupid subplot of a guy killing some random girls to keep Karin alive, which by proxy excises the entire involvement of Another Fourze and the Amanogawa High School, and just have it be Masato being brought back from the dead and granted the power to kill indiscriminately with Takumi teaming up with the Zi-O team to stop him! Automatically, you fix EVERY continuity issue with the episode, and you make the story more personal and actually respecting Faiz's story! How hard was that?!
In short, fuck these episodes! It's this and the Build "arc" that convinced me this will be an awful series and I'm better off skipping it. I'm gonna wait until the recently announced Kishiryu Sentai Ryusouger to come out before I get back into Tokusatsu. I just need a break from this awful series; maybe I'll finally check out Garo. The new Jinga series has just started.
So until next time; this is Callum Lewis, the Media Man, signing off!
Thing is the whole Fourze arc was tailor-made to be for the Fourze cast. They only brought in Kento Handa and Kohei Murakami because Gentaro and Ryusei's actors were filming the Bleach movie. So they tried to cram in a half-hearted Faiz tribute even though the themings and ideals of those two shows are completely different.
ReplyDeleteThis is why you don't hire a hack of a writer that can't flex stories well in a satsifying way. Then again, given how little of a shit Toei has for this franchise nowadays, it's not surprising.