Kamen Rider Revice E17-18: Deadman Backstories

Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 17-18:

Okay, I'm like... almost ten episodes late? More than that? I've actually been vastly enjoying Revice and keeping up with it relatively regularly, but it does irk me that real life made it so that I really didn't have the time to watch and review it. By the time I knew it, it's almost been two months after I last posted a Revice review. Every time I sat down to write a review for 17, I kept putting it off because I had so many more episodes left to review, and then it went on and on until now... so I guess I'll just bite the bullet and try and get through this, and do the reviews for these episodes in bulk, and briefly. I'll do these in batches of two-parters until we catch up, though I'll try to fit in a 4-5 episode batch at some point. 

Episode 17: Deepening Betrayal, the True Value of Buddies

After the destruction of the Deadmans' base in episode 16, we take a bit of a lighter set of two-parters. We get to rather randomly meet Hideo Akaishi, a.k.a. this show's Blofeld cosplayer and someone who's very obviously intended to look suspicious from the get-go. We get some foreshadowing to things not being quite on the up-and-up at Fenix and foreshadowing Weekend a bit, though 17-18 primarily just revolve around Ikki and Vice having to figure out how to use their newest upgrade, where Ikki and Vice have to be perfectly synchronized to utilize this new form. It's... it's okay, I guess, for a two-parter. Volcano Rex ends up obviously being unstable for the first part, and they perfect it in episode 18. 

This episode focuses primarily on the backstory of Julio, or, as he's known, Go Tamaki. He plays a fake Yu-Gi-Oh game as a child and got bullied by it, and ultimately got betrayed by one of his friends who tore up a prized card in front of him -- and that friend asks Ikki to help find Julio for him. It's a backstory that feels relatively common in these tokusatsu shows, although... again, I don't like pooh-poohing on Saber all the time, it does help to put a lot of Julio's anger at betrayal in the past couple of episodes in new light. I also do like that it's Sakura that's a bit more involved in trying to solve Julio's problems, because she did strike a bit of an odd sorta-friendship with Julio and Aguilera over the past episodes. 

Episode 18: Buddy's Trajectory, A Miracle of Fire And Ice

Ikki spends a good chunk of this episode basically trying to reconcile his temper tantrum that caused him to get set on fire when Olteca mocks his inability to save everyone, which I felt is a surprisingly mature thing. There's a bit of Ikki admitting to himself that part of the reason he wants to help people was also somewhat selfish. It's something that one of the secondary villains have been calling Ikki -- an 'egoist' and it's clearly gnawing at him. Sure, Revice doesn't get anywhere as dark as other earlier Kamen Rider entries, but I do like that this bit is actually explored a bit, and that Ikki and Vice have a nice, quiet moment of maturity in acknowledging this. Ikki finally builds up his trust in Vice enough to allow him to manifest in the real world, and I do feel like it's pretty powerful that we actually see that the journey of them trusting each other to this degree isn't instantaneous. 

Julio (or 'Tamaki', as I should be referring to him from now on) get the bulk of the screentime here. He might be pissed off at the friend from his backstory, but he's deathly loyal to Aguilera -- and him trying to both get Sakura's aid to help protect Aguilera and Sakura herself trying to get Julio to reconcile with his friend in the past is pretty neat. It wasn't anything revolutionary, there's a reason why Tamaki's friend never went to meet him, and the plot goes in where you expect it to go... right up until Julio's friend get straight up fucking murdered in front of him. I mean, at least they reconciled, right?

I also fully expected the friend to be revived in a happy ending, but no! He's just dead, and that felt... refreshing? Suddenly there are stakes, something that I haven't felt in a Kamen Rider show since... since a while now. Julio's transformation and him one-shotting the Gifterian into a building wall as his fist transforms, followed by the rest of him... that's badass. He transforms into his 'Wolf Riot' form, rips out a chunk of Olteca, before unleashing a giant explosion visible from the skies. Pretty cool! Wolf Riot beats up Jeanne and Live, before Ikki and Vice, fresh off their reconciliation, go Volcano Rex and purge the Deadman out of Tamaki. Pretty cool stuff, and I do enjoy it whenever a show successfully makes a one-note villain into something more sympathetic. Aguilera even still keeps Tamaki around even after losing his powers, and saves him from Olteca. Pretty cool two-parter all around. 

Random Notes: 

• I like the fake Yu-Gi-Oh card game that Julio plays in the past. It's neat!
• My feelings about Volcano Rex as a form... it's... it's a'ight. With the CGI fire-and-ice thing going on, I get what they're going for, but I just am super indifferent towards the colour palette. 
• There's a pretty cool effect when Julio remembers the past and his friend's face is scratched out. 
• Episode 17 shows that Olteca still has an army of faceless cultists that explicitly die for him to create his Gifterians. Ikki's new form is even focused more on saving all the guys that get killed in transforming into monsters. After Saber being so bloodless it's not even funny and Zero-One mostly having robot casualties, it's actually refreshing. I'm not expecting any of our main characters to die a bloody seinen manga death, but it's neat in terms of having stakes to the show. 
• We get some great "GODDAMN" from George. I love George. 
• Episode 18 doesn't have the opening sequence. Weird. 
• I don't think it particularly matters in the long run, but Vice explicitly confirms that he was created out of Ikki, and used to be part of him. 
• I get it, Vice is the ice part of the fire-and-ice part of Volcano Rex.
• We get a brief hint at the next two-parter at the end of this one, with dr. Akemi making her first appearance and telling Hiromi that he can't transform into Demons again.