Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 41: A Father's True Intention, a Son's Determination
Back with Revice! I actually watched a couple of episodes before my little hiatus, but for the sake of me not overworking myself, my Revice reviews up until the end would not be too over-detailed and actually be more reviews instead of recaps. How many times have I said that when I reviewed these tokusatsu shows, huh?
Again, I'm very much enjoying that they're actually extending the Ikki/Daiji drama a couple of episodes. A lot of the acting and scripting aren't exactly avant-garde or whatever, but I do like that each episode does build up the twisted relationship between Akaishi and Daiji, the toxic encouragement that Akaishi keeps giving Daiji and causes him to get more and more invested in his insane delusions. Akaishi did say that he thinks of Daiji as his 'son', which parallels the whole family themes of Revice, which... is damn well less disturbing than the alternative for sure. Of course, because Akaishi is a complete lunatic, he decides that Daiji's lingering attachments to the Igarashi family is his weakness, and sends Vail off to slaughter the Igarashis.
Daiji's real family, meanwhile, argue about this and I do really think it's important that this episode does focus on Genta's side of all things.
On the Weekend side of things, poor Hikaru is mourning the deaths of his two adoptive parents, but then George shows up with the mass-produced Demons Drivers that he and Hiromi talked about last episode. We get a delightful cameo of our favourite Heisei/Reiwa suit actors as they transform into the rather... unflattering-looking Demons soldiers. Not that they're really going to matter much, although I guess it's just a last-minute attempt at injecting stakes and a new merchandise or two? We do get the pretty cool montage of the Demon Troopers, plus the secondary riders like Aguilera, beating up the random Giff monsters... and then Vail shows up and blows away Hiromi and Tamaki holding guns. Revice in Giffard Rex show up and we get another fight showcasing Giffard Rex's magnetic ability before Vail randomly craps out and disappears into smoke.
Giff himself is pretty pissed, showing up and blasting Akaishi and Daiji to the ground without even talking, while Vail's body is revealed to have been slowly dying over the past 25 years. Somehow, all of these ends up leading to Daiji deciding that the best way to stop all the conflict and appease Giff is to stop Revice right now.
There's a nice little nod to the earlier days of the show where Sakura would unleash her frustrations through karate, and she's the one who's the stable friend trying to help out Hikaru in the dojo get through his own frustrations after his parents' death, and an acknowledgement at how Hikaru's dad did love him ultimately. Not too much to say here, it goes about as well as you expect it to, and it's nice that this plot point is addressed.
Speaking of dads, Genta and Yukimi finally find out about the nonsense amnesia/retconned-out-of-photographs plotline. Which still doesn't make sense to me even in-universe, but whatever -- it's a sacrifice Ikki is making for the whole family, and just like how Ikki has been unwilling to sacrifice anything in exchange for his family, of course his parents aren't willing to lose Ikki either. As everyone else goes off to deal with the final crisis, Genta and the also-seemingly-dying Karizaki Senior decides to do one final gambit. (This episode is all about dads, if you didn't realize)
In a surprisingly cool CGI shot, we get Akaishi transforming into his monster form and unleash a shockwave upon like three dozen defeated Demons Troopers. Well, so much for them being relevant in any way, although damn, the implication is that Akaishi beat them all untransformed. The episode ends in a bit of a cliffhanger as Revice fights against Akaishi and Vail. We do, by the way, get Akaishi's side of things, where he's constantly frustrated that humanity keeps fucking up in their contracts with Giff over and over and over again. Speaking of past sins, Aguilera and Live get to fight in the air, and while it doesn't last for too long, I do like that Hana gets to speak a piece of her mind as someone who's deluded into fighting as a pawn for a psychopath for the majority of this series.
And then in a confrontation that's actually as hilarious as it is anticlimactic, Revice is about to do a double rider kick to finish off Akaishi. And he got so afraid that he... ducked. Yes, Akaishi survives this episode up to however many episodes left that he has in this series because he ducked from a double rider kick of our main hero's final form. That's kind of hilarious. Akaishi buggers off, but Karizaki Senior shows up with a vistamp of his own, ready to transform.
So yeah, overall pretty packed episode, pretty entertaining episode, and I really do like just how well this show juggles all its supporting characters.
Random Notes:
- I'm really not sure if I agree with the overall message of accepting your own internal demon or something. I mean, Vice and Lovekov are nice and all, but up until his final episode, Kagerou was pretty much just 'murder' away from being as bad as Vail.
- I know I harp on Over Demons a bit, but man, Over Demons looks great compared to the mass-produced Demons soldiers.
- Is there really a point to not giving Julio one of the mass-produced drivers? Other than ha-ha-funny? I mean, he's a bit of a crybaby but he did spend some time as a wolf demon in the beginning of the series. At the very least, I would think that he would last longer than those guys that Akaishi one-shotted.
- Okay, that magnet 'gather everyone and blow them up on the ground' move by Giffard Rex is pretty cool.
- I know the actual forms are called "Ultimate Revi" and "Ultimate Vice", but fuck it, that sounds so generic. Giffard Rex is what the damn belt yells anyway, that's far more memorable to me.
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