Kamen Rider Revice E47 Review: Juuga Rising

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 47: Karizaki's Rebellion, The Price of Transformation 

So it really is interesting where the show is going in its final batch of three or four episodes. With Giff being taken out (IMO in a rather lackluster manner) we still need an antagonist and I don't think Olteca is really going to be impressing anyone, but we do have George being built up to fill in the shoes. Driven mad by his dad's death and the lack of closure he has with his dad, we get George moping on a rooftop before talking about a 'cleansing'. 

And George does do a cleansing. With manic hair and a fancy new golden driver, we get to see him having apparently taken out an entire corridor's worth of generic Demons Troopers or whatever the hell those guys are. All they're literally good for is to job harder than Hiromi ever did, so, uh, good job guys, you guys all got maybe-killed by George. 

The major drama on the good guys' side while all of this is going on is Ikki's memory loss getting more and more, going from something simple and stupid like not remembering the dominos that he used to set up with Genta. It's a lot more understandable and dramatic to have us just focus on the memory loss instead of the weird 'Ikki disappears from pictures' nonsense that this was initially shown to us as. And this far into the show, with so much focus on how much the Igarashi family is a close-knit unit that will sacrifice so much for each other, it's actually a very sad moment. 

We seem to have a bit of a closure for other characters as well, except, of course, we know it's not going to last with George rampaging. Hana says goodbye to Sakura, intending on going to prison (I suppose) for her crimes as Aguilera. Hiromi and Hikaru are tidying up the stuff in Weekend which I guess is disbanding... and the as Hana leaves and goes off on her own, she gets confronted by George and gets the shit beaten out of her. Tamaki comes to protect her but gets beaten even faster .

And... as much as we, the audience, like Hana and Tamaki, it's kind of still understandable for someone who's trying to 'get rid' the world of demons or whatever to go for her, as the former Aguilera and Julio. It's not right, of course, but you can understand George Karizaki going for them. George just speed-blitzes Kamen Rider Aguilera and I don't think Tamaki even got to transform, before he rants about how he's going to wipe out all remnants of Giff for the sake of peace, and that the other riders don't belong in a peaceful world. However, the rest of his dialogue -- talking about he has a rider system 'made by humans, for humans', really does indicate what his true goals are, which is to surpass the demon-based drivers that Masumi Karizaki made. 

As Ikki and Vice arrives, George gives a rant about how he's going to eliminate all the Kamen Rider system, and he summons all the animals of Ikki's original batch of animals. It would be a bit more impressive if we hadn't seen Vulcan Stampede or whatever one of Fuwa's powered-up forms in Zero-One is, but it's still very colourful, and the transformation is neat. So we get the arrival of Kamen Rider Juuga. 

And... and a brand new super-powerful rider antagonist is good enough to be a coda of an arc, especially one that's already established as a character like George. And George sure uses the powers of Juuga to overpower Vice, and later on in the episode, the entire Igarashi squadron. But the real kicker here really is them trying to rehabilitate/stop George, as well as Ikki losing more and more memories as the episode goes on. I do like that our heroes do try alternate ways to do so, with Vice alone transforming in the first fight against George... but then we get the absolutely amazingly (and heartbreakingly) acted scene of Ikki walking up to Genta and Yukimi and going "I'm sorry, our bath opens from 3 pm)... and yes, Ikki's memory loss has gone so far that he's forgotten his parents. 

And it's not quite similar to dementia or other equivalent conditions that many families have to deal with, but it's a surprisingly heavy topic to tackle. Vice's guilt, Genta trying to put a strong front and comforting Vice, Yukimi breaking down regardless... and then the conversation between Ikki, Sakura and Daiji in the park bench, because I didn't even realize that the two younger Igarashi siblings didn't even know about the memory loss problem... hell, even Kagero gets a pretty good moment, pointing out that this is the price to pay for dealing with demons, but also trying to focus the siblings' anger towards George. I absolutely love that Vice, Sakura and Daiji are taking the initiative and basically being 'busybodies' for once, forcing Ikki to not continue to be self-destructive. 

The Igarashis confront George and they're about to do what George theoretically want by handing over all the drivers and vistamps. Except, of course, George's so-called noble desire isn't really what he wanted in the first place -- he wants to prove his superiority to his daddy in actual combat. Ikki's earnest begging for George to leave his family in peace causes him to absolutely break down and while it's not the prettiest thing to watch, I do have to give it to George's actor for really nailing his insanity and his terrible coping mechanism towards grief. 

We get Juuga fighting against Vice, Live/Evil and Jeanne, but Juuga uses the power of glowing CGI animal limbs to beat the shit out of the younger Igarashi siblings. And damn, it looked like it hurt. And yeah. This? Memory loss or whatever, I absolutely believe that this triggers Ikki a whole damn lot. The episode ends with a cliffhanger as Ikki prepares to transform. 

And... and I don't know. For my bitching of taking things too quickly with Giff's defeat last episode, I would actually praise this episode for being fast-paced? The problem, I think, is that George's motivations and insanity were already built up relatively well even with the limited number of episodes between Masumi's death and George becoming Juuga. Meanwhile, Giff spent so much time as a silent statue and when he starts ranting it's basically a watered-down, less-hammy version of what Akaishi's been spouting. And the Ikki amnesia stuff ends up being really powerful too, huh? A pretty great episode all around. 

Random Notes: 

• Vice shows up in the bathhouse and starts rattling off basically the major arcs of the past 46 episodes, and I was so worried we're getting a recap episode. 
• Also one of the episodic victims that's a fake-Youtube comedian or some shit shows up for a bit role in the middle of the episode. 
• Kamen Rider Juuga, besides the obvious name, does have the colour palette of Ultimate Kuuga, albeit with the design style that would fit right at home in Build or Zi-O. 
• I am kind of disappointed that George actually does have a unique henshin pose instead of just copying Kamen Rider #1 or Kuuga or Zero-One or someone. 
• There is a short scene snuck in-between the amnesiac Ikki scenes of Hiromi attacking George on a building at night. It's just a bit too short for me to mention in the episode, though, because other than asking George what his game is, Hiromi just... walks away?
  
• Hiromi finding Julio/Hikaru and Hana's drivers -- which are explicitly made by Masumi -- on his grave is also a pretty powerful scene, though. 
• It really is kind of a shame that Invincible Jeanne and Evilyty-Live debuted in a very busy episode and had to share their spotlights, and now they both get jobbed pretty quickly by Juuga.