Kamen Rider Kiva E04 Review: Zacian

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 4: Reverie - Wild Blue

So we pick up right where we left off at the end of episode 3, where in 2008, the battle between Kiva and the Moth Fangire was interrupted when the Moth suddenly calls out Otoya's name. And... well, while it was kinda cute for the one episode, I did feel that by the time the second part rolled along, the rather silly (even by KR standards) premise of the lawyer lady wanting to find one good thing that Otoya did and refusing to rest until he does so to be pretty dang silly. Also, while the previous episode was a wee bit more coy, it's also pretty obvious that the lawyer lady is the villain in these episodes.

The 1986 scenes don't really tell us much, really. We get more scenes of Otoya flirting with Yuri (wo ai ni indeed) while the Blue Sky Group considers recruiting Otoya, because, as of this episode, their organization right in 1986 seems to consist of a grand total of three people. Yuri, obviously doesn't really approve of Blue Sky recruiting Otoya since he's kind of a douchebag womanizer.

Perhaps the more interesting storyline in episode 4's 2008 plot is less about the lawyer, or even about whether or not Otoya was a decent guy, but Wataru's obsession and daddy issues. He is utterly crushed that Kurenai Otoya seemed to be a massive scumbag instead of the idealized version of a heroic dad he has in his mind, and the meeting with Nago at the end of the previous episode has caused Wataru to essentially latch on to Nago, wishing to learn from a dad figure like him, particularly after seeing Nago arrest a swindler (who also happens to be another victim of Otoya's). Meanwhile, Nago asks the boss of the Wonderful-Blue-Sky-Group (who I don't think is named yet?) for permission to kill Kiva, but is denied for now. And, of course, it's at this point that we learn that Nago, too, has access to a certain rider system, marking him as the secondary rider. We don't get to see it just yet, though.


Instead, a good chunk of this episode is the somewhat bizarre rivalry between Nago and Megumi. While initially it's just Megumi being put off by Nago suddenly barging in on his case, and Nago just not really caring much for social interaction with his co-worker. Eventually they get a bit more heated up, with Megumi psycho-analyzing that Nago "needs weak people around him" to prop himself up, while Nago psycho-analyzes that Megumi's talking shit about him out of jealousy. This eventually sort of evolves into a bunch of hijinks with Megumi and Nago both giving Wataru differing advice. Wataru's advice eventually leads him to... work really really hard, causing Shizuka to show two victims that realize that, hey, holding on grudges and causing trouble for Wataru ain't cool.

Of course, the Moth Fangire just straight-up murders the two former victims, leading to the fight with Wataru as Kamen Rider Kiva. We get the revelation that apparently, the Moth Vampire has been in love with Otoya because he played violin to a bunch of plants, and she was the girl that Otoya sort of hugged and then let go immediately in favour for Yuri in the cold open for episode 3, which is... kind of a neat way to tie into what would otherwise be a standalone gag, actually. Ultimately, though, I feel like the story is pretty shallow, not helped by the 1986 side of the story not getting much focus, so the Moth Fangire's yandere-stalking and pining ends up just eliciting kind of a shrug from me.

Oh, and we get the debut of one of Kiva's first forms, the Garulu Saber. Apparently, when Kivat blows on one of the other whistles, he can summon one of the three dudes hanging out within Castle Doran's belly. We get this pretty cool dude who does a badass pose, scratching the ground and causing lightning to burst out, before he gets ejected from Castle Doran and unlocks Kiva's Garulu Saber weapon and form. We get some genuinely pretty cool shots with the huge moon in the background, and the sky going from red to black, and the utterly awesome and over-the-top way that Kiva-Garulu just charges in biting the sword in the mouth Roronoa-Zoro-style to finish the Fangire off.

Ultimately, though, I feel like this two-parter is a bit weak. I don't think I have too much of a problem for the villain being a lovesick, spurned lover, but the fact that we know so little about the Moth Fangire's personality, and we don't even resolve much of the problem of Wataru thinking that Otoya is a shit (because he kinda is, to be honest, looking at his many 'victims'). The introduction of Nago, the Nago/Megumi/Wataru dynamic, and the action scenes surrounding the new Garulu form are all pretty neat, but I do feel like episode 3 and 4 really could've used some tightening in terms of plot and pacing. 

Random Notes: 

• Some of the Kamen Rider shows do make use of stock footage, but honestly, the sequence with the Garulu Saber transformation seems like it's going to be reused over and over again, what with the non-specific glowing background and the show already having a track record of reusing that same Castle Doran transformation footage... 
• Kivat starts off each recap with some trivia about violins and whatnot. Previously I had thought that it was just the production team picking up random lines from the previous episode, but turns out the voice actor recorded a brand new violin-related factoid for each episode. 
• That scene of the two older men being killed by the Moth Fangire after a very happy scene of them acknowledging that they can lead a new happy life is actually pretty dark -- it's the sort of thing that we really don't see in the 'Phase II' Heisei series (and also Den-O), where civilian casualties aren't seen and, at the best, are implied. In Kiva, our heroes very regularly arrive too late to save some random dude from being murdered by the Fangire. 
• The official name for Garulu and his two buddies are Arms Monsters, because they mainly change one of Kiva's arms. 
• It's like, almost two decades apart, and honestly very likely to just be a coincidence, but the mascot for this year's Pokemon Sword is also a blue-and-red wolf dude that holds a sword in his mouth!