Kamen Rider Kiva E07 Review: Count von Chef

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 7: Hymn - Three-Star Full Course of Darkness

Technically the first part of a two-parter... but I haven't watched episode 8, and I sort of felt like doing a review anyway. So... this episode is an interesting one. The Fangire that appears in both 1986 and 2008 is Count Inukai, the Prawn Fangire, and while the trope of a vampiric lord and a loyal man-servant is certainly one that's not uncommon to vampire stories, it's very interesting in that this is perhaps the first Fangire we've seen to have a motivation that's not completely evil or revolves around eating humans, since Count Inukai wants to gather 'soul energy' to revive his faithful servants. Sure, the whole killing-humans part is pretty damn evil, but there's a neat motivation behind it, y'know? All the previous Fangires we've seen haven't really been anywhere as sympathetic. Kamen Rider shows tend to go back and forth on whether the monster race in a given show ends up being misunderstood as a race, or if there will be exceptions among the monsters that are aligned with good, and I'm curious which part of the spectrum that the Fangires will fall on.

Both the 1986 and 2008 plotlines also involves the regular customers of a certain restaurant going missing -- for the 1986 cast, it's the patrons of Cafe Mal d'Amour, whereas for the 2008, it's the Ristorante Maison Cercueil. Again, the setup of the episode really makes it look like it's another one of those "the same Fangire is responsible for both time periods' crimes", and with the first scene of Count von Chef being shown in 1986 before he re-appears in full chef regalia in 2008, it's way too easy to assume that it's the case, which means that the huge revelation in the end ends up genuinely catching me by surprise.

In 1986 this mission doubles as a bit of a screening chance for both the cool-and-collected Jiro and the rowdy Otoya, which... honestly feels more of the same. I really do think that the casting team for Kiva really lucked out with Takeda Kouhei, becuase the character of Otoya would be so unlikable if played by a less charming actor. And even then I still kinda wish that the events of the show made Otoya way less of a creep. Most of the 1986 cast time is shown with Otoya trying his best to show off, only to end up sort of bumbling. They use Jiro (who is a customer of the cafe) as bait, but no Fangire attack happens. Otoya at least manages to get a genuine laugh out of Yuri by, uh... pulling party streamers out of his mouth. Okay. Otherwise, it's mostly more of Yuri and Otoya bickering, while Comissioner Shima ends up recruiting Jiro into the Blue Sky Organization.

And, of course, the final scene of the episode, after dropping massive hints about how this is the Count von Prawn being active in 1986... turns out that the Fangire hunting down and murdering Cafe Mal d'Amour's patrons isn't the Prawn Fangire... but rather Jiro, who we see brutally transform into his wolf (Fangire?) form and devour some hapless dude because he smells of good coffee. What a twist! Honestly, with how Jiro's shown to be allied with Wataru in 2008, and how he's been shown to be genuinely a likable and badass character, it's something that genuinely took me by surprise... but really shouldn't. I'm actually curious to see just how this story plays out, and how evil Jiro actually is, and if he will actually get better later on.

In 2008, meanwhile, a different pair of people are fighting. We start off with Megumi thanking Wataru and asking him to go on a date as his 'new nee-san'. Okay? It's actually kinda sweet, whether Megumi's intentions are platonic or romantic, and if nothing else, it does give Shizuka some fun moments of random jealousy. However,  Nago ends up showing up and essentially calling the date off behind Megumi's back, telling Wataru to infiltrate the restaurant by applying for a waiter job, while he shows up in Wataru's place.

And honestly? It's a pretty damn dick move on Nago's part. He talks about how it's "an investigation, not a date", but acts like such an condescending ass throughout the encouter. After some "Megumi eats a lot" jokes, Nago ends up admonishing Megumi for tricking Wataru under false pretenses... but Nago telling Wataru to investigate and infiltrate the restoaurant is all right, because he's honest about it? What the hell, Nago? I mean, we, the audience, know that Wataru can take care of himself because he can transform into a chained-up masked vampire man, but Nago doesn't. At least with Megumi's plan, if there would be a Fangire attack, Wataru would be always next to Megumi, who is at least a trained Blue Sky Oragnization member, y'know? And what's to say Megumi didn't plan to tell Wataru the whole story before entering the restaurant? Nago's a presumptious dick. And I'm curious if the actual direction of his character is intended to make him kind of unlikable at first.

The conflict of the episode and two-parter ends up being Nago and Megumi both telling Wataru to listen to them and ignore the other one, and... I dunno, it does kinda lead to kind of a neat sequence where Wataru sort of acts like the kid of a pair of fighting parents. Eventually, in the midst of the Megumi/Nago hijinks, we get Megumi showing up and attempting to protect a couple that dined in the Count's restaurant earlier in the episode. She fails, but at least there's an attempt, y'know? Wataru ends up swooping in as Kiva and we get the obligatory third-act-Kiva-battle, but this one ends up being interrupted by the arrival of -- who else -- Nago, who ends up interrupting the fight and shouting bloody murder and driving Wataru running off.\


Overall, it's a pretty interesting setup. Obviously what I'm most excited about is the 1986 storyline, which was handled very well and played alongside audience expectations of a parallel plotline to set up Jiro's true nature as... if not a Fangire, then a comparable monster, and what side he's going to take before the 1986 storyline ends. Count Inukai is an interesting villain who has a neat motivation, and while I don't find the Megumi/Nago arguments all that interesting, there are some parts that were pretty neat. Overall, a pretty decent episode.

Random Notes:

• I am hesitant to call Jiro a Fangire because his transformation is different and doesn't have the same stained-glass dealie going on that the Fangires have. He might be either a special Fangire, or a different kind of werewolf-based race altogether. 
• The comissioner of the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization is called Shima. Has he been called by name before? I've just been calling him 'chief' all the while.
• In Wataru violin hijinks of the week, Wataru uses flower petals to make violin varnish, but ends up freaking Shizuka out with a living centipede.  
• Know Your Fangire: Count von Chef is the Prawn Fangire. For some reason, this means he can spit out some weird whipped-cream like fluid, which, uh... okay.
• I'm not sure if Count von Chef was actually cutting up human flesh in that kitchen. The shots and background music sure are ominous, and I might just be having Amazons flashbacks to the horrifying Crab Amazon, but I guess it's only meant to be unsettling in general without the implication of actually eating human flesh. 
• Yeah, the stock footage for Garuru Saber is particularly distracting due to the static backgrounds.
• Jiro has such an annoyed look when the card tower he's making gets toppled over when Wataru summons him.