Kamen Rider Kiva E21-22 Review: Queens of Fives

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 21: Rhapsody - the Fate of the Ring; Episode 22: Overture - Fateful Intersection

An interesting two-parter again, mostly because of the almost innocuous way that it introduces a new recurring character that I've been sort-of spoiled about before coming into this series. Blame Kamen Rider Decade for that. Still, episodes 21 and 22 are a pretty interesting pair of episodes. The 2008-era story feels like kind of a filler wacky-hijinks sort of episode, while the 1986-era one goes through a parallel "group date" premise only to delve into something that's either tedious or enticing depending on how much you like the Otoya/Yuri/Jiro love triangle. It's something that I've found tolerable only because of the acting strengths of the actors involved, and one that I find otherwise pretty lacking.

The 1986 plotline is kick-started when Yuri and Otoya seem to be developing a... more healthy relationship. It's kind of difficult to really be invested in them due to how huge of a creep Otoya can be at times, but throughout the past couple of episodes he's certainly been toned down a lot, and while "he makes her laugh" is not something you should base your whole relationship upon, the show's at least showing that Otoya is a lot more honest about what he intends to do with Yuri, but despite all his creep-tastic attitude, otherwise respects Yuri as a person. Jiro, on the other hand, is a lot more suave and whatnot, but is clearly way more toxic and abusive to Yuri. The plotline of 21 and 22 is basically kickstarted when Jiro, witnessing some silly hijinks as Otoya and Yuri joke around in a noodle store, end up proposing marriage to Yuri in perhaps the pushiest way ever, and it's... it's pretty passive-aggressive and kinda manipulative as Jiro tells Yuri to keep the ring until she decides on an answer, but spends all of 21 and 22 with a "she didn't say no, so it's clearly a yes" attitude, using it less as a way to preserve a relationship with a woman she loves and more to rub it in Otoya's face.

One conversation led to another, and eventually we have Yuri, Jiro, Otoya and, uh, Riki for some goddamn reason in a group date. Which is a Japanese cultural thing that shows up a lot in anime. The hijinks for the 1986 era mostly revolves around Jiro and Otoya hamming shit up as they try to insult each other in the group date, while Yuri's all sorta-confused about randomly being possessive about Jiro ("he's my fiance!") and then backtracking. It's a bit weird. The rather suspect writing in regards to Yuri also feels like it's just a massive chunk of "she doesn't know her emotions, she is confused", so I am certainly thankful that Takeda Kouhei and Matsuda Kenji over-act the hell out of their lines to make these scenes bearable to watch. Otoya ends up finishing episode 21 basically going on a date with one of the girls, who's apparently his childhood friend, but oh noes, love triangle, and Yuri's clearly not happy with whatever's going on.

Surprisingly, the focus for the 1986 segment of episode 21 is Riki. Initially seeming to just be there as kind of a funny gag because, ha ha, the emotionally stunted man with the personality of a brick is in a group date, and he immediately opens with "I want you to bear my descendants", but this is the 1986-era Arms Monsters and they're still monster-men. Riki ends up following one of the ladies and straight-up murders and consumes her, and we get perhaps the best dark comedy moment in the show when Riki returns to the table with the declaration that "I ate her" and everyone present thinks that Riki scored some tail.

Riki also gets an interesting action sequence, barging out of the restaurant when he smells a Fangire -- the Chameleon Fangire, who's the creature that menaces both time periods. The Chameleon Fangire is a clothes seller who sells pretty clothes and then stalks his own customers and murders them. Riki transforms into his Frankenstein Dogga form while yelling "RIKI SMASH!" and beats the fuck out of the Fangire... but then turns around and consumes the same human that he saves from the Fangire.

Episode 22's 1986 storyline is more of a continuation of the love triangle stuff, with Otoya seemingly pulled into a scam as his childhood girlfriend basically spins a sob story about how her brother is sick and can't make ends meet, and because Otoya's blinded by love and kind of a moron, ends up helping out in construction sites and whatnot to help make money for his lady friend. Yuri, meanwhile, sees this for what it is, a gold-digging scam, and calls Otoya out on being a moron... but Otoya's just a happy-go-lucky fool and he shrugs it off that it's a good thing that there was no one sick in the first place. Of course, this eventually translates to the fact that Otoya's lady friend was trying to buy an expensive dress from the Chameleon Fangire's Luxur clothes store, and we sort of abandon that plot point for some Fangire hunting action.

Yuri ends up putting the pieces together (albeit offscreen), purchase the dress that Otoya's lady friend was trying to buy, and then have Otoya cross-dress as bait to draw the Chameleon Fangire out. Which I feel was just an excuse for them to put Takeda Kouhei in a woman's dress, but okay. Jiro and Yuri show up and chase the Chameleon dude off, while Jiro sort of mocks Otoya for dressing like a woman, ha-ha-ha... but apparently the events of 21 and 22 are enough to make Yuri give back Jiro's ring and talking about how she's not ready for commitment?

(Also, Otoya shows up out of nowhere in this scene, grabs the ring and chucks it into the lake in a gloriously petty and unnecessary move, because, holy shit, that's a fucking ring. Manipulative monster or not, that probably costed Jiro a pretty penny.)

Overall, the gist of the 1986 love triangle sub-plot is... it's a neat one, and I even like the fact that Yuri seems to put together the Chameleon Fangire's scheme all on her own, but the scenes are a bit too muddled with way too much focus on the group date hijinks in episode 21 or the Otoya-works-for-love stuff in episode 22. We don't actually get to see too Otoya or Jiro, or how her perception of the two is challenged when she sees Otoya fooling around with another woman. The pacing and the focus is off, is what I feel, and beyond a couple of vague lines about how she's unsure, we never really get a satisfying reason to why she suddenly decides not to pick Jiro. Maybe a couple of extra scenes of her seeing how abrasive Jiro is, or actually seeing Otoya being super-altruistic, or something, would've gone a long way.

The 2008 story, on the other hand, is a lot more successful on the romance plot. Episode 21 starts off with a deceptively filler-y premise, basically the same sort of group date premise to parallel the 1986 scenes. Of course, the one that ends up making the 2008 group date end up being hilarious to watch is Keisuke Nago, who's such a massive dickhead with a stick up his ass that he completely misses the point of 'fun' and group dates, and acts like a complete and utter cunt, and it's gloriously funny. Between him openly declaring group dates as repugnant and improper, to every other girl on the table swooning for the mysterious cool anti-hero jerk man, to Nago randomly being able to repeat every single item that everyone ordered to the waitress (including the thank you), or Nago completely ruining the King Game by grabbing the stick, declaring himself king because he's the one most suited for it... y'know, Nago's a cunt, but when his douchebagginess is relatively limited to harmless antics like this, he's entertaining.

All of this, of course, is to stealthily introduce Suzuki Mio, a shy, bumbling waitress who is serving their table. And while we're distracted with the loudness of Kengo and Nago, or Megumi teasing Wataru for having an 'older sister' type, Mio is just in the background of these scenes, up until the point that she spills pudding or something onto Nago's dumb face. And of course Nago's the type of dude who demands to see the manager. Mio gets screamed at by the manager (although, to be fair, it is her fault) and runs out of the restaurant, and Wataru chases down after her.

Turns out that Wataru and Mio have a lot in common in that they're shy-shy-introverts that can't refuse door-to-door salesmen, and they both end up purchasing tofu from a random seller because they can't refuse, and it's just such ridiculous adorableness with far, far more chemistry than Otoya and Yuri or Jiro and Yuri ever had in 20 episodes. Episode 21 ends with a bit of a mundane action scene as Ixa and Kiva both end up showing up to fight the Chameleon Fangire, who's up to his dress-murdering spree in 2008.

Episode 22... opens with the revelation that it's Kengo that asks Mio the waitress on a date, but after a meeting at Cafe Mal d'Amour, Megumi quickly realizes that Mio doesn't feel particularly comfortable with the far-too-loud Kengo, and both Megumi and Kengo act as completely supportive and good friends that tell Wataru to go off and be happy with Mio. I love this little circle of friends, they're so wholesome.

The theme of the Wataru/Mio scenes is that "people can change", and the two of them manage to resist the urge to say yes to the tofu-maker dude, and they go on a date holding hands and stuff as they try to break out of their introverted shells. Mio apparently has always wanted to shop according to her own fashion sense, but was never able to because she succumbs to the shopkeepers' recommendations all the time, and it's a pretty adorable sequence as these two introverted babies end up growing out of their shell. Wataru even picks out a ring for Mio, which was kind of random but okay.

Of course, one of the shops they enter is run by the Chameleon Fangire's human guise, which ends up leading to the climax. Turns out, though, that the confidence to say no to tofu and to buy clothes doesn't translate to a complete 180, and poor Mio fucks up at work and spills soup onto customers, causing her to run out straight into the hungry clutches of the Chameleon Fangire. At which point, of course, Wataru shows up as Kiva, goes into Dogga Form and beat the ever-loving fuck out of the Chameleon with his big hammer. Again, not the most impressive or memorable of action scenes. Ultimately, Mio sort of admits to Wataru that she was moving too fast, and it's just as unhealthy for someone to immediately change their personality to a full 180... but she's willing to change bit by bit, and she's going to keep Wataru's ring. D'awwww.

Overall, I'm a huge, huge fan of the 2008-era story. The theme and the character development they're trying to build with both Wataru and Mio are well done, and I'm a huge fan of Mio as a character and Nago gets to actually be entertaining and not obnoxious. The 1986 scenes, on the other hand... the story is solid (if you care about the love triangle), the conflict is solid, but the resolution and pacing could've been better. 

Random Notes: 

• Suzuki Mio is played by Haga Yuria, and is one of the rare instances that an actor played a major role in multiple Kamen Rider series, having previously played Sonoda Mari, the main female protagonist from Kamen Rider 555. This is perhaps the only real spoiler that I had before coming into Kiva, that Mari's actor was a main character here since I saw the same actress reprise her Kiva role in Kamen Rider Decade. 
• Other actors on top of my head that have played multiple main characters are Takeda Kouhei (Otoya in Kiva; Grease in Build), Matsuda Kenji (Jiro in Kiva; Zanki in Hibiki) and Nakamura Yuchi (Kiriya Kyosuke in Hibiki; Zeronos in Den-O). 
• I'm not sure why a good chunk of Yuri's confusion when Jiro proposes to her is "what will Mr. Shima say?" and we even get a payoff to that as Yuri questions Mr. Shima for allowing Jiro to propose to her, and Shima shrugging it off as "you can still fight as a married woman, right?" It's not like Shima is Yuri's dad or anything. I dunno. It feels very off. 
• Know Your Fangires: It's a Chameleon Fangire, a pretty obvious design and a critter that can go invisible at will. 
• At the beginning of episode 21, Kengo begs Nago to teach him how to 'rock', and after a bit of a back-and-forth, Nago decides to do so but only if he gets paid. Because it's to teach Kengo "the harshness of the world", which is just such a fucking hilarious line. 
• Seriously, though, Megumi is the best wingman ever. Between her quickly promoting Wataru to her two lady-friends at the group date, to her quickly realizing that Mio's a better fit for Wataru and that she'd better "switch players", she's pretty amazing of a wingman.
• Kengo isn't half-bad either, quickly piecing together what's going on even after two steps into the cafe, and quickly encouraging Wataru to chase Mio and be happy. 
• Shizuka is... notably absent in these two episodes. I don't think she'll be too happy with Wataru actually getting a girlfriend without her being present, particularly since she raised such a fuss over Wataru and Megumi's not-date a while back.
• The Dogga Hammer's giant hammer-eye is able to pull off a pretty cool Ocarina of Time Lens of Truth vision that allows Kiva to see invisible enemies.