Kamen Rider Kiva E23 Review: Racial Purity

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 23: Variation - Fugitives Forever

The start of this two-parter is pretty neat. We get to see Maya the Queen again, who is going around hunting random Fangires who are in love with humans, tracking down a lady Fangire and blowing her the fuck up with her "the dark of night falls upon you" shtick. Meanwhile, we get perhaps one of the most adorable scenes in Kamen Rider Kiva ever as Jiro and Yuri show up at Cafe Mal d'Amour and celebrate Owner Kido's birthday, and Jiro is fantastic in this scene. While Yuri's acting like a normal person celebrating someone's birthday would be, Jiro's trying way too hard to be super energetic and exciting with the perfect "guy who's way too excited about something" expression on his face. Jiro's excitement might be a bit over-the-top, but you get the sense that he's actually genuine and he wants the cafe owner to have a good day with cakes and candles and even manages to get an autographed Onyako album for Kido. Jiro's peace sign and grinning-but-deadpan "yay" is just perfect.

And, of course, things sort of go back to the Jiro/Otoya conflict, which comes to a head in this two-parter. Clearly still bitter over the events of the previous episode, Jiro straight up abuses Otoya a bit by shoving noodles into his mouth and knocking him in the head. Meanwhile, Ramon and Riki's illegal acupuncture massage shop is apparently being shut down and they're being evicted, causing Jiro to sort of shuffle Ramon and Riki over to Cafe Mal d'Amour where they work part-time and, uh, Riki wears a waitress dress for some reason. It's been 23 episodes and Riki and Ramon are just kind of un-developed secondary characters, so at least this time around we can hopefully get to see more of them in the 1986 scenes. Even if at the moment they're just the butt of 'silly crossdressing hijinks' jokes.

Yuri, meanwhile, is sort of being all tsundere-tsundere with her feelings for Otoya, and is practicing making omelette fried rice, but she's kind of terrible at cooking, and the only person who can stand eating Yuri's attempts at omurice is Riki, who's a Frankenstein's Monster. This apparently causes Riki to have a crush on Yuri, and Otoya, being a self-appointed ladies' man, apparently ends up trying to teach Riki how to confess his love or whatnot.

Also, in a rarity for Kiva, we spend a lot of time with the victims-of-the-two-parter, a couple named Shinji and Ryoko. It's actually interesting that we've seen Queen murder a bunch of mixed-race partners before, since the audience ends up quickly putting together that these are indeed a Fangire/Human coupling. The dude, Shinji, is clearly trying to break up, but also very clearly still in love with Ryoko. Their scenes sort of went on for a bit too long, but we do get a neat sense that these two people really do love each other, what with Ryoko easily calling Shinji's bluff, and when Ryoko does end up being passive-aggressively chased out of the apartment, Shinji's desperation and internal conflict is portrayed well. He doesn't want to lose his girlfriend, but Queen's out to murder them.

And honestly Queen probably would've, if Otoya didn't show up and interrupt Queen just as she's about to do her murdery-thing. Otoya delivers some silly cheesebag line about fate and destiny and whatnot, only to get a slap from Queen. Not sure why Queen didn't hunt down Ryoko and Shinji after that, but I guess that was enough distraction? Queen's not the only one who doesn't like Otoya, because Jiro shows up in front of Otoya, telling him to fuck off. Otoya at least gets to taste Yuri's omurice... and, hilariously, unlike how Otoya's usually bent-over-backwards to praise Yuri, he blandly declares Yuri's omurice to be plain. I guess he wants to be honest when he gets serious, or something? The cuteness of the omurice scene gets cut off as Jiro confronts Otoya, transforms into Garulu and beats the fuck out of Otoya. It's a brutal beatdown mostly because Otoya isn't even transformed into Ixa, although it's just pure plot contrivance that Jiro (who we've seen kill before) doesn't even bother to do the same to Otoya, just chucking him into a river and declaring that Yuri belongs to him. I dunno. I felt like there could've been a better sequence of events to make it look like Jiro's a lot less dumb, I guess, while still achieving the "if you fall into a river, you 100% survive the fight" trope. Neat cliffhanger, though.

The 2008 storyline is... it's clearly the backseat, and meant to build up Mio and Wataru's relationship a bit more. Megumi and the Owner have an adorable conversation with Wataru over his dates, and Wataru is adorable. Eventually, they sort of rope Mio in to help Megumi out in a modelling project, and Mio continues to be cute and grow out of her introvert shell with Wataru and Megumi's help.

Shinji in 2008, apparently has resorted into being a thief, however, and ends up stealing the necklace being used for the modelling. We get the expected action scene as Kiva (in Garulu form) faces off against Shinji's Fangire form, but Shinji escapes and we get the revelation that he's stealing jewelry because his beloved wife is... dying in a hospital, and he wants to give gifts to her before she passes. Oh no, romantic tragedy drama!

Overall, a pretty neat episode. The 2008 storyline (and the Riki subplot) feels more like a distraction than anything, but I am surprisingly invested in Otoya, Jiro and Yuri's story in 1986. After noting just how inconsistently written their dynamic are, I've sort of settled into the familiarity of Yuri just being surrounded by two clearly less-than-ideal men. And now they're quite literally fighting to the death for her. At this point, I'm curious just how Jiro's going to spin this to make Yuri 'fall for' him or whatever. We're almost near the halfway point of Kiva, and I actually kind of think that this episode does paint an accurate view of Kiva as a whole so far -- great concepts, and I can totally see what the direction of the gothic horror romance was meant to go, but ultimately the pacing, writing and characterization ends up falling short in many places. 

Random Notes:

• Jiro and Kido's actors are totally fooling around in the background as Otoya delivers his "soon my birthday will be a national holiday" spiel, and I'm not sure if it's the characters mocking Otoya in-universe or if their actors are actually coprsing. Kido's actors totally is following how Otoya's crossing himself when he says 'amen'.  
• Know Your Fangires: Shinji is the Grizzly Fangire, which... isn't something I would be able to tell from design alone. 
• When Riki is being evicted, there was a weird scene where he does a bit of an "alas, poor Yorick" bit with a tissue dispenser shaped like a Frankenstein's Monster's head. What the hell!
• Yuri catches Otoya flirting with Maya, and calls him out on his over-use of "fate/destiny" catchphrases when flirting. Otoya's comeback is the hilarious "well that destiny came and went, and clearly now it's my destiny to be with you."
• During the conversation between Wataru, Megumi and the owner, they sort of ask Megumi if she's single (she is), and what her type is... and somehow they sort of decide that Megumi's type is Nago. Which... no. Just no. 
• How utterly careless is it for the photoshoot people to leave the super-expensive necklace right there where Shinji just literally is able to sneak up and grab it? You'd think they would hire like a security guard or two if they're going to do a photoshoot in a public place.