Kamen Rider Kiva E27-28 Review: Boxing Glove Violin Case

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 27: '80's Rising Blue; Episode 28: Request - Time Altering Battle

So, uh... time travel? I've always thought that Kiva, coming off the heels of the wildly-successful Den-O, tried to sort of catch lightning in a bottle twice, and while not exactly a direct comparison, the two time period storylines happening at the same time seemed to be a neat equivalent to Den-O's time travel. It's just that it literally came out of nowhere, and I'm genuinely not sure how to feel about that.

The 2009-era plot starts off with Nago being rewarded for (pretending to be!) a worthy user of the Ixa Knuckle, and he receives the Rising Ixa Knuckle, the upgrade form for our resident douchebag... just in time, too, because suddenly everyone in the Wonderful Blue Sky Group gets arrested. Poor Megumi's fish lunch gets interrupted when she's arrested by the policemen, and of course, that cunt Nago is completely unsupportive and just glowers about how he wished that he was the one that caught Megumi. What a glorious dick! Commissioner Shima also gets arrested for suspected homicide, and, of course, Nago's likewise unsupportive.

Nago, instead, recruits Kengo on his single-minded Fangire hunt, fighting a random crab Fangire who sprays Nago with icky white goop. It's new toy time, and Kamen Rider Ixa pulls out... is that the Faizphone? Well, not quite, but it's kind of bizarre seeing another Kamen Rider use a flip-phone as a transformation device. Ixa morphs into Rising Ixa, and the parts get rearranged into a very blue form that sort of reminds me of Gatack from Kabuto. It's a neat form. Just like the Faizphone, Ixa's flip-phone also doubles as a gun, but the little flip-phone gun's recoil is so strong that Nago gets blown back and the Fangire escapes.

And then Nago gets his fool ass arrested, and the Ixa gear even gets confiscated by the police, making it the second two-parter in a row that Nago loses the Ixa gear. Nago's a complete dickwad, of course, and he beats the hell out of the policemen (Nago's probably the only one out of the WBSG who's the most likely to have a rap sheet, doesn't he?). Some dude called Tanahashi shows up with a car and decides to exposit to Nago about his grudge against the Blue Sky Group, and Ixa in particular (which is why he chooses to speak to Nago). He brings Nago to a random shack in the woods, where he used to paint... but during a Blue Sky Group operation, the painter was struck by Kamen Rider Ixa, spent a year in a coma, and he lost his 'muse', and to gain revenge against the Blue Sky Group he became a police to arrest them all.

Most interestingly, the 'muse' model is recognizable to the audience as none other than Maya, making a pretty neat tie-in to the 1986 cast! Even more notable that up until this point, we don't check in with the 1986 cast either. That's neat.

Nago ends up being a terrible friend and hides in Wataru's house, and Shizuka rightfully tells Wataru to not hide the criminal because it'll make them accomplices... and after Nago sort of gives a half-assed exposition, Kengo randomly talks about time travel, which I felt is pretty shoehorned in. This ends up resulting in a meeting between Nago and... butler Jiro? I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've seen the Kiva whistle monsters walk around in 2009, and Jiro summons Castle Doran, which bursts out from under the ground. Despite his raging hard-on for killing Kiva, Nago does not even make a remark about how this is Kiva's giant ugly dragon-castle. Hell, he's completely accepting of Jiro and his buddies' assistance without even a hint of suspicion, despite them talking about a goddamn magic time-door.

Speaking of which, yeah, Castle Doran has a goddamn magic time-door inside it. There's absolutely no foreshadowing to this, and while it's not out of the realm of possibility since this is a supernatural vampire show to some degree, it just feels shoehorned in. Jiro talks about how he has sworn an oath to protect the WBSG, and then shoves Nago in.

And Doraemon style, Nago gets dumped in 1986, where he lands on some random rails next to a bridge, right next to Yuri and Otoya... and Otoya immediately tries to stop Nago from taking his own life, but of course we get some physical comedy and Otoya and Nago falls into the river. The scene then leads to Otoya and Yuri asking this random complete stranger to celebrate with them. What are they celebrating? Otoya and Yuri moving in together!

And while it's sort of surprising that this kid's show is even acknowledging pre-marital couples living together, I suppose there's less of a religious taboo there. I'm just surprised at how explicit they're making it, though, particularly since you probably wouldn't see mention of that in any of the newer Kamen Rider shows. There's nothing wrong with two consenting adults doing that, of course, but of course Nago starts going into a rant about how it's the height of disgusting impurity and I laughed my ass off at this. A couple of episodes ago Nago's already throwing a hissy fit at Wataru and Mio, like, holding hands and stuff, this probably would've given him an aneurysm.

Unlike the 2009 cast, Otoya and Yuri don't care for Nago's antics and it's so, so refreshing to see someone stand up to Nago and not just passively kowtow under his nasty attitude. We quickly get to see what's going on, though, as the painter Tanahashi hires the musician Otoya to help inspire his model, Maya, while Nago's observing everything that's going on, eventually witnessing a Fangire attacking the studio, and then Otoya transforms into Ixa to chase away the Fangire. Nago is shocked, and then quickly assumes that Otoya probably fucked up and resolves to, uh... beat up Otoya or something? That's where the episode leaves, anyway.

(Is Nago going to be the fuck-up Ixa? That'd be a neat twist.)

Because Kiva episodes seems to have an obsession where every episode needs to end with Kamen Rider Kiva fighting someone, we get an awkwardly shoehorned fight in 2008 where Wataru turns into Kiva, goes into Emperor Kiva and fights the Crab Fangire for a bit. It's pretty m'eh, but at least Kengo's actor got to ham it up by yelling about how "KIVA IS ROCKKKKK!"

Overall, the focus on Nago is interesting, entertaining and even welcome, and seeing him play off Otoya is pretty neat. The painter storyline's also a neat way to bridge the two time periods. But this episode's honestly paced very weirdly, with Tanahashi's exposition and how Nago blurts it out in a place where Jiro can overhear being pretty awkwardly paced, and so is Nago's investigation in 1986. And that's without mentioning the sheer silliness of the deus ex time-door either, which I really do think could've been incorporated a bit better. Overall, though, it's a neat episode, as awkwardly paced as it is.

Random Notes:

• I completely forgot about it until after finishing the review, but when asked about why Wataru helps Nago out, Wataru gets a completely random flashback to... young Wataru being bullied by some kids, who put his shoe on top of a tree. Some kid called Taiga in a yellow shirt helps him. Okaaaaay? It's Wataru's first friend, apparently, but since we're devoting an entire flashback to this seemingly inconsequential stuff, this is probably important. My guess is that Taiga's the Checkmate Four King or something, because that's the only other member of the C4 we haven't seen. 
• The code for Rising Ixa is 193. Knowing Japan, it's probably a wordplay on something. 
• Outside of crossover movies and crossover shows (Zi-O and Decade), each Kamen Rider series has always been relatively self-contained, ignoring all of the series that happened before them... but if all of Kamen Rider takes place in the same timeline like some of the movies implied, then it's sort of interesting that we didn't get any of the Den-O time police cops on Nago's ass for fucking with time.
• We get a brief montage of Wataru actually training his body to 'protect Mio', which is neat, but dude, you transform into a chained-up karate vampire knight. You're pretty badass already. 
• Know Your Fangires: This one is kinda obvious, it's the Crab Fangire. We get a lot of crab monsters in Kamen Rider! The 1986-era one isn't that obvious, but it's the Cicada Fangire. 
• The artist Tanahashi is played by Ogawa Atsushi, who's previously played a smattering of minor antagonists -- Sawaki Tetsuya in Agito (there's some mistaken identity plot involved there), recurring evil Smart Brain scientist Minami Masahiko in 555 and a minor guest star in a Kabuto two-parter.
• It reminds me, but didn't Nago, like, crazily beat up some dude in the rain like a half-dozen episodes ago and goes completely crazy over a button? Was that really never followed-up upon?

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Okay, this time-travel centric two-parter of Kamen Rider Kiva is... kinda weird, I guess. The episode's biggest appeal is honestly basically just shoving the full-of-himself stick-in-the-mud Nago and putting him in situations where he has to interact with the insanely hamme Otoya, all the while claiming to be a time-traveller from the year 2008. It's kinda funny how Otoya and Yuri just assumes Nago to be kinda loony while Nago in all seriousness just keeps yelling about how they should all listen to him or everything will be doom-and-goom in 22 years. Dude, some painter became a policeman and made a bunch of false accusations. That's hardly equivalent to the timeline-collapse spiel you're talking about.

In 2008, the cast... does things, I guess? Wataru and Kengo show up to talk to Shima in the police station and Shima sort of deputizes Kengo or something. This leads to Kengo and Wataru practicing with Megumi's chain-whip gun. Okay? The Arms Monsters are playing poker in Castle Doran, lampshading that changing history is a bad thing and Riki bets his little cheesecake that Nago would fail.

The rest of the episode basically takes place in the 80's, though, where Tanahashi the painter has Maya as a model and such a muse while Maya really is obviously only there as an excuse to hang out around Otoya, enjoy his violining and enjoy art in general as "the only worthwile creation of humanity". There's some flirting on Maya's part, who talks about how Otoya needs to find someone who appreciates music as he does, hint hint, whereas while Otoya doesn't quite dip into the unwholesome unfaithful hero territory, reciprocates a bit.

Nago, of course, rushes in with his massive ego, demanding that Tanahashi should shut up and accept that he's being protected, and demands Otoya hand over Ixa to him (honestly, the man's really fucking up the timeline, huh?) earning a massive slap from Maya for 'trying to ruin the art'. Bizarrely this leads to a scene where Nago... stalks Maya and follows her around a bit? Then gets confused and sits in a random staircase because this man has never experienced that funny fluttery bit that most boys do when they reach a certain age. Otoya confronts him and deduces he has a massive child-like crush on Maya, and Nago lets out a massive denial with the logic of "I am a warrior, I hold no interest in women!"

And one thing leads to another and Otoya opens his goddamn violin case which has a Looney Tunes style boxing glove which punches Nago straight in the face. That is hilarious, and Otoya's declaration that Nago's lack of playfulness and how a 'taut violin string is the fastest one to break' is actually kind of a neat metaphor. We get kind of an absolute non-sequitur as Yuri beats up Nago, gets kidnapped off-screen and brought to the concrete pipe set (because of course Yuri gets kidnapped) but then Yuri and Otoya team up all to deliver a combo punch to Nago's gut. It's bizarre and I'm not sure if it's trying to parody the fact that this show's two main female characters are so under-utilized and mostly shown as damsels in distress? Is this a self-aware joke? I'm not that smart to figure that out; I mostly just appreciate any scene where Nago gets punched in the gut.

Maya then shows up to continue her weird "let me understand human emotions!" as she deliberately tells Otoya to take better care of himself before waltzing off, causing Yuri to rightfully go a little jealous. And then Maya confronts Nago, asking him how it feels to fall in love (was that the impression we're supposed to get from Nago's emotionally-stunted crush?) and Nago's so unwilling to admit that he has any sort of emotion beyond blind justice that he refuses to do so, but then gives Maya... one of his bounty hunting buttons. Y'know, it's a good thing that he gave it to Maya, who just finds us mortal humans fascinating more than anything.

The Cicada Fangire then shows up to protect Maya from the filthy human, and through conversation (Cicada's confused why the human would be modeling for filthy humans) Nago is shocked to discover that Maya's a Fangire. Maya... struts off, explodes into black rose petals, and Nago goes all "farewell, my first love". What. No, seriously, just what. I don't agree with how some of the romantic storylines in Kiva are handled, but I can appreciate them for trying to at least build a story with things like the Yuri/Jiro/Otoya triangle or the Yuri/Otoya/Maya triangle or whatever. But this 10 minute roller-coaster of bizarre Nago reactions is just that -- bizarre.

Anyway, Cicada goes off to murder Tanahashi for distracting the Queen, and both Nago and Otoya sort of show up to do some good old-fashioned vampire hunting. We get an honestly over-played back-and-forth as Nago keeps second-guessing just how the attack from Ixa that would injure Tanahashi would happen, going from Otoya pretending to give up, then him attacking, then Nago tackling Otoya and apparently changing history by stealing the Ixa Knuckle and attacking the Fangire in a completely different way. Okay sure whatever. With his mission done, apparently the door of time pulls Nago back as he proudly claims that he changed history, moving back to 2008 where the history is altered and the Cicada Fangire, instead of dying in 1987, has survived to the modern day. Okay.

History's changed, so the Blue Sky Group (well, Megumi, since it's a group of only two or three people) is able to defend civilians from the crab Fangire. Somehow aspects of the original timeline, like Kengo and Wataru's shitty chain-gun training, remains? Kengo just yells something or other about rock before injuring himself with his own weapon, while Wataru ducks away to henshin into Kiva. The Cicada Fangire shows up and we get a pretty cool 2-v-1 fight with Kiva.

Nago then shows up with his "return that life to god" catchphrase, goes straight into Rising Ixa and we get a pretty neat set of separate battles as Ixa beats up the cicada, while Kiva goes Emperor and beats up the crab. Rising Ixa doe a weird shoot-kick thing to kill the Cicada, claiming that it's his "playful heart", but Emperor Kiva one-ups him by summoning the Garulu Saber, and transforming it into a Darth Maul lightsaber made out of flames to blow up the crab.

Okay, that's the weird time-travel storyline over, right? Don't think about it too much, the timeline's changed and also Nago's characterization is inconsistent... but we get a surprise revelation. In a seemingly inconspicuous scene, Wataru drops his wallet... and Nago finds the button he left in the past with Maya, while Wataru claims that it's a lucky charm that his mom gave him.

We cut away to 1987, where Maya ominously returns into a room where Bishop is baby-sitting a little baby, and the plot thickens. Obviously the episode is insinuating that Maya is Wataru's mom, what with the Maya/baby shot and Wataru having the button, but I dunno. Logic sort of dictates that it means that Otoya and Maya shacked up (the episode could be misleading; Maya returning to baby Wataru could be a scene from way after the 1987 segments in this episode), but I dunno. What if Otoya adopted Maya's baby, and Otoya isn't Wataru's biological dad? Or maybe the baby is a red herring? Maybe that's Bishop's baby or something. Do Fangires make babies? I think the simple explanation that they want us to believe is Otoya and Maya at some point got together to make Wataru, meaning that he's half-Fangire (which sort of makes sense, he does have those same stained-glass Fangire marks whenever he turns into Kiva) or something. That's quite an interesting bombshell to drop us on, show.

Random Notes:

• I really try not to try and dissect the "rules of time-travel work however we want them to work" part of any given Kamen Rider show (Den-O and Zi-O, the two other time-travel-heavy storylines, had what basically amounts to their own internal logic) but this one is particularly egregious as there's not even an attempt to tell us just why Jiro remembers the original timeline. Sure, Nago's the time-traveler, but wouldn't Jiro's memory be altered to? Or is it just Castle Doran magic, accept it and move on?
• Shima's utter befuddlement that Nago has a 'student', and him immediately seizing the opportunity to get someone to at least try and prove his innocence is one of the low-key funnier moments of the episode. 
• Seriously, though, that is one hell of a badass exit when Maya's body straight up explodes into black rose petals.
• The effect of the Crab Fangire killing people is represented in a unique way, by blowing out bubbles that melt random civilians. 
• I was about to snark how Nago's able to pick out how that specific button is unique and can only be the button he left in the past, but this is Keisuke Nago, so I believe him if he is able to identify specific buttons of the same make.
• One of my original thoughts was that "wait, did Maya sleep with Otoya during the amnesia episode and made Wataru?" but unless Fangire pregnancy happens super-fast that would be impossible.