Kamen Rider Kiva E38-39 Review: Mommy Issues

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 38: Erlkoning - Mother/Son Reunion; Episode 39: Shout - Targeted Brother

So after the huge revelation at the end of the previous episode, Wataru, Mio and Taiga have to deal with the revelation they've found out about each other. Taiga does the smart thing and confronts that sneaky snake Bishop, but Bishop handwaves it by noting that it's unimportant and deflects Taiga's concerns by wanting to bring him to meet his mother, Lady Maya. Taiga's also angry that Bishop apparently knew where Maya was all this time, but the prospect of meeting Maya sort of distracts him. The talk with Maya doesn't really give us much, although it's clear that there's a huge "Taiga is the unfavourite son" thing going on. Granted, Taiga's kind of being a bit entitled in this scene, being angry that Maya had a bastard son with a human and Maya had passed down the power of Kiva to Wataru instead of him.

Mio also goes off to talk to Bishop, and Bishop gives the same "Kiva is our natural enemy" speech that he gives to Taiga, telling Mio to destroy Wataru and become the ultimate Queen. Wataru... is in full denial, waking up and laughing about how it's all just a dream. Jiro slaps Wataru a bit and tells him to not look away from reality. Wataru and Mio don't really know what to say to each other, and then Taiga shows up and drags Wataru to meet Maya... and Wataru actually knows what his mom looks like? Apparently Maya had raised Wataru but left him behind as a kid inside Otoya's mansion... because of stuff that happened. Are we going to see this in the series? Well, whatever the case, Maya's last words to little Wataru is telling him to forget her, and grow strong.

In case there's any doubt about Wataru's lineage, Taiga goes on a bit of an exposition rant about how while he is the child of two Fangires, Wataru is the child of a Fangire and a human, making Wataru a half-Fangire. Because we need to be clear for the kiddies. Of course, we get interrupted by our Fangire-of-the-week! The Mantis Fangire is this grim reaper looking dude who is gathering shattered mosaic pieces of fallen Fangires and putting it into a coffin, and then revives them. One ends up being beaten by Ixa, and another trio attempt to attack Maya only to be beaten up by Wataru and Taiga fighting side-by-side in a fancy brook. Neat.

The B-plot for the 2008 cast is more Kengo/Nago nonsense. Megumi tries to hang out with Kengo, but he's a dick. Nago shows up with what I'm giong to assume is official Bandai merchandise with "753" (read as na-go-san) on it and wants to be Kengo's coach, but all Kengo does is pour coffee on top of Nago's head. And then Nago spends the rest of the episode comedically trying to cheer Ixa on ineffectively when Ixa fights the zombie warthog Fangire, yelling 'kick' and 'punch' like a fool before Kengo gets sick of him and beats him up.

This, I feel, is one of Kamen Rider Kiva's biggest weaknesses. They clearly have a rough idea of how they want to take Nago's character at the beginning and tail-end of the show, but they focus so much on Nago being a massive, gigantic douche-hole for a massive stretch of the episode, and then we get maybe a hint of something that's going to set up a huge character development... and then we just have a lot of inconsistency where Nago alternates from being a genuinely good friend to Wataru (around 3-4 episodes ago) and Nago just being the butt of jokes. That's basically what they did to Jiro when he went from obsessive stalker/creeper/serial killer to Otoya's bash-bro buddy, where we basically have Jiro acting kinda comical for 3 or 4 episodes and then suddenly we're supposed to forget all the shady stuff that these characters did in the past. I don't mind a good redemption arc at all -- but when we're just shown the beginning of said arc (the character's a douche) and the end (the character's a nice dude) with the iddle being more or less a huge shrug, it's far from ideal.

Speaking of poorly-paced character development is the Otoya/Yuri/Maya love triangle, and I kind of wished we had seen a bit more of Otoya's interactions with Maya other than making violins, and seen more about the ruined Otoya/Yuri relationship beyond "Yuri is angry rarr rarr her man got stolen". Otoya's attempts to insist that Yuri is his one true love or whatever are rebuffed angrily by Yuri, who just kind of refuses to talk to Otoya.

The Checkmate Four drama continues to brew in 1986, too. The King of 1986 is a lot more brutal, choking Maya by the neck and questioning her about Otoya. Maya's absolutely chill about it, noting that Otoya is no more than her current prey. Bishop is also being a dick about it, playing a massive piano and talking about how a traitor Queen will be hated and hunted by all Fangires (which I guess is our explanation as to why she's in hiding). Oh, and at the end of the episode, King shows up in front of Jiro, who can summon a massive giant green Kiva sign in the sky, and he's apparently pretty happy with finding the last Wolfen, wanting to exterminate the race. Summoning a red-and-gray version of Kivat, King... transforms into Kamen Rider Dark Kiva, who proceeds to summon a glowing green symbol and sends it like an electrified wall towards Jiro. That's our cliffhanger!

Overall... it's interesting? Taiga meeting Maya, Wataru meeting Maya, the Taiga/Mio/Wataru trio knowing each other's secret, 1986 King making a move... I just realy feel that all of this could've been done and paced a lot better, or spread out a bit more. I dunno. It's a problem that I think Kiva as a show sort of has. It's still a fair bit better compared to the slower first half of the series, but still. 

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Man, the 1986 storyline wastes no time in showing off the King as he lays the law down on the Monster Trio, huh? None of them die yet, but since the Monster Trio needed the help of Otoya, Yuri and a hefty amount of trickery just to beat Rook, it's kind of sad to see them put up not much of a fight against King's Dark Kiva form. If not for the shoddy construction of tunnel walls that allowed the Monster trio to punch through it and escape Dark Kiva's symbol-sandwich attack, the Monster Trio would've been turned into pancakes.

This leads to them crossing paths wtih Yuri. Yuri confronts Maya, wanting to, uh... I'm not sure what she wants to do, I guess talk to her and get things straightened out? But then Jiro, Ramon and Riki show up because they want to kidnap the Queen to use as a shield against the King. Which is mean... but unlike most of the other women in the show Maya refuses to let her ass get kidnapped or knocked out, transforms into her Fangire form and driving the Monster Trio away with her pearel swarm attack. Yuri is shocked as she sees Maya explode in an explosion of rose petals. This leads to her confronting Otoya... who sort of reveals that she knew this whole thime that Maya is a Fangire. Yuri loses it, slaps Otoya, and leaves. Yeah, still not that huge of a fan on the opaque-Otoya and angry-Yuri dynamic, which I feel really could've been written a lot better for all characters involved.

Of course, the focus of the show and the bulk of the episode's runtime is with the 2008 cast. Wataru is absolutely bamboozled by the rapid-fire series of revelations regarding his nature as a half-Fangire, his half-brother Taiga, the fact that Taiga and Mio are the goddamn King and Queen of the Fangires, and the fact that his mom is alive, a Fangire and a former Queen. Maya isn't being much of a supporting mother either, because she's just as enigmatic and riddle-y with her son as she is with anyone else, just bluntly asking Wataru if it matters what race he is.

At which point, Wataru decides to gather the members of the Blue Sky Group and tell them everything in a formal room, telling them that he's Kiva. Everyone assumes it's a joke, but Nago supports Wataru in his coming-out declaration, giving a whole huge speech about how he approves that Kiva is at least in the hands of someone as impressionable kind as Wataru. Wataru then drops another bombshell -- that he's half-Fangire, and at this point Kengo ends up being absolutely livid, and even Nago's surprised.

Wataru gets a brief conversation with Commissioner Shima -- over a bridge, which is thematically appropriate. Wataru reveals that his father is Kurenai Otoya, and Shima laughs at what a huge coincidence that is. Really, Shima? Head of a superspy organization, and you never looked into Wataru's parentage? Wataru talks about how he wants to be a bridge between the human and Fangire race, because of course Wataru's seen a fair amount of nice Fangires... but then Shima gets a flashback where he fought some monstrous Fangire with tentacles. And... and I guess Shima's an antagonist for this leg of the series? Shima has been such a vaguely-defined background character throughout the past 38 episodes, though, that I kind of find it hard to care, even if it is kinda neat that it means that the human-allied Blue Sky Group is potentially hunting for Wataru's head. Eventually Shima's hatred wins out, and he orders a hit on Kiva, even supplying Megumi and Nago with special anti-Fangire assault rifles. Kengo is in full douche mode so he's game, but Megumi and Nago feel bad about it, and Nago even warns Wataru about it -- even if he does note that he's still going to follow orders.

While Shima is turning the human side of the cast against Wataru, Taiga is trying to seduce Wataru towards the side of the Fangires, telling Wataru to listen to his Fangire blood and rule the world with him. Small problem -- Taiga keeps insisting that humans are cattle, and Wataru isn't about that. Mio, meanwhile, has gone off the deep end, and between episodes she went from being a girl trapped in a vampire romcom into someone who hugs Wataru and begs him with innocent yandere eyes to please kill Taiga so that the two of them could rule as King and Queen. Holy shit, girl, I know you're sort of traumatized from all the recent events but calm down!

The Mantis Fangire is still hunting Maya, and Wataru goes in to rescue his mom. We get this sort of over-the-top sequence of all of the conversations in this episode about Wataru's half-Fangire status playing all around him, and Wataru just sort of ignores it all, in a way, transforms into his full Emperor Kiva and goes on a cool rampage where he breaks all of the revived zombie Fangirse, hunts down the Mantis Fangire and does the cool Zanvat Sword finisher to murder the hell out of it.

The Mantis Fangire, though, isn't the only adversary that Wataru has to face. Because while Wataru just wants to beat up evil Fangire monsters and be a bridge and all that, all Amazons style, the Blue Sky Group zips in, and Kengo turns into Rising Ixa and starts fighting a clearly reluctant Wataru. Nago and Megumi show up with their anti-Fangire rifles, and Megumi refuses outright to shoot Wataru. Nago... shoots Kengo, which is awesome, as is his comeback of "my hand slipped!"

But then a swarm of glowing lights appear and it's Bishop, who one-shots Kengo with a single blast, before stomping down on him. Earlier in the episode Taiga has ordered Bishop to awaken the Fangire within Wataru, and Bishop does this by telling Wataru's Fangire blood to awaken, and his eyes... become mosaic! Oh no, Evil Emperor Kiva! He's about to stab Megumi in the face! And... there's your cliffhanger.

I feel like we're just blazing through information dumps and super-speedy character developments, which is... it's neat, I guess? I did note how I'm not a big fan of Mio's random switch to psycho-yandere, and there's so little build-up to Shima being a raging anti-Fangire racist when him being enigmatic-but-reasonable was literally his only character trait. A lot of things are being moved around quickly, although I do kind of like the vaguely Tokyo-Ghoul-esque "choose your side between the fight of humanity and sentient monsters". I just wished it didn't literally get dropped on us out of nowhere -- it's a great theme, but considering that it's only something that we explore 39 episodes in when Wataru has hinted to be part-Fangire from episode one... yeah.

Random Notes:

• We're more or less ten more episodes to the end of Kiva, and... with that long talk about redeeming Kiva's jerkass characters, I kind of want to talk a bit more about the show as a whole. And honestly, I can safely say that it's definitely on the lower end of the spectrum for me as far as Kamen Rider shows go? It's not terrible. It's got a fair amount of great things going on for it, like an amazing soudtrack, the gothic vibe (at least early on) and the very ambitious attempt at trying to write two stories that intertwine with each other from two time periods. And basically ever since Mio and Taiga have entered the story, the 2008-era storyline has had such a neat (if myopic) focus. But the honestly pretty poor treatment of most female characters in the show is pretty disappointing, the Yuri/Otoya/Jiro romance that takes up so much of the first half of the series isn't the best. Plus, there are a lot of mysteries both surrounding the characters and the lore that I feel that we won't get any real answers to if they focus on the respective main plots. I enjoyed it enough to want to finish it, and it's not bad in the way that Ghost or Decade or Hibiki can be, but I think the bad parts of Kiva doesn't really outweigh the good parts. 
• In addition to Maya hiding out in the Helheim Overlord cave from Gaim, Bishop also gives a whole speech to Mio on one of those stages that show up a lot in the early parts of Gaim. 
• Know Your Fangires: This week it's the Mantis Fangire, which I genuinely couldn't tell. It goes around with a creepy skull face and a massive scythe that I've been referring it to the grim reaper fangire in my notes. 
• The title of this episode has been translated by various different translation grups as "Erlkönig" or "Erlking", a poem-song that describes an elf-king that tricks and kidnaps children. The actual kanji used, though, is "魔王", Ma'o, or "Demon King" (the same one that is constantly referred to in Zi-O), which has a less specific connotation. 
• I have just realized that when Ixa transforms into Rising Ixa, they pull off part of their face-mask which then flips out into the Ixa phone. Has it always done that and have I just noticed it now?
• By the way, I don't think I've mentioned it because I've been pretty wordy in previous reviews, but when Kengo turns into Ixa, instead of just punching his other palm like what Nago, Jiro, Otoya, Yuri or Megumi does, he has to do something extra and raise up a leg and fist-on his leg. Silly Kengo!
• Poor Riki and Ramon just want to sell their wares and were minding their own dang business when King attacks!
• Know Your Fangires: ...a lot of the suits get reused in this episode and the previous one, but I'm too lazy to list all of them. As with most Kamen Rider shows, though, they clearly don't keep all the monster suits around, mostly sticking with the more recent monsters. 
• So since Wataru is half-Fangire (which, again, is kind of obvious with the mosaic pattern also running up Wataru's face when he transforms) does that mean that Kiva is his Fangire monster form? Albeit enhanced when he uses a belt? What does that mean for Taiga and King, who also turn into Kamen Riders? Are their Fangire forms their Kamen Rider forms, too, and they just enhance their natural abilities with the belts or something? Presumably it's something unique to the Kings or those of their bloodline. 
• You'd think that Mio would be more sympathetic to Wataru's plight, considering we first meet her trying to live like a regular human with a regular job, but nope, she's just diving two feet in into the whole vampire queen thing.
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