Kamen Rider Kiva E40-41 Review: Mosaic Eyes

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 40: Encore - Return of Nago's Ixa; Episode 41: Lullaby - Release the Heart

Episode 40: Encore: Return of Ixa

Last we left off, Wataru is taken over by his inherent evil Fangire blood after Bishop activates it! Which... is kind of strange because I don't think we've really seen the other Fangires deal with like, berserker Hulk-esque rage problems, but I guess the other Fangires have had time to contend with it? Anyway, Nago and Megumi calling out Wataru's name sort of brings him back into sanity and he just runs away dejected while the rest of the supporting cast watches. We later get Shizuka finding him wrapped up in his home in the same face-mask getup that he had in the first episode. Man, it's been a while since we saw that, huh?

In the Ixa drama side of things, Kengo calls Wataru a traitor to humanity, and then blames Nago for his failure... and Nago's pretty abrupt character development means that now he takes it in stride and doesn't protest. And Nago swears that he'll save Wataru before he destroys himself from his internal conflict. And this is where I'm talking about, really -- this is undoubtedly an episode where we're supposed to cheer for Nago because he's finally made the final steps into being a proper, non-assholish ally to Wataru and Megumi and all, but the change in personality is so rapid and intercut with jokey scenes, and it feels like we're missing an episode or two that should have focused on Nago's being actually developed as a character or whatever. 

Anyway, it's sort of the fight for Wataru's soul, in a way? Taiga monologues to Mio over dinner that Wataru is already one of them, having been separated from his humanity, and he'll soon be Taiga's right-hand man and the only thing left is the wedding. But more interesting is the subsequent scene, where Taiga and Commissioner Shima have a conversation. We have had a brief hint that the two had history, and now we sort of know the full context? Maya gave Taiga to Shima to raise and Shima's basically his adopted dad or something. Shima wants to make a deal with Taiga to take down Kiva, which would be beneficial to them both, but Taiga at this point believes that Wataru's already on the brink of embracing his Fangire blood, so refuses point-blank to cooperate with Shima. Shima then proceeds to fire Kengo from the Blue Sky Group for letting Kiva escape, none-too-subtly passive-aggressively noting that maybe Nago should be Ixa again instead of Kengo. Shima, you are kind of a shit boss.

Kengo still has Ixa apparently, and goes off fighting our Fangire of the Week, the Seamoon Fangire, which is a neat-looking jellyfish creature. Unfortunately Kengo gets absolutely overwhelmed by Bishop and his power of glowing CGI dust, who pops up and absolutely beats down Kengo even in Rising Ixa form. Throughout all this, Wataru refuses to help out, not when Kivat or Nago are calling for him, and Wataru even locks up poor Kivat and Tatsulot in a cage and covers it with a tarp at one point! Dude, those are people, you crazy shit!

Nago arrives to try and bail Kengo up, but obviously Bishop overwhelms them both. And then Wataru shows up as Emperor Kiva, driving Bishop away. Nago starts a speech about how Wataru is the man that he believes he is... but Wataru apparently shows up only to tell them that this is the last time he's ever going to become Kiva, because he's a dangerous being who can't appear in front of people and he can't be part of this world anymore and it's a farewell and everything. 

After Wataru hides in his house, Nago sort of recruits Megumi and Shizuka to help out in drawing Wataru out, noting that he's helping Wataru because of 'wild instinct'. Or bad writing, more like. Apparently, in the short time that he reverts back into a shut-in, Wataru has also became a master in booby traps? Which is kind of funny when you consider that emo, depressed Wataru somehow had the time to set up an Endor log trap and a slide out of his house, but it also sort of bizarrely out of place considering the otherwise pretty dramatic and serious tone of the episode. 

And then we get another fight as the Seamoon Fangire rampages, and Nago arrives with the Ixa Knuckle (which I guess he sort of picks up after Kengo gets his ass beaten?) And it's very abrupt and bizarre and the writing for Nago's honestly kind of all over the place, but you can't deny the badassery of Nago just striding forward and announcing his presence. "To all the demons running rampant in this infernal place... Nago Keisuke has arrived!" That's a pretty dang badass scene as Ixa takes on Seamoon and Bishop. 

And perhaps in the show's biggest subversion, we don't get a 2008-Kiva fight shoehorned into the third act. Wataru literally spends the final leg of the episode just clutching his head yelling at the damn violin to be quiet, while Ixa fights against Bishop... but Taiga shows up, transforms into Sagarc with some neat ominous latin chanting, and poor Nago gets beaten up and completely outclassed. 

There's also a 1986 plot. Yuri is being emo near the sea, brooding, and Maya shows up to talk, because Maya's... Maya just sort of wants to understand all of these interesting emotions. Yuri doesn't give a shit, though, and prepares to henshin into Ixa to murder the Fangire. In comes Otoya with all his flamboyance and tries to drag Yuri off to picnic, and Yuri storms off in a huff. Otoya ends up having the picnic with Maya, being bone-headedly oblivious to the fact that Yuri's super jealous of Maya stealing her man. Maya notes cryptically how she has "taken something far more precious than her life", and.. jeez, Otoya's a moron, isn't he? Yuri later confronts Maya and actually transforms into Ixa to fight her, but Maya just explodes into flower petals and sorta passive-aggressively mocks Yuri. It's pretty interesting that Maya's portrayed in a pretty antagonistic role, but I will bet real money that this isn't going to lead to Maya being an antagonist in any way and it'll be a Keisuke Nago not-quite-character-development thing.

Of course, we don't really explore much of what Otoya feels about the two women in his life, not that he really gets much chance to anyway because the King shows up with a dramatic scarf flip, and there is this hilariously petty scene where the King just walks past Otoya with so much swagger... only to leave behind footprints that catch on fire. That's so over-the-top for such a petty display of Fangire power, it's ridiculous. 

For some unfathomable reason, though, King doesn't kill the fragile human Otoya by himself. I guess it's his whole "I won't admit I'm in love with Queen" thing? Instead of ordering Bishop or the Moose Fangire or any of the other Fangires in his employ, King, uh... hunts down the Monster Trio, shadow bolts the shit out of them and offers to spare their lives if they kill Otoya. That's kind of roudabout and doesn't really feel like an organic sequence of events that would've happened. 

That's... that's an interesting episode, if nothing else. It's perhaps one of the bigger showcase of the weakness of Kiva's writing. Regarding characters like Nago, the writers clearly know what they wanted to start off with and where they wanted it to end, but the way they approach it and the way they illustrate the character's journey is decidedly sub-optimal. Throw in the fact that we sort of jump back and forth between so many storylines that the episode ends up feeling kind of unfocused, and the random 'lol wacky hijinks lol' bit with Wataru's trap house feel pretty bland, and this is coming from someone who loves the sillier aspects of toku. You could've cut that entire scene out and actually devote the entire episode to showing a bit more of Nago, either him 'earning' Ixa or trying to be a good guy and coax Wataru out. And there's a bit of both, certainly, but it's so unfocused and poorly paced.

Episode 41: Lullaby: Release the Heart

Last we left off, Wataru is depressed and refuses to transform into Kiva, leaving poor Nago at the mercy of both Taiga and Bishop. Kengo manages to bail Nago out and resolve the cliffhanger within seconds of the episode starting, which is honestly one of my pet peeves about Kiva at this point -- the cliffhangers almost always don't end up mattering since they get resolved so quickly. Shima gives this whole speech about how it's all a test for Kengo and Nago, and how Kengo apparently failed because he doesn't have self control, and now the Kiva mission belongs to Nago? Okay, I don't really get it, Shima seems to just be causing a whole ton of resentment and confusion among his own ranks for... some vague attempt at 'mentoring'? It sort of works in the past when Shima was more passive and a bit of a stealth mentor, but right now hhe just ends up coming off as kind of nuts. Shima rants about how Nago's newfound feelings will betray him, just like how he was betrayed by his feelings or whatever.

Taiga, meanwhile, meets Maya in the cave of exile, talking to Maya about his plans to convert Wataru into becoming a Fangire, and Maya's just sort of... numbly shrugging off a lot of Taiga's questions. We do learn that Maya also holds the ability to grant the power of Dark Kiva to a successor, and Taiga sort of demands it because it's his birthright. The two end up sort of making a deal, with Maya wanting to give Taiga the Dark Kiva powers when he's "ready', which Taiga takes as meaning when he marries the current Queen.

Speaking of the current Queen, I absolutely love that we cut away to Mio, with Megumi, Nago, Shizuka and the Mal d'Amour cafe manager trying to cheer Wataru up by bringing Mio there. Mio bakes bread for Wataru, but since she's basically reduced to a one-dimensional character now, her conversation immediately goes to "please kill Taiga for me UwU", and, again, I think I've spoken enough times about how jarring the character development in Kiva is. It's honestly kind of darkly hialrious that Mio went from a sweet girl struggling to balance the duties foisted upon her and now she's just all about murdering Taiga.

With Mio being kind of a bust, the friend trio bring in Kengo to play guitar outside Wataru's house, Kengo apologizing and giving this whole speech about how he's not cut out to be a rockstar and he always knew it and he was secretly relieved that he got injured or some shit? All of this, by the way, literally comes out of nowhere as well, we never saw any indication that Kengo ever had doubts about being a rockstar, and it's honestly just the show sort of pussyfooting out of putting a character in a place where he can't achieve his original goal or whatever. Wataru makes Nago promise to kill him if he ever goes berserk, which is a neat scene, but Wataru is still being emo because he can't be anyone's friend since he's "half a person".

After a brief, repetitive Taiga-recruitment-attempt scene, we get a rather bizarre sequence where Maya appears before Kid!Wataru in a dream or something, basically repeating the whole spiel about how Otoya believes every living thing and every soul has music within them and how Wataru needs to believe in himelf and his own music. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a dream, a vision, or if Maya herself used what's left of her spooky vampire queen powers to show up. It's kept kind of ambiguous.

The 2008 storyline ends with a fight, as always. Nago turns into Rising Ixa to take on Bishop and the Seamoon Fangire, and as usual is being overwhelmed. Still, giving credit where it's due, Nago actually does make a pretty good showing, overwhelming Bishop with sun slashes or whatever to drive him into a retreat. And then Wataru shows up to help out Nago. Taiga demands to know what Wataru is doing, if he's picking the side of the humans... and Wataru gives a pretty good answer. He's not going to live as either a human or a Fangire, he's going to live as himself. It's a neat case of accepting one's identity, rejecting neither side but not fully committing himself to either one. It's a good message, rendered a bit hollow because Wataru's basically fighting for humanity almost exclusively in this scene, and the Fangire side is shown to be full of either psychopaths or villains, and the only part of Wataru embracing the Fangire side is, I guess, not being afraid to transform into Kiva? I kinda wished that one of the more sympathetic Fangires like Mio or Maya are somewhat involved in this decision, that Wataru's actually trying to be a bridge between Fangires and Humans instead of "using Fangire powers to save humans".

Taiga then summons a fucking giant Sagarc out of the ground, and it's basically a gigantic UFO with tentacles that summons itty-bitty Sagarcs and what the hell this is so random and out of nowhere but at the same time it's so unbelievably goofy that I can't help but be entertained by this part. Turn-of-the-century budget CGI aside, we do get the badass imagery of Kiva slashing a giant snake UFO in half. Also, the Seamoon Fangire sort of gets killed somewhere in the crossfire. With Wataru blowing up the giant Sagarc, we get a face-off between Saga and Kiva as the cliffhanger.

In the 1987 side of things, we have a fair bit less in lieu of serious drama or pretentious morals that aren't showcased particularly well. The Monster Trio sort-of-kind-of try to kill Otoya as instructed by King, but none of them can bring themselves to do it. Riki doesn't want to smash Otoya with the hammer, while Jiro's attempt to trick Otoya into taking a bath with him and then killing him while he's vulnerable ends up with a blissfully unaware Otoya talking about how they're such good friends and they have a fiery friendship between two men, and Matsuda Kenji has this absolutely fantastic delivery of the over-dramatic "OOOOOH"s that make this otherwise silly scene work. The Monster Trio then pick up a bunch of backpacks as they decide to run away from the King and abscond out of Japan or something -- it's really surreal, like something out of a more gag-based show like Den-O or something, but I don't dislike it.

Of course, the King finally decides to make good on his role as a main villain, attacking Ramon and beating him up as Dark Kiva with his giant electrified symbols. And this is basically our origin for the Fuestles, with Dark Kiva zapping Ramon and turning him into a little whistle that he intends to make into a castle decoration. Riki is next, being turned into the Dogga Fuestle, but Jiro manages to survive the fight and escape. It's kind of a rather fast handwave of this plot point -- we don't really get an explanation what the "Dogga Seal" or "Basshaa Seal" are, but we have like 9 episodes left and we kinda need to deal with some of the questions raised by the differences between the 1986 and 2008 time periods.

Oh, and also, Yuri and Maya is fighting, and the threatening of the Bloody Rose violin is involved. Maya finally decides that she has enough and assumes her Fangire form, and we get a short Yuri-Ixa-vs-Pearlshell-Fangire fight, but the fight gets interrupted when King shows up and shado- blasts the shit out of Ixa and sends her running away. It's Otoya who ends up showing up, and basically learning about all of this King/Queen stuff, but Otoya being Otoya, he doesn't give a shit about anyone and starts talking about how human or Fangire, the race doesn't matter and all that matters is the music in the soul. Something like that. King orders Maya to kill Otoya, and Maya refuses to, basically confirming that Maya does love a human.

Otoya then picks up the Ixa Knuckle and unleashes a blast from it, but gets absolutely demolished by King simply countering the attack. Maya cries over Otoya, and as King's about to unleash the killing blow, Jiro shows up! It's a pretty badass moment, but King stabs Jiro and seals him, turning him into a Fuestle as well. I've had problem with Otoya and Jiro as characters in the past, but dang, that's some neat acting with an amazing scream of anger from Kouhei Takeda in this scene as he transforms into Ixa and charges to fight Dark Kiva, who utterly outclasses him.

Anyway... a lot of things happen in episode 41. Not all of it is well-done or well-paced, and as mentioned, there are a fair amount of things (Mio in particular, but also King's admittedly minimal character development) that gets rushed or handwaved aside. But so many things also happen that at least it's still pretty exciting to watch, y'know? Kiva hasn't been the most consistent show, but I can at least appreciate moments like this when huge events happen and we get some payoffs here and there.

Random Notes:

• Shima is such a non-entity prior to this ordering to kill Kiva that I'm genuinely puzzled by his interactions with Taiga. Okay, fair enough, he's a reasonable man to his subordinates but he's got a huge hate-boner against Fangires because Taiga attacked him with tentacles. That'd be enough of a motivation to make him call for Kiva's head. But if he knew that Taiga is a powerful Fangire, why not go after him? 
• Also, Maya... what the hell, lady? Was there literally no one else left to care for your child other than this random man leading a Fangire-killing organization? The show tries to sort of frame it that the favouritism is on Taiga's part, but Maya's honestly kind of a horrible mom to Taiga. In addition to her kind of stealing Otoya away from Yuri and sort of being an ass about it. 
• Know Your Fangires:
• This one is explicitly called the Seamoon Fangire, after the Moon Jellyfish.
• I don't think I've mentioned it before, but Bishop is the Swallowtail Fangire, based on the swallowtail butterflies. That's where all the dust comes from, because Japan associates butterfly and moth scales as something that has debilitating effects. 
• I never quite realized that Bishop has a classical statue of an angel on his shoulder. That's appropriate for Bishop. 
• The episode doesn't make it clear at all, but Megumi totally got herself drunk by the way she slurs her words and everything. Probably did so on Irish Coffee, which she had done so before. 
• Seriously, though, it's pretty mean that Wataru would lock up Tatsulot and Kivat-III in that cage. I know they look like toys, but they are still actually living things in-universe.  
• To be fair, Taiga is sort of horrible to maya as well, telling her that she has to cover her dirty traitor face for the wedding. This pair of mother and son doesn't have a healthy relationship at all, huh. 
• At one point Riki pulls out a 10-ton Looney Tunes style gag hammer to try and kill Otoya. It's hilarious. 
• Speaking of which... Ramon is kind of pointless, isn't he? Like, Jiro certainly gets a lot of screentime, and any time we get the other two Riki always ends up stealing the show with his antics, but Ramon's just kind of there. He might have less dialogue than Shizuka or the Cafe owner at this point. I just kinda wished that with how little Ramon and Riki ultimately did in the 1986 scenes if the whole Fuestle Scene stuff couldn't have been done a bit earlier in the series.
• Really, considering how badass Maya has consistently been shown in the 1986 scenes with her Queen powers and her ability to transform into a Fangire form, it's kind of a huge, huge shame that she just sort of stands around and only cries over the fallen Otoya and doesn't even put up any sort of fighting posture.