Kamen Rider Kiva E47-48: Don't Be Afraid, World is Your Stage

Kamen Rider Kiva, Episode 47: Break the Chain - Obey Me; Episode 48: Finale: Kiva's Inheritors

Two episodes in one! A longer mega-review.

Episode 47
As we continue covering the finale of Kiva, I guess it's about here that we can talk about endings? Endings in tokusatsu shows have been... sporadic. Sometimes the budget sort of runs out near the end and the show is forced to rush through the plotlines they've built up over the series. Sometimes they do manage to keep the ending that they wanted originally. Sometimes the ending ends up being weird because they ended up rushing through a bunch of episodes' worth of content in far less ones than they thought they'll get. Sometimes scenes are literally rewritten as they are being filmed, or an entire season is literally cut in half due to budgetary reasons. Basically, after watching Toku shows, I've noted a tendency that a lot of them tended to peter out near the end, starting strong with a distinctive vibe or story only to sort of get pulled in different directions and sort of ending as a completely different beast from what it was when it started. I don't think this is quite as drastic a change as something like Kamen Rider Hibiki's infamous mid-season soft reboot, but the last dozen episodes or so of Kiva had been moving at breakneck speed to resolve storylines and wrap things up, and looking at some of the things that are introduced and sort of quietly dropped in the first half of the season, I wonder just how much of that is true for Kiva. At the very least, we do get a conclusion for most of the main storylines, even if it's still in my opinion that they probably could've introduced King and Taiga a bit sooner.

Anyway, episode 47, the penultimate episode, starts off with a neat little double spin-around of Maya's two children as they kill the random fodder Fangires, while Bishop is back in his church playing a piano while he's surrouded by the souls of the dead Fangires... or is it the souls of the humans he killed last episode? It's not made really clear. Regardless, Bishop ends up basically doing some sort of crazy evil ritual to summon his "one true king", which is... King. Okay, so King's going to be also the final boss of the 2008 storyline? Sort of? It's a bit odd. Bishop finds that he's unable to fully bring King back, and ends up sending his undead Fangire minions to hunt down and murder more humans to harvest their soul energy to summon King.

Meanwhile in the fight where the brothers are duelling, Wataru manages to pin Taiga down and actually manage to get the advantage in the combat, telling him that while Taiga is king, Wataru is stronger. Wataru manages to even block Taiga's punch while they are in human forms, and Wataru tells Taiga that he understands that while there isn't anything wrong with living as a Fangire, he'll never condone Taiga's way of doing things. Taiga storms off with the declaration that they are no longer brothers.

Nago, meanwhile, is... sort of dealing with his newfound blindness, and he's actually taking it in stride, telling Wataru to lead the Blue Sky Group in his stead. But just like how he rejected Taiga's offer, Wataru also rejects the very human-centric Blue Sky Group. Nago is baffled, since as leader of the Blue Sky Group, wouldn't Wataru be in a better position to be a bridge between the two races or whatever? Of course, we don't actually get an answer to this logical question, because monsters be rampaging! Nago falls down since he can't actually see properly, and nearly gets himself killed trying to be blind Ixa, but thankfully Wataru and his newfound Fangire-scaring kingly glare is there to scare the piss out of the rampaging Fangires.

Oh, and also Shima shows up with sunglasses and a sniper rifle. And he's neither a Fangire nor a ghost, but rather has returned to life because... of reasons. Shima ends up just being sort of the harsh mentor to Nago, telling him to pour some sugar into his tea and basically revealing that Nago's half-blind, and Megumi feels bad. In a neat bit of "hey, he's changed", Nago refuses to let Megumi take the blame, and tells Megumi to take Ixa in his stead. Because it's been Megumi's series-long desire to properly utilize Ixa, right? And she's been staying patiently by the sidelines being a supporter even when Nago proves to be the superior user. Nago's blind, so clearly Megumi can properly become Ixa at last, right? Except for whatever reason* Megumi refuses and claims that it's only Ixa when Nago uses it, and Megumi offers to be Nago's eyes.

We're just cutting all over, and Wataru gets a brief meeting with Maya where she tells Wataru about how Otoya died peacefully and happily, and how his music lives on. Wataru tells Maya that he really wants to be strong to protect the beauty in life, and Maya tells Wataru that his strength comes from his kindness.

We cut away to Taiga, who... uh... gets ousted as CEO by the board at his Fangire company, because he got defeated by Kiva. Which is, uh, pretty random, and honestly out of nowhere. Taiga is angry, but honestly the CEO stuff has been such a forgettable part of Taiga's backstory that I'm genuinely baffled that it's even part of his actual role as the King of the Fangires or whatever. At some point, Bishop shows up and confronts Taiga, claiming that soon a new King will be born and he'll get rid of Taiga before the new King arrives.

The Blue Sky Group show up... and what Megumi means about "being Nago's eyes" means that she yells what direction Nago has to punch and kick, which is pretty fucking stupid. I'm not saying that the characters in-universe are stupid. I'm saying the writers are pretty stupid in making this the way to incorporate a tag-team supporter or whatever. Thankfully, Bishop beats up both this silly tag-team Ixa action, as well as Saga. Wataru ends up showing up, and start boasting about how he is King, and he's claiming the throne because in Fangire law might makes right, and this scares the piss out of Bishop. That's... that's like the complete opposite of what Maya told you, Wataru, but unlike most of Kiva's abrupt character developments, this one at least has a reason. All of the characters present are confused, but no one's taking this as bad as Taiga. He's sad. He lost his brother, his fiance, his day job, and now he's even lost the title of the King, the only thing he has left.

Hell, he even lost the love of his mom, as he wanders off to Maya's cave of exile, ranting about how Maya clearly prefers Wataru, and Taiga's actor does a great job at portraying a son begging his mother. "Why did you love Wataru more than me, why does everyone leave me?" Maya's characteristically enigmatic and oblique replies don't help either. And in anger, Taiga stabs Maya! Oh no, mother-killer! At the sight of this Taiga just sort of snaps, and Kivat-II show up, talks about how Taiga's got powerful emotions and he has the potential to be a strong king, and allows Taiga to use him to transform him into Dark Kiva of 2008.

We learn somewhere at this point that Taiga apparently didn't actually kill Shima, it's all just a trick, all smoke and mirrors, and cured him back to human health, and Shima talks about how Taiga's got some goodness in him and its so awkwardly delivered and info-dumped. It honestly does feel unnatural, and just like how Wataru killing Mio ended up not actually being the case, it's like the show writers know they wanted to redeem Taiga at some point in the finale so instead of having him be an evil dude that ended up being redeemed, turns out he's actually innocent all along and didn't even kill someone. It's lazy writing at its worst, and we don't even try to build at least some semblance of drama regarding Shima's supposed status as Taiga's surrogate human-dad. It's poorly told, poorly done, and clashes pretty badly with all of the other Fangire drama going on in the foreground.

Meanwhile, as Bishop continues his ritual to revive 1986's King, and Taiga's assumed the mantle of Dark Kiva. Wataru, meanwhile, somehow got ahold of the previous King's fancy leather outfit, and sits on the throne in Castle Doran before the Monster Trio amid falling rose petals. Jiro's absolutely baffled, noting that Otoya wouldn't want this, and Wataru proclaims that they shouldn't speak his father's name in vain... and the Monster Trio bow before Kiva, King of the Vampires, as the episode comes to a close.

I liked parts of this episode. As much as the writing is awkward, and the buildup leading up to it not being the best, I loved Wataru's bit of introspection with Maya and his eventual assuming o the role of King. While I didn't like a lot of the events that surround it, Nago being humbled by his blindness, as well as Taiga driven insane by a large amount of personal loss, are all great. Absolutely love the closing cliffhanger, too, with the two different main villains of 1986 and 2008 coming to be Wataru's final challenge. But as I note in the review... it doesn't do everything right. The Megumi stuff leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and the completely random and unnecessary revival of Shima adds nothing to the story and raises more eyebrows more than anything. It's a decent lead-up to the final episode and confrontation, but not everything is wrapped up well. Overall, though, as we're approaching Kiva's end, it's still a series that I enjoyed watching and I did enjoy this episode. It's just very flawed.

Random Notes:

• *We know the real reason why Megumi can't be the permanent Ixa is someone in production probably hates the idea of a woman being a permanent Kamen Rider instead of being a 'guest star'. Honestly, it's so clunky and awkward, and the solution of having Megumi being Nago's seeing-eye is far, far more stupid than the solution of letting Megumi (or, hell, even Kengo) run around with Ixa instead. 
• We've seen Wataru mostly either unsure of himself or quietly confident, or sad and conflicted, but this new genuinely ultra-confident look as he declares his title as King is a pretty great look for good ol' Wataru. 
• Speaking of 'this could be paced better stuff', we've always seen Bishop to be all happy to maintain traditional Fangire values and is slimy as all hell, but I kinda wished we've seen him actually be a lot more loyal to King in the 1986 scenes and hold him up to this impossible ideal. While it's logical to see him resummon King for 2008 after being disillusioned with Taiga, th change honestly feels like we're missing a bit of a scene that would properly showcase this. 
• I'm not sure if that weird memorial near the spot where King is resurrected is supposed to be something significant? It doesn't look familiar to me...
• So is the company board affiliated with Bishop in any way? Or are they completely different Fangire organizations?
• The cafe owner is way too happy to see Shima back, and he's extremely touchy-feely with him. Hmmm.... 
• Kivat II was good buddies with Maya, and him being pleased at Taiga's 'darkness' is probably the biggest clue that things are not what they seem. 
• So where did Wataru get the sick chained-up metal rockstar outfit that matches 1986's King? Did he find King's closet in Castle Doran?

______________________________________________

Episode 48:

And so we come on our final episode of Kamen Rider Kiva, a show that... took a bit longer than I thought I would to finish. Part of it is taking notes for the review, of course, but part of it is because... well, the middle part of this series took a bit long to watch and write, really. Kiva does pick up towards the end when Mio and Taiga are introduced, but I suppose I did pick one of the shows that have a bit more of a complex structure to review thanks to the dual time periods thing. I had spent a lot of the past couple of reviews talking a bit about Kiva as a whole, and my criticisms stand about the show as a whole -- the show was certainly ambitious, and it had a lot of interesting story concepts and character concepts. By and by, a lot of the stories were great on paper, and the actors are certainly decent. It's just that the execution of both the 1986/2008 storyline, mishandling of some of the female characters, and a lot of the characters' progression was just sort of... underwhelming. 

Take, for example, this final episode. We get the storyline of Nago accepting his weakness after the events of the previous episode and deciding to return the Ixa Knuckle and decide that he can no longer continue as a vampire-hunting warrior, but Megumi ends up working with him, showing so much kindness that... uh... the two team up as this weird team where Ixa fights while blind and Megumi yells out directions? And it's kind of dumb but because the show doesn't want Megumi to just succeed Nago, we had to settle for this half-assed thing? It still leaves a pretty nasty taste in my mouth considering how terrible Nago has been to Megumi, but Nago has been kind for the final couple of episodes. It's just that without going through the actual work of developing his character and just basically jumping from one extreme to the end, it just feels un-earned, and having Megumi and Nago fall in love and get married honestly felt quite forced. Also, Nago can see again in this episode. None of it really ends up making much sense. 

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself... the episode starts off relatively neat, with all of the different villains going off to fight Wataru. Bishop heads off to unseat what he views as the "incompetent knig and impostor king". Taiga also shows up, bragging about how he executed their mom because she had wanted to give Dark Kiva to Wataru. Wataru is slightly shocked, but quickly gets into battle mode as we have Emperor Kiva fighting Dark Kiva, which is again interrupted by Bishop and his zombie Fangire army. And then we get the Monster Trio showing up, with Garulu, Basshaa and Dogga announcing their names as they lay smack onto some minor Fangires, before Emperor and Dark Kiva blow up the rest of the crowd. It's neat, a nice way to give the criminally under-used Monster Trio a neat little send-off.

Thanks to the Ixa/Bishop rivalry that's been rather clumsily set up, Blind Nago and Megumi show up to fight Bishop, fresh off of like two minutes of training. Bishop mocks Nago for facing him in this state and tells him to "regret that mistake in hell", but of course thanks to the power of plot, Nago and Megumi's silly team-up is able to beat Bishop up. Really, Bishop? You can't attack the human clearly shouting directions? Ixa slices Bishop up with gusto, and Bishop finally falls, deciding to blow himself up and sacrifice his soul to give life to his King. Bishop's soul flies off, somehow this explosion causes Nago's eyesight to be restored because the writers can't think of any better reason, and Nago and Megumi also fall in love because oh look let's be distracted by the main villain.

Bishop's death revives the King in a slightly mutated form. Wataru and Taiga, meanwhile, continue to fight, and Wataru... hugs Taiga, telling his brother that he understands his loneliness, but he's here for you. Shima shows up to explain why Wataru is so intent on claiming the King title, because it's to protect Taiga -- if Taiga remains as the King, apparently Taiga's life will be in danger from all the others who want to steal the position of a King who's fallen or something. I guess it's from that stock of random vengeful Fangires who's happy to fight Maya or something? For the record that's a bit of a silly reason and doesn't explain, say, why Wataru has to play dress-up or act like a dick to the Monster Trio, but okay.

Anyway, King arrives and the Kiva Bros finally team up and fight the King in his mutated Bat Fangire form. Taiga gets beaten up quickly, as is Wataru, whose emo goth punk clothes also get blown up. A de-henshined Wataru nearly falls off the cliff side, but is saved by the remnants of Otoya's Ixa armour, because the arm gauntlet of the Proto-Ixa is somehow still stuck onto the side of the cliff after the 1986-era fight against King. Okay, sure, it's just a way to throw in Otoya's wandering ghost to pull Wataru up and get Kouhei Takeda to tell Wataru to not give up. Sure. It's cheesy, but sure.

King is throwing Taiga around, but the two Kivats and Tatsulot swoop in, knock King back, the Kiva Bros henshin, and we get a neat showcase of the Kiva CGI powers. King gets tossed back and forth between the Kiva emblem walls, Taiga summons the Sagarc sword to do the little execution-hangman thing with a giant Kiva emblem in the sky, and a combination of this hangman execution and Wataru swooping in with a Wake Up Fever rider kick finally blows the hell out of King.

King really doesn't have much of a personality, huh? At least they brought him back as a mindless zombie. He served his purpose, I mean, as a threatening final boss, but you'd think that Taiga would have more of a reaction to killing his dad.

Taiga then sort of cries, noting that the sins he beaer is too much, and Wataru offers forgiveness and coexistence... and then Maya shows up, because this show really doesn't want Wataru or Taiga to end up as villains, so we get the revelation that, oh, Taiga actually missed, and he just thought that Maya died. That's unbelievably stupid. Not as stupid as Shima's resurrection, because this only lasted an episode and Kivat II's reaction last episode at least shows that it's planned, but really? Taiga just didn't notice? And then Taiga and Wataru have... a 'proper' fight with their King title on the line. Okay, sure. At this point Wataru and Taiga fought so many times that, uh... okay, yeah, sure, it's like, a conclusion to their fight where they're fighting without malice or some shit? I dunno. Just because Taiga feels bad for killing his mom and respects Wataru now doesn't excuse his xenophobia against humans and all of the other shady shit he's done, y'know? Ah, well, but it's Kiva.


And then we have a brief time-skip to Nago and Megumi's wedding, and we get to see most of the supporting characters, including a brief cameo by the ghost of Yuri. Everyone is there and no one comments on the random floating plastic toy bats with bowties shouting "Modigliani forever". Taiga is also revamping the Fangire company and is taking it over or something? I dunno. And then the wedding gets interrupted when Kouhei Takeda, playing Kurenai Masao, barges in. Apparently Masao is a time-traveling son of Wataru, from 22 years in the future, and he warns Wataru of a completely different crisis! It's the Neo-Fangires, some crazy giant alien globe. Megumi's totally ready to fight, she has a freaking crossbow in her wedding dress, but the rest of the cast stop her and we get Wataru, Nago, Taiga and Masao transforming into their rider forms followed by the monster trio to fight this new threat. And the fight goes on and Kamen Rider Kiva is over.

And... that's certainly an experience. And I think I did say what I wanted to say in the reviews of episodes 44-47. Kiva's biggest weakness, really, is the very inconsistent characterization, where, again, the writers have an idea where they want a character's storyline to start, and where they want it to end, but they have a huge, huge problem in making the middle part work organically, so you have characters like Nago, Kengo, Mio, Jiro, Taiga and Yuri all having characterizations that jump all over the place, with some being particularly bad. There's also the constant, obvious intent on giving the female members of the cast some showtime, but it's also always kind of sexist and showing that they can fight in spite the fact that they're girls but never really letting them play with the fancy Kamen Rider toys outside of that one Rook fight. And that's not getting into some of the rather odd plot development choices done in this final closing arc, or the random "Shima's dead... syke! Maya's dead... nope! Nago's blind... just kidding!" Like, jeez, it's the end of the show, if you wanted to shake up the status quo, this would be the time. There is also a lot of questions that remain unanswered, and a bunch of pltolines that we just assume sort of happened offscreen or something.

Ultimately, there's still parts of it I enjoyed. The suits are mostly awesome, the music is fantastic and the action is relatively passable. The ambition that the show has is commendable, at least, and the cast is charismatic enough to carry the show and not make me give it up within 10 episodes. The messages that each character carry is good enough and solid enough... it's just such a shame that as a whole, Kiva's a massively mixed bag. Ultimately, watching it all the way through to the end it ends up feeling like one of the weaker ones of the Heisei-era shows. Which is a shame, because I really did like a lot of aspects of the show, but so much of it feels like wasted potential. That's a wrap on Kiva! I'll take a break, and I think after that I might try my hand at reviewing one of the Rider shows that's a bit more serialized, maybe one of the ones I watched a bit early on when I was dipping my toes into the franchise. Gaim? Build? Ex-Aid? Hell, maybe I'll do Zi-O, and that'll also double as my reviews for a huge majority of the 20 Heisei shows. I'll take a break from doing it, though, and maybe not go into as much episodic (or two-episodes-a-review) as I was with Kiva.

Random Notes:

• Bishop has really crazy looking eyes in that first scene. He also has a lot of fun gesticulating around as he lets loose with his hammy speech when he interrupts Taiga and Wataru's first fight. 
• Masao's outfit is a massive homage to Back to the Future, even if his orange jacket looks way more like a punk jacket than Marty McFly's.
• Masao's Future Kiva suit is basically the basic, standard Kiva form, but with an orange Kivat as a belt. 
• As much as the actual setup for the tutorial fight is kind of dumb, Nago yelling "Ixa bakuren!" and "demon, be exorcised!" is great. 
• Really, you'd think that the obvious way to restore Nago's eyesight without some bullshit thing is for it to be the showcase of the human/Fangire cooperation. Like, shit, Taiga restored the near-death Shima twice, surely they could at least pull this reason out to give us a less asspull-y reason for the return of Nago's eyesight?
• For a moment I was shocked when the cafe owner is hanging out with a new owner, but he makes it clear that Buruman didn't die off-screen. She's actually giving birth at the vet!
• Riki and Ramon are completely redundant to the show, huh? You'd think they each would have at least like a two-parter each respectively to do something. 
• Are the Neo-Fangires connected to Sagarc in some way? They're both alien-themed, after all. Did Sagarc get pissed off that he got tossed aside in favour of the Dark Kiva powers? Damn it, Taiga. 
• Know Your Fangires: King's still the Bat Fangire, but he's got a new, growlier demonic head. 
• Plotlines that I kinda wished was followed up upon:
• More mentions of the Blue Sky Group's operations and the Fangire society. I mock the Blue Sky Group a lot for being an organization of four people, but the Fangire's Checkmate Four is almost as bad. All this showcase of the company board of Fangires or mentions of people 'hunting for Taiga' or whatever sort of raises more questions more than anything. 
• A bit of clarification on what Castle Doran is. Is it just literally a random magic dragon castle that just exists? Also, we never really got any follow-up to the fact that it's eating Fangire souls in 2008 -- I thought we would cover that during the Rook arc.
• How Wataru actually discovered Kivat III, the Fuestles, his transformation ability and Castle Doran. Also, honestly, what the deal with Tatsulot and how it's connected to the castle or to the Kiva armour. 
• I also feel we're really missing a good episode or two having Wataru hang out with the Monster Trio. He's like surprised by Jiro in one episode, and then they just sort of interact as Wataru's servants in all subsequent episodes. 
• Things that we never really got a proper answer for, but I guess it's okay to leave most of them ambiguous:
• Who is Yuri's husband and Megumi's dad, and how did she die? I guess keeping it ambiguous is the point, though, and I suppose she didn't die in combat and ended up finding happiness post-Otoya. 
• Taiga's backstory with Shima. While we did know enough, I suppose, I kinda wished we got a bit more explanation as to why Maya left her there, but I guess the vague conflict is at least some backstory?
• Why Maya was exiled in a cave and never contacted the others. Again, it's easy to infer that she's hiding from other Fangires hunting her down, but at the same time it really looks like she was just exiled and imprisoned in the not-Helheim cave.
• Really, more backstory about the Wolfen, Merman and Franken race or any of the other 'demon races' beyond "hey, the Fangires wiped their races out, these three guys are the last survivors. That's it. Ditto for Sagarc, which I feel deserved a bit more exploration beyond what we got. 
• Just what the Kiva armours are, what the chains were sealing, or just how their powers work. I mean, beyond "vague vampire magic", which is basically what I'm handwaving a lot of the other random stuff like the time door, Bloody Rose's Fangire-radar or fuestles as.