Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 29: Crank In! Memory of Hiromi!
So I did compare episode 28 to a mid-season finale, and instead of jumping straight into more episodes (at least the four episodes after this one are two-parters) we get a clip show... which is one of my least favourite parts of any Japanese media. This one, at least, is done with a fair amount of framing device... and the framing device is just the Igarashi siblings and George goofing the heck off as they 'record their recent experiences'... in order to make Hiromi gain his memories back.
...which... okay, we all know Hiromi was going to come back for sure into the show, unless you believe that falling off a cliff is going to kill anyone in Tokusatsu media. But the way that it's so offhandedly done, with a handwave that 'hey, look at the incoming side-material to see how he comes back!' feels extremely cheap and out of nowhere. It's like when you read Uncanny X-Men comic-books and you get super invested into the story and then randomly a side-plot that you are really curious about suddenly gets resolved in like, an issue of Thor or something, you know? It's just a really strange way to do it. And this is a character's survival, too, not just a cheeky "oh, we got the Neo Batta stamp from the movie".
All my grouchiness about it, though, episode 29 is a pretty fun sequence as everyone's zaniness gets ramped up to 11. It's all done in the format of the Igarashis trying to finish a video report before a deadline, with Sakura, Vice and George all adding their bizarre embellishments even as they narrate over older video clips. That, I feel, makes all the difference in making the clip show not feel lazy, y'know? If they're going to dub over footage that we've seen, at least we get some genuine acting out of it.
We also get Ikki confronting George about his creation of the Demons Driver around halfway through the episode, and while it's also told in the form of a recap, I do like that the writers use this sequence as a way to smooth in some exposition about how Director Akaishi's the one who ordered him to make the Demons Driver and put the demon Vail inside. George also actually apologizes to Ikki about his deeds to Hiromi, which is some mighty fine character development in my books.
...and then we cut to George's side of the tape where, of course, absofuckinglutely no reason at all, he recaps Ikki's new super forms while doing an aerobics tutorial. And at some point he does the Thunder Gale henshin poses while framing it like an aerobics instruction video.
...god bless you, George. Goddamn.
The episode ends with an honestly pretty minimal-effort fight against a red-and-black Giffterian, which is apparently a 'pure' Giffterian created by Gifu himself. We get a more extended scene of last episode's ending, with the three Igarashi siblings reaffirming their bonds despite working with different organizations... and then Ikki disappears from a picture, Den-O style! Gadzooks!
You know, at least they went full-on balls-deep crazy with this one. And by 'they' I mean George. This is a recap episode and there's only so much they could do with that, for sure.
Vail Episodes 1-4 Mini-Review:
So since we have more time to talk in this episode, I did watch Revice Legacy: Kamen Rider Vail episodes 1-4. The episodes are a bit shorter than your normal fare, and a bit more violent... and there's definitely a nice sense of familiarity to this concept. So many modern Rider shows do deviate a fair bit from the original concept that it's neat to see a new twist on the 'secret organization experiments on a poor unfortunate soul' plot thread. In this case, we get to see NOAH experiment on Junpei, forcing him to become Kamen Rider Vail to go around killing other demons (they just have a single enemy suit) which are the results of their experimentation. We get to see Junpei's meeting with young Yukimi, Karizaki and Buu (who's a 'resistance' member) and longtime Kamen Rider collaborator Murata Mitsu (having played lead antagonists in Hibiki, Kiva and Wizard) is a very serviceable villain. It's pretty simple and basic, but it doesn't need to really be anything much more than that. The romance stuff is pretty tasteful if, again, pretty basic; Genta's plotline of giving in to the 'devil' within him and using the power of love and caring is competently done; and I do enjoy the relatively simple spooky-secret-organization plot.
There is a nice usage of the higher censorship rating by having gratuitous blood everywhere, but also to have Vail actually rampage around and kill nameless people in the background, as well as Genta's parents, emphasizing how much more cruel he is compared to anything else in this show. There's a pretty neat plot twist, by the way, having Vail be the murderer of Genta's parents, and for "Bishop" to actually enter a contract with Vail just to create a functional supersoldier. And then we get Vail revealing that Noah essentially engineered this series of events just to make him into a loyal minion... which will lead to the final episode, which isn't out at the time of me writing this.
It's nice to see the events showcased here, but the show is perfectly serviceable with their more oblique recaps of these events. I feel like cutting back and forth to show present-day Genta and Yukimi does kind of break the pacing a bit, though, considering how comparatively intense the Vail scenes are and how idyllic and samey all the present-day scenes are. Overall, it's pretty cool stuff, even if it's kind of obvious what's going to happen.
Random Notes:
- Apparently, the full story of Hiromi regaining his memories is going to be told in another Hiromi-centric spinoff, which I haven't watched yet.
- I feel like George going "the most intensive part after filming is EDITING!" will be echoed by many a TV team all over the world.
- Them going "NO MORE ILLEGAL UPLOADS" has got to be an intentionally meta joke, too.
- I know I inconsistently go between "Giff" and "Gifu"... and I think I'm leaning more towards Gifu. Mostly because Giff is a race of hippo-people from Starjammers and Dungeons & Dragons, and this Gifu is not a hippo alien. This Gifu is a sex toy statue.
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