Kamen Rider Revice E32 Review: Aguilera's Swan Song

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 32: Lost Whereabouts, Queen's Pride

Okay, we're doing singular episode reviews for these two, mostly because this one ran a bit longer than I expected. 

We start off picking up at the bizarre plot point introduced at the end of the voice-actor two-parter, with Ikki apparently disappearing from pictures and stuff due to some bizarre cosmic memory loss curse thanks to transforming into a Kamen Rider all the time. It honestly still feels kind of random, it feels kinda iffy for Vice to not tell Ikki any of this, and, again, it feels like a completely different thing between 'amnesia' and 'cosmic retcon'. We also get the appearance of Serious!Buu-san, who tells our heroes that Genta is now hanging out with Weekend while rehabilitating. 

Since both Julio and (to a lesser extent) Olteca have had their requisite backstories given to us, we get a bit more expansion to Aguilera's own childhood, where... she apparently plays hide-and-seek with some of her cultist caretakers in a Sea World style aquarium. 

And then Aguilera later shows up to confront Sakura. We get some token Julio/Tamaki comedy moments where he's also kinda following Sakura around with the hopes that Aguilera will show up and stalk her. We get an Aguilera-vs-Jeanne fight, and the fight seems to go well for a bit with Sakura using a bazooka to shoot Aguilera... but then Lovekov starts glitching out, and Sakura falls face-first into the nearby river while attempting to do a finisher move. Aguilera leaves at this point. 

Meanwhile, in Fenix, apparently the nameless batch of background soldiers have been gathering Vistamps off-screen! Did they... did they beat Deadmen to do that? After the previous episode established how even 'Phase 1' Deadmen are so powerful they're giving Revice trouble? Regardless, though, Akaishi is getting a bunch of new Vistamps, while Daiji, George and Akemi realize that, hey, the gloating lunatic talking about 'disposable' assets and collecting all the Vistamps might be hiding something. Akemi notes that Daiji is being watched by Akaishi, so she's going to do some investigating -- especially since she had uncovered clues about Akaishi talking to an invisible Vail. 

In the aftermath, Tamaki and Sakura speculate that Aguilera seems to want Sakura to beat her -- and Tamaki notes that Aguilera might just be seeking a honourable end, since she has nowhere to belong to. Tamaki straight-up says that Aguilera wants to go out "with whatever dignity she has as the Queen of Evil". She wants to literally die with dignity, a surprisingly dark motivation while also making full sense with how obsessed she had been with Gifu for the entire series, and how Gifu callously rejected her last episode. Sakura, meanwhile, asks Ikki to help split Aguilera from her demon, though Ikki does point out that Aguilera doesn't want it herself. 

We get a pretty cool sub-plot with Akemi hacking into Akaishi's office, ultimately finding a giant collection of Vistamps that were supposed to be destroyed. Director Akaishi shows up and reveals that under those gloves, he's got a Gifu eyeball on his palm, and has the ability to create portals to Gifu's realm and summon Giffterians. Later on, Daiji asks Akaishi and demands to know where Akemi is, but the Giffterian attack forces Daiji to leave the Fenix base. He gets to blow up two of the 'pure' Giffterians concurrent with the final act, though it's clearly just the B-plot ehre. 

Meanwhile, Sakura is informed by Karizaki Sr. that everything is functioning well with the belt, and everything that's wrong with Lovekov comes from Sakura's own inner turmoil and doubts -- a fact speculated by Vice earlier in the episode as well. We get a brief debate between Sakura's Weekend Friend and his dad -- the former is more supportive of Sakura, but Weekend Dad tells Sakura to steel her heart and murder Aguilera. Weekend Dad is a jackass, but he's entertaining, at least, as he gesticulates and talks about how there's no way that Aguilera, who lived her entire life as part of a psycho cult, can return to living as a normal human being. There's actually a point in this two-parter where I genuinely thought that our heroes are actually going to discuss if they're going to respect someone's wishes even if those wishes aren't made in the most conscious mind. 

Tamaki, Ikki and Sakura all show up to meet Aguilera, but Aguilera gets absolutely pissed off at Sakura telling Ikki to split Sakura from her demon and have her work at Happy Spa. Some really great angry and frustrated faces on Aguilera's part, and then we get a 2-v-1 fight. Aguilera's voice acting is pretty damn on-point here as she rages and screams about why Sakura doesn't understand her. And as Ikki is about to deliver a Thunder Gale finish on Aguilera, Lovekov hits Sakura and she de-transforms... realizing that her doubts lie around Aguilera. Not about respecting her decision to continue being a demon, but that Sakura needs to be the one to deal with Aguilera. She ends up jumping in the way of Ikki's kick, and then declares that she'll be the one to finish this. 

And... and it's a pretty interesting cliffhanger, isn't it? Again, I genuinely actually did expect that they might be going on a route where our heroes actually respect Aguilera's desire to continue being a  monster, but maybe a monster that fights on their side? But while it didn't go in the direction that I expected it would, Aguilera's obsession with Sakura and Sakura specifically has been built up well over the course of the series, and I do appreciate that this climax actually makes it a point that, no, the Main Character (tm) isn't going to be the one to deal with Aguilera, but rather it's Sakura -- the protagonist that has been the most involved with Aguilera overall. I still think this two-parter is a bit clunky in spaces, but compared to the previous one, the Aguilera story, the Sakura story and even the Akemi investigation B-plot are all pretty well-realized. Good stuff!

Random Notes:

• I know that there's a concurrently-running Vail mini-series going on, but it is so weird that Kamen Rider Vail hasn't really made an appearance after his first appearance. I genuinely thought that he was set up to be a bit of a recurring antagonist, but no, Vail-the-demon just kind of hangs out with Olteca and later Akaishi as a ghost.
• Sakura's Weekend classmate-plant-friend does have a bunch of roles here, but I really don't remember his name and his role basically is just being the token likable character from Weekend that Sakura interacts with. 
• Akemi just has absolute sass when dealing with everyone around her. "All right, so I'll stay put then..."
• I didn't realize until now that Lovekov holds Jeanne's power-up items within her adorable tiny pouch. 
• So I guess despite the last couple of episodes making such a big deal about how Daiji and Sakura are allying themselves fully with Fenix and Weekend, they still hang out in Happy Spa for dinner and everything. Okay, sure, that's logical, I guess. 

Moon Knight S01E06 Review: Giant Crocodile Woman Kaiju

Moon Knight, Season 1, Episode 6: Gods and Monsters

(Apologies, I thought I uploaded this the weekend that the episode came out, but turns out it languished in my drafts for a while.)

A lot of these Disney+ shows kind of... stumble a bit in its final episode. So far, I think only WandaVision had a full season that felt cohesive from end to finish. Falcon and the Winter Soldier suffered from the main villain kind of becoming bland and boring, with a little too many moving pieces near the end -- though that was allegedly the fault of some emergency rewrites. Loki and Hawkeye both introduced a brand-new villain in their respective final episodes with varying degrees of success. And I was super-worried that with the two-episode detour to Marc Spector and Steven Grant's adventure in their fucked-up mindscape and the Duat that we wouldn't get a satisfactory conclusion to everything. Except it somehow manages to tie in every plot thread, both weird and mundane, together relatively well.

So much of Marc and Steven's journey throughout this season boils down to their shattered, split personalities, and I do like that at least some of this episode is devoted to exploring that. Without going through every single thing that the two split personalities do this episode, it's an absolutely great moment when Marc rejects the Field of Reeds and his peace to run back and look for his 'brother' Steven Grant. This ends up with his resurrection at the end, with some little wink-wink nod of Tawaret and an unseen Osiris giving them a bit of a pass to bend the rules of the underworld a little bit. I do like that it's not just the power of friendship (brotherhood? Self-love?) that magically allows Steven and Marc to come back to life, and that there's another reason... it's just that the power of them making peace and 'achieving balance' in their own personal scales is what caused Steven to be returned from the sands of the Duat. 

It really is interesting, though, that the Marc/Steven stuff didn't happen until 15 minutes into the episode. No, the first act picks up where we left off in episode... 4, I think, when Marc Spector "dies" after being shot by Arthur Harrow. We get to see Harrow and his cult basically walk their way into the Pyramid of Giza uncontested, with some pretty cool showcases of their instant-judgement powers. 

Layla, who... is a character I honestly really didn't care too much about before literally this episode, ends up being pretty cool as she sneaks around Harrow's cult and tries to do her best even though she's just a mortal. There's a couple great bits of black comedy as Taweret speaks through her through the corpses of the people Harrow killed. It's important for Layla to get some clues on what she has to do (find Khonshu's statue and release him) but there's a neat foreshadowing to Layla becoming Taweret's avatar later on in the episode. Layla also absolutely doesn't give two shits about Khonshu's deal and how it's 'so urgent' and whatnot, which is a great change of pace from how Khonshu seems to have every mortal he meets dancing at his fingertips. 

Harrow, of course, manages to release Ammit the crocodile-headed goddess, and there's an interesting bit where Ammit actually chooses the imperfectly-balanced Harrow as her champion or avatar or whatever instead of one of the many 'balanced' souls... we do get just enough of Ammit to know that she's just a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to these things, and for someone who only shows up in the final episode, Ammit does have a pretty cool presence. (Also, they clearly saved up the CGI budget for this episode). 

We get a very cool 'henshin' sequence for Moon Knight as he is resurrected and walks out to meet Khonshu, and, again, everyone is just sassing Khonshu today as Marc and Steven have found peace and camaraderie with each other, both refusing to take shit from Khonshu.

While all of this is going on, Layla accepts to become Taweret's (temporary) avatar and becomes an Egyptian superhero -- she basically is an Egyptian-themed version of the Falcon, though later press releases would identify her as an adaptation of the obscure Marvel superhero Scarlet Scarab. It's... it's definitely a great payoff that I didn't actually see coming by introducing Taweret as a benevolent deity, and having Layla actually take part in freeing Khonshu and later becoming a fighting force of her own is a lot more dignified than the confused love-triangle nonsense we got in episode 4.

And then the third act of the episode is just a huge, huge fight. Can I just say that my inner ten-year-old is loving this? Sure, it might not be the most sophisticated ending, but I absolutely love Moon Knight, Mr. Knight and Scarlet Scarab just teaming up to fight Arthur Harrow and his minions, while Khonshu and Ammit suddenly go kaiju-sized and have a giant god kaiju fight in the distance. There are a lot of cool moments to see -- like the juxtaposition of Khonshu's giant staff compared to the vehicles below, or Steve Grant's Mr. Knight casually fixing his suit now that he's got the swagger that comes with being partially-indestructible. 

There's an interesting bit where Harrow fights with Marc, talking about how his family would've been much happier if the 'imbalanced' weed, i.e. Marc, was the one to die... and Harrow actually wins! In a huge WTF moment -- which, by the way, I would claim to be terrible writing if we didn't get the answer in the post-credits scene -- we get another sudden-blackout of neither Marc nor Steven being in control of their body as we get the distortion sound effect and wake up with Harrow and the cultists brutalized and thrashed. 

Ammit and Khonshu repeat a lot of the same arguments we've seen in this season about morality and pre-judgement, and...  and it's nothing new. It's just that we haven't heard it enough in this season for it to get stale. Ammit's pretty cool for her very limited screentime, though that might just be my inner child squeeing over the giant-ass crocodile god eating souls and fighting a chicken-skull god next to the pyramids. Ammit gets sealed by Marc and Layla within Harrow, but then the two of them refuse to kill Harrow despite Khonshu's insistence -- because it would make Khonshu an even bigger hypocrite. It's a pretty cool bit where Marc finally puts his foot down and refuses to be a pawn of Khonshu, with a speech about justice versus vengeance.

There's a bit of an interesting bit where Marc/Steven wakes up in the asylum, 'breaks' that reality, before waking up in their apartment seemingly... back to normal, except Steven and Marc have found a way to 'cohabitate' their body. It's an abrupt ending, and I would've complained if this was it. But that's not it!

Except! Except that post-credits scene shows Harrow in a real asylum this time, and we seemingly see him being broken out by one of his cultists -- whose face we didn't see. There's a clever bit of misdirection as he meets Khonshu (dressed with a fancy suit!) at the back of a limousine, who talks about getting a new avatar that's not Layla. It's a great bit of misdirection where it seemed like Khonshu's making a deal to Harrow... before we get the revelation that Khonshu's current and very willing avatar... is the third personality inside Marc/Steven's body, Jake Lockley, who immediately murders Harrow. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you foreshadow this weird third personality throughout literally the whole show (thinking back, Marc wouldn't be the type of guy to 'set up' a date, would he?) and tie in various plot threads such as what happens to Ammit/Harrow, what Khonshu's next plan is... and adds another layer of plot threads to pick up not just on the mystical end of the spectrum, but also within the shattered psyche of the body cohabited by Marc, Steven and now Jake. 

All in all, a very powerful ending. Perhaps not the most smooth ride to get there -- there's an argument to be made about the main plot itself and whether the Harrow plot could've used a bit more fleshing out. I personally didn't care about the Layla backstory, and the pacing around the asylum scenes... I wouldn't say it's bad, but I would wonder how the show would be if the pacing was handled differently. But honestly? The action scenes were great, I love the mythology, I adore the post-credits epilogue, and, most of all, I absolutely love Oscar Isaac's seamless switching from Marc to Steven and having the two of them interact so well. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Jake Lockley is one of Moon Knight's main personalities -- the 'cab driver' to Marc Spector's mercenary and Steven Grant's billionaire. He seems to have taken over Steven Grant's rich-billionaire status in this continuity as well. 
• Layla El-Faouly turns out to be the MCU's version of the Scarlet Scarab (Abdul Faoul in the comics) though her backstory is a bit more different than usual. 
• Khonshu wearing a suit, as well as a car with SPKTR as the vanity plate, came from the 2016 Moon Knight run. 

Kamen Rider Revice E30-31 Review: Nonsensical Football Backstory

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Kamen Rider Revice, Episodes 30-31:

Episode 30: Seiyu, Say Me! The Aftermath of Youth!

Yeah, I'm not the fondest of this two-parter. It's kind of a bit of a filler as we go through the whole 'Gifu is rising, the apocalypse is coming' arc, but it's kind of... just messy. I get the meta-joke that we're getting Kimura Subaru, the voice actor that voices Vice, as an actual character in the show. I love that they treat him as an exaggerated superstar even in-univerese. I get that, and I appreciate that. But the actual story that spins out from it is... it kind of needs work, honestly, and I felt like it was put together rather slapdashedly. 

...but then the way that our heroes encounter noted voice actor Kimura Subaru is that... he's Ikki's old football coach? What? And then we get a plotline with Ikki's emo old friend Koji, who's pissed towards Ikki about some incident that Ikki apparently forgot all about.

Then we go jump into voice-acting, where Revi and Vice have some fun in a talk show, while Koji is also pursuing voice acting. As Koji continues to berate Ikki while refusing to tell him what he's pissed off about, a Rafflesia Deadman attacks, and ends up being far more powerful than Ikki anticipated because of Gifu's slow awakening. We get the return of some older forms like Mantis and Mammoth, but the Deadman escapes while Ikki and Vice gets gassed with the creature's spores.

Also, kind of low-key while everything is going on, but Sakura finally gets her Weekend uniform. Okay, sure. Papa Karizaki gives us some background on Director Akaishi, with the most important fact here being that he apparently never aged since his NOAH days, and they speculate that he's a Gifu descendant. Daiji, independently, tries to investigate Akaishi, but George and Akemi tell him to slow down, and try to do things his way. A neat little moment for sure!

Ikki speculates that red herring Koji might be the Deadman contractor, since the Rafflesia Deadman was attacking him, but Subaru kind of remains oblique about their shared backstory... and hey, turns out Ikki himself flashes back to how he and Koji used to make some sort of promise over football. Ikki then thinks he's fighting that lawyer Deadman after Subaru's talk about ego triggers something in him, but he's really just rampaging in Happy Spa while hallucinating, seemingly caught in a time-loop. 

Episode 31: Illusory Guidance, Dream Afterwards

A good chunk of this episode is just spent on Ikki's backstory with Koji and... it's not a bad story on paper. It's just stretched over two episodes when it could've been easily told in a single one. Koji himself is a pretty flat character, too, and the twist that Subaru is the one that has been creating the Deadmans to get his underclassmen to talk to each other is kind of stupid and only really works for the shock factor that the guest star cameo is a villain. I dunno. Ikki injured Koji in a practice match, causing him to have to give up his dream of soccer... but then Ikki's own memory problems caused him to forget that mistake? Honestly, I'm not at all invested with this storyline at all -- we might've gone somewhere if Ikki actually did make hollow promises to help everyone and didn't realize the impact of a half-fulfilled promise or something, but nope, just... memory loss, I guess. Sure, whatever. Ikki and Koji make up in their little mental world and it's pretty unsatisfying. 

Meanwhile, Aguilera burns her pretty red dress, and she's clearly trying to look for her path in life, setting her up for the next two-parter. We get Hikaru pulling out a real-ass gun on Aguilera and Aguilera notes -- with a good point -- that they're both reduced into Sakura's stalkers.

The Rafflesia Deadman bullies poor Lovekov, gets Sakura to hallucinate, and even tanks Holy Wing Live, while Ikki goes through his flashback-vision. Subaru owns up to his role and acts like it's some sort of huge wise thing for him to do, while giving up his audition role to Koji? Again, the interplay between voice-acting and soccer feels kind of messy, I do like the little juxtaposition of Generic Anime Power-Up Nakama Speech to Ikki arriving at the scene and Thunder Gale-ing the monster, but otherwise... eh. Kind of a messy two-parter, honestly. 

We also get the honestly rather confusing bombshell that Vice's memory-loss contract also applies to.... the entire world? What? In Den-O it kind of made sense because we were dealing with time travel and paradoxes and memories and shit, but here it's kind of weird that we went from "I blocked your traumatic memories as a child" to "the whole world might forget about you and you'll disappear from photographs", y'know?

Random Notes:

• Lovekov's voice actor also makes a brief cameo in some of the voice-recording booths, as does Horikawa "Vegeta" Ryo, who doesn't actually have any involvement with Kamen Rider at all. Presumably he was just hanging around and they asked him for a cameo or something?
• While all of this is going on, Vail has apparently been able to manifest in a spectral, almost Vice-esque form when talking to Gifu and Akaishi. 
• There's a fun comedic moment between George and Akemi with coffee. 
• I get that Tamaki is kind of a more comedic character now, but really? He spent time running around with that sombrero and turning into a wolf monster, and he's complaining about being hit? 
• ...poor Lovekov, you don't deserve to be abused like you were this episode. 
• George isn't going to transform into Demons as much, huh, based on his expression when he got briefly tempted to put on the belt. I guess he would be suffering from the same side-effects Hiromi did, and he can't do it all that often. 
• There's a brief scene of Dr. Akemi seeing Director Akaishi talking to an invisible Vail. That's another neat setup for next episode. 

One Piece 1049 Review: One Punch Man

One Piece, Chapter 1049: The World You Wish For

Well, so much for my know-it-all "oh, the fight's gonna end at 1050, hurr hurr" in my review for 1048, huh? Though I guess it could still end at 1050, maybe there's something more to it? I doubt it, though. This chapter has the conclusion to Luffy vs. Kaido, and... sure, we don't have the Wano scorecard or whatever, but I'm going to assume that it's going to show up in 1050 after Luffy and Kaido exchange some words?

But man, what a chapter, right? I just finished watching episode 1015, the one with the legendary animation and Red Roc, and then this chapter drops, and... and I'm sorry, I'm just being a bit of a giddy One Piece fanboy right now.

We get Luffy's Bajrang Gun clashing with Kaido's giant Susano'o dragon form in the air, and then Kaido talks about how Luffy will "never be able to change the world"... and we get a Kaido flashback! A Kaido flashback! That's the flashback we're all waiting for! We get to see an interesting backstory that kind of reminds me of other characters in One Piece before. Rob Lucci, Big Mom, Whitebeard, even Douglas Bullet from Stampede... but Kaido's a young child solder that is already a menace at 10 years old, used by the king of his kingdom to go around beating up and raiding people in order to gain celestial tribute. 

And even young Kaido questions this -- he's clearly stronger than the Celestial Dragons, so why does the Kingdom of Vodka listen to the Celestial Dragons? It's something that fits well with Kaido's might-makes-right personality, since he hates having to view people weaker than him as... as his superiors, basically. 

He also gets sold off for navy enlistment by the King of Vodka, and it's kind of interesting that the marines guarantee the kingdom of Vodka a seat on the next Reverie, while Kaido is just utterly pissed off at being used as a bargaining chip. He's clearly a lot less happy to be a 'government dog', and ends up escaping and making a mockery out of the Marines, getting caught on purpose just to gorge on prison food. I guess that's the explanation for how Kaido keeps getting captured by the Marines? It all happens in his youth when he is looking for food? 

Also, I guess Kaido being sold off as a kid and used as a weapon is why he sees a kindred spirit in King? And him questioning the morals and views of the adults of his kingdom is why he was initially disgusted with Momonosuke when Oden Castle burned down? There's a lot of story to unpack here, if we sift through it, even if the flashback is kind of disjointed. 

We then cut to Kaido on the Pirate Island Hachinosu, and we get to see a bunch of scenes -- of Whitebeard asking Kaido if he wants to be a pirate and introducing him to Rocks. Of someone telling Kaido how they're going to God Valley... and, of course, we skip over all of God Valley straight to the world reacting to how the Rocks Pirates have fallen.

Interestingly, we then cut over to a couple more years later. We get to see King and what I think to be a younger Queen with Kaido. And we get to see Kurozumi Senimaru -- the old lady -- approach Kaido and talk to him about the 'Embodiment of Brutality', about how survival of the fittest is the true nature of humanity. Kaido agrees with Senimaru about the whole survival-of-the-fittest mantra, and they figure out a plan to gain the most weaponry in the world, which leads to Wano being turned into a massive weapons factory. It's... it's interesting? I still kind of wonder where Senimaru came from. If she's part of Rocks, if Kaido knew her from somewhere, if she escaped Wano specifically to seek Wano out... this doesn't seem to be Wano, after all. So yeah, Orochi is just a peon in the grand scheme of things, huh?

We then cut to a scene of Kaido talking to a bunch of his pirates about how he's going to show the world the hellish reality of war, and how "one's worth can only be gauged in battle" and Kaido kind of wants to create a world where anarchy reigns supreme, meaning everyone is equal. So Kaido really hates the World Government and wants to tear it down and replace it with a system of... of might-makes-right. So it explains why his crew is so based on meritocracy, I guess? How the Lead Performers and Tobi Roppo could go over each other's heads if they could prove themselves in battle? 

We also get to a scene where Kaido and King discuss about how Yamato has learned about Joy Boy, and we get a cool discussion that overshadows the clash in the present day -- where Kaido says that Joy Boy is going to be the person that can beat him, and that it could be the 'person that [King] is waiting for'. Oblique, but it doesn't matter now since I assume we'll be having the explanation for this later.

We then cut to a hilarious short scene of the CP-0 agent with the line-eyes and the Urahara hat just Geppo-ing it the hell out of Onigashima. Which is kind of hilarious, but then, well, it does mean that the World Government will know all about Luffy's awakening, huh?

We then get a montage of the rest of the cast. Yamato and Momonosuke are still screaming. The people in the Flower Capital are still sending the lanterns up. We check in with everyone as the floods from Raizou and Jinbe's little trick a couple chapters ago start washing everyone... and it looks pretty fucking dangerous because some of the water is actually flushing out of the castle. I think some people totally got washed overboard there. We check in with basically everyone -- poor Brook and Robin are knocked out because they are Devil Fruit users! No! Apoo and that one last Number is also washed away, somehow they're still around. But I think it's just a way to gather everyone that matters in the Festival Hall. We also get a brief scene of Hiyori and Denjirou crying near Orochi's decapitated head... yeah. 

The flame clouds, meanwhile, disappear, though. Onigashima drops out of the sky, while Kaido asks Luffy what kind of world he wishes to make. At that moment, Momonosuke manages to... make the flame clouds appear and surround the island? And at that point, Luffy's Bajrang Gun tears straight through Kaido's Kaen Daiko form, slams down on the true dragon body within, while Luffy roars about how he's going to make a world where his friends can eat as much as they like. 

And as Luffy screams, we get this absolutely fantastic two-page spread of Luffy bashing the shit out of Kaido's dragon form and he flies down to the ground and it's a marvelous, cathartic panel. 

As Kaido falls, he flashes back to his flashback conversation with King, about how "Joy Boy is the man that'll defeat me one day!" and King going "if that's true, he'll never appear". Kaido falls, all the wishes fly up to the sky, Onigashima lands safely, and Luffy and Momonosuke collapse. 

Oh, there's also a big-ass giant hole that Kaido falls through, which I completely missed the first time I read through this chapter. 

And... and that's the big punch, ladies and gentleman. That's the big punch that vanquishes the big bad scary enemy! And... okay, I genuinely thought 1049 was going to be a Momonosuke chapter -- focusing on him gathering the strength he needs to flame clouds the shit out of Onigashima. It's something that's been built up forever, and not going to lie, I am kind of disappointed that Momonosuke's big moment is kind of a side-note in the midst of all the Luffy/Kaido stuff. I kinda wished we had a bit more of screentime for the kid, y'know? At least that obligatory panel of him lifting Onigashima... which we didn't get, since he just kind of drags it away in the background while we focus more on Luffy and Kaido?

Of course the arc isn't done yet. We still have to deal with the ramifications of Luffy's Gear Fifth. Of whatever the hell's going on with corpse-Zoro. Apoo's still around, for what he's worth. We have to resolve whether certain characters are actually dead or not. But, overall? I just reread this batch of chapters starting from Gear Fifth. And... it's been fun, isn't it? I still don't think very highly of 1048, and there are parts of this chapter that does feel kind of weak, but... but that was one hell of a ride. I actually find it pretty cool that Luffy gave it his all, and didn't actually beat Kaido with his full retinue of powers -- he had to awaken Gear Fifth, which arguably kind of only happened because he maybe 'died' in the first place. It's been... it's been such a wild ride. I'm still riding the hype of it... I still do think the highest point in Wano is Roof Piece and the readers first experiencing the revelation of Gear Fifth... but as far as conclusions go, this one is pretty fun. 

It's not the best, mind you. I'd rather have a longer Kaido flashback, obviously, and I really would've expected 1049 to focus on Momonosuke and/or Kaido and 1050 on the massive takedown? It feels kinda weird where 1048 felt like around 30% of a chapter stretched out to three times what it's really worth, whereas 1049 felt like two to three chapters squeezed together. It could be better, but... it could be worse? I'll withhold judgement until what 1050 gives us, but I think I'm pretty happy overall with this chapter.

Random Notes:

• Niji and Yonji get freed because the dissection lab got set on fire. It's... it sure is a development. We still don't see Ichiji and Reiju, so it's really kind of hinting that someone else is involved, but all this evasiveness is going to make it really anticlimactic if it does turn out to be them. 
• Oh. Kingdom of Vodka. Kaido's a drunk. I get it.
• I thought Franky yelling was at Zoro being washed away, but nope, he's still slung over Franky's giant shoulders. Totally alive. Right? Right?
• I've seen some people being disappointed that Luffy ends Kaido with a giant punch... but come on, give credit where credit's due. It's an epic giant punch. 
• ...to be fair, and, to be absolutely fair... we are still one Wisdom King missing from Kaido's repertoire of attacks. That does maybe lend credence to Kaido not being down and out yet for this arc, but personally? I felt like this is it as far as the 'big clash' goes. I wouldn't be disappointed, though, and would totally be excited if we get even more fighting and Kaido flashbacks after this!

Kamen Rider Revice E29 Review: BTW Hiromi Is Back (ft. Vail E1-4)

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. 

One Piece 1048 Review: Random Flashback!

One Piece, Chapter 1048: 20 Years

I really, really didn't want to talk too much shit about this chapter. To get the elephant (gun) out of the way... a huge chunk of this chapter is just a flashback. And... I get it. Oda wants to end this fight at 1050, a nice round number. But I felt like the flashback could either focus a lot more on how Orochi's dickery meant to Denjiro or Hiyori; or give some context to Denjiro's character personally; or even be structured to revolve solely around the wishes of the people specifically to have those wishes on the lanterns hit home... but nope, this just ends up feeling like a random smattering of scenes you'd find in any given one-minute episode of One Piece when they need to pad out time, and... and I don't care for it. I won't say this ruins the chapter blah blah blah because we've been so spoiled for the past half-dozen chapters with nothing but action scene after action scene. And the pacing won't be this bad when you binge-read through it, just like Dressrosa's pacing didn't feel as bad. But I would be lying if I said that I was wholly underwhelmed by this chapter entirely. 

That one panel of a single suicide rope is well-placed and quite sad. If only I cared enough for the flashback to not just speed-read through it. 

And the rest of the action sequence is... it's pretty neat, but it's obvious that it's setting up a lot of the major plot points that the final arc has been pretty much hammering home. Momonosuke needs to move the island out of the way, and he's pushing it with his head. There's a very cool moment from Kaido where he says that he's going to take Luffy's punch head-on. He's a pretty cool battle-hungry guy, y'know? It's very cool. 

And he activates a brand new ability called "Flame Dragon Torch", where he breathes out fire or magma or something from his mouth... and I thought he merely set himself on fire, but no. It's not until my reread of this chapter that I realized that Kaido created... well, created a Susano'o out of fire, if you guys have watched Naruto. You can see Kaido's real body nestled within the forehead of the giant fiery dragon form that's like, easily three to five times larger than Kaido's original dragon form. That's super cool!

We get a clash of attacks as Luffy remembers how Ryu'o allows Luffy to punch and unleash his Haki without touching -- and that's nice. That's nice that we're not forgetting all those random shots of Luffy fighting and training in the prison. We get a clash of Kaido's Flame Bagua and Luffy's Gomu Gomu no Bajrang Gun -- Bajrang being a title belonging to Hanuman, a Hindu monkey deity that's the inspiration for Sun Wukong, as google tells me. 

We get a bunch of random scenes -- including a scene of Usopp dropping Kin'emon and Kiku, and going "you better not be dead"... which... it's kind of extra-dumb if Kin is actually still alive. It'd be a great subversion if he actually dies after all his wounds, and that would make scenes like this actually good... we'll see, because I still think Kin'emon should've died at the conclusion of their fight with Kaido on the roof.  Or when Kaido stabbed him through the heart. Or when he fought Kanjurou for the last time. Or something. I don't know.

And then we get a five-page flashback, at which point we cut over to Orochi, on fire, with one head left, about to devour Komurasaki... and then to the surprise of no one, Denjiro comes in and slices Orochi's head off. It's nice, it gets rid of the second-biggest antagonist (narratively, at least) right before the final clash between Luffy and Kaido. And Denjiro has been MIA for... for a year? I would really like at least one line explaining what he's been doing, because he's really the only Scabbard who hasn't done anything since the rooftop battle, right? 

And... I don't feel as strongly about this as some people, but I would also really like it if it was Hiyori that kills Orochi? It's been such a huge part of her characterization, of the Kozuki clan's motivation... and she gets such a great moment when she finally gets to watch Orochi burn that it felt so cheap to reduce her to a damsel in distress just so that Denjiro can swoop in an save her. Shit, at least have her pull out a sword to defend herself before Denjiro comes in or something, y'know?

Kind of a disappointment, but they can't all be winners, I guess. 

Random Notes:

• The cover story has Brulee and Cracker talk about Reiju and Ichiji arriving... or are they? Brulee is only reporting what she sees through mirrors, and we don't actually see them showing up. A lot of theories want the Blackbeard pirates to show up, or some other pair of interesting characters....
• Shimotsuki Ushimaru shows his full face. Yeah, he looks like Zoro. No, I don't really care at all since we don't even acknowledge anything about it. 
• That single panel of a flashback of "when you reach the future, rebuild the Kozuki clan" and Momo remembering his family is an example of a flashback that works in showing us Momo's determination from "I can't" to "I WILL move this fucking island, motherfucker". 
• How interested are you guys in seeing me do a recap-review of the entirety of either Naruto or Bleach? It's a massive commitment for me to even rewatch either of those pretty long series, but all this talk about Susano'o has got me kind of itching to revisit some of these older series. 
• There are a lot of people who think Orochi should be redeemed to break the 'cycle of hatred' or whatever. But this isn't Magi, and Orochi did a whole ton of bullshit. If this flashback is good for something, it's to hammer home what a massive piece of shit Orochi is, so... yeah, I really don't care if he dies .

Kamen Rider Revice E28 Review: Friendship Speech

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 28: Beyond Fear, Gale and Thunder! Believe In Yourself and Become One!

Okay, this one feels kind of like another mid-season finale, since there's a lot that happens here. With Jack Revice basically rampaging while Ikki slumbers in that weird headspace of his, George Karikazi shows up with a brand-new toy -- the Thunder Gale Vistamp. Which... has a little windmill on it. Apparently, due to Ikki and Vice's close bond, it means that this stamp would either erase both or cause both to survive.

George also transforms into Kamen Rider Demons in order to help Sakura and Daiji pin down the berserking Ikki, citing that he's going to surpass 'daddy' by not standing in the sidelines. It doesn't really make up for his manipulations that led to Hiromi's body being destroyed, but... close enough, I guess? We get a 3-vs-1 for a bit, and they manage to stamp Ikki's body with the Thunder Gale Vistamp...

And then we cut to Ikki's mind where he wanders into a weird, spooky version of the Happy Spa. The director is clearly having fun with the creepy angles and lighting, as well as zooming in to random trinkets scattered around in Happy Spa. We get to see Yukimi, Daiji and Sakura basically act like exaggerated caricatures of themselves, while two Giffterians are taking a bath and playing around in the paintings... okay, that last bit is just them having some fun in order to give us weird, trippy visuals.

In the real world, Gifu extends an arm towards Aguilera as she demands to know what her purpose is... and just straight-up bitch-slaps her. Poor Aguilera! Olteca shows up and talks about how Aguilera is no longer worthy of being Gifu's vessel, and he uses his stamp to merge with Gifu and turn into a brand-new Anomalocaris Deadman form. This fight happens in the real world and the episode cuts back and forth to Ikki meandering in his own mind. George gets to do a Batta genomix attack before the strain of using the transformation belt causes him to de-transform, which is neat. Will he also succumb to the same accelerated aging that Hiromi did? Olteca basically manages to tank everything that Live and Jeanne can do, beating them up while constantly regenerating. 

Meanwhile, Ikki meets with Vail-in-Genta's-body within his mind, and Ikki and Vail have a bit of an argument. Ikki notes that Vail's jealous of the Igarashi family's happiness, but Vail claims that Vice would ultimately transform into a demon like him... before Ikki faces off against Vice. Or rather, uh, Ikki's human actor wearing the Vice tokusatsu suit from the neck down. And with the little devil horns. "Vice" beats Ikki up a bit, but then Ikki gets to do... well, a friendship speech, essentially, but while it's nothing particularly spectacular, I feel like in this case it's kind of earned, with Ikki acknowledging Vice as the part of him that 'protects' him (like a protective alter in DID) and that it's going to be the other way around. 

This all leads to the debut of the Thunder Gale form, which... it sure is a colourful form. This is apparently Ikki and Vice fused together into "Revice" at last, and... okay, I don't know if it's just me, but visually, it's just... speed-blitzing and doing a rider kick, isn't it? Jack Revice and Holy Wing Live felt a lot more impactful than this.

But narratively speaking, Revice ends up beating up Olteca, and for the price of his failure the Gifu coffin just stretches out an arm and consumes Olteca. And as he dies, Olteca has a brief memory of his time with the Deadman trio. Gifu's coffin changes a bit, before teleporting away again. 

And we get a bunch of other sub-plots getting acknowledged in this episode, I guess. Aguilera is still wandering, confused what to do with life. Genta/Junpei regains his memories, and goes into hiding with Buu to sort out everything in his head. The Karizakis confront each other in Weekend's base, though George is still pissed off at daddy. Sakura and Daiji reaffirm their places in Weekend and Fenix respectively... and we get a nice little final shot of the three Igarashi siblings, apart but still a family. 

And... okay, there are parts of this episode that I kind of liked, and parts that were a bit... basic. Mostly revolving the friendship speech leading to an instant power-up that defeats one of the main villains. I don't know. It's not as simple as that, but after all the buildup of how Vice is slowly growing more and more wild, the backstory with Vail and the Happy Spa fire, the IMO far more impactful conflict between Kagerou and Daiji... I don't know. This episode is a very solid one, a very competent one and one that was still fun to rewatch. Lots of neat moments that does make it worthy of being a mid-season finale of sorts for sure! Yet there's just something that's just... kind of missing, y'know?

Random Notes:

• So the 'Thunder Gale' hurricane thing is meant to be a reference to Kamen Rider Ichigo's little spinning thing on his belt, right?
• Of course George's henshin pose is basically also Kamen Rider Ichigo's pose. 
• Jeanne's ponytail-whip-thing is still very weird, sorry. 
• "Great! ...HWATTT??!"
• I guess 'speed-blitzing' the enemy to death is a lot less impressive to me since Zero-One (was it Shining Hopper or Zero-Two that did it?), Accel Faiz and Drive all did similar things but with far more pizzazz.
• Oh, both Ikki and Vice can manifest IRL after de-transforming from Thunder Gale. That's new, right?