Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

Well pardon if I haven't been posting much here considering that I'm actually getting stuck with other stuff -- especially real life! Quality should be the measure and not so much how many posts I post, right? Anyway, here's the Kamen Rider Gaim arc and I'm feeling a weird time paradox hence the title of a complicated, fruity time paradox. The beginning starts with a convoluted case of meeting your past self -- except it's just three days apart. We see the Kota after the finale of Kamen Rider Gaim talking with Souta. He says that a good king doesn't do the work for all his subjects and that the latter need to do their part. The whole problem of the time paradox happens that there could be a major time decision when Souta (three days later) and the current Souta end up running into each other at the end of part one! The current corruption happens when Asura a member of Team Baron becomes Another Gaim. He wasn't part of the original Gaim timeline but due to ...

After rewatching some classic Heisei Kamen Rider series and remembering Gaim around two years ago,  I felt like some Kamen Riders were very atypical in some way. What were they? Here they are. Warning there are spoilers ahead so read at your own risk! Kamen Rider Agito  Kamen Rider Agito's entire season first appeared to be typical. The Lords appeared to be a bigger threat than the Grongi but they seemed very selective about who lives and who dies. The Grongi had more indiscriminate killings than the Lords who were simply trying to keep the balance. Long ago, two Lords were involved in the creation of humanity. One was the Overlord of Light and the Overlord of Darkness who both carried the Yin/Yang symbol. Like Prometheus and Epimetheus, they were involved in the creation of mankind but both of them couldn't agree on anything. One day, Light decided to give the Seed of Agito to humanity with Darkness feared would only cause humankind's destruction.

It can't be denied that after Gobusters, Kyoryuger came and then came Kamen Rider Wizard. Considering Kamen Rider seasons these days premiere around September to October, then it's normal that Kamen Rider Gaim aired during Kyoryuger's broadcast and ToQGer's broadcast. It would also be normal that Kamen Rider Drive aired during ToQGer's broadcast and Ninninger's broadcast... while Kamen Rider Ghost airs during the second half of Ninninger's broadcast. Kamen Rider Gaim had a lot of what Power Rangers Samurai, Power Rangers Megaforce, Kyoryuger and ToQGer didn't have which was hard to imitate, high quality writing. I felt the concept of fruits was just stupid so I didn't want to watch it at first. The first episode wasn't all that interesting but I wanted another Battle Royale season and this show gave it to me and it gave me more interesting stuff. Kamen Rider Ryuki could have become better if it wasn't for all that unnecessary executive med...

While watching Kamen Rider as of recent, I thought about two series that did the Battle Royale theme. One was Kamen Rider Ryuki (February 3, 2002 - January 19, 2003) and Kamen Rider Gaim (October 6, 2013 - September 28, 2014). I'll give my few shots on what I thought of them. The truth is that a Tokusatsu show has these three outcomes. The first outcome is that next series can really get better than the last. That's what I believe happened between Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider Agito. I felt like Agito had a more complex, interesting storyline. The second is that the series can be just as good as the last. I felt the same happened while I was watching Kamen Rider OOO and Kamen Rider Fourze. Both series were pretty good in their own way though I can't help but still think Kuuga and Agito are better. The third is that the next series can be worse than its predecessor. The successful Kamen Rider Black was replaced by the inferior sequel of Kamen Rider Black RX though I stil...

Just a bit of art here... Kamen Rider in the Heisei era started tackling human evolution, a topic not so touched upon in Kamen Rider Black. I did notice that while Kuuga had some hits on human evolution, the idea was taken into a huge leap in Kamen Rider Agito. Agito was a Kamen Rider series that focused on the concept of human evolution, except it dealt with it in a theistic manner. The beginning of Agito felt like a mixture of several Middle Eastern mythos like the Lords look like the gods of Egypt, the concept of dual forces (Light and Darkness represent both day and night) and the concept of man's evolution. The whole question in Agito between the two Overlords is... to evolve or not to evolve, that is the question. The Overlord of Light wished to bestow the power of Agito upon some people while the Overlord of Darkness viewed that human evolution had reached its peak. Kamen Rider Faiz was yet another series to tackle on the concept of evolution. Unlike Agito, Faiz foc...

So Kamen Rider Gaim has ended folks and we have Kamen Rider Drive (bear in mind, I'm watching Mars a Chinese series for now).  So what did I think about the series?  For one, the series started out looking silly for me, because of the motif is FRUITS?!  Well, but the writing genius that Gen Urobutcher errrr.. Urobuchi has managed to create such a wonderful script.  While Naomi Takebe is hit or miss (she failed with Gobusters but I love Kiva and OOO where she is the producer)... Urobuchi has written such a series. So Gaim feels like Ryuki, Kuuga and later you can see some references from past Kamen Riders.  We have Zawame City under the rule of Yggdrasil which is similar to how Smart Brain is, except that the latter is not really evil.  The whole "Rider War" here has Kouta who wants to save the world vs. Kaito who is the rival of Kouta, he is the leader of all Beat Riders.  The city has the competition where creatures known as the Inves are used for ...

Well here's some Power Rangers actors playing with Gaim's locks... ha ha1 This picture made me wished Troy were closer to Shun in KR Fourze... Lightspeed Rescue... they're going to help rescue the city from Overlords while Gaim fights the main villains... A deadly beauty... Cameron Jebo wants to become a Kamen Rider!

Aside from looking past my previous bias for Gaim, Gen Urobuchi really should write another Kamen Rider season or maybe even a Super Sentai season.  Now for my thoughts on how it went... and my criticism of the series so far: So obviously we have some plots similar to Ryuki.  A reward for winning?  Check.  Some kind of parallel world?  Check, we have the Helheim forest in the place of the mirror world.  A battle royale?  Check.  While the concept is silly with the use of fruits, Gen Urobuchi is probably one writer I'd like to meet and be under his wing.  So far, it's working well for a fresh faced Kamen Rider... to be honest it's already getting old to keep using Toshiki Inoue and Yasuko Kobayashi for Kamen Rider.  This was also the first show that got me to get interested in Gen Urobuchi in the first place.  I love the well-timed humor (which shines over my love for blatant silliness) while balancing it with seriousness. ...

SO I've finished with Mischievous Kiss and I would say that maybe, I should also watch the Taiwanese version to a comparison.  I might be biased but most of the Taiwan cast members usually do their best in acting.  And now for more... I'm now in chapter 22 of Gaim which things get interesting.  So I'm in a snail pace right now and I am hoping to get my reserach done and over.  It's getting pretty interesting in spite of its rather silly fruit motif.  Takebe has weird ideas, Gen Urobuchi managed to save the day!  I just wonder how the conflict between Yggdrasil and Gaim will end?  Gaim had a delay of broadcast thanks to golf but yeah, I know it will be worth the wait!

Now here's my latest viewing aside from "Mischievous Kiss" which I am slowed down on it, here's something that keeps me interested is Kamen Rider Gaim.  At first, I have my biases on how silly it seems but I am starting to get interested.  So here's what I think about it- nothing wrong with recycling ideas, sometimes some ideas were great but fail the first time.  And plus, I have to avoid my pretending to hate Naomi Takebe already.  It's getting old. Right now I'm just eight episodes and I say I'm liking where it's going.  I can't really analyze much of it since I hardly know Gen Urobuchi.  Kouta and his fellow members at Team Gaim for me, are really a great set of protagonists.  They have their battles in the Inves games, which are established by Yggsdrassil Corporation which is the show's main enemy organization.  And I am also introduced to Pierre Oren the artist/fighter villain who I think can go from annoying because he's a bragg...