Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

I remembered how I often pointed out that perhaps Justin in Power Rangers Turbo is one of the biggest mistakes ever. It's not because he's a kid ranger -- it's because of how randomly placed he is. Kou in Dairanger was given proper development while Justin just ended up as a gimmick where producers hoped to capture more of the younger audience BUT. FAILED. MISERABLY. Sadly, Kamen Rider Decade would commit exactly the same mistake with the Alternate Reality Kiva arc. Yup, I'm writing this not after something after Kamen Rider Kiva had its tribute arc in Kamen Rider Zi-O . The A.R. world is a world where humans and Fangires supposedly called a truce BUT there's the Beetle Fangire. There's a child king Wataru who is in contrast to the older Wataru Kurenai. But can you imagine if ever Justin Stewart or Kou took such a high position for world peace? The whole outcome is just weird. I know there have been boy kings in history but they needed guidance from older one...

It's no secret that while Kamen Rider Kiva is indeed the lowest point of Toshiki Inoue's career as a head writer but I'm still a fan of said series. Heck, Kiva is probably the biggest reason why I gave ToQGer a second chance a few years after that said show ended. Well, Inoue has returned to be the writer of this series and it's written with tragic infatuation over it. Okay, I would really not give too much of a high bar for him and Yasuko Kobayashi due to their burnout. Like ToQGer, Kiva is a series where the head writer is burned out yet there's a decent fanbase. Now, it's time to weigh this series and what I find to be either good or bad about it. Younger boys like older girls, right? Well, that's Sougo's story when he fell for an older woman who was a teenager when he was a child. She went by the nickname, Miss Sailor. I dunno but there are times that watching Ryusoulger reminds me of a crush I had who was five years my senior. Yu Takahashi (who g...

I thought about all the times burnouts happen --  Kamen Rider Kiva is where Toshiki Inoue finally had no idea what to do. It's almost like what Hirohisa Soda did with Fiveman trying to mix a huge hot pot and Inoue's situation was no different. As Kiva celebrates its 10th anniversary -- I feel like trying to defend it considering I do have a soft spot for what some may consider to be Inoue's burnout season. If there's any work right now that I appreciate in spite of it being a result of a burnout -- it's still Kamen Rider Kiva! I admit that I haven't found myself too fond of Kamen Rider Faiz and letting Inoue take over Kamen Rider Hibiki wasn't a good idea either. I felt like shouldn't Inoue have been given a chance to take a break? But in spite of that -- I still love the show for its really crazy hit or miss humor and an entirely new approach to writing the supernatural in Kamen Rider! I couldn't get over the crazy humor that's present whet...

Kamen Rider Kiva may be a mess (for some) but I still have a soft spot for it.  Maybe I've had enough of too much dark and edgy.  Also, it's for me more rewatchable than the super depressing season that is Kamen Rider Faiz.  Moving on... why do I think Kamen Rider Kiva is a Danny Phantom-ish season? While it has horror elements but it's hardly horror but a parody of past successes.  Nothing in the show really scares anyone maybe except when Fangires leap into action.  But other than that, the way humans die from Fangire attacks here is very, VERY cartoony.  They turn into glass and break.  The whole premise of the show feels more like a Nicktoon for teenagers than the horror Kamen Rider has.  Hey I'm not complaining, I kinda like having cartoony seasons too! For a start, I always felt like Wataru was more like Danny Phantom than a Kamen Rider.  While Danny Phantom became half-ghost due to some freak accident, Wataru is half-Fangire a...

While I can enjoy Kamen Rider Kiva, I also would like to say I felt like that it had some weird romance plots at the same time.  Toshiki Inoue kind of like writing romance plots.  Faiz and Agito didn't have much of it (but the whole so-called attraction at the end of Agito felt stupid)... now here's where most of his strange sense of humor KICKS IN: Men caught in between two or more women: The main protagonist Wataru is caught in between Shizuka who agrees to be his "mother" and Mio.  Aside from his love triangle with his maternal half-brother Taiga over Mio, Shizuka does have a crush on him.  Shizuka did get jealous when she thought that Megumi had a liking on Wataru which wasn't existent. For women caught between two or more lovers: Maaya who exists in the past and the future was once married the Fangire King of 1986.  It was a loveless marriage (?) and one may consider the whole marriage a marriage of convenience. She bore the Fangire King one son n...

After doing one on Kamen Rider OOO, here's one for Kamen Rider Kiva which is for me Toshiki Inoue's hit or miss work.  Now he has placed some Jetman elements like Rook's amnesia but let's focus on Kamen Rider shall we? Like Kamen Rider Den-O, Kamen Rider Kiva also had monster allies he could use to aid him in battle.  Den-O had the good Imagins, Kiva had his three monster allies who can become his power-ups. The rivalry between Wataru and Vlad as competitors for the throne as Fangire King is a watered down version of Kamen Rider Black vs. Shadow Moon. In the case of Keisuke Nago, he is pretty much trying to parody them douchebag protagonists in the past... namely he was really shifting between becoming a Masato 2.0 or a Renn 2.0.  I would say I liked him on the second half but the first half was kind of unbearable.  Not surprised at him being a Renn 2.0 at times considering Toshiki Inoue was the co-writer of Kamen Rider Ryuki. The Fangires were well pret...

Yup that's Toshiki Inoue and I wonder if he's even related to one of my favorite actresses Mao Inoue.  I was reading the post at Them's Fighting Words about Inoue and endings .  Now here's my share.  I don't know what other critics like Fantasy Leader or That Chick will think or comment, well I could accept if they disagree or agree but here's my two cents: Warning!  Spoilers ahead! Kamen Rider Agito- So far this is his BEST ENDING.  Okay I don't like Toujou (but then again, most of his actions are clearer to be more of not knowing much or being skeptical, or just following rules) and later he was tolerated.  For me, while the ending did have some WTF that is that very HIIIIIIIGH jump that Agito did to defeat the Lord of Darkness from killing off the human race, it was in fact a very passable finale.  So nobody's pointlessly killed (unlike Gai Yuki's death was really lame in Jetman).  In fact, the ending is pretty passable, meets better stan...

There were some instances of Fangires loving humans and some of them were quite focused.  Here they are: Ryo Itoya is one though it's more of lust than love.  In 1986, he developed a crush on Yuri Aso and then in 2006, why does he shift the attention to the daughter?  Really I find this kind of plot development GROSS.  So far as concerned, I wonder why of all girls did he eventually fall for Megumi when I mean, there are a lot more hot girls he can stalk if the purpose was all but LUST?  For me, this attraction was funny and creepy, sometimes it just freaks me out.  I thought that Megumi kicking his balls was one of the best things to ever happen.  Miu the Queen of 2008 eventually killed him after his several episodes of just mindlessly wanting to have Megumi. Shinji Takeuchi/Grizzly Fangire- One of those surviving Fangires loving humans storyline and quite touching.  For me, I really loved the drama that built up between him and his wife in...

I've done reviews on Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Faiz, and Kamen Rider Ryuki now for a run-through on them. Where was he good at and where did he mess up? Well, it's time for a critique summary of these things: Kamen Rider Agito Definitely Toshiki Inoue's masterpiece well-written from start to end. Everything in this series was what I'd call finishing the work that Naruhisa Arakawa started with Kuuga. With how the mysteries and complexities were written together with characters that aren't there for just being there and then dying for dying's sake, this is his top masterpiece. For the finale, I pretty much think that it's passable but not awesome since that whole "I can jump that high do that rider kick." against the Overlord of Darkness can make anybody go O_o in some way. However, nobody was getting unnecessarily killed except if it was for plot and everything was close to perfection. Overall, too bad Inoue didn't maintain this kind o...

Racism seems to be the most frequent motive of aliens to invade our world in the world of fiction.  Now I'm going to an analysis of the Grongis and the Fangires on how each author handled their racist villains. The Grongi in Kamen Rider Kuuga executed their racist ways by making games out of humans.  For them, human beings are nothing more than prey for their sick game, I don't know if they even eat people behind our backs.  So there's the game of killing humans depending on the rules like a Grongi can choose to kill pregnant women by eating their unborn or killing old people by throwing them down a cliff, it's pretty disturbing if you ask me. In the case of the Fangires, most of the antagonists have been shown to think they are far superior than other races and two, they view every other race as just source of life energy for them which Taiga stated about humans later in the series.  Despite the fact Kiva is very cartoony, the racism of the Fangires is one int...

The Fangires for me in Kiva share an interesting concept even if they belong to a series that's too light and fluffy to be expected of Toshiki Inoue.  Unlike the standard vampires that bite to suck blood, this race sucks the life force out, the victims become glass-like and they break to pieces.  And when they are killed, they also are broken to pieces.  Now my thoughts on the Fangires: I find the concept of the Fangires' design cool while they seem to be a parody of the Grongi.  Strangely enough, why would Inoue parody the Grongi?  Was he attempting to go lighter and softer instead of his standard darker and edgier?  The Fangires in themselves as stained glass vampires, I just love their designs giving the baroque look.  I just find those fangs that come out of the air, impaling the victims then sucking their life force out to be a cool concept but at the same time, was it done in order to censor out blood considering this show is cartoony from sta...

Well since I feel like I haven't given Kamen Rider Kuuga enough credit so I'd like to credit it for actually defining the basic styles of how to write Heisei Riders. The way the multiple forms are introduced. Kuuga avoided the being too episodic and decided to focus on introducing these forms in a way that is more "realistic". Yuusuke doesn't immediately learn to use these forms and plus, each form carries a plot tied to the story better done than when it was during the days of Black RX. Each of the forms were handled in a J-Drama fantasy style for me. So pretty much, Arakawa doesn't want the hero to be "high and mighty", rather to be "more human" which I think is good, so pretty much the template left by Black RX with multiple forms was put to good use. The allies are far more involved. Okay we got that introduced in Black RX but it was a rough draft, Kuuga had its time to let the allies become more involved as a better mold to th...

While watching Kamen Rider Kiva, forced as this is but I think Ryo Itoya aka the Spider Fangire does share resemblance with Santiago from the Vampire Chronicles series or from the Interview with the Vampire movie. Both are creepy buffoons who are very playful with their victims.  Coincidence?  Most likely since I doubt it that Toshiki Inoue was reading the Vampire Chronicles when he wrote this.  He was probably playing Castlevania and watching Danny Phantom (dubbed in Japanese) with his family instead of reading the Vampire Chronicles.  But there is the creepy similarity I can't deny in this forced comparsion.  And also, both failed to kiss the human women they intended to kiss too.

I'd like to compare the styles of Inoue between Agito (which I like more) vs. Kiva (which I like less) but I will probably say where Inoue got it right and where he got it wrong in the otehr.  Not that Kiva is awful but could have been better only if Inoue managed to write better.  Now moving on ... The main hero: I would say that Tatsuya and Wataru have their own uniqueness although the latter is pretty weird.  For Tatsuya I enjoyed the part he was an amnesiac and how he got the Agito powers, for the case of Wataru I think there was a cool concept with how his story goes (like his half-Fangire revelation) but it just got too predictable or, since Kiva's a rainbow and teddy bear type of Kamen Rider, I shouldn't expect more compared to Agito which has a more serious side. Supporting characters: Inoue's supporting characters in Agito usually range from the jerks to the nice ones, they pretty much aren't too serious nor too dark.  For example, in Agito maybe H...

Apparently here are some plotholes I think were overseen by Inoue though they aren't as annoying as Faiz.  These are... Wataru's "allergy to the world" and how it suddenly disappeared. It is never explained how Shizuka became the "mother" of Wataru. Another is between mother and daughter.  In the case of Yuri Aso, we never knew how she died whether it was a Fangire incident, natural death or whatever and also, who in the world is Megumi's father? So Maya wears an eyepatch in 2008- what was the reason behind that? These are plotholes I think need to be addressed no matter how I like this goofy show.

The Grongi in Kamen Rider Kuuga I would say are pretty scary themselves.  While watching them, I thought that these people are quite similar to the mythological Aswang from the Philippines.  Where do they share common points? The Grongi assume human forms from beautiful women to various forms of men while they do become animals and need be, assume their ferocious forms.  They are both also immune to sunlight.  They blend in with the townspeople while having their own secret language as enemies of ancient mankind. They both play a cruel game on human beings with a hunting game.  They treat humans as prey and for sport.   and bite their victims.  For example, an aswang may play a game of killing pregnant women by eating their unborn for sport or the Grongi, kills children for sport. And if that's not enough, they become ferocious monsters that hunt down and kill human beings to add thrill to their dirty lives as ancient enemies of mankind. ...