Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Nov 23, 2013 2:01:01 GMT -5
KAMEN RIDER KIVA
SYNOPSIS
1986: Otoya Kurenai is one of the most gifted violinists in history, but he's given that up and seems to spend all his days "on the mack," as it were. One night, after trying and failing to hit on a woman named Yuri [no relation], he discovers Yuri hunts and kills Fangire, a race of being who kill and drain the life of humans to survive. Drawn deeper into the world of Yuri and through her, the world of the Fangire, Otoya will find a new purpose--people are music, and he will fight to prevent that music from being lost. Along the way, he find friends, a surrogate family, and find a love that he would give up everything for.
2008: Wataru Kurenai (Otoya's son) is one of the most hardcore shut-ins you will ever meet. On the rare moments he does go outside, he covers himself up like he's a hazmat worker, and only "speaks" with a pad of pre-written responses. This is on account his allergies--Wataru is, so he claims, allergic to everything. Called "ghost boy," by his neighours, he stays holed up in his house, building violins (it was actually thanks to this show I learned what "atelier" means) and kept company by KivaBat The 3rd, who is a flying talking bat and Wataru's friend and confidante.
One day, on a rare journey outdoors, Wataru encounters Megumi, a brash model who doesn't buy Wataru's story about being allergic and befriends him and helps him out of his shell. This is, of course, while she balances her career as a model with her other career: Megumi is a monster hunter (Yuri's daughter), working for the somewhat ironically named Wonderful Blue Sky organization, a group dedicated to annihilating the Fangire,
Funny thing--Wataru is half-Fangire himself, the result of a marriage between a human and the Queen of the Fangire. Moreover, Wataru is also heir apparent to the throne of the Fangire. His journey to embrace his destiny will lead him out of his shell, will allow him to make friends, find love, find a family he never knew, and give him the courage to break the chains of the past and forge a new future for humans and Fangire. (to make it more plain, the "Kiva" in Kiva's name is short for "King of Vampires")
ANALYSIS
I've purposely made the synopsis thin above because for one thing, with two parallel timelines running in 1986 and 2008, both of which rebound off one another even before time travel gets into it and makes things even more confusing, this review would be ungodly long, and also because the world and the interrelationship between the two time periods pivots on more than a few spoilers, that would . . .well I'd just hate to do that.
Kiva is the penultimate series in the first decade of the Heisei Rider era (we'll get to the final series of the first decade, helpfully called Kamen Rider Decade, soon enough) and if it can be said to have moral (as Kamen Rider Kuuga had last week) it's one of understanding your past, living the present to the fullest, and embracing your future. The closing tag for the next episode promos sum it up the best: "Wake up! Break the chains of destiny!" Otoya and Wataru may not like where their respective destines will take them, but they eventually realise that whatever the price, there's only one way forward. The series is about the struggle--internally and externally--of both our protagonists to realise this.
One might imagine that a show wielding such heavy themes (and all the monster-y, Gothic-y stuff) might get to be a bit much, but the show is actually pretty good about maintaining a light touch and balancing its more comedic elements and moments with it's more dramatic elements and content, so it doesn't ever get too light as for the drama to feel toothless, nor does the drama get so heavy that it suffocates the funny bits.
There's a lot to like about Kiva. The costume designs look amazing--very Gothic and very much homaging classic horror movies. The basic Kiva suit and the suit for Saga are personal favourites of mine. The Fangire monsters are some of my favourite monsters in the entirety of Kamen Rider and really manage to make the "stained glass vampire" concept work very well. The supporting casts in both eras are really well fleshed out and as we see a generational line running through both of them, we feel like we have a history with them and it's easy to invest a lot in who they are and what happens to them.
The main thing for me to love about Kiva is the music. Kiva probably has one of the best (if not THE best) soundtracks of all the series and a good deal of the themes show up on my iPod shuffle even now, from Kiva's Emperor Form fight song, "Supernova"
To Otoya's theme, "This Love Never Ends"
To Kamen Rider Saga's theme, "Roots of the King"
For a show with so many musical allusions, you would expect a rockin' soundtrack, but this one really goes above and beyond.
On the down side, at times, with the two timelines flipping back and forth, it can be a bit hard to follow until you get a clearer sense of who the players are and what their respective goals are. There are several factions in play for a good deal of the story, all with different aims, and there's another one that gets installed later in the show, and by then, time travel has been introduced and things can get a bit unwieldy. Between this and the previous series, Kamen Rider Den-O, it could be said that there was a fetish in Kamen Rider, there was a bit of a fascination with building hyper-intricate storylines where you almost need a flowchart to keep track of it all. Steven Moffat would be proud. It's good that the whole run is available on YouTube and DailyMotion, as being able to go episode by episode and replay bits really helps keeping track of all the various plots.
On the "this is interesting and I thought I'd mention" it end of things . . .man, this show has a HELL of a lot of fanservice for the ladies. Wataru spends a hell of a lot of time shirtless or in the bathtub or with his shirt off (count the instances in the intro alone!) It is suggested that this is a means of appealing to the stay at home moms who are watching with their kids. I'm not pointing it out to complain about it, just to let you know: This show wants you to know that Koji Seto (Wataru) is a damn good lookin' dude and isn't shy about mentioning it a few times.
In all, I can't say I would give Kiva to someone as their first Kamen Rider show. It's good, perfectly sound, and the overall show is very rewarding, but it takes such an investment and focus, it's not really a "casual series," as such? Once you've watched a few series and got a feel for what you like and don't like in these shows, then sure, give it a try, but it's a bit to daunting for the first. But I recommend checking it out sometime, as it's on my top 5 list.
That's all for Kiva. Join us in seven for a trip to Windy City, a place wherein someone's dealing in flash drives that turn people into monsters and the only people who can get to the bottom of it is a half-boiled private eye and his partner. Join us next week for Kamen Rider W,when we ask the question: Do you have the courage to ride with the devil?
