#i keep thinking about how theyre both kamened riders now

[commentairesnegligeables]

On Kamen Rider Faiz: Between Being the Most Perfect Series and Mere Chaos

When i started watching kamen rider faiz series, i initially thought it was potentially better than my all time favourite kamen rider kabuto. I was like, where have i been? Why all this time i only watched kabuto, which besides the overall good story, isnt as complex or realistic as faiz? So i got excited in both watching it and finishing it. But as i got to the end of the series and i finished it, my stagnant reaction was like: no😐 this is nothing better than kabuto. It is even worse than common childish unlikeable rider series. Which is very questionnable, cause it started off as superb!

To understand why faiz is perfect and disappointing at the same time it has to start with the contents itself.

Takumi Inui

Before i watched faiz every time i came accross it and saw this person i always thought he was a nice guy with justice heart or something, like a hero, but after i started watching everyone knows how my perception surely changed. The word gangster suits his outter personality more. Hes rude and doesnt care about most things. On top of that, we dont see his thoughts much, or life, which makes it as if hes.. well.. mysterious?—besides the fact hes the main figure?

Anyhow i still liked this character portrayed cause its fitting to the story and the plot, his character is enjoyable to watch cause it adds dimension and his flow is realistic. And this doesnt just happen in the start of him being unheroic hearted person, it continues throughout the series until the end, that he is nothing but dimensional character.

Sonoda Mari

I like this girls personality since first time she appeared. I truly dont like woman character that is just there just to be protected and become romance partner of the hero (typical western superheroes) and at same time i dont like woman character that is too much strong as if shes not in need of any help (typical feministic western superheroes). The thing about this girl is that shes just there—shes neither a standout nor is she a complementary. Shes just another character to make the story flows, her character is made so sincerely and realistically. I mean, shes just a girl. Shes not magical girl who is stronger than men or happens to be hero’s romance. With that kind of realistic character, shes truly likable. Her personality and portrayal is consistent throughout the series.

Yuji Kiba

Hes my favorite character in the series. I wont say if im him i will be like him, but surely he is what most humans are. He represents humans. It might not seem like that for other people, but throughout the series hes the sanest one with cold head, no dilemma, no contemplation, only determined turns. I feel like while watching i sometimes thought like “why is this character doing this? Why is that character doing that?” And yuji kiba was the only characted i never criticized—any decision he has is unquestionnable cause its always sane decision. Even to the end. Hes the only character i stanced whatever decision.

Except when in the end he fought with faiz and then what—he stanced human? Unacceptable.

Kusaka Masato

I can write thousand words essays on this guy on why i hate him so much (as a character :) ). I really liked the Kaixa form but because of this guy i cant again. Its not even just about his annoying, hateful personality (he needs mental help), its also about how the maker of the series actually decided to just put him NOT as secondary character—but in position of almost as same as main character. Sonoda Mari and Yuji Kiba? Just forget them, his position is same as Faiz in the series from the starting of his appearance. He started off as someone we think oh wow. I mean he goes to college (none other of them go to college), he is presidents of clubs, and moreover hes the chosen Kaixa? Wow. He must be something. Yes, he is something, the story starts to collapse by the time he appeared.

It raises question why he is placed almost as main character, but the simple answer would be that the story plot makes it like that. The maker somehow has to place him there, cause he is the maker’s inner dilemma.

Orphenocs

Orphenocs are the monsters, the ones that are not humans. They are said to be result of unknown rapid evolution of human being, but they dont look like human being. They look like monsters and they have powers that humans dont have, but they can turn into human forms.

The Story

To start it off, Faiz series is weird in ways that are.. well.. unique. We expect Rider gear to choose one person and just stick to that one person, instead of being able to be used by many people. That is the concept of rider gear we want to see, cause we want to see someone being the chosen one and admire them, or hate them in the case theyre the villain. Rider gears on faiz series are not like that, theyre mere killer tools instead of tool that determines “chosen one”. Anyone—humans or orphenocs—can just take the belt and wear them, become kamen rider, and thats it. Then whos the hero?

That is a very good question, cause faiz series contemplates about that throughout the series. Thats why we see characters that have very complex changes revealed time by time. So let me start.

The story started off with Takumi coming accross Sonoda Mari and they then met orphenocs, and Takumi happened to be able to transform to Faiz, and with that they just came back to each other again and again. This is a very good start, both have strong leads of the story that it makes you think probably they will dominate the whole story and they will eventually become together. This is what the story more or less indicated, and so we keep that in mind. Other figures started appearing and this far it was nice, Keitarou is the type that has justice and kind heart, Yuji Kiba as a sane person, Yuka as someone we would have empathy for, Kadoya which is unlikable both in personality and necessity of character in general; but hes there as a flawed complementary and the maker feels he must be “important” in the end of the series, the powerful Smart Brain. As long as it circles around the trio figures (Takumi, Mari, Keitarou) of orphenocs killer solving what is going on and discovering Smart Brain’s doings, it is all enjoyable and good.

The most uninteresting part about the story is Mari’s kindergarten past life. It must be because it was not introduced since start so we get excited upon whats happening now instead of minding Mari’s kindergarten people. I mean, in agito series the Akatsuki Gou was always something that makes us curious and when it was revealed, we finally feel fulfilled (i rate agito 6.5/10), but in this series even when it was revealed about her kindergarten people, theyre very uninteresting people with some of them having psycopathic tendency towards their own “kindergarten friends”. More than they are characters that are fresh and we can consider to stance and look forward to, theyre all dull, boring, and naturally have no good aura. And when i say it, i mean ALL of them. It was nice that many of them just vanished fast. The one that lasted was i think Delta, which is really really disappointing. It would be better if they dont starre Delta at all. I like Gatack as “strongest rider but not main figure” but Delta is just a pure no. No one wants to see lifeless Mari’s kindergarten people.

But instead of just get over them, we got imposed all the time by this kindergarten stuff by having Kusaka suddenly becoming someone that is starred the whole time. He is a very hateful, twisted character, and also smart. He standsout from Takumi in the way that Kusaka is trying to solve the problem from the very root, he is just smart. Takumi doesnt care about these stuffs. With that, started the era of the series having two main figures.

Nothing is wrong with two main figures, but Kusaka has very bad personality that it honestly is frustrating to watch him. He gets in the way of Takumi and Mari, he gets in the way of Takumi in general, he is just.. a main figure with bad personality. Who likes that? But that is not just it. Its not that Kusaka appeared and then Takumi looks neglected. Takumi was, in fact, neglected, because Kusaka would stand out everytime doing the whole stuff (in his annoying way) while Takumi most of the time just stayed silent. He didnt talk back when Kusaka said anything, he didnt do anything to support himself, he is just being there. He was no longer someone with thoughts, he hid his thoughts from the audience to extent we dont even know again what he thinks. He becomes so soft like a cat.

Why is this two main figures importat? Because Takumi turned out to be orphenoch.

I have suspicion that the maker is in fact, confused himself. I mean for me myself i dont mind about orphenocs. I dont think humans are any better than orphenocs, nor that orphenocs are any better than human. Its not about coexisting, its about if orphenocs win then orphenocs win, if humans win then humans win. This is the main reason i like yuji kiba. Will tell more later.

Kamen rider stories always center around fight of humans and monsters, and they always have to give reason as to why we should stance humans. On kabuto, humans are portrayed as nice, and so it happens on agito, and monsters are portaryed as inevitable evil. But on faiz, orphenocs are evoluted humans, they think like humans, they are in fact humans. With this kind of plot to begin with, there is really no solution to the story, and that is why the story is just a bunch of realistic events being put, about figures that change from this to that, about emotion of the figures being told. I really like this part of the story. I dont like how Takumi is silent, but I really like how he is actually an orphenoch, no, its not just a plot twist. Its just a story!

With the annoying changes happening from interesting story to dull kindergarten people appearance, from the fierce Takumi with harsh mouth to quiet Takumi which all the time gives the look of “it will really be better if i just vanish from this world”, from interesting adventure of the Trio with dynamic characteristics to story circling around disturbing Kusaka, the only consistent figure is Yuji Kiba. He had always stanced humans since he became orphenocs, he always believed that orphenocs and humans can coexist. Of course this is what common humans will think once they become orphenocs, unless you have unexplainable grudge towards humans like Yuka or Kadoya. But in general Yuji Kiba is what a sane human usually will be. But the part i like the most isnt him being sane despite of whats happening, it is the fact that the story has to somehow show him being hurt by humans, to prove humans are not as nice as he thought they are. Coexisting? What a joke. And in that instance, he changed. The whole time stancing the humans immediately turned into him leading the orphenocs. I just love that, hes not hopeless like Takumi nor he is disturbingly and unreasonably hateful like Kusaka. He keeps in mind what is fact and acts accordingly. Very plausable. I cant even blame him for hating on humans.

But besides the Yuji Kiba consistency, nothing left is to be liked out of the rest of the plot. It couldve ended goodly by portraying Takumi more and we could follow him to the end, but no, its just Kusaka and Kusaka until Yuji Kiba killed him. Such useless character no one wants to see, but in the same time he justifies the makers dilemma cause if Kusaka character didnt exist, it would seem like the maker was stancing for orphenocs. No, you dont do that in kamen rider series. But until the end i dont understand the makers true intention. I feel like for this level of series it requires a very smart person to write it, so is he trying to say that even humans can be annoying and orphenocs can be nice, or does he somehow have to make character that no matter what always stances human for no reason?

Kamen rider faiz is very realistic and complex and full of emotions and events, its not boring at all, but its inability to make the story continuously intriguing by serving what people will want to see (professionally! Not marketly or like this) it instead just serves what they want to serve, even if it means frustrating the audience and twisting the story as they want as such is switching the main figure.

Kamen rider faiz is, for its professionality (that beats other Kamen Rider series including Kabuto), 10/10. But for the rest of the thing. 5/10!

[thankyoumskobayashi]

i fucked up hayakawa ken's name earlier so ovbiously im tited and need sleep but before that im going to describe my idea for a kamen rider ghost au for guardian bc i think that has some potential there. basically when i was watching guardian my thought process went "oh wow theres a gay cryptid prince!" ==>same as ==>prince frostytips from kr ghost.

ghost spoilers (sorta) below the cut

basically gay princes but obviously that would mean there are some key differences here. the past shit where zhao yunlan and shen wei were lovers happened in a past life for both of them but only shen wei remembers that.

zhao yunlan is the heir to the family temple which he keeps out of necessity. he only uses like 2 rooms personally so those rooms are the messy ones, while the rest go the the members of the SID. which i guess is zhao's found family i guess bc he didnt like his father. but now that he's turning whatever birthday is significant, he gets  a mysterious package in the mail which kills him so he gets all those weird cool ghosty powers like floati g thru walls & eavesdropping & shit.

the SID are used to weird shit happening so theire not too concerned abt the leader being a ghost. even so they decide to keep it under wraps. justiciar (who gave zhao the ghost explanation in a kigurumi) tells him he must collect the holy hallows (eyecons) to come back to life. but he knows prince ye zun wants to take the throne & consolidate power so he's just putting A ROADBUNP in thr prince's way.

this is abt the time shen wei realizes he is a reincarnation & used to have a lover. he searches for his soulmate in his own world and, not finding him, determines to search in the human world. ye zun Knows exactly who shen wei loved and K nows he's currently a ghost. he figures his twin wont watch him as closely when he is on another world and sets to work devising how to frame lil bro for murder.

justiciar tells shen wei he can only find his lover by collecting the holy hallows, effectively pitting him against zhao yunlan. i dont know what their dynamic will be like at first but it'd be hilarious to have zhao not remember shen wei at all. he just takes the eyecon and goes. but shen wei realizes he's losing the collection and eventually shoves aside his memories/emotions to compete with zhao. zhao who always seems to be one step ahead of him. zhao who investigates oddly but in a way that Works. zhao who summons each hallowed eyecon by understanding the emotions each berson felt about the famous figure they looked up to.

basically he doesnt know zhao is good at this bc of who he is (+ he's aghost). i forget what happens next but the eyecons are collected, zhao uses them to wish his own receptionist back to life instead of himself, then shen steals eyecons from him.

skipping ahead- eventually zhao teleports by accident into the ganma palace and there his memories start to reawaken. but he is chased out by the guards before he can really remember. he is in sort of competition with shen wei again for the eyecons bc the receptionist's librarian bf also needs to be wished back to life.

hhhhhh im getting the timeline confused but anyway. shen wei realizes that he would still want to protect zhao yunlan out of tribute to who they were before. zhaos ghostliness is still a secret atm but he will Reveal soon, once his deadline runs out and the justiciar comes a-knocking.

idr where this was going. oh yeah. shen wei realizes he cares about zhao yunlan and theyre not just the memories, when zhao's timeline is abt to be up. like prince frostytips' reaction to takeru's 3rd death except magnified bc he's in love and emotions are intense.

#im done rambling... you are spared. For Now.