2013 Rider: Kamen Rider Gaim - News/Rumors thread

[themidnighter]

It's a case by case basis.

You have to take it show to show, keeping in mind the era and the writing style present at the time.

--SNIP--

That's why the statement that Kamen Rider, ALL of Kamen Rider, can't be taken seriously is wrong. Because a very notable chunk could and should be.

It all comes down to what was intended, and if the show pulls it off.

Fair enough.

This raises a question, for which I don't have a satisfying answer: if a show tells a serious story, should it automatically be taken seriously? Admittedly, my knowledge of the original Kamen Rider comes from the manga (never seen an episode of the original series)... But even there -- despite innocents being killed left and right, and despite the sometimes heavy subject matter -- the appearance of a grasshopper-themed super hero fighting animal-themed cyborgs is just absurd. Which is a large part of why I love it.

Do you take Batman seriously? Despite loving The Killing Joke, for example, I'm not sure the concept of a dude dressed as a bat who seeks vengeance is meant to be taken entirely seriously. And that's part of why all the post-modern Batman deconstructions work for me -- the intersection of absurdity and seriousness.

In fact, if I have to assign a single reason for my enjoyment of superheroes, it's the conflation of absurd and serious elements. They enhance each other. Using goofy heroes to explore serious concepts is what makes the genre work for me. I'm a sucker for contrast.

I know I'm rambling now, but it's interesting. Whether to take Kamen Rider entirely seriously... I don't know...

But I do know it's less black and white than I earlier implied.

 

[Burkion]

V3 is a great one because a lot of its issues with looking campy and silly are just a product of its time. The core of the story is of a man who has lost literally everything in his quest for justice, fighting other people who, like him, were stripped of their humanity, but unlike him lost their sanity as well.

It's summed up wonderfully in one of the quiet moments between him and his opposite, Riderman, who is a man driven for revenge against those who wronged him.

Riderman had his arm burned off by acid but was saved and got a replacement, before the people who saved him were murdered. He is at their grave, and V3 goes to confront him. Riderman tears off his cybernetic limb and proclaims that V3 can't understand the pain he's gone through.

V3, very solemnly, lays it out to him in stark detail.

His parents and little sister were murdered by Destron, and he is no longer human. There is not a bit of his own blood that runs through his body anymore, and the only piece of him that IS human is his brain.


What I'm getting at is that if you can accept the visuals, the silly designs and the production values, Rider is something you can definitely accept as serious.

Same as Batman really. It just depends on how far you can let your suspension of disbelief go.

 

[themidnighter]

What I'm getting at is that if you can accept the visuals, the silly designs and the production values, Rider is something you can definitely accept as serious.

Same as Batman really. It just depends on how far you can let your suspension of disbelief go.

That sounds like an awesome moment you described with Riderman and V3. And it goes back to my point: these men are having this profound exchange while dressed as fucking insect superheroes. Doesn't that make it 100x more awesome?

I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't want to merely "accept" or ignore the series' goofier elements. Because the goofiness enhances my love for the series. Attempts to divorce it from the experience go against my grain.

I rebel against the notion a lot of fandom has that we must ignore or look past the silliness or zaniness in order to appreciate the seriousness. Like they're somehow mutually exclusive. Do we have to view it through squinted eyes or something? Must we prioritize seriousness at all costs, in order for a show to be good or enjoyable? This mentality strikes me as a weak attempt to legitimize an adult's interest in a kid's show -- which in turn strikes me as internalized shame.

The show has goofy elements. If one ignores those, he's ignoring an intrinsic part of the show. He's not watching what it is, he's watching what he wants it to be. Which is not a problem in itself, I guess... merely an annoyance.

And when you get to the bottom of it... Is a fruit-themed superhero really that much more ridiculous than a grasshopper-themed superhero? Or a bat-themed superhero? Or a dinosaur-themed superhero?

Final question: Why do some of us find it so difficult to accept something as simultaneously silly AND serious?

 

[Hell Kaiser Andy]

Well Rider is funny like that because even if certain aspects look silly there's a good message carried with it.

 

[HenshinSlayer]

While I agree with you, I feel like this is slowly turning into the "Ophiuchus Zodiart" of Gaim.

Sorry. Bad habit again. I think I'll just stay out of it now.

 

[Aoi Kurenai]

That sounds like an awesome moment you described with Riderman and V3. And it goes back to my point: these men are having this profound exchange while dressed as fucking insect superheroes. Doesn't that make it 100x more awesome?

Why would it? The content is the same regardless of what they're wearing. It's still a conversation about two differing opinions on what constitutes justice and whether or not it even really matters in the face of revenge. Tokusatsu is all about taking base emotions and playing them up. Shouwa era programs took themselves very seriously and were almost always playing themselves straight, it's not outlandish in any way to take them as such. Whether or not the individual viewer can realize that they're a product of their time and not impose their own concepts of what it means to be goofy or silly is something totally different.

I rebel against the notion a lot of fandom has that we must ignore or look past the silliness or zaniness in order to appreciate the seriousness

If you're a part of the tokusatsu fandom, you're not really any sort of rebel with that mentality. There is a large portion of the fanbase that believes tokusatsu can't be taken seriously - which is pretty BS in my opinion. There are extremes on both ends of the argument and it takes a lot for a person to be somewhere in the middle, taking the serious aspects of a show for what they are and the silly aspects for the same.

I rebel against the notion a lot of fandom has that we must ignore or look past the silliness or zaniness in order to appreciate the seriousness. Like we have to view it through squinted eyes or something -- or that we must prioritize seriousness at all costs, in order for a show to be good or enjoyable. It strikes me as an attempt to legitimize an adult's interest in a kid's show -- which in turn strikes me as internalized shame.

That's the thing though, the shows themselves continue to try legitimizing themselves in the eyes of adults. That's why something like Kamen Rider is thought of as faux J-Dramas. And in the grand scheme of things, tokusatsu shows being strictly kids shows is a relatively recent thing. They were first and foremost branded as family shows in the past, and this meant that there were those attempts made to capture the interest of everyone in the viewing audience. (most likely because TV stations hadn't really expanded by that point)

 

[Burkion]

I think, for certain series, being a family show is the best compromise.

Take the original Ultraman series, without which we wouldn't have much of Toku we do, at least in the form it took. It could swing wildly from straight up comedy parody episodes, to very somber and serious pieces that end bitterly, to just a fun giant monster movie done in 20 minutes. It ran the gambit of silly to serious and back again.

UltraSeven is a more coherent take on that, sticking to the more serious side of things, and includes a freaking CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS COMMENTARY as the basis of one of its episodes. Keep in mind, it was made in the 60s. Note, that's where my avatar comes from, that specific episode.

Yes, a lot of it looks silly or what not, but that doesn't mean you can't appreciate or love how serious it is.

 

[themidnighter]

Why would it? The content is the same regardless of what they're wearing.

How couldn't it? The use of juvenile iconography to comment on profound adult conflicts provides a kind of surreal cognitive dissonance that can't help but be more engaging than the sum of its parts. It also provides exposure to adult concepts in a way young children can more readily accept. So... Awesome x100!

If you're a part of the tokusatsu fandom, you're not really any sort of rebel with that mentality. There is a large portion of the fanbase that believes tokusatsu can't be taken seriously - which is pretty BS in my opinion. There are extremes on both ends of the argument and it takes a lot for a person to be somewhere in the middle, taking the serious aspects of a show for what they are and the silly aspects for the same.

My argument isn't that tokusatsu SHOULDN'T be taken seriously. It's that it is often taken seriously at the expense of other additive elements. Hence my questioning why so many of us can't see it as simultaneously serious and silly

 

[lazycoconut]

I think I have more patience for "darker" themes in Kamen Rider given the tone of the early Showa series. All in all though, recent series are made for a primary audience of children and it does chafe me when people belittle them for being "too silly" and "too childish." Something is not inherently bad just because it's zany or slapstick or "not serious". The Fourze hate got to me in particular because, even though there were things I disliked about it, I cannot fault Toei for wanting to make a fun and wacky show that would make kids smile after the tsunami - to me, that's more important than "good" storytelling or "serious" drama. The tendency of some of the fandom to insist that tokusatsu be serious above all else has put me off ever wanting to see a serious show again.

 

[Burkion]

I wish I knew who you know because the only people I've talked to can't stop wishing it to get even sillier and more zany.

You are right though, just because it's silly or childish does not mean it's bad by default. I don't think I've implied otherwise. I just really hate it when people try to ignore the entire origins of the franchise and where it came from, and where it was STILL coming from as of 2003 or so.