HEROW
Joined
Sep 12, 2007
Messages
17,181
If his change would have being obvious, then that would have just being bipolar. Instead, it was gradual and constant. Like it should be.

He actually did have a brief sudden personality change, especially when he became Fangire King, suddenly walking with swagger and all. Felt really out of character since a few episodes from then, he was still the nice Wataru that he was. Even if there is actual character development, Kiva executed it poorly.

Even when he was being an a$$whole, I still caught glimpse of Nago's development. Which is why I don't find it so sudden. I think the problem is that people get caught up on his comic relief phase, which makes his last bits of development seem awkward.

Then the execution is still poor since forcing the comic relief part had adverse effects on how people see his character development. It all looked like he was just crazy.

He was punished, though briefly, when he realized that he had lost everything. And at the end, he was trying to make amends for the evil he has done.

I don't remember anything mentioned that he will be making amends, it was like, all his past crimes are forgotten and everything is okay now.

I don't see that as change for Otoya, from the start he declared that he would do anything for the woman he "loved". He didn't want to die, he just wanted to keep his word and protect Maya.

As I said, he was just being stubborn throughout the series. Let's face it, Otoya totally throwing Yuri under the bus felt out of place... It would have been better story-wise if he just cheated on Yuri for Maya instead of acting like there was never anything between Yuri and him.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2005
Messages
4,312
Personally I think it's the 2nd worst Heisei series, next to the 2nd half of Hibiki.

Not as long as there's a Faiz. And a Decade. To say nothing of Ryuki. Kiva's behind many series--not because it's bad though, but because it's just not as good as so many other series. It HAD secured a place behind the Awesome Three (Kuuga/Agito/Blade), but then W happened and well...

That said, I don't have nearly the problems most people have with it:

- I like Wataru's growth into an actual human being instead of a germaphobe that was afraid to touch everything.

- Otoya's hilarious. Full stop.

- Form Spam's a stupid term and needs to go away. (Did I mention I love Emperor Form?)

- Taiga's the most hilarious villain ever. He was supposed to have it all, but over the course of the series, everything he had except money was jacked. The Kiva armor. The girl (who was going to marry him but didn't love him). The Zanvat Sword, which was The King's Sword. Before he got the Dark Kiva armor, really all he had was that stupid tattoo.

- Nago is like a flawed version of Tendou, so he amused me.

- I enjoyed the story. Go figure.
 
Supaidaman!
Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Messages
551
Kiva also pretty much has the best soundtrack of the franchise.
 
Supaidaman!
Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Messages
551
In hindsight maybe they should have just used Bloody Rose to change to Emperor Form.

... Actually that would have been awesome, AND made more sense.
 
Active Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2008
Messages
7,217
I liked Kiva a lot more when it was airing than now in retrospect. My biggest disappointment besides the shafting of forms and weapons is that how it had set itself up so well to be a Black redux type story and then collapsed entirely at the end with the insipid time traveling. The anime-ish treatment of certain characters with their wacky hijinks didn't help either. It was like Toei really wanted to continue with Den-O but couldn't, so they tried making Kiva emulate Den-O despite it not working in context.

Not as long as there's a Faiz. And a Decade. To say nothing of Ryuki.

Ryuki surpasses Kiva by far. Even Faiz for all its flaws wins out.
 
Lurker
Joined
Apr 29, 2011
Messages
7,427
In hindsight maybe they should have just used Bloody Rose to change to Emperor Form.

... Actually that would have been awesome, AND made more sense.

Nah... Despite how annoying he was at the beginning, I kind of like Tatsulot. And we still got the epic scene of Emperor Form playing Bloody Rose.
 
Supaidaman!
Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Messages
551
It was like Toei really wanted to continue with Den-O but couldn't, so they tried making Kiva emulate Den-O despite it not working in context.

Remember that bit where Otoya possesed Wataru for 2 episodes? That was weird.

Watching that all I could think of was "Man, they really want this show to be Den-O..."

I enjoyed Kiva enough, but it's not really a series I'd recommend everyone run out and watch. It had its moments but it also had lots of bits that could have been done a lot better.
 
Mad Skillz
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
19,145
Kiva was a bit of an oddball show for me, though I do like it quite a lot. The first 20 episodes or so weren't the greatest. (what, is that a trend?) The series had this really interesting set up that I thought might be expanded up later on and that's really why I kept watching for most of those episodes, though it was never expanded upon too much, I did like what we ended up getting. My major complaints don't come from time travel and whatnot (I didn't mind that at all), where Kiva fails in my eyes is basically trying to make itself a naturally occurring story. There were a lot of times it felt like a constructed series of events rather than a smoothly flowing story and that always bugged the heck out of me. Characters meeting in odd ways, a lot of pivotal points not being nearly as impressive as we were lead to believe they would be, and some weird death cop outs just made the show a whole heck of a lot impressive than they would have been otherwise.

Though, in general, I'm really fond of the story Kiva presents that isn't part of its tokusatsu element, it was really interesting to finally see Kamen Rider go all out in terms of allowing a love story to actually happen. I think I would have liked the series a lot more as a full 50ish episode series following Otoya, but it seems like Toei has something against letting a series be set in any time frame but the present.
 
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