Kamen Rider Fourze Discussion Thread 3! Masta Kita!!!!!

[lazycoconut]

OOO is much better than Fourze. OOO's ending was well developed. You can argue that the Greeeds died too quickly, but Eiji and Ankh's relationship developed perfectly. You'll see what I mean when you finish Fourze.

What if he still likes Fourze better? Not everyone must think the same way.

 

[Shirayuki]

After watching the episode in a higher quality, I noticed things that bumped the ending up a few notches compared to what I thought of it when it aired.

 

[KamenRiderUNDERGROUND]

IMO there was too much focus on Cancer, yes he was well developed but too many episodes dedicated to him. Alternatively they could have a period where several new Horoscopes were together, and include more interaction between them, rather than the MOTW.

They did that well in Blade, during the mid 20 episodes, high level undeads were sealed frequently and were MOTW-like, but there were many of them together with the time-span overlapping.

 

[Tom Constantine]

Well that was a bit weird wasn't it?

I guess it was alright, it wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't bad, much like the whole show itself. Gentaro couldn't really kill the chairman, it wouldn't suit his character, although they pretty much ignored that Ryusei had no qualms with doing it to Leo.

I'm more surprised they brought Kengo back in the episode, instead of leaving it open, in a weird double twist way.

Action and directing was top notch as per Koichi Sakamoto way.

Is there something culturely different that I didn't understand the whole ceremony scene or was it just complete madness? Probably madness.

The last episode definitely was far from amazing, bit like the whole show really. Where would it go in the Heisei leader board? Probably around the middle.

 

[Arkvoodle]

The finale was pretty good; tons of great action with some emotional moments that nicely tied into the heart of the series.

But it did nothing to resolve my isses with Fourze.

Spoiler

What about the people on the M-BUS? The remaining Horoscope users could've been interesting backup for Gentaro but instead they're just forgotten and might as well be stuck there forever now.

Kengo's return at the end was predictable and lame; one of several elements done better elsewhere.

Meteor is still more or less a waste of space

I didn't hate watching Fourze but I definitely don't count it among my favorites.

 

[hfolkner]

The ending wasn't that bad, but they did leave a lot of things unresolved. Hopefully the movie and the Wizard-Fourze movie wars solves a lot of things.

I wanted to know more about Gentaro's parents. If they revealed them to be working along with Kengo's dad or something (before they died), that would have been interesting.

What I liked about some of the characters was that for the most part they really developed over the course of the series. I think it's very obvious with Tomoko; she was this really weird girl early on but she managed to reach out to other people and have friends (and a boyfriend too) by the end.

With other people it's a dice roll. Take Yuki for example.

 

[Solo the Wingman]

The last episode more or less nailed my expectations, which weren't set very high. I honestly found myself hating watching this episode (not the episode itself, the act of watching it) because it meant that this was it. This was Fourze's last chance to redeem itself and the episode wasn't doing a really good job of it.

The fight was decent. The plot was as contrived as ever. That was about the whole of it. Wizard's cameo was by far the best part of the episode.

I thought about doing a 'Things I Loved/Things I Hated' list for Fourze as a whole... but I'd have a hard time doing that. Part of what irritates me about Fourze is that when all cylinders are firing, I love it. When they aren't firing in unison, the same elements that I love fall apart and don't work.

Take Gentaro. When he's written well, I love him as a character. When he's not, he's a total dork. It's the same with the switches: some are really inspired and cool-looking... others I can help but question why they exist. I loved Meteor's debut; then he gained that stupid Beyblade (why did they have to show that stupid zip line in the finale? Other episodes were smart enough to just cut it out altogether) and became Accel v2 and I lost my enjoyment of his character.


Thanks for the ride, Fourze. We had our ups, and boy did we have our downs. But you did your job through and through. May the next Movie War treat you better.

 

[Allio]

While the final fight was kinda meh, I'd say Fourze had one of the better epilogues in a while IMO.

my thoughts exactly... much better than Faiz

 

[Toku Prime]

Anyway, it would be nice to see something like early Heisei again (although with it being less hilariously cheesy); but I'm glad Kamen Rider has found it's funny bone. Compared to Fourze, something like Kuuga is a total drag to watch.

I can see what you mean. Den-O is one of my favourite Rider shows, in part because I think it is a funny show. I don't mind the lighter tone the franchise has taken since then. However, the humour used in Fourze really wasn't to my taste, and as such those scenes really were "grit your teeth and bare it" moments and I'm quite glad they phased them out as the show went along. That's not neccessarily bad writing - any comedic show that doesn't work for a particular viewer's sense of humour is going to come off badly to that viewer. Sadly Fourze didn't work for me, just as the humour in Den-O doesn't work for a lot of people. But if Wizard wants to be funny, and it matches my sense of humour, I'll be quite happy for it to be comedic.

Alright... Past year Kengo and Yuki toying with an Astro Switch and now Haruto showing off his blingbling magic ring... Has Kamen Rider found its own way to perform the "passing the torch"?

Seems like it. There was also a scene in Double where Foundation X members were shown holding medals from OOO, so it seems that an early cameo in the previous show's finale is now the KR version of Sentai's handovers.

On a side note, at the start, how did Gentaro get the Fourze Driver back?

I know you posted this before subs came out, but just to confirm Gamou handed it back to him when he entered the rabbit hutch/hatch, telling him not to get in his way but to use it to save anyone he can (when his warp gate opens and causes massive destruction over Japan). It's not a bad moment as it sets up the idea that Gamou is determined to carry out his plan, but isn't entirely uncaring to the lives of other people.

Well it seems like the trend is for likes and dislikes...

Liked about the finale
While fighting in Cosmic States, Gentaro uses a rider punch and rider kick. They're not module attacks; his fist/foot gains an energy glow and he hits them. I know Cosmis States had a random energy shield in it's very first appearance, but that's the first time we've had these attacks seemingly powered by Gentaro rather than being limit breaks. It felt like his first "proper" rider attacks in a way.

The letter scene. The actors really were on their A game. They sold it well, and it provided the motivation for the rest of the episode perfectly.

The "graduation" scene. I know many people dislike it, and I admit it's a little quirky and cheesy. But that's exactly what the KRC concept was, and that scene really summed up the club and what it was for. One of the rare instances where I found a finale did the better thing by not just having the rider and big bad slugging it out for a few more minutes. Though it's not perfect (as I'll discuss below as it's related to a dislike).

Tomoko asking about Ryusei's girlfriend. I've raged about how this relationship makes no sense because they barely interact...but I'd totally forgotten about the whole "Ryusei might have a girl back home" thing. Now it makes more sense for it to be a subtle mutual longing that never really went anywhere, so I'll put up my hands on this one and say it works better than I had thought.

Nao Nagasawa came back! While it's a shame she wasn't in the show more often, as her character was a much more obvious teacher-mentor than Ohsugi. I guess either she wasn't available enough, or perhaps they just decided to give that role to Ohsugi to give him something to do as they phased the comedy out.

Disliked about the finale
Kengo's return. I predicted it would happen a week ago. The reason I disliked it wasn't just because it was predictable though. As I mentioned above, the letter scene was a fantastic scene with Kengo's friends grieving for him and his letter providing them with the motivation to push on and win the day. Somehow throwing him back in at random at the end seemed to blunt the effectiveness of what came before. Also, it did feel like it was just added on at the last minute rather than being a part of the story. If they had to do this, it would have been nicer if Gamou had refused Gentaro's handshake, but then they had shown him going straight off and fixing the core switch in the hope that he could make things right. Activating the switch appears to do nothing, and Gamou doesn't know if it worked or not when he dies. Really raise the tension on it. Final point on this before it becomes a rant - is Kengo still dependant on that switch being on and intact? If so, GO FIND THE DAMN THING!

Shun and Miu's epilogue. Sadly, Shun never evolved beyond being the guy who hopelessly chases Miu. It was all Kengo could mention about him in the letter. Even in the finale, he's trying and she's just blowing him off. Also, one of the things I did like about this series was the way that Miu was a snobby "rich *****" who ended up making friends with the people she used to hate and became a wise, caring and capable leader...and right at the end she's back to being an airhead who just cares about bling. It was a bit of a let down.

Ryusei's going back to his old school. First of all, is it really that easy to go back and forth between schools? What about his parents? It just didn't make too much sense. I'd almost have rather he just turned up in the end wearing the standard school uniform as an indication that he's both staying and has become a true part of the group.

The rest of the 'dark nebula captives' never returned. I know they were bad guys, and the show perhaps just cut them for time as their stories were tertiary plots at best by that point (maybe they'll do a director's cut that mentions them?). But would it have killed them to have shown an automatic system on M-Bus monitoring cosmic energy in the atmosphere building as Saggitarius' warp gate got bigger and bigger, and doing a kind of 'emergency beam-out' at some point?

Have mixed feeling over
JK didn't get an ending. He's just giggling during the Ryusei/Tomoko one. But I've no idea what a proper ending for him would have been like so <shrugs>

The main Gamou/Fourze battle. On the one hand, it makes perfect sense that Gentaro would try and wear him down by cycling through all his most powerful attacks one after another. On the other hand, this series was more about the modules than the forms. Some of my favourite action scenes are when they used an unusual combination of switches to do something cool. It's a shame they didn't do something with that, or even took the (massively underused) option to have Cosmic States mix some switches together to create new attacks.

 

[Solo the Wingman]

Final point on this before it becomes a rant - is Kengo still dependant on that switch being on and intact? If so, GO FIND THE DAMN THING!

I'm betting that they completely forget about the Core Switch and it becomes an integral part of the next Movie War. After all, they never bothered to investigate the source of the Switches or check out the M-Bus. Why would the Core Switch be any different?