takumi and mari's relationship

[MattComix]

Like I said, it's fairly open. The Mari/Kiba crush I picked up right away on, and between the Yuka/Keitaro thing, Kaido and Kusaka pining for Mari, Mihara probably liking what's-her-bucket who he almost got killed, the increasingly-abusive Takuma/Kageyama relationship, and Mari liking Sawada even though Sawada's a creepy little weirdo who sets origami on fire and slaughters entire clubs for kicks, and all that crazy stuff....it seriously felt like Takumi got left out to me.

I didn't really get a sense that he and Mari were anything more than friends in the TV series. Like, it had the set up for one of those romantic relationships that starts out antogonistic, but it never felt to me like they really focused on it that way, and I think Takumi cared more about Mari for the fact that she was a good friend (something he didn't have many of before the series, if any at all) and there's also a lot of guilt on his part for...well, when you finish the series.

Oh god, Sawada. The absence of the entire ryuseijuku (sp?) thing is pretty high on my list of reasons for liking the movie better. But I'll get into that in another thread. I see where you're coming from. My impression was they left everything undefined because maybe they felt the young boys watching the show would not be into it.

For the record, I'd probably like Faiz more if they had gone with a more overt romantic angle, cuz I'm a sucker for the relationships that start out with the people disliking each other like Mari & Takumi did. :laugh:

Agreed totally. Half the fun of the early eps was just their banter back and forth. I sometimes wish that the series had actually kept them on the run like that just dealing with each other instead of settling into a steady routine of laundry, Orphangst, Kaido/Keitaro antics, and Kusaka dickery.

OMG! What if they had a kid? He/she would be a hybrid. THat would be nuts :laugh:

This I would have actually liked a whole hell of alot better for Takumi himself than what the show did. As I've said before I really hate the idea of a Rider also having the ability to turn into a monster. I think what you could have done is that if Takumi were a hybrid, he would mabe have some heightened physical abilities but have no ability to henshin into an Orphenock, but the Faiz Gear would still read him as one. I think the idea that he is the product of a human/Orphenock union would have also been very symbolic in context.