Kamen Rider Kuuga: No Fear! No Pain!
was sort-of marathoning Kamen Rider Kuuga while attending to deadlines. i've finished the series and am now a bit sad. all in all, i didn't expect to become so affected by an 11-year-old tokusatsu show. if there were an active fandom of this nowadays, i wouldn't hesitate to jump into it. there are so many fics running through my head at the moment.
an excellent review of this series is here. i'm pressed for time at the moment and don't really have the concentration to go into it in detail, but suffice it to say, ichijou is now one of my favorite fictional people, and godai is now one of my favorite cheerleader heroes.
also, this conversation marks one of the best moments of my fangirl career:
godai: good morning!
ichijou: why am i on your shoulder?
godai: isn't it okay?
ichijou: ...this is one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
godai: (laughs)
ichijou: (goes back to sleep)
here are some of the things i loved about it:
1. a plethora of costume changes. seriously, i read somewhere that kuuga went through OVER 30 ARMOR CHANGES during the series. i've seen him change into 3 costumes in a single episode. and each and every single armor upgrade makes you "waaa~ *_*"
2. there's such a tight storyline, i am fascinated by how it's drawn out into 49 whole episodes, fillers and side stories and all. some of the side stories were a bit heavy and existentialist, i think, but still fascinating.
3. there were a lot of godai/ichijou moments. a LOT. the writers slashed as if it were their business... which it probably was. i don't mind this even if it's in my face because i love the two characters and i love them together. they DO make a great team.
4. there were some good stock moments - such as whenever godai has to borrow ichijou's gun on short notice. at least twice, they've had to exchange weapons while on separate moving vehicles. there's no way to NOT find that awesome.
5. BIKE FUUUUU.
6. ichijou is pretty. so pretty, in fact, that it sometimes distracts from his utter cool. i wish they'd given him bigger guns, because his beauty could handle it.
7. godai's thumbs-up trademark may be corny, but there's actually a gorgeous backstory to it. and since i learned that, i couldn't get the coolness out of my head, no matter how dorky people look while doing it.
highlight for spoilers: the thumbs-up sign is billed on the show as a sign of approval for people who've done excellent work in ancient rome. it's actually the sign that allowed defeated arena gladiators to live. it's a sign of survival, which godai's cheerful nature sort of marvelously downplays. AND ICHIJOU MAKING IT UNCONSCIOUSLY TO COMFORT HIMSELF UPON BEING TOLD THAT GODAI MIGHT NOT SURVIVE JUST MADE IT 1000x MORE COMPELLING.
8. the involvement of the police force and other competent entities was a refreshing change of pace. the presence of authority figures made the show feel more like an unfolding mystery than a fantasy.
and some of the things i did not love that much about it:
1. while almost everyone else is a good, solid character, godai borders on two-dimensional. he isn't, but he comes damn close. i take this back. can't say much more without spoiling, but take my word for it: it needs to be taken back.
2. the women. the women were... well, i suppose only in keeping with the times. everyone except sakurako and enokida ♥ were dispensable. and i didn't warm up to sakurako at all.
3. the body count was morbid. i mean, with a death toll like that i'd get other gov't agencies involved... but as it stood, only the tokyo police force, a handful of solo professionals and kuuga were dealing with everything. my enthusiasm at having the police involved was sort of dampened because of that.
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that said, i am on a hunt for good fanfiction/fan art/doujinshi, everything, and it's been so hard to find. i would greatly appreciate recs!