[UNFINISHED] My thoughts on Kamen Rider Build -- SPOILERS!!

Honestly it's not quite for me. (images linked and some information are from the Kamen Rider Wiki!!)

My time watching this show was over quite some time because I binged episodes then stopped for several months around the start of the second arc just to pick the show back up just for me to tie a loose end. I've heard this season of Kamen Rider was like one of the best and it gets repeatedly glazed over and over. I pretty much only decided to watch it because of the talk about it online and I really never understood it.

Characters

Sento Kiryu is like a scientist guy ig. He's an ecentric protag but like I never felt an attachment for this guy. When I saw this guy's base form and just some promotional stuff, I visioned this series would be based on real life scientific stuff instead of the animal + inorganic theme. I really thought that red and blue appearance was some magnet based power. I kinda just felt betrayed ngl. I also didn't expect the bromance aspect from Sento and Banjo. I mean yaoi ain't my type of thing but I suspect the whole Sento and Banjo relationship is one of the big things people like about this KR season so maybe this show is piggybacking on that. Speaking of Banjo, I love Cross-Z's design, it just looks cool. Cool dragon and punching the hell out of enemies is like his thing. But why the hell did they then introduce his super form "Cross-Z Charge" 6 episodes after his debut as a Kamen Rider. Not only did I wait till episode 11 to see Cross-Z, he just transforms into his super for like the next several episodes in place of his cool design. And Cross-Z Charge is not even a good design. It looks metally and the head looks like someone spilled ooze on the guy's head. Also about how this guy's main staple is punching, it turns out that later in the show, everyone is just throwing hands. Punching is just what everyone does. I mean there is a story reason why: hazard level (the weird form of power scaling they added) increases physical strength where at one point some of the characters just went to get gas-chambered just to increase their hazard level. They actually let themselves get captured just to be experimented on to increase their hazard level like some people when they go to a tanning salon. Anyway, because hazard level increases physical strength, the characters are really just landing haymakers for a lot of combat. It just sucks because I also want to watch people use weapons or KR Build's multiple forms interchangebly but it really devolved into punching. Next there's Misora, she's not a Kamen Rider but she's also a part of the main cast. I'm dumbing it down a lot but she a really grumpy character who I guess is supposed to mesh with Kiryu. She's an important character because she has the power to create one of the macguffins of the series: the fullbottles. She got that from like an alien from Mars who lives in her armband or something. The whole alien thing is kinda weird but even an alien is the main villain so maybe I'm just weirded at how the whole alien revelation was thrusted onto us where the show went to space sci-fi instead of only technology. I'll skip talking about the journalist woman because not really interesting other than one plot twist that doesn't go anyway cause it gets resolved quickly. There's Kazumi or Kamen Rider Grease and I guess he looks cool and simps for Misora but other than that, ehh. Maybe my biggest failing was having every character fall through me. I do feel bad for the character though. All his close friends just dropped like flies. I think I'm supposed to feel emotional when they did start dying but like, how can I when they died so frequently? Last but not least is Gentoku or Kamen Rider Rogue. Character is quite cool. He's power hungry and wanted Japan for himself. All that is really only because of another macguffin called Pandora's Box which made him and two other villains go evil. It's kind of questionable to make that evilness become reversible through the ol' gas chamber bath but I also do like Gentoku after he became unevil. He's kinda funny, knew all the evil he did was bad, and added to the main character dynamic. I gotta say for all my complaints, the show actually became funnier near the end because of these main characters.

Story

The story is about a Japan divided by big walls created by a space cube called Pandora's box. Three nations were created from Japan and they all want to unite Japan under a new rule and harness the power of Pandora's box. The three nations are Touto, Hokuto, and Seito. Honestly, the overall events of the story didn't really seem that interesting. (at least in comparison to Gaim lol) First arc is about organization Faust who turns people into monsters called Smash. Then second arc is the country of Hokuto invading. Third is Seito invading. Last is main villain being a menace then being defeated. I am very fuzzy about first arc because it was shortly into second arc that I left the show. The first arc was what introduced the gimmicks and everything so I am fuzzier on those more than anything else. The Pandora's Box is a space cube of energy and creating walls but it needs to be powered by full bottles that are limited in number and were manufactured by Faust after the original full bottles were wiped by Misora's alien. I kind of just wonder ... everyone's fighting for these bottles and the protagonist doesn't want Pandora's box to do its stuff. So why not just discard the full bottles, drop them in the ocean or smth? I guess that question can be asked for Kamen Rider OOO because the mc in that show can also do that for their macguffin of core medals and screw over the Greeed even temporarily. I just wish this gets addressed in some capacity by a Kamen Rider show. Another weird thing is that everyone is just holding on to fullbottles 24/7 and they either get dropped when a Rider gets defeated or they don't. It depends on the plot. For Build, they actually did store the full bottles in seperate locations in the second arc but I think they forgot about doing that in future episodes. Through out the show, a guy named Blood Stalk acted as a helper who were originally on Touto's side but then went to Hokuto then Seito's side. Blood Stalk basically turned out to be an alien named Evolt and is the main antagonist of Build. This guy is actually aura. He also gets extremely powerful. He already has possession, matter reshaping, memory manipulation, voice changing, etc. but then he gets even stronger with teleportation, high speed, and BLACK HOLE creation. Literally black holes. If you want to know how he got defeated with such an ability, he sat on destroying Earth until he gets defeated by the merging of Earth with an Alternative Earth. The whole alternative Earth concept was literally just shoehorned in the last quarter of episodes which is quite insane. They really should have done anything other than introducing the concept of alternative Earth to the story all of a sudden. With such a villain and story, it turned out that a lot of character death happens in this show. First majorish character to die is Banjo's girlfriend then the next death I remember is one of Kazumi's (Grease) friends. Deaths after that in no particular order are the other two of his friends, the prime minister of Touto, Nariaki or Kamen Rider Mad Rogue, Kazumi, Gentoku, and more side characters. It's a lot of deaths ngl. I'm not quite sure if that really was a good move for Kamen Rider Build. Just raking up deaths in the show kind of desensitized me. Then again, I didn't have any attachment to the characters which may also contribute to the deaths just feeling eh. Themes of show: anti-war, nationalism, and moving on from the past. Those themes are definitely handled well.

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