How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

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TypicalStandUser
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How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by TypicalStandUser »

Just the other day, a classmate of mine who watches the franchise has confused a reference about using Amazon Cells to become someone like Jin with eating the Helheim Fruit based on the events of Gaim Episode 14. While he's half right, it got me thinking. And another day on Facebook, a guy didn't like it. I didn't ask... So, it REALLY got me thinking.

How can I explain the recently released webseries to the typical watchers?? My classmates have only watched the Heisei and Neo-Heisei shows.

I wanted to go for a comparison that Amazons is similar to videogames like Undertale (Where you could do a playthrough of being a totally violent asshole like Jin when it comes to dealing with the Underground's monsters, which also falls in line with humanity's need to be the top predator), novels like Old Yeller (The fate of the Amazonz from docile animals into rabid beasts), or movies like particularly, Rise/Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Haruka is Caesar without the hesitation to kill his own kind). I also wanted to explain that the show breaks the narratives of the typical Kamen Rider show and reformats it in a neutral stance where the audience can decide who truly is right among the humans and the Amazonz.

Any better ideas???
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by takenoko »

I don't know if analogies would work, since it's a whole different beast than the other Neo Heisei Rider shows and clearly aimed at adults. It's darker and gritter and more violent. And a little more shades of moral grey than the typical Rider show (not a lot more, but a little more).

There are some things that don't work, since I feel like Kobayashi is a bit out of her element when not writing for children/teen shows. And it's hard to compare with Gaim, since Urobuchi is a writer on a total different level than anything else Toei's had in the last few years.

Anyway, I've never been the type of person to explain things. I tell people to go watch it for themselves.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by Catastrophe »

Tell them it's awesome. If they don't want to watch it then its their own fault.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by TypicalStandUser »

Showed the very first episode to my classmates. All of them saw it as boring.

I'm not disappointed. I've resigned to their view of KR as a sugar-sweet kid's hero show just as they watched MMPR as kids.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by takenoko »

/me is disappointed in your classmates

To be fair, not much happens in the first few episodes.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by eijiman »

If you had to make a comparative with regular KR, Jin is a lot like Gou Shijima, he has personal reasons to hate amazons, and for him the only good amazon is a dead amazon. Now with Haruka, he beggins with a regular hero mentality, he will hunt the bad ones, but then he is doubting where his loyalities lie.

Now if you ask me, I think that Jin was in the right, pretty much all the amazons are too dangerous to be kept alive, maybe he and the other special ones weren't but the others were better off dead, even Mamoru. now there are a lot of guys who wont think the same, so in that case it would kinda be like First Blood (the novel, not the film) where you see it from the perspective of two guys who are fighting for two equally right and wrong goals.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by TypicalStandUser »

eijiman wrote:If you had to make a comparative with regular KR, Jin is a lot like Gou Shijima, he has personal reasons to hate amazons, and for him the only good amazon is a dead amazon. Now with Haruka, he beggins with a regular hero mentality, he will hunt the bad ones, but then he is doubting where his loyalities lie.
Only one of my classmates has seen Drive and he's not into it.
Now if you ask me, I think that Jin was in the right, pretty much all the amazons are too dangerous to be kept alive, maybe he and the other special ones weren't but the others were better off dead, even Mamoru. now there are a lot of guys who wont think the same, so in that case it would kinda be like First Blood (the novel, not the film) where you see it from the perspective of two guys who are fighting for two equally right and wrong goals.
I've taken a neutral position on the Humans VS Amazonz issue. That said, I'll read that book.

What I wanted my classmates to realize in watching this show is that not every Power Rangers/Super Sentai/Kamen Rider/GARO/Other mainstream tokusatsu is about Good VS Evil. They are too used to that narrative and I've given up on broadening their horizons in this genre.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by Kuchiri »

But in reality there is Good vs. Evil in this show, however the Good and Evil are on a horizontal line instead of a vertical. Which is something new in mainstream Tokus. (Instead of it being 'Good Rider and Allies' vs 'Evil Organization/Monster' The show has good people in all factions and evil people in all factions.)

Best comparison of Amazons to any super hero show is X-Men. There are mutants who turn out to be evil that went to Xavier's school and then they got kicked to a different team. There are mutants who start out following Apocalypse and Magneto that decide that following either Apocalypse or Magneto isn't a good thing and they either join Xavier's school or just denounce the bad stuff and do good things. Then there are the human onlookers, some are good and support Mutants and some are not so good and try to be all Donald Trump and build walls. There really isn't a toku that does this.
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Re: How to explain Amazons to normal Kamen Rider fans

Post by takenoko »

If we're going to talk about concepts of good and evil in realistic terms, it'd probably be better to say that they're all relative. The Amazons may be a new species, but they're sapient and have rights.

The discussion of morality sort of goes out the window though, since they turn into mindless zombies when they run out of drugs. You may like Old Yeller and want to be his friend, but he's getting put down once he gets the rabies. Any solution to protect Amazons and keep them alive is short term at best. Not to turn this into a repeat discussion of the last episode of season 1.
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