Hibiki Series Discussion

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Re: Hibiki Series Discussion

Post by guile_bio »

My honest opinion on the show:
At first, I fell asleep, 5 times in a row during episodes 2 and 3, but it got really good as I watched more. The relationship between Asumu and Hibiki is shown well, though I'm on episode 8, its going good now. And I thought bad of this show for the beginning, and I didn't pay any attention to details or question about it.
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Re: Hibiki Series Discussion

Post by Alessar »

I really enjoyed it overall. I really liked the "my surrogate dad is a super-hero!" underlying theme. I have to randomly interject that Asamu has the Best. Mom. EVER. I thought all the supporting characters (aside from Kiriya) were enjoyable and watching them develop was a lot of fun. Zanki & Todoroki's story arc was amazing and very fulfilling.

I definitely could tell when the budget took a hit. I did not enjoy the movie director taking over creative control. I'm surprised they gave him the job, I didn't think the movie was very good, or very inspired. (Did you guys realize the movie totally retconned the origin of the Oni? Previously, Midori had explicitly stated that her parents invented the Oni henshin device Hibiki used.) So having done this retcon you could see he was trying to shift the series from some kind of magitech-origin to something more like ancient ninja magic (for instance, the shikigami) with Zanki's teacher and the mysterious demon controlling duo's coup. However, after changing those theme elements I expected him to actually "do something" and really gel his vision of the series. Yet, he didn't. Near the end when Orochi started to manifest I started thinking he was going for something a bit like Blue Seed, yet it really failed to get anywhere and the episodes became choppy and a mess.

I didn't mind that Asamu didn't become an Oni in the very end, I just minded that Kiriya rode in and stole his thunder so to speak. All of the material showing how good Asamu was at the Oni training was just a big *tease* from them. The person who really got screwed by all this was Akira. It's like they got to the point where she really should have gone to active status as an oni and they wrote her out because she was a girl and brought in a filler character. (Seriously, the girl was practically more competent than Todoroki when she first showed up.) I would have rather have had any other supporting character get that screen time!

I did feel like in the final episode Hibiki was approving of his protege for making that choice and I felt like the script was just six kinds of awkward. I guess some of that is just cultural stoicism, so the way I feel I should interpret it as Hibiki being very proud of him. I do see why people were all "the Decade stuff was a better ending" but of course, in that AU Asamu really was actively trying to be an Oni which in this original continuity he really wasn't. He just wanted to be closer to Hibiki and learn more from him. (Though, honestly, why he didn't just go play Taicho drums with him sometime I don't understand, that would have been very cool.)
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Re: Hibiki Series Discussion

Post by Battra »

I really enjoyed Hibiki, it was a very refreshing series. It's nice seeing a series where the rider really isn't the star of his own show.

It was very nice to see a rider show that seemed really thought out in the world it presented, whether it was the Takeshi organization actually having gear to actively track down Makamou, or the showing of both sides up ante in terms of the research and weapons they were developing. Even the difference between the giant type Makamou & the smaller Summer Makamou was well handled with Takeshi riders having to switch over to the drum type weapons in order to defeat them. The Riders were handled well too I never got the sense that Ibuki & Todoroki were considered secondarary riders, I think they got as much development and screen time as Hibiki did. Speaking of riders very nice to see absolutely no asshole riders, the riders weren't dicks to each other, IT CAN BE DONE.

I would've liked to actually seen Akira actually become a rider even if it was for only a couple of episodes, would've been nice to see Akira actually grapple with her feelings of revenge while actually fighting the Makamou, it just seemed as if she were dragging her feet for awhile before she finally decided not to become a Rider.

I liked following Asumu & his journey growing up through the series, Hibiki was a very good surrogate father for Asumu. I will say that it did feel like before the production switch that the writer's didn't really know what they wanted to do with Asumu, it was nice seeing him finally get up off his ass and actually start working towards his goal & we did that with the introduction of Yuto I mean Kyousuke Kiriya (though really I never saw any difference in the characters). Kyousuke i'd like to complain about him being your stereo typical loud mouth but his introduction was handled well & he served his purpose in giving Asumu a rival & a reason to really grow up.

The ending for the series was definitely not best, really got the sense they were rushed at the end & didn't know what to do so they just went with the movie monster? Seriously I have no idea what that whole Orochi thing was about, was Orochi coming back if so they never hinted at it or was the Orochi just some major force that caused the Makamou to go berserk, they never really explained.

The music & suits designs were also very good.


Hibiki definitely different in every sense of the word if your comparing it to other Rider series, it is not a traditional rider series. It's a Rider series that will make you question what you might want to see in a rider series. And I absolutely love it.
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Re: Hibiki Series Discussion

Post by useracc31 »

what episode mochida got jealous about asumu and akira being close,anyone? thank you
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Re: Hibiki Series Discussion

Post by mholden020 »

I apologize for super-bumping a 3-year old topic...

I thought I would share my views on the series just in case someone else comes along like I did to find out if the series is really as bad as the rumors say it is. I know that when I was getting towards the end of Blade, I started looking around to see if I should skip it, and the posts in this topic are what got me to watch it. I'm glad I did! Honestly, Hibiki has taken the top-spot on my Favorites list now. If anyone is on the fence about whether or not to skip Hibiki, here you go:

-If you like the story and plot aspects of the Kamen Rider series, watch it.
-If you'd rather they transform after the opening theme and blow stuff up for 20 minutes, move on to Kabuto.

Anyway, my thoughts on Hibiki (obvious spoiler-land):

I went into the series knowing about the staff changes at Episode 30, so I knew that it would definitely be a different series for at least the first 29 episodes. After the first episode ended, I stared at the screen and said, "What the f**k did I just watch?", but after the second episode things started to make sense, and by the fifth episode, I was hooked. What I liked most about the show was that none of the on-screen characters were ever ignored. None had a real focus episode, but each one had extensive character development without actually appearing to be character development. Plus, there was a well placed story around the entire show and it wasn't "We gotta kill these guys, they're a problem". There was character development, relationship development, and a ton of other stuff that happened between the characters, and they still managed to include the battle scenes in a way that didn't ever seem like they were crowbarred in. I also saw a lot of people complain about how the Oni appeared "helmetless" in almost every episode and it was never explained why. It's never directly addressed, but they've obviously missed the little points explaining the Oni weren't in suits, so that's their problem. I liked that part, I think it linked the characters to their "rider" counterpart much better than other series.

After the staff changes, I think the show took a real turn in the way everything worked. It was obvious that they didn't visit the forests much anymore (There was even a line about the Makamou moving to the city), and they stuck to the typical "Toei" locations. Like many, I think Kiriya was awful and de-railed (Ha! Den-o...de-railed..haha) a lot of the story lines that were set in place head of the big change. While the characters didn't change because they'd had a half-year's worth of assembly on them, Kiriya's character was able to change where they were going. It's well-known by now that Asumu was supposed to be an Oni by the end, but I'm really curious as to what was supposed to happen to Akira towards the end of the show. She seemed very Oni-like before episode 30, but quickly made a u-turn to abandon that. It seemed to me that Hibiki and Ibuki had a close relationship for whatever reason, and it would not surprise me if that was meant to continue with Asumu and Akira taking over in their respective places with the same type of relationship. Similarly, Asumu and Hitomi had something going on that was scrapped altogether. I remember a specific string of episodes where Hitomi was worried about Asumu and the adults were talking to her in Tachibana's, but not long after Kiriya showed up she was just Asumu's friend, and the viewer is left to accept it. The only thing that I think might have carried over is the Todoroki and Zanki story, but I don't see how that really could have been overhauled.

The ending was strange, but Takenoko's point on here really made the ending make sense:
For Hibiki you have to think about it not as a complete story, but rather a segment out of life. The Makamou have been plaguing humanity since ancient times, they're not a new evil that was created and will go away.
Completed Series:
-Kamen Rider: Agito, Ryuki, 555, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O, Kiva, Decade, W, Fourze, OOO, Wizard, Gaim, Drive
-Sentai: Jetman, Dairanger, Deka --> Zyuohger
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