Kiva isn’t a popular one. Western Kamen Rider fans tend to have a disdain for this entree, claiming it has awfully-written characters, inconsistent writing and a bad handle on its concepts. Look at Japanese polls for the best Kamen Rider series and it usually ranks near the bottom of the barrel. This came as a bit of a surprise after initially admiring its unique horror aesthetic and bold soundtrack for quite a time before watching it. While most Rider seasons tend to have a couple of main themes going for them, Kiva takes nine steps forward and goes all out with violin-strumming, wine-necking, stained-glassed gothic galore.
After the guitar-thrashing main theme ‘Break the Chain’ plays for the first time alongside the show’s opening video, with the main protagonist emerging from a bed of bloody roses and a vampire-inspired Kamen Rider handling a violin in a torch-lit gothic hall, it’d only be natural for you to think this ought to be as dark and thematically-unique as the franchise gets. I was intrigued. ‘How can a show with such dedicatedly different aesthetics be so bad compared to other entrees in the franchise?’, I thought while doing some cardio yet again to Silent Shout. So I gave it a shot and watched 16 episodes. Even all the negativity I heard beforehand didn’t totally prepare my disappointment.
If there’s anything to be said about Kiva, it’s what to expect of its gothic aesthetics in relation to the actual show’s contents. If you’re only in it for the iconic tokusatsu action, there’s plenty to like here. The gothic Castlevania-esque aesthetic incorporates the formulaic rubber-suit monster designs with stained glass motifs, which work very pleasingly. The main Kamen Rider of the show, Kiva, has a much heavier, monstrous movement to him to aid his vampiric appearance (which may or may not be intentional given how much suit actor Seiji Takaiwa complained about the weight strain of having to fight with real chains attached to the suit). And, wait, that’s not plenty at all! Yes, the rest of Kiva’s action has little to do with keeping faithful to all the organ-churning grittiness in the opening and is instead just standard Rider choreography, with no fights even being set at night. But as for the actual narrative and drama, Kiva manages to be even more inconsistent and might just be the oddest season yet. But all initial disappointment aside, is that really so bad in a genre like tokusatsu?
After Kiva’s has successfully lured you in with its bold, risk-taking horror promised on the cover and you dive into the 48 episode show, it turns out it was a ruse all along! It merely stapled an A4 picture of vampirism, gothic horror and all that good stuff on top of what seems to be a messy father-son J-Drama script written by someone with an ugly case of ADHD. Seriously though, screenwriter Toshiki Kurenai clearly didn’t have enough time to space out character priority and atmosphere-layering when writing this show. Given how triumphant some of his other tokusatsu works were with telling compelling episodic stories while developing attachable characters (Jetman, Agito etc.), Kiva feels like it’s attempting to juggle a weighty ensemble of characters across a challenging narrative structure at the complete cost of its selling themes. Allow me to give a ‘brief’ plot description.
Wataru is a young violin-maker who resides in an inherited dusty mansion who spends his time trying to varnish a violin to surpass the masterpiece of his vanished father while trying to uncover the mystery of a killer vampiric race known as Fangires who drain humans of their life essence. He also has a smiling CGI golden bat friend who allows him to transform into the chained avatar Kiva, who can kill these monsters by giving his leg bat wings and kicking his bat logo into their chests. How brilliant! But despite all these unexplained flashy tropes and bonkers concepts, this stuff is all very expected of tokusatsu. Behind the action-augmenting gimmicks, we mostly follow a pretty basic narrative of Wataru’s socially-inept shut-in self forming connections with strangers he thinks may be associated with his father, Fangires or for gaining his confidence in violin. Sound a little basic? Well how about a completely different narrative structure? Because Kamen Rider Kiva is told amongst two constantly interchanging timelines. Wataru’s in 2008 and his father, Ootoya’s, in 1986 long before his disappearance.
In this second narrative, Ootoya is a brash violinist whose passions consist of demonstrating tear-jerking solos and having affairs with various women. But after his next girl catches his eye, he quickly finds himself caught up with the Blue Sky Organisation, a secret agency specialising in advancing weapons technology and killing Fangires, and becomes intrigued in working for them for both humanity’s sake and to win over the attractive main Fangire hunter, Yuri. Multiple anomalies soon begin appearing with both the villains’ behaviours and some possible infiltrators in the BSO.
Right off the ‘bat’, this type of split narrative is very unique with huge potential. Multiple factors in Wataru’s timeline initially come off as alienating but gradually get explained in the 1986 timeline as Ootoya interacts with various characters that leave a lasting impact on the 2008 state of the Fangire and Wataru’s situation. This allows 2008’s absolutely bonkers episodic plots and concepts to go all out while their needed contexts are expanded on in the more plot and dialogue-heavy Ootoya timeline. You may be asking why there are three superpowered chess-playing people trapped in a dragon castle that can magically give Kiva new abilities? Well that’s gradually explained as Ootoya tracks down some serial killer monsters who’re hiding among the Blue Sky ranks, with the same people in Wataru’s timeline, now more pacifist, claiming they made an unknown promise to the man. What significance does this Blue Sky Organisation and its lead female agent have in relation to Fangire? Well that’s gradually explained as we follow her mother in the same role in 1986 who leads a vengeful war on the vampires alongside Ootoya.
While initially clever, this connected double narrative also proves to be one of Kiva’s biggest flaws and can be seen as just too complex for its own good. Multiple characters get flung at you right from the start with no indication as to their importance until multiple episodes later. I’d say Kiva is a show that demands patience but even that’s not too helpful if you’ve completely lost the purpose of a bunch of characters’ roles in the flap of a vampire wing. Hardly any characters get proper focus throughout the first few episodes I watched as the show drastically tries to race the two-weekly plotlines to fit in 46 minutes, making supposed character development and subtle hints at a Fangire’s scheme race past one’s attention as the two timelines zip between each-other like caffeine-addicted table tennis players. Either that or I’ve clearly just become too passive of a toku viewer.
There are of course some nice slowed-down exceptional moments, such as when a disguised Fangire gets inspired by an intimate violin solo Ootoya plays for him, which steadily transitions into the now-dedicatedly-peaceful Fangire rediscovering the violin in the same room, which has become Wataru’s barren, dusty workshop. The nostalgic effects of time passing is certainly a potential to this 22 year interchange format, so it’s a shame it’s rarely utilised.
This is also an example of how Kiva consistently makes it clear that Ootoya’s narrative is the more interesting one, even if it’s the one without the show’s whole selling point of a metallic hero kicking vampire uglies. Some characters and concepts seem essential in Wataru’s timeline but end up holding much less distinctness to ones with very similar roles in Ootoya’s. For example, in 1986, the IXA system is fought over between a vigilante werewolf man with zero consideration towards humans, a female agent who seeks revenge for her mother’s murder by a Fangire, and Ootoya who decides to finally make a well-needed mature choice in protecting his peers. Certainly some intriguing tension in there. In 2008, the newly-redeveloped IXA system is immediately given to a man who enjoys an evening cup of justice and naturally just wants to kill Kiva to show 2008 can have narrative tension too. How interesting.
As for the very contrasting main characters, Ootoya and Wataru themselves seem to suffer from writer Kurenai being a bit paranoid of the viewer possibly getting bored from the dialogue-heavy scenes found throughout both timelines. Thus, many very unfitting comedic moments butcher the mood of many scenes found in these 16 episodes as attempts to develop the protagonists’ personas. Kamen Rider definitely has a wide array of comedy but usually puts it in a way that fits the shows’ consistent moods. Both Ootoya’s demonstrations of his brash playboy persona and Wataru’s social ineptness are thrown in and exaggerated to the point of completely breaking from the attempted seriousness of Kiva’s themes. Though, Ootoya’s arrogant character is nicely amusing in scenes where he’s met with complete dismissal from Yuri and it’s good to see when he gradually shreds his overly-confident womaniser persona to take responsibility over the Fangire violence.
The raised stakes in 1986 unfortunately only further emphasises how basic Wataru’s story is by comparison. If you can’t connect to him as a character as I certainly couldn’t, you need only pay attention to it as a method of foreshadowing to events revealed in his father’s timeline rather than its own story. The only moments that really grabbed me was seeing Fangires or descendent characters that initially appear in Otooya’s time appear in the present, which made me curious as to how they survived the IXA team in 1986, which slowly gets unveiled in each two-parter. But this, while being more clever narrative structure, again draws more away from Wataru’s, so again, why care about Wataru?
So far, Kamen Rider Kiva has been a very confused entrée in the series. While its great to see a show attempt different methods of storytelling, a balance is needed, and many Kiva’s characters lack the attention of the show to be considered attachable. The gothic horror motif, so far, is hardly present outside some nods in a few fights due to it likely being a nightmare to credibly incorporate gothic themes into two narratives compressed enough already. Kiva holds a bold attempt at thinking outside the box in terms of foreshadowing, with circumstances in 2008 hinting to events bound to happen in 1986, as well as gaining more understanding of characters through interwoven narratives. But ideas on paper only go so far. Maybe this show needed another year or two in its coffin to figure out how to nail its concepts? So as I continue to watch Kiva, this show holds much to be ironed out if it’s to leave a good taste of juicy blood on the fangs.
