#sakura igarashi x hana natsuki

[pandaluver]

Since it's Valentine's Day, I'm going to share my main ships for different Kamen Rider Series. Going from newest to oldest.

1. Ace x Neon! Even though there has been a drought of content for them lately and the thing with Neon trying to frame Ace, they are still the only ship I have for this series.

2. Sakura x Hana! I know their relationship is considered sisterly and there's no chance of them being canon but I loved the heck out of their interactions.

3. Rintaro x Mei! Ngl they are the main reason why I continued to watch Saber.

4. Aruto x Izu! I swear if we don't get Aruto making Izu genuinely laugh at some point, I'm going to be even more depressed than I already am!

Didn't have any ships for Zi-O so...

5. The BEST MATCH, Sento x Banjo! The closet to canon gay ship in Kamen Rider History! One of my favorite scenes was when Sento was weirdly jealous of Another Build hugging Banjo in Zi-O

6. Emu x Kiriya! How could I not ship them with the number of times Emu has ridden Kiriya on screen? (If you get the joke, you get the joke)

I couldn't get invested enough in Ghost to remember the main cast names let alone come up with a ship so.....

7. Chase x Kiriko! I know Kiriko is canonically married to Shinnosuke with a kid but this will always be my main ship for Drive!

8. Kouta x Mai! I know they have each other’s company in a paradise of their own making but how are they not bored out of their minds on that planet?

9. Haruto x Koyomi! Let’s be real, they were basically married the whole series.

10. I'm ending this with my very first Kamen Rider Ship, Ryusei x Tomoko!

[emotionallychargedtowel]

That post about Higuchi Kouhei and his cat got me thinking about some other tokusatsu-to-BL pipeline actors that are on current or recent BLs, so I thought I'd do a screenshot post about Kamen Rider Revice, a recent toku series that features two lead actors who star in current BLs, plus an actor in a smaller role who was part of a side couple in a BL series that recently completed a second season.

The main character of Revice is Igarashi Ikki, played by Maeda Kentaro, currently playing Ohara Yamato in I Can't Reach You. His siblings are very central to the story as well--by the end of the series, the story is centered around his whole family. Ikki's younger brother Daiji is played by Hyuga Wataru, currently playing Yamasuge Ryuiji in If It's With You.

Here they are having a bath in the opening credits for the show (the Igarashi family runs a public bath house).

I should say at the outset that I can't entirely recommend Revice, especially to folks who don't already have some tokusatsu-watching under their belts. It's a hot mess in a lot of ways. But it does have some really outstanding highlights. The best aspects of the series, in my book, were:

Kagerou (Daiji's demonic alter ego),

George Karizaki (my beloved),

Igarashi Sakura/Kamen Rider Jeanne (the most formidable female Rider I've seen in any series in the franchise), and

the relationship between Sakura and Natsuki Hana (a rare example of a convincing Sapphic ship in a franchise well known for "heated drama between men").

I'm not going to get into 2 and 3 here, as tempting as that would be, but I'll include as much of 4 as time/space permits.

It might seem weird that I'm not recommending a series with some of my favorite characters in the entire Kamen Rider franchise AND a relationship between girls that is a hair's breadth from being canonically queer. It's just too much of a trainwreck to endorse as a whole. But as I said, the highlights are really something.

One of the biggest issues I had with Revice was that Ikki, the protagonist, just isn't a very compelling character. As a result I don't think Maeda Kentaro really got to show the range of his acting abilities in this series. (This just makes me more curious to see him in ICRY. From the excerpts I've seen so far, it seems like he shows a really different side of himself.)

Maeda appreciators might still enjoy the many determined faces and creepy smiles he gets to dish out in this series. Here's a sampling.

It's possible they'll want to look away when he starts doing things like this, though.

Fans of both Maeda and Hyuga might enjoy some of their scenes fighting side by side, including doing their various henshin poses (the moves they do before they transform into their masked Rider forms).

Or when they do things like this bonkers flying kick.

Thankfully, Daiji is a more interesting character than Ikki, so Revice gave Hyuga some more challenging things to do. I thought Hyuga also just really made the most of every opportunity the show presented to him. He was seriously impressive. This is the reason I was sold on IIWY the moment I saw the announcement about it based solely on Hyuga's involvement.

Here's a sampling of Hyuga as Daiji.

In addition to playing Daiji, Hyuga also played Kagerou, Daiji's aforementioned demonic alter ego. Kagerou was formed from thoughts and emotions that Daiji repressed. The biggest of these was his resentment toward Ikki. But apparently Daiji had also been repressing a desire to be a somewhat gender non-conforming goth, because that's Kagerou's other raison d'etre.

In some ways, it's hard to imagine a character more different from Ryuji. If they have anything in common, it's the fact that they both place a high value on honesty.

One other thing that's worth noting about Hyuga's work on Revice is that he was only 17 when the show premiered. He showed major dramatic range in this part, not only playing two very different characters but doing everything from low-key nuanced scenes to bombastic high drama. Not to mention the stunts! Doing all of this at 17 is seriously remarkable.

Now for our bonus dude! There's a secret evil-fighting organization called Weekend that secretly keeps tabs on the Igarashi family for years before coming out of hiding to join the big central battle of the series. One of the Weekend operatives is Ushijima Hikaru.

Look familiar? Maybe not, he didn't make faces like this on his BL series.

How about now? Yep, it's Oku Tomoya, who plays Hanabusa Asuka on both seasons of Minato Shouji Coin Laundry.

Oku has some big scenes and interesting moments in Revice. He does some romantic pining, goes through big-time loss, does quite a bit of martial-arts sparring, gets seriously injured, and more. He even gets to henshin a few times. Here he is getting ready to do just that with Sakura and Hana. Those Weekend uniforms are pretty hardcore in a 70s flight attendant sort of way, but I feel like Oku really sells it here.

While we're on the subject of Sakura and Hana, I feel like I can't mention their relationship without including some moments where their story came particularly close to tipping into full-on yuri.

If you're going to do an enemies-to-lovers story, why not make them full-on superhero nemeses?

The word "date" might not technically get used by the characters, but there's no mistaking that the amusement park hangout Sakura invites Hana on--while she is still a fully-functioning bad guy, I might add--is definitely a date.

Most of the time when a Rider beats their nemesis for the final time they don't hold each other tenderly in the sunset.

By the end of the series, they're in a big tub together at the Igarashi's bath house.

There are tons more examples but you get the idea. If this isn't borderline-yuri I don't know what is.

[cross-zmagma]

Hana is so gay for Sakura that her song literally says it. I mean, she sing about falling for a new "blossom" and then implies they are Sakura Flowers. Then sings about forever loving the image of Sakura that she has on her head. Sisterly, my ass. They dating.

I swear these two are just the best Revice Ship and I hate how much they keep saying they are sisters, like really?! Like, Have you seen the same show I Have?!

[asknarashikari]

Cute idea for you: Lovekov calling Hana "wifey" because of her dating Sakura and all... I wonder how the cast would react?

Fun fact, the Japanese word for "bride" is [hana-]yome, so Love-chan calls Hana "Hana-yome" ("Hana-bride") which deeply embarrasses Sakura and amuses Hana.

Ikki, Daiji and Genta though... they're not ready for the idea of Sakura getting married and refuse to acknowledge the nickname's existence

[cross-zmagma]

This two are married after all. Subs are Out by the way, thanks EiGo.

Yep, this two are definitely sisters, nothing else, definitely.

And the post credit scene never happened btw, I'll be waiting for the fix it Fic one day, where they rewrite the last scene into something that actually fits the relationship they share.

[cross-zmagma]

Best Revice Ship. And also just really cute, I was expecting to see Daiji's reaction to what she said but well, they decided to not show how he felt about this comment. I think it would have been good to see how he feels about the idea that he made his sister cry. This was a solid Revice episode and I'm excited for next week.

[cross-zmagma]

I just watched the Revice Final Stage and... Um...

This was Overkill. They are Phase 2, probably, they needed to separate them not kill them.

This is the part where I paid the least attention to what they said and more to the Suit, as in holy Fruit Jesus, Shin Revice is definitely one of the best Revice Suits.

This was gay. And about the SakuHana, it's worth mentioning that this was in Ikki's head so to Ikki, Hana would only go to an amusement park with Sakura and Sakura alone. That's kinda funny.

And whatever the deal was with George and Hiromi, as in, who knows what they have or feel for each other.

Also it was kinda lazy, funny and to not really think while watching, I mean:

This idea was actually good btw:

Also, they really will miss this huh? Can't wait for more of the Revive cast one day, hope we see them again even after the CrossOver with Geats.