Every topic has a day devoted to it. For instance, September 13, according to many websites on the internet I just conveniently looked up seconds before beginning to type this, is devoted to some of the following topics.
Bald is Beautiful Day, Fortune Cookie Day, International Chocolate Day, International Programmers Day, Kids Take Over the Kitchen Day, National Celiac Awareness Day, National Defy Superstition Day, National Hug Your Boss Day, National Peanut Day, Positive Thinking Day, Roald Dahl Day, Scooby-Doo Day, Snack a Pickle Time, Supernatural Day, Uncle Sam Day
But all of those topics pale in comparison to the one we are talking about today. It’s Kaixa Day, everyone! A very important day!
In all seriousness, Kaixa Day, “celebrated” every September 13th by Kamen Rider fans, most notably fans of 2003’s Kamen Rider Faiz, relates to not just that show’s secondary Rider in Kamen Rider Kaixa, but the character who transforms into him. That would be the deeply baffling Masato Kusaka, as portrayed by actor Kohei Murakami.
Why 9/13? 9-1-3 is the code one uses to unlock the transformation belt’s ability to turn into Kaixa, after all!
Without going in depth into Faiz’s storyline, because that’s an entirely different topic, the Kaixa transformation belt is cursed in that anyone who uses it turns to dust. This is similar to how the Orphnochs, the creatures the belt was designed to defeat, fade away. But for whatever reason, Kusaka is immune to the belt’s effects and hence uses it to fight the Orphnochs.
…or so you would think, from an outsider’s perspective of this series. Truthfully, while Faiz as a show does have the normal Kamen Rider trimmings, you soon realize you are indeed watching a series written by Toshiki Inoue.
So sure, you’ll eventually get scenes where a karate bugman (or several) fight something evil, but much before that you will view countless scenes of PLOT, mostly involving main characters arguing with one another over deeply petty things, making extremely poor decisions and….then the last two or three minutes I suppose could be reserved to suit combat. Maybe. Or maybe there’s an entire episode about ramen for some reason. Within all of that though, most of the characters might be insufferable. But in a likable way?
That is a hallmark of anything Inoue writes, which you would think would make him a poor candidate to be a longtime tokusatsu writer, especially on modern shows where the toyetic elements are far more pronounced.
He, however, was just the showrunner/head writer of 2022’s Avataro Sentai Donbrothers, a show that met with considerable praise from Super Sentai fans on how out of left field it was compared to recent shows in the franchise. And yes, of the few episodes I have watched of Donbrothers, it is indeed a show where characters spend more time arguing with one another and being not specifically nice people than actually fighting monsters.
Should you watch Kamen Rider Faiz? Gosh, I don’t know. It’s a fascinating relic of a show in many cases. It aired in 2003, but you wouldn’t know that based on the fact it’s clearly shot on videotape and, with that, looks like a soap opera. The effects are slightly better than vintage Doctor Who, which is in no way a compliment to either show. As mentioned above, the show is way more about characters and how they interact with one another than the title character’s fights against evil. It’s not a particularly positive show, featuring much of the grim commentary one comes to expect from a Toshiki Inoue joint. (The soap opera look/pacing certainly helps/hurts!)
But hey, if you’re into that sort of thing – maybe this might be of interest to you?
Happy Kaixa Day everyone! May you forever seek solitude and actively be weird around other people while never explaining yourself, all while making very strange faces.
Have a great day thread, everyone. Take care of yourself!
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