why do you think the tone of gavv is distracting you compared to things like donbrothers and saber?
for me, gavv's premise and its gimmick are almost always at odds with one another. as much as this is probably the best produced kamen rider in years, and as strong as komura's writing has been (her first show with good pacing!), it's lacking that connective tissue between what it's doing vs what it's selling that throws the whole thing out of whack when i watch it
gavv has gone all in on the dark confections being a metaphor for drugs, and every monster of the week being an addict (kind of its own can of worms there), and exploring shoma's trauma from the abuse he endured as a child, and that's just a Lot to put on the shoulders of the guy wearing potato chip armor, you know? when a show like saber or donbrothers gets intense and tugs at your heartstrings, it's still typically on a very heightened, superheroic level, and while that's definitely present in gavv, rakia holding his dying brother in his arms after kicking him out for using their money on drugs is. not. which makes it stand out all the more when it cuts back to him and he's pudding.
other shows have touched on similar subjects before, but fourze's switches were mainly used to explore the anxieties of being in your Teens™, and W's memories felt a lot less intrusive in the world of a regular (by rider's standards) bug-eyed detective's show. even the fruit was never what took me out of gaim, partially because he was designed to be as much a Samurai as he was an Orange, and i can see how you get to forbidden fruit and rival dance teams from the lockseeds and warring states theming even if i didn't like the end result
and on top of all that i think about how gavv just kind of. throws you into the deep end almost immediately. before i even got a chance to really invest in this world and these characters im watching shoma's mother get murdered in front of him and it's like. wow okay. well now he's marshmallows. part of why boonboomger's heel turn near the end doesn't ring false is because the seeds have been planted throughout the show's entire run and i've grown to love the cast so much over the year. you pull that stunt with boondorio in the early episodes and im likely coming away thinking "really? you're doing all this for the tire people show?"
i'll stop there since i feel like im rambling on, because honestly im also still having trouble parsing why exactly gavv isn't fully hitting for me. and i don't mean to sound negative because i do think it's a good show! i AM enjoying it. i just wish i could be fully invested in the Peak Fiction™ everyone else seems to be experiencing
