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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Blade
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08-11-2020, 11:42 PM
#
543
Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 30
This time on Kamen Rider Blade:
Ryou, abandoned! Street food stands, in conflict! And the debut of Taiyaki Master Ultimate Form: Special Turbo! (Also Garren or whoever gets a new form, if you care about trivial details.)
It's late, I'm stuffed, and it's the finale to an Inoue fill-in. Let's get to it.
In a lot of ways, I should dislike this episode. It's not like Hajime needed to go on this journey, emotionally. This brief sojourn into a... not a
simpler
life, but maybe less Evil Monsters From Eternity life, it didn't really illuminate anything for Hajime. None of the core cast really grew at all because of this story. Kotaro's brief friendship with Hajime dissolves by the end, with Kotaro not thinking it strange that he weirdly got along really well with Hajime for a day and a half. Tachibana gets a Rouse Absorber, and it's done in a traditionally half-assed Inoue way. (At least Blade had to earn his Rouse Absorber through emotional growth. Garren gets handed the Absorber
and
the Queen!) It's a story that only matters for characters that we're likely to never see again.
And, y'know, writing it out like that, I guess I
don't
like this episode a whole lot? It's a step down from last episode, with more time given to the traditional Superhero Story elements. The Ryou/Michi storyline flourishes are great, but the Blade/Garren fight, along with Hajime's return to Amane, are the most perfunctory We Have A Quota story beats. It's a story that never really was about more than Ryou, and that makes it kind-of an unremarkable conclusion.
Like, it never really figured out what it was trying to say about Hajime, and that's a
big
knock against it. We never got to see what he was getting out of being Ryou, since he spends the entire story in a semi-amnesiac fog. He doesn't end up caring for Michi or the takoyaki gang or whatever. He just wanders into Ryou's story, and then wanders right the hell back out at the end.
Ryou's story, though, it's cute! It goes
hard
on being ridiculous, which is the stuff that works great in this one. The actual Hajime Is In Danger And The Team Needs To Stop The Undead,
holy shit
does no one involved in the making of this episode seem to care about that storyline. All of the momentum and tension is in Ryou reclaiming his life, and that part's hilarious.
I loved that Michi was able to convince Ryou's
own father
that the nearly-monosyllabic, dead-eyed Hajime was actually his son. (Bonus points for him declaring "I have two sons?!” when he first sees Ryou and Hajime together. Dude thought he'd miscounted his offspring all these years!) It's a great gag that, despite being a different personality entirely, people who've known Ryou
for year
s accept that the talkative coward is somehow the imposter. It's a ludicrous premise, and I love that the show committed to it.
(Similarly, I like that when Team Blade has Ryou telling them what happened, Kenzaki's just like Oh That Wacky Hajime Trying To Get Out Of Fighting. I mean, it's normally
insane
to suggest that someone got replaced by their doppelganger due to narratively-convenient amnesia, but Kenzaki's bemused dismissal is equally as insane. But I love that choice in the writing! I love how dense and unobservant it makes Kenzaki! It's so stupid it's great!)
The rest of the Ryou story, it's formulaic, but the specifics are bonkers enough to forgive it. Ryou's suit of armor is... have they made that into a Figuarts yet?! The design is
perfect
, which is a lot more than I can say about Garren Jack Form. (The gold 100% doesn't work for me. Too busy!) It's a neat way for Ryou to feel like he's on Hajime's level, and just a hilarious bit of costuming.
The light-up taiyaki!
Brilliant.
Overall, this one was fine. The Ryou stuff was appropriately insane, but it's a bummer that Inoue couldn't figure out what he wanted to say about Hajime. It's like this story needed another half to it, and we never got one. Pretty fun, still, but not as relevant as I'd hoped for.
Next time on Kamen Rider Blade:
New characters! An attack in Team Blade's living room! And probably a lot less emphasis on putting seafood inside batter!
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on
KamenRiderDie.com
!
Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 08-11-2023 at
04:20 PM
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