[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

This is the episode I most remember for the flanderisation most heavily settling in.

Hibiki's characters... I'm not gonna act like they were all incredibly complex, but they were all very grounded. It's something I joke about Hibiki a lot; that it's a show about demons with musical instruments beating up giant spiders, but also it's easily the most laidback, down to earth, realistic Rider show. Todoroki, for instance, he is a little dim and a little naive; but in a way that you could imagine him being a real person. He's very normal; just someone who needs a bit more experience to be the Oni he wants to be.

Aaaand here he's devolved completely into a cartoonish comic relief character who mugs for the camera and is so stupid he thinks his crush wants a giant fish as a present, whoa-ho-ho isn't that so wacky and funny! I'm fine with a little change in pace, but there's just no resemblance here to the Todoroki that came before. Where his naivety and relative foolishness were previously just some of the aspects that informed his character, they've now been dialed up to 11 and define him now. We saw it in the last couple episodes too with Kogure -- that guy is completely out of place in a season like this. If he was in episode 17 or 25 we would have been reeling from the sudden tone shift, and I don't appreciate it any more just because it's been a few episodes since the original creative team left.

It's not too surprising given this is often how Inoue writes his characters, and that's not an insult -- when it's a series he's actually writing, and it's not about vampires, he does very well with it! His work on Agito and Ryuki was fantastic most of the time, and I've come to respect everything 555 does even if I personally don't vibe with it - hi Fish! - but like Kuuga, this is not a season Inoue was a good fit for at all. And even isolated, even viewed through a lens of Hibiki 1-29 not existing (please god no), this is easily some of his most dire work. A lot of it feels like his tropes just thrown out hastily onto the script; I just can't get anything out of this other than "this sure is an Inoue story about dating which gives me secondhand embarrassment every two seconds and the title character somehow turned into a fucking idiot".

... I'm glad you found something to like in it, though!

There is nothing quite like someone eviscerating something you've enjoyed and then ending it with "I'm glad you found something to like in it, though!" Rhetorically, it's like getting your face punched so hard that you're knocked on your ass, and then that same person helping you up off of the ground.

So, obviously, this is going to be a real Your Mileage May Vary rebuttal, but, wow, did not have that experience with this one at all. Doing this story through the lens of Todoroki and Hinaka's relationship made perfect sense to me, considering how Heightened they've always been as characters, and specifically how Extra Heightened those two are when it comes to their dating. There's a moment in the beginning, after Todoroki completely ruins their date, where Hinaka confesses to Kasumi that, y'know, Todoroki's got a lot of weird anxiousness to him, and that's not great to date. It's a little space to explore the idea of what happens when you care about someone, but they're not right for you. The tension of that runs through everything Todoroki and Hinaka go through (his lack of focus, his depression, his More Than Usual amounts of anxiety), and it keeps things pretty relatable, as far as I was concerned.

As for Todoroki seeming too weird in this one... again, I'm not really seeing it? It's more of a comedy couple of episodes than, say, the ones where he doesn't want to be a drummer, but nothing in this one felt out of character for Todoroki. Todoroki's always been a guy that gets in his own way, that lets his anxiety and enthusiasm sabotage his success. That's pretty much what he does in this story?

I don't know, yeah, really didn't have the experience you had with this story. I appreciate your honesty, though! It's a take I hadn't considered.