[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 40 - “APPROACHING OROCHI”
KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 41 - “AWAKENING OF TEACHER AND STUDENT”



“So don't think of this as sacrifice
‘Cause it's something much less dignified
But you'll be alright”

-Parenthetical Girls, “Alright”

Mixed feelings on this one! Structurally, I think it worked gangbusters. Thematically and character-wise… some concerns!

Let’s talk about Akira quitting first, since that’s what these two episodes are leading up to.

There’s a part of me that really loves how the whole dilemma is that her heart just isn’t in it anymore. There’s a smallness to that idea that resonates, that creates an obstacle that Akira and Ibuki can’t overcome. It’s that Hibiki thing of making it personal, unexpected, honest. I love how the Kodama forest works as a metaphor for that problem, how it seems vast and foreign but it’s really just the one basic thing that’s easy to miss. There’s no fixing Akira, because there’s nothing wrong with Akira. She changed, and now she’s leaving that part of her past behind. It’s a great story to get to that point, with some of the best work of that actor’s run on the show.

The problem is… I defended this show for interrogating Akira’s beliefs, for treating her decision as something weighty and important. I don’t think the show deciding that being an Oni isn’t her passion anymore (if it ever should have been) is the wrong choice. But, god, when you have her quitting and her last request is to make Kiriya and Asumu the next Oni? Because they both have what it takes? That… it at the very least taints Akira’s story, and I wouldn’t argue with anyone who thought it ruined it. It’s a big turn in the story, and it’s fundamentally not a great look. (Her transforming into an Oni and then immediately being knocked out is such a standard bullshit Inoue move that I’m not even disappointed. At least it wasn’t two women in a row, like on Faiz!) And that’s on top of the fact that, man, her quitting is a bummer. It’s always going to be a hard sell to have a great character quit the narrative (if that’s what’s happening), and there’s just no way around that. Seeing her story end by her walking away, no matter how well I thought the story explained and supported it... it just doesn't feel good to watch.

Altogether, Akira’s story… I think I respected it more than I liked it.

What I did like, though, was how quickly this story disregarded the previous one. The Todoroki/Zanki nonsense is mostly ignored, with a line from Zanki restating that his goddamn job is to support Todoroki, rendering the entire last two episodes even more idiotic. Hibiki is right back to calling Asumu ‘boy’, all to get us to the big moment at the end where he finally (again) calls Asumu by his name. With it coinciding with Asumu becoming Hibiki’s official apprentice, it’s a way better point in the narrative for it to happen. It’s also not a garbage episode, so that helps, too!

I really enjoyed all the stuff with the kids, but naturally, it’s the AsuMum scene that worked the best for me. I like that her advice to Asumu’s eternal uncertainty was For The Love Of God You Are Fifteen Years Old It Is Okay To Try Out Different Jobs. It created a real smart way for the show to move forward with Asumu becoming an Oni, to stop treating it like Asumu’s entering the priesthood or something. It’s okay to try it, to see if it works for him, and then quit if it doesn’t. People quit jobs all the time! This whole story is about how it is okay to quit a job if you don’t think it’s right for you anymore! Instead of the show needing a 15-year old boy (whose voice completely sounds deeper in this episode) to dedicate his life to something, I don’t know, maybe just treat it like an internship? It’s a more interesting way, I think, to approach Asumu’s new apprenticeship.

The Kiriya stuff worked great for me, of course. He’s resolutely terrible in this (Ibuki seems about a breath away from punching him in the face for disrespecting Akira, and rightly so) and he’s so reflexively insulting that no one even seems to bother acknowledging it, like it’s some verbal tic. But there’s a sense that he honestly does want to make something of himself, even if it’s for stupid reasons, that makes him stand out from Asumu’s innate goodness and chronic indecisiveness. That said, it’s obviously an inherently stupid idea to make Kiriya an Oni (unless you’re just counting the minutes until Ibuki is ordered to kill him), but this story managed to create a little cover for why he’d be worth a tryout.

Yeah, the kids really came through in this one. I’ve always felt like this show worked better the more it focused on the kids, and this (final?) outing of Akira, Asumu and Kiriya really made me feel good about that assumption. Really fun episode, despite Akira’s resignation.