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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Build
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09-13-2019, 11:26 PM
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Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,154
KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 9 - 12
A really good two-parter, but one I'm having a tough time evaluating thematically. Like, there's sort-of two good things happening across this story, and they don't seem to really be saying anything together. That's not a failure or anything, but it makes for two episodes that really nail Plot but kind-of shrug at Theme.
The first thing I loved was that Banjou/Misora date. Just in general, they're two characters I like to see just hanging out. The performers are stellar, and the amount of feeling that comes out is next level. It's a very sweet, very nuanced sequence about two people whose lives are insane, who feel disconnected from the world, trying to find a little happiness. There's a, I don't know,
kindness
to that idea. A little
tranquility
. There's an understated (for Banjou and Misora!) progression where each of them opens up, without it feeling like we're getting, like, a thesis statement on Who They Are. Just some character stuff, necessary to flesh them out, but delivered in a very entertaining way.
Then there's the other 3/4s of the story, which is just The Villains Win Big. Night Rogue and Blood Stalk just
totally
run the table, even when they're fighting each other. Sento and Banjou score a largely symbolic victory in, uh, finally being friends officially? And
not getting murdered
? They didn't do great, basically. Pretty much totally lost. But the villains had a
great
plan, Blood Stalk is incredibly charismatic in his double-crosses and taunting, Night Rogue still manages to be one step ahead of everyone, and now the bad guys have Pandora's Box and run the country. Also, Sawa is informing on our heroes to the military-industrial complex. Things are going great for Team Build!
These were two good episodes, and the second one in particular is pretty much an A+ battle episode, but it's weird how disconnected the Banjou/Misora stuff was from what would turn out to be the rest of the story. Maybe there's some theme running through it all that I'm missing? If so, let me know what you think.
Okay, I thought about it for, like,
another minute
, and I can see how it connects, plot-wise and theme-wise. Misora needs to open up with Banjou, and Banjou with Misora, so she can tell him that Sento blames himself for Kasumi's death. Eventually, during the rooftop fight, Banjou has to forgive Sento by
literally entrusting his girlfriend's spirit to Sento
, leading to a near-victory with KeyDragon. All of the Banjou/Misora stuff isn't so much there for Misora, it's to explore
through
Misora how Sento feels. That's the thread, that's why those two sequences are in one story, I get that now. I think I was just focussing too much on the
start
of that sequence, and forgot some about the end. Really, I should rework the beginning of this write-up, but, y'know, that first paragraph is how I initially felt, so why not be honest. I feel a lot better about this story now, though.
So, obviously, this is The One Where Cross-Z Happens. (How am I meant to be saying that, anyway? I can't tell. "Cross"? "Cross Zee"? Help!) And, sure, it's a solid, emotional moment, the suit looks good, it's great to see Banjou taking a more active role in the fights, all good things. High fives all around. Also, Blood Stalk seems to be living his best life, bounding into and out of scenes with the sort of
joie de vivre
that'd make Kamen Rider Birth swoon. He's a
treasure
. That's not what I want to talk about, though.
I want to talk about the Sawa/Utsumi stuff. That's, to me, the meat of this story, and I thought it was really something special.
It's a gamble for a series like Kamen Rider to try and pull a background player up to the main stage for a story. Frankly, few of them are built for that kind of scrutiny. They're gag recipients, or exposition deliverers, or just plain victims. You're not supposed to, like,
care
about them. So when a show decides This Is The Week Where You Care About Them, y'know,
we'll see
! Easier said than done.
So you can imagine my surprise that I actually cared about Utsumi's sudden, previously unmentioned existential struggle. What had mostly been a smirking lackey, perpetually in Night Rogue's shadow, is now this fleshed-out character, grappling with the way his once-noble goals have been twisted by the compromises of ideological survival. The needs of Faust as an organization are greater than the hopes of its servants, and Utsumi gets ground up by the machine he admired. It's tragic, and the show doesn't flinch at portraying it as such.
Even
more
interesting is the way the show weaves in Sawa's backstory, and how it thematically supports Utsumi's. Sawa is another person who started down a road with noble intentions, but now she doesn't know where it all went wrong. What should've been justice for her father, the downfall of evil men, is now a betrayal of good people and life as a fugitive. Except,
no
, because Team Build doesn't stand for that sort of thinking. Sawa's a friend, and she was trying to do good, and that matters more than the mistakes she made while trying to do good.
It's more of that moral complexity I'm loving, where choices aren't judged, they're weighed against goals and intentions. Good people can do bad things for good reasons, and bad people can do good things for bad reasons. It's linked thematically with Sento's view of science as not inherently good or evil, but subject to choices and goals and intentions. Trying to do good is maybe more important than actually doing good. The world's a complicated place, but maybe with a group of friends and some good intentions you can get through. It's sad that Utsumi never got that chance.
__________________
Currently working on:
KAMEN RIDER W
! Archive of previous shows on
KamenRiderDie.com
!
Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 10-13-2023 at
10:03 PM
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