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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Blade
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08-24-2020, 09:13 PM
#
763
Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 41
This time on Kamen Rider Blade:
The Sealing Stone is now a thing we have to talk about! Tennouji brought Riders into this world, he can take them out of this world! And you’re tearing Mutsuki apart, Nozomi!
There’s a lot of
stuff
in this episode, but there’s also some very deft character work happening. Can you guess which one I want to spend more time talking about!
Let’s go through the plot stuff first, since I imagine that’s where more people are going to have memories from this episode. The opening is
really
trying to center us in an It’s Time For Revelations mode, with every single Undead fighting in the previous Battle Fight from 10,000 years ago. (I really love the idea that this Battle Fight has been going on the better part of a year with no winner, while it looks like the last one took about an afternoon to have humanity win. Except, man, I did not see shirtless Hajime running around! I needed an insert shot of Human Undead whaling on monsters from eternity!) Tiger Queen drops her opponent, and then the Sealing Stone (
definitely
not the Monolith, this one
twists
, how dare you impugn Tiger Queen’s culture) arrives to seal the monster into a trading card.
Y’know, I don’t mind the Sealing Stone. It’s not more impractical than anything else in this series, and it’s got a presence that feels appropriately religious. The big thing about Tiger Queen that I like is how
important
Battle Fight is to her. She wants to win, she wants a Planet Of Tigers, but there’s a holiness to Battle Fight that makes her frustrated and insulted by the Riders running around. Battle Fight is for the Undead. The Riders aren’t just interlopers, they’re
blasphemers
.
Which probably makes the revelation that this particular Battle Fight was engineered (or at least profited from) by Tennouji sort-of devastating to her. This is a Battle Fight that only the Riders or the Joker can win. She’s got no chance, and literally every other Undead is just a pawn. It’s a huge change in the show’s status quo, and I sort-of love it?
I’m not crazy about Tennouji or whatever his scheme is yet, mostly because I don’t know what he’s trying to do. If it’s something that has thematic resonance, I’m all for it. Until then, I’m going to try not to dwell on it. The idea that the Undead have been manipulated, though, that’s an idea with some weight to it.
I’ve really enjoyed the parts of this show where the Undead feel less like inevitable antagonists or rampaging monsters, and more as individual characters. They may share a goal (save a Shima or two), but how they approach that goal, how they articulate what that goal means to them, I find that fascinating. I love a group of villains who have personalities, conflicts, levels. (Hi, I came in through Ex-Aid,
can you tell.
) Creating a scenario where the
monsters
can feel betrayed, and the show takes that idea and gives it
pathos
, holy shit. Doing something where I’m invested in how a monster from eternity feels about her culture and beliefs being appropriated and manipulated by humanity… I think my heart grew two sizes. I loved the Tiger Queen character already, and now this. It’s an idea far more appealing to me than whatever U.N.D.A.D. was up to, so this episode was working out great for me on those points alone.
(Also, boy, thematically? A plot where the pursuit of power is exposed as fraudulent and irrelevant? That is a very big Blade theme! Really really love that the Undead are getting in on it!)
But then they made it all about Mutsuki as well, and… it is not my birthday, but this all felt like a gift.
Mutsuki’s a tricky one, because he’s at this Not A Hero, Not Yet A Villain stage. He’s childish, and naive, and selfish, and cowardly, and petulant, and whiny, and and and. He’s not been much use to the plot, because he doesn’t seem to want anything
tangible
. He wants to be stronger, but there’s no clear pathway for him to achieve that. He keeps waiting for it to fall into his lap, like his goddamn belt did. (There’s a perfect example of this behavior in the beginning of the episode. Mutsuki is thinking aloud, and he mentions that since Blade and Chalice just got cool power-ups, he
must
be next. Like they’re being doled out in a sequence! I mean, he’s a kid who saw Kenzaki literally get handed his Rouse Absorber, so it’s not like he’s totally off-base.) Mutsuki’s plots lately are defined by him getting beaten up, tricked, insulted, and disregarded. It’s clear that the show is trying to get at
something
about Mutsuki, what with the increased screentime with him and Tiger Queen, but it’s not really clear what. It’s still not totally clear by the end of this one, but I love the questions it’s asking.
Nozomi’s back, and she’s looking for Mutsuki, and that’s almost all I needed. I like her dogged perseverance. I like the way she clearly only sees the old version of Mutsuki no matter which Sam Raimi Spider-Man film that Mutsuki is cosplaying from. I like how Mutsuki can’t ever seem to stop caring about her. It’s this relatable, human
core
to his character, something that dozens of weird episodes where he’s a joke can’t quite extinguish.
The broad strokes of this one are fairly routine. Nozomi wants Mutsuki to be normal, Mutsuki wants to get stronger, there are fights. Nothing in the early parts is a surprise, but it’s still a lot of fun. Nozomi just BEING VERY LOUD ABOUT THE FOOD SHE BROUGHT MUTSUKI as a way of distracting both of them from the very serious fight he was in, absolutely precious. Her breaking through a barricaded door to chase after him, delightful. But the part where Mutsuki is so adamant about not being Old Mutsuki that he terrifies her, that’s a stellar moment.
There’s this beat, after he Henshins, where his shoulders slump a bit. It’s him wondering if he’s got it in him to break Nozomi the way this would break her. To make her see him as a monster so he can give himself over to the darkness inside him. It’s so small, but the suit actor for Leangle
nails
it. Everything after that is theatrical, garish. He wants her to run in fear, he wants her to forget about Mutsuki and only see Leangle. It’s a great, great scene. But it wasn’t really surprising, for what it was trying to do.
And then Mutsuki rescues Tiger Queen, taking her to a waterside bench at sunset to eat handmade treats and just talk. It was phenomenal, and I had no idea what would happen next.
If I was making a list of things I love in Kamen Rider stories, scenes like this would be in my Top 5. Like, it’s all them sharing their feelings, their fears, getting to really address what their plots have been about. It’s not just random fluff, it’s
integral
. Even better, it’s got room for a viewer to interpret what’s going on.
The details in this part, again,
really
fun. Mutsuki’s been clutching Nozomi’s bag of food, symbolic of him holding onto that bit of humanity without really knowing why. He wants to know if Tiger Queen thinks he’s as weak as she said he was, and she tells him that there’s a light still inside him. That should be good news, and I think Tiger Queen admires it, but Mutsuki still sees it as what’s stopping him from getting stronger. But he’s got this food, and it’s been a long day, so they both start eating. Tiger Queen thinks it’s delicious, and Mutsuki says that Nozomi always makes delicious food. And she looks at him, for a second.
And then she stands up, punches him in the face, and runs off to confront Tennouji. I don’t 100% understand why she did that, but I’m okay not knowing. (There’s a reasonable chance we find out definitively in the next episode, and I’m good either way.)
There’s a chance it’s her feeling comfortable with Mutsuki, sharing a snack at dusk, and just
hating
herself for it. She’s a deadly hunter and now she’s eating snacks with a human? Is this what she wants? To end up as weak as
Mutsuki?
Or, there’s a chance that she feels protective of Mutsuki, despite his many (many!) flaws. He’s a nice boy who likes a nice girl, and all of this shit that’s happened to him is covering that up. Better to deck him so she can escape his guardianship, then go confront the asshole behind everything that’s happened to both of them.
Like, I can see it both ways, and I love a scene that’s constructed to do that. If you want to read it as her despising Mutsuki, valid. If you want to read it as her caring a bit for Mutsuki as a pseudo-mentor, equally valid.
Just a really interesting character exploration, filled out with some big plot reveals. I thought this episode totally delivered. Very strong installment.
Next time on Kamen Rider Blade:
The return of the Scissors Undead! Tiger Queen is back in the spotlight! And Mutsuki is possessed by an Undead, but this time it’s a for real problem apparently!
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on
KamenRiderDie.com
!
Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 08-12-2023 at
10:30 AM
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