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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider 555
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05-22-2020, 10:28 PM
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Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,083
KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 16
--1--
If Ryuki broadened the idea of what a Rider could be (Zolda 4eva), I think Faiz is doing the same thing for the monsters.
For me, someone who came in through Ex-Aid's marvelously complex and occasionally sympathetic monsters, these early Heisei shows have been... a little lacking. There've been fun villains, and some neat antagonists, but the weekly monsters have been little more than uncommunicative beasts or nearly-alien killers. It's been missing something that I'd guess I'd taken for granted, and that's that the monsters should have a point of view.
(So, yes, Kuuga, the Grongi,
sure
. I don't know that more than two or three Grongi really popped for me as characters, though. Other than those two or three, they've all got the exact same motivation, which is mostly what I'm talking about.)
The monster of the week this time is emphatically
not
what I'm referring to, though. That dude comes out of nowhere and is nothing more than a random nuisance. He's a spree killer, an obstacle for Kamen Riders to detonate/immolate. But.
But maybe he
isn't?
Maybe he's been driven to these murders and assaults because of some deep trauma, or because he's been forced to by Smart Brain, or because these people wronged him somehow, or any number of other possible reasons. We don't know his story. When we look at him, we see a monster, and Kamen Riders kill monsters. Open and shut.
Except Takumi's seen an Orphnoch with feelings. He's been saved by an Orphnoch. He knows that Orphnochs can have fears, can have dreams. How can he destroy a thing that might have a soul?
That dilemma is really fascinating to me. Kamen Riders Fight Monsters is, like,
an autonomic process
for these stories. It's something that barely needs a justification. So to slow everything down, to cast doubt on the very language of the franchise,
super
into that.
And, god, making Takumi the focal point of that? Yes.
Yes.
He's someone who sort-of hates slowing down, getting to know people, trying to understand them. Having
him
be the guy who sees the humanity in the Orphnochs is great because he doesn't even know what he's seeing, let alone how to explain it. He's so lost in this story, so unsure of what to do, and I find that introspection and confusion weirdly heroic. He can't ignore someone's dreams, even if they're the dreams of an Orphnoch. But Orphnochs are responsible for killing people, robbing them of the chance to live out their dreams. It's an impossible situation. Which, y'know, those are the ones I want to see Kamen Riders deal with!
--2--
Making Takumi's episode even more stressful is that, uh, all of his friends hate him?
Some of it's Takumi's fault, in that he can't really explain himself at all, and I don't blame his friends for turning on him. I mean, they've only known him for a few months, during which he's been
varying levels of insufferable
. He's always been tough to be friends with, and him rudely declaring Keitaro break up with a girl because Takumi has a bad feeling about it, along with being incredibly aggressive with Kusaka, it's all a pretty bad look on Takumi.
I get it
, though. This is a guy who
in the second episode
kept trying to run away from people who wanted to get close to him. The fact that he ran away from their accusations this time and then came back for more is, like, probably the toughest thing he's ever done. He hasn't learned how to fight for what he wants, but he's sure as shit learned how to absorb people's scorn.
I think that's the heart of the "miscommunication”, or whatever. It's that Takumi can't talk about what he's feeling, can't express the conflict in his heart. He sees everyone turning against him, and he wishes it wasn't the case, but he doesn't have the tools to defend himself. Worse, his reflex is to lash out, mope, run away,
make things worse
. He doesn't
want
to be in this position, but he at least can handle it. So he keeps plugging away, hurting feelings and confusing his friends, letting them get over it, then doing it all again. He's probably his own worst enemy in this one.
--3--
Ha ha
NOPE
it's definitely Kusaka. That dude... I'm pretty sure he's the devil?
He's great here, though, for real. Every time he'd trick Takumi into looking like the bad guy, and then Takumi would make himself look even worse than that... I mean, it couldn't've gone better for Kusaka if Takumi had been in on it.
Real curious what his endgame is, though. He's got two moves, manipulate or destroy. Keitaro and Mari could be manipulated, so they seem safe. They treat him like a hero, take his side in his rivalry with Takumi. He seems happy with that. But Takumi didn't buy it, so he's got to be forced out, humiliated, reviled, probably killed. But what for? Why all of these machinations? Right now, Kuasaka's all schemes, and I dig it, but I want to see where all of this is going. Like, currently it's Control and Sadism, but,
and then what?
--4--
Besides the two Riders, we get a bit with Team Orphnoch, each of them doing their own thing.
Yuuji, hilariously, inexplicably, is having to team-up with his murdered girlfriend's brother to hunt down her killer... which is still Yuuji! It's totally bizarre for this story to pop up now, out of the clear blue sky, but I do like the position it puts Yuuji in. He's been talking a lot of heavy talk about not harming humans, and now here's a dude reminding him that he
definitely
murdered a human in cold blood. There's always been a little hypocrisy to Yuuji's pacifism, a feeling that two murders or less is an acceptable number, but more than that is
No Thank You
. (Or, perhaps, he's okay with sampling murder? He killed a man, he killed a woman, and now he's okay saying it's not for him. He's a very open-minded Orphnoch!) Having this all thrown back in his face by someone he's legitimately wronged, it's got some potential.
Yuka's story is mostly her trying to explain her conflict, what she wants out of life, how she kills but doesn't want to be a killer. I talked a ton about this all last time, and here it's mostly for Takumi's benefit, for him to get a better understanding of what could drive an Orphnoch.
Kaido only gets a couple moments. The first is a quick little scene where he wants Yuka to stop obsessing over him, while the second is a joyous comedic scene with Mari. All of the Tidying Up With Mari Kaido stuff has been adorable, and this one's no different. Love him smooshing his face against a window to get her attention. Love him fogging the window to draw a little heart. Love her exhaustedly dropping her head out of view. Love him asking if she really likes him. Love her shaking her head No. Love him asking if she likes him. Love her shaking her head No. Love him asking if she likes him even a little. Did
not
love Kusaka barging in to scare him off. Goddamn you, Kusaka! I was onboard with the torturing of Yuuji and trying to kill Takumi, but this is
too
monstrous.
Keep your nose out of my ship, Kusaka! I'M COMING FOR YOU, KUSAKA!
--5--
I really like the journey that Takumi was on in this episode. God, the shots at the end where a contemplative Faiz has to
literally sit out a fight
, so evocative. I love the show asking if and why the monsters deserve to be detonated/immolated. I hope they come up with a good answer!
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Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 08-03-2023 at
12:25 PM
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