There's a... this'll probably (hopefully) get clarified in the conclusion of this two-parter, but there's a point in 05 where I couldn't figure out if I'm supposed to think Truegami's plan is stupid or not. Like, I couldn't tell if what I was watching was either a) satirical; or b) intentionally dumb because it was part of some ZECT scheme. Turns out, uh, nope! Just a dumb plot!

For the mummification, I got more of a Faiz vibe off of it? That whole Turning Grey thing made me think of Faiz, and how the Orphnoch killed people. (Also, I'm pretty sure the last Worm attack in the episode, where Kagami shows up, takes place in Delta Alley, home to major scenes in both Agito and Faiz.)

She's so good! It's this really amazing balance of making her so damaged that you want to save her, while refusing to infantilize her. She's a self-sufficient woman who is doing her best with some debilitating emotional problems, not some helpless baby you have to protect from the world. Real tightrope act to get that across onscreen.

I think I'm going to have figure out somewhere to see some flowers in the spring (Thought that a friend was recommending a flower something-or-other, but it's more of an overall nature museum.) I mean, there's got to be something in Chicago in the spring, right? Gotta be.

This thread'll still be here when you're ready!

(I honestly wonder if anyone's gone back and watched along with these? I sincerely never considered that as a possibility before now. I hope they're useful to some future fan?)

One of the things I love about Hiyori is how she aggressively wants nothing to do with being a character in Kamen Rider Kabuto. She always seems so resentful about having to be involved in the show's plot. I know you thought of Mari from Faiz as Kamen Rider's Aubrey Plaza, but I'd argue that Hiyori has the best claim on that title.

Ooooh, tough. Tough call! I think I'd still hand it to Mari, because she was just so done with so many people. Hiyori, I see it more as her protesting too much? Like, and maybe this is more April from Parks & Rec than I remember, Hiyori is someone who has a tremendous amount of anxiety, and she's cobbled together enough defense mechanisms to skim the surface of interpersonal interaction. She would much rather have healthy relationships and less-stressful experiences than she's currently having. Mari's just frustrated by people and willing to tell them to eff off.

Still... I don't not see Hiyori as having that Aubrey Plaza vibe?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kabuto/goro.png

GORO! ON KABUTO! THIS IS MY GUY!!!

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 06

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../kabuto06a.png

There's a thing Hiyori does in this episode that's my favorite piece of acting in a great episode for performances.

(Also, I hope everyone's okay with these posts just completely committing to being me singing Hiyori's praises.)

She's gone to Tendou's home to investigate his absence, and potentially castigate him for letting her down. Tendou calls home to allay his sister's fears, while being held in ZECT's custody. After he talks to Juka, he asks to talk to Hiyori. She berates him for his thoughtlessness, for everything she went through. But he applauds her resolve, and asks her to make pancakes for Juka. (It's Sunday, and he always makes pancakes for Juka on Sunday.) Furious, Hiyori hangs up on him, calling him a liar. Juka sweetly tells Hiyori that Tendou isn't a liar.

And then, after sitting down to collect herself... Hiyori asks Juka if she'd like some pancakes.

It's... there's this look on Hiyori's face, like she cannot fathom why she's doing this for Tendou. It's her being burned by someone... and giving them a second chance. It's so out-of-character for her that it seems like she's viewing this from outside the event, completely separate from her body. This Can't Be What I'm Saying is broadcast across her face. She doesn't believe in people, doesn't give second chances, doesn't stick her neck out. But, right now, for almost no reason other than faith in Tendou, she's doing it. And she can't believe it.

But, hey, this is an episode for people believing in Tendou, and on that level it works pretty great. On every other level... uh.

Like, the charm of this one is all in Tendou's whole I'm Not Trapped In Here With You, You're Trapped In Here With Me smugness; in Kagami's sloppy-ass breakout attempt for a man who he views as a friend; in Juka's unwavering belief in her brother and decision to eat her pancakes without any toppings WHICH IS SO WEIRD; and in Hiyori's ability to start to maybe possibly believe in Tendou, too.

The thing that works in this episode is that Tendou has willingly entered a trap to both protect his friends (he only tells Truegami that Kagami isn't his friend so that Kagami doesn't get used as leverage and threatened) and try to uncover what ZECT is hiding. It's him being a kinder version of the abrasive tool that he often comes off as, a man who can show respect to the people who are assisting him rather than making demands of them.

And that kinder, gentler Tendou... It works? I mean, it totally works on Kagami and Misaki, giving them less reason than ever to support Truegami's sneering villainy. (Is it the hair that always makes him seem up to no good?) A lot of this episode depends on you understanding why they'd both go up against ZECT to protect Tendou, and it feels reasonable to me? He's still funny and self-involved (his whole Do You Ask The Sun Why It Shines thing during Misaki's interrogation!), but he's... it doesn't feel like sees Kagami and Misaki as pawns. It comes off as teamwork in this one, and that makes for a thrilling conclusion.

It's just, the stuff around that sort of doesn't work? Truegami's plan still doesn't make sense, that's for sure. They get the belt from Tendou, and then let Misaki question him? But they mostly just let him sit around for a day? It's a fun scene, and great for establishing how everything has unfolded according to Tendou's design, but it doesn't look great on Misaki or Truegami. She seems to have no gameplan for extracting usable info, and Truegami... I mean, I don't want to write this episode, but it feels real dumb to have a tactician like Truegami (for a poorly-written value of "tactician”) not get a head-to-head interrogation scene with Tendou. Delegating such an important task to Misaki is... there's no juice in that scene, it's just her being petulant and him being catty. It's funny, but it could've been more than that.

Similarly, the action in this one felt tacked on. The Zectroopers are a non-factor, and the Worm battle at the end was brief and forgettable. (I honestly don't remember how the non-Truegami Worm died, and I watched that scene maybe twenty minutes ago.) I don't really understand what the Worm are after, and their planning ability seems to vacillate strongly between Machiavellean and Moronic. (The one from last episode just wandered around killing random people, and this one susses out a temporary ZECT outpost and then knows exactly who to replace.) I'd prefer more consistency as to what the villains are capable of, this early in the series.

Really, though, that doesn't matter too much. (It does matter, though.) It's a sweet episode about people learning to value friendship more than their ideology, and it ends with Tendou putting Hiyori's art in big glowing lights on the Tokyo Tower as an apology. I can't be too mad at an episode that ends that way.

A QUESTION

...or for putting GORO FROM RYUKI in the end! Goro! Back on my TV! After all these many months! Very exciting times. (Also there was a bee-man who I think is called TheBee that I'm sure I'll be talking more about soon.)

Back in Ryuki, Goro had many talents: he was a driver, a bodyguard, and one of the very few people on the planet who admired Kitaoka. (Besides me.) He was also an ace chef, something that goes for a few characters on this show. There's a real love of food in the direction of this one, some very lovely shots of meals, and goddamn did it make me hungry. Not for the first time, a Kamen Rider show has got me hankering for some of its dishes. Have you ever been tempted to try out a prominent dish from a Kamen Rider show? If so, how did you like it in real life? I know what I'm going to have soon, and this episode's partially to blame:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../kabuto06b.png

Yep, this is the debut of the misleadingly named TheBee (you’ll see why when he transforms onscreen). So I won’t go into the reference explanation until then. I’ll just say he has the unique distinction of SHARING the title of tertiary rider (an idea that would save us a lot of debates concerning other Rider shows and one Rider-esque Sentai show [and no, before anyone assumes anything, it is not Go-Busters. It’s Kyuranger]) with someone who shows up in a few episodes.

I really enjoyed the whole bit with Tendou being in interrogation. One of the things I always associate with the character is that he can really be a troll sometimes. This isn't the biggest example of that, but it's definitely a case where he's clearly just screwing with Misaki for his own amusement. This is one of those areas where I think the character would be a lot more insufferable with a less charismatic actor.

Anyway, the main thing I wanted to mention about this episode is how much I love Juka. Juka is not a complex character: she's Tendou's sister and she eats food. Unless I've forgotten something, that's her primary contribution to most of her appearances. She's really good at those things and can be a lot of fun, but it always amuses me how much her entire character is centered around breakfast.

As a semi-related side note, while I think that Kabuto has one of the most boring restaurant designs of all the various Kamen Rider restaurants, I have serious envy for our other major recurring location: Tendou's house. Really love the layout of the main room with all of those plants. Looks really comfortable and homey.

I definitely ate a lot of dumplings while watching Ryuki, but the big example for me is actually from Hibiki's spiritual successor, Daimajin Kanon. That show featured jasmine tea as a minor plot point in one episode, which led me to spend a good amount of time tracking some down locally. It also turned out to be one of my favorite kinds of tea, which is saying a lot since I drink a lot of tea.

I'm looking forward to learning more about him! It's a pretty cool suit, at the very least.

It's both a positive and a negative in this episode, how in control of every situation Tendou is. The first scene of him being interrogated, and he's clearly trying to extract info from Misaki as he doesn't even bother to pretend like they've got the upper hand? Fantastic. But then you've got another few scenes and it's like, ZECT Is Embarrassingly Bad At This. It's cool to have an unflappable, ultra-competent hero... but you sort of need to step up the villains to match him? Otherwise, this whole thing plays like a minor diversion for Tendou, and it makes the stakes non-existent. Fun to watch, not great for caring about the story.

Easily the most relatable motivation of any Kamen Rider character.

Yeah, I love how open that living room is. It's so bright and natural.

I think I ended up eating a lot more donuts when Wizard was the show I was watching, but I'd've probably been better off with a show that had a more soothing, healthy food or drink. You made the better choice!

Get used to this, it's going to be a persistent issue.

Just isn't paying attention? Ha this is what I'm telling (about anyone; you aren't free from this either). Non-theatrical performances being overlooked of what it means and written off as bad acting at worst. People thinking that acting must be all about goofy, or over-the-top, or larger than life, or laugh out loud, or in your face and wide-angle lenses, or other kinds of that. And again there's no such thing as "no personality" even if they don't behave in what you or anyone wants. So you (fortunately) view her, just trying to talk as her doing something with this part (though, this would give me tons of question regarding this about various other non-combatant characters)... and this brings back to the part in Hibiki where your reply was "it was like judging Hinaka for working at the restaurant". This do happen in lots of community; especially regarding action show where only fighting (or probably inventing) is seen as the character not "sitting around", and something like Hiyori's thing here can be devalued as that too.

From what's currently shown, Hiyori's misery came from losing her parents in the meteor incident. As someone who relates to not believing in people and not giving second chances part, I wonder what kind of misery she went through that leads to her acting like that; for her socializing part, because from my experience it'll come from repeated mistreatment from others (obviously losing both of your parents are tragic, but meteor is natural disaster) that led to giving up to other people. And you saying that it's OOC for Hiyori to try believing in Tendou... this is something that sometimes I find confusing within community discussions (sometimes to an irrational level); that is a character's change an OOC moment, or them starting to change and develop.

For Juka, while she defends Tendou, she didn't overreact or get mad over someone (Hiyori) badmouthing him. I see sometimes in other case where a someone would fiercely defend their sibling, sometimes disregarding their actual faults; as a show of the sibling love. A̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶j̶o̶k̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶;̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶H̶i̶y̶o̶r̶i̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶T̶e̶n̶d̶o̶u̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶T̶e̶n̶d̶o̶u̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶m̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶w̶o̶o̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶H̶i̶y̶o̶r̶i̶ ̶d̶e̶n̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶?̶!̶

Well, for "kinder, gentler Tendou", majority of the jerk and mean anti-heroic Riders journey (which mostly are placed as secondary Riders) and development in the franchise are them becoming better person, Tendou is just one of the many. And I feel that, Tendou enforces the "might makes right" mindset here; people believing in him because of him being the one hypercompetent enough to accomplish any task, that he's finally allowed to become Kabuto on merit. And I think Kagami, while bonding with Tendou with his concern for him; he seems to forget his perfectness lol, unlike Juka. I think Misaki interrogating Tendou is important tbh, going back to what I said about ZECT's concern about someone not in their member becoming Kabuto, that the belt wielder's morality is important to know, where if it's someone with lack of moral decency, the power can be abused.

What do you think can be Misaki's plan for extracting usable info? I think her concern is mainly about someone outside of ZECT using Kabuto Zecter, and the only one to ensure safety is to know how's Tendou as a person herself. Tendou's superiority complex does make him unflappable towards anything, so much that Misaki seems like a tryhard for her screaming at his face. I do find it baffling that Higashi's (name of Ogawa's character here) obsession of trying to keep the belt away from outsider and what's the objective for that. Or that... it really was the Worm all along disguising as ZECT upper man. They probably want to steal away the Kabuto Zecter so there aren't anyone strong enough to fight them off. Misaki gets an action by rolling to the asphalt from the Merc Viano (didn't expect that the van inside was the place where ZECT was operated, I thought it was in the HQ, the setting seems too big). The Zectroopers are established as inferior to Tendou, he can just beat them up like a Worm did. Tendou seems to be almost superhuman even as human form.