Yeah, I feel like they wanted to make it a thing but ended up not using it or just forgot about it as production moved forward.

I feel like it was likely more of a budget thing, especially considering how crazy some combos would end up being.

Like, there's one card Garren gets later that he absolutely should use immediately in every single fight but obviously doesn't likely because it'd cost more on the episode budget. Good to see it used in the HBV though.

So what fuels Kenzaki to do what he does is his family's death, in a similar vein of the previous protagonist where for Yusuke, it was Mika father's death, and for Shinji, it was a death of little girl's mother. But, Kenzaki's issues within people? It also come from that moment too. I think dealing with deaths and mortality happens a bunch of times within Rider series, but for Blade it seems that it consistently happened for every single cast, what consistency.

Karasuma wants to disappear, which is done by him using a decoy of his body to escape the room unnoticed. Now his agenda is questioned more. Tachibana wants payback to BOARD and Karasuma for putting him into this situation, which is, well, so far from what's known, their fault, they're responsible of their mistakes, but they're putting it into someone that doesn't need to be dragged into their situation.

Amane's brattiness is displayed more clearly here with her being blatantly rebellious to Kotaro (as usual), but also anyone in her care like Kenzaki and Haruka. She won't learn from this catastrophic moment she experienced (which would be even worse if others won't tell, this is actually freaking important for teaching a brat a lesson). Isn't Kenzaki and Hajime the usual, Rider bickering? (I didn't hear much about that part regarding Blade, probably because it's not talked much). And for Garren, it's explicitly explained, he wants to find ways to cure himself, like how Riders want to cure Amane. But the escalation is neat with Blade now practically fighting Garren for real just because he wants to stop him.

It definitely feels like what this show wants to talk about right now!

That is... that is maybe underselling how absurd the deception is? It involves timed incineration and holograms that are indistinguishable from real live humans. It also needs there to be ashes left over from the holograms, which... that is not how holograms work!

She misses her dad! She's reckless, sure, but she's a kid who wants to hear her dad one more time. I don't think she'd've been so keen on exploring the cave if she thought there was a monster in there. I mean, even Kenzaki and Kotaro just thought it was, like, maybe not the safest place to be. They were okay poking around for a few minutes.

They really don't seem to want to be in scenes together, which feels slightly new to me. Some of it is in how quick Kenzaki is to yell at Hajime, and how dismissive Hajime is of Kenzaki. But, yeah, it's also just two Riders not getting on.

To be fair, Tachibana does specifically call out what's left over from the fire as being magnesium, so I guess the idea is that there was a fake Karasuma, and flames that were real that ironically look glaringly more fake than the body because this isn't Kuuga.

Oh, I thought he was saying that what triggered the fire was magnesium, not that that's what remained after the fire. Sorry!

I mean, I don't know, you're probably right about that. I guess my main point is there was definitely supposed to be something real that was actually burning to a crisp in that room.

It's all in Tachibana-san's mind as a symptom of his body falling apart, duh.

The weird thing is, I can't even remember reacting to this twist. I think I'm seen so much dumb stuff in Rider, I just let it wash over me.

Fair point!

I just imagine Tachibana surveying the scene and thinking, "Magnesium and a hologram... of course! It's so obvious! That bastard used the oldest trick in the book!"

Just to illustrate to people the degree to which early Blade (and specifically Tachibana) is a meme in Japan, the promo post for the latest SHODO candy toy set dropped today. 16 years on, this is what they chose to put on it. Not a cool action shot. Not any of the other figures in the release (of which there are, like, 12). This.

https://cdn.image.st-hatena.com/imag...0717141950.jpg