I really like Takumi's speech. It's a Kamen Rider staple, the But Why Heroism speech (Build and Ex-Aid did a whole movie about it), and I love the specificity of Takumi's. It's slightly condescending, in that he's like I Don't Have Any Dreams But It's Cool If That's Something You Need In Your Life, and that is exactly what I want from this Rider's view of heroism.

The guitar music... I liked it a lot the first time because of how unexpected it was, and how the fight choreography was edited to match its rhythm. This time, it felt a little redundant to me? Like, doing it for a second episode, it wasn't fresh anymore. And, sure, there's some symmetry to it being Kaido playing the second time, and it cutting out because his hand couldn't finish the song, but it still wasn't as powerful to me as the first one. I don't know, just didn't resonate as well with me.

(I've also got a bit of a headache, so if you think I'm being harsher than this episode deserves, you might be right!)

Well, this is my favorite episode of Faiz, and up on there on my list of favorite Rider episodes in general, so uh, yeah, that theory is still holding. Takumi's speech in it is iconic, and everything around it is pretty freakin' great too.

Here's what I had to say about it, but I'll also add that you should simply see where the show goes from here. Kaidou's character development is far from over. I think being able to read that ending in multiple ways was probably part of the intention, despite my positive interpretation of it.

Also! I'm back on duty for this episode!

I honestly don't mind mind mistakes like this that much, since the characterization is more what I'm worried about with Faiz, but an error is an error, and this kind of stuff is real sloppy.

I think I had a slightly-not-as-great time with it (I respected it more than I enjoyed it) because it felt like this was too talky of an episode, too monologuey. There's a lot of great ideas in it, but it felt like the pacing was dragged down by a lot of pontificating, where the other person in a dialogue scene was only there to silently absorb these Big Ideas. I just didn't love how much it felt like it was The Writer telling me these things, rather than the characters.

Absolutely not, opinions need to be formed immediately and defended until death. I did not come to the internet to be told to wait until all the facts are in!

People always echo Takumi's speech here about how "even if I don't have a dream, I can protect others' dreams", which... is lovely, and definitely a nice bit of framing for Kamen Rider. It's an idea that doesn't get brought up as much as it should be for a motive and it's just as poignant and important as someone having their own dream.


It falls completely flat for me because both up to this point and having watched the series entirely, it feels out of nowhere and out of character for Takumi. Like he suddenly got a shot of Big Hero Speech plugged into his veins because the directors were worried that Faiz wasn't enough of a hero to look up to after the first few episodes. I don't know, it's just... all talk and no action, to me. It rang very hollow.

It'd be easier to talk about this with the context of future episodes, but I hugely disagree Takumi caring about other people is out of character. Even this early, there have been loads of little hints of that in his interactions with Mari and Keitarou. Remember, he's not scared of being betrayed; he's scared of betraying people. His central motivation being "I want other people to be happy even though my stupid life sucks" is as in-character as you can get for Takkun. It's very specific to him, and not something you get out of any other Rider lead.

Gotta stick up for my boy Takkun here, and reiterate that he’s a classic case of 'not what he really seems', which is very atypical for a Main Rider. Even without hindsight from future episodes, those little scenes and moments with Keitaro and Mari eventually add up to convince me at the time that there are layers to his personality; that he’s not a plain selfish jerk that I had assumed he was (which might make the series less ‘fun’/more predictable, but also get the audience intrigued on what he’s really about!).

I love the climax for this episode, mainly because how perfectly executed the cross-cutting of scenes was in visual and thematic sense. Mari doubling down on what she wants to be, Takumi discovering who he wants to be, and Kaido letting go of who he used to be in multiple ways…. it just reflects the way both groups contrast each other in terms of their current standings. The pontification was pretty on the nose, yes, but still miles ahead and way more nuanced than your typical tokusatsu fare when tackling similar theme (which is typically just a character narrating the exact reason of their aspiration, e.g. “I adore my former policeman dad!” -> token flashback scene of that policeman dad smiling -> we’ve finished establishing the entire identity of that character!).

Incidentally, I love that there’s a whole segment dedicated to Mari’s professional struggle, how they managed to find the time for a side character’s profession/aspiration that you can’t immediately link to the Kamen Rider-ing plot, the way you can with a lot of side characters’ professions as journalists or detectives. Now that they’ve finished introducing and painting a (mostly) full picture of the core six characters, it made me appreciate this early 'arc' even more and how they're not afraid of constantly putting the plot on the backseat to have all these small character-driven moments.

(OoT: LAHM looked super terrifying, in a good and intriguing way, in that screencap above)

Oh no, I'm not disputing that Takumi cares about people -- I think it'd be hard to make a case for any main Rider not caring about others. But the way this done, it's like... I don't know. It's like if Godai started getting very grungy. Like, yes, we know those character traits are there, but this doesn't feel like the way they'd express them or use them at all.

I think the thing that really made it work for me is that the only person who hears Takumi's speech on the power of dreams and how even a hollow man like him would protect them... it's a monster he immediately destroys. I love how secret Takumi keeps his motivation, how he wouldn't dare give a high-minded defense of dreams to Mari or Keitaro. It's basically a confession, and now the monster has to die after hearing it.

That aspect of it, how he'd never admit it to anyone (that he'd let live afterwards) even though he feels it intensely, I think that's what locked it in for me.

I'm just going to take a second here to point out that this episode also saw the debut of the Faiz Edge, the final major piece of Faiz's arsenal (for now), and the part that identifies the third major influence for Faiz's design: the letter phi, a shark, and a construction worker.

In Episode 5, the car scene established an important difference between the motivations of Kiba and Yuka. Kiba was happy in the past, but it's dead to him now so he has to change. Yuka never had a past like that, so becoming an Orphenoch was the best thing to happen to her. Kaido is kind of a medium. His past was taken from him, except his dream prevents him from moving on. Losing his humanity was nothing compared to that.

There's a great parallel between Kiba and Takumi in the climax where the former recites Kaido's speech as he's about to avenge his dream that was destroyed by Owl, and the latter delcares his intent to protect dreams. I like how smoothly these two plots come together to show that dreams are sacred and not something to be taken lightly.

As others have pointed out, this episode is an important turning point for Takumi and features his iconic line about protecting dreams. He's scared of hurting people and has no self-confidence. But this responsibility of Faiz gives him purpose and the means to help people. It's exactly the boost he needed and that's why he's starting to take it more seriously. It's selfish, which is just like Takumi, but it's not wrong. A superhero deserves to feel some pride.

The guitar is symbolic of Kaido's "curse", the burden he carried from the dream he's unable to fulfill on his own. Having passed the curse on to his protege, he has created a legacy that will ensure his dream will become reality in the future and thus ending the curse for good. That doesn't mean he's going to embrace being a monster.

Kaido's arc is interesting since it deals with his backstory after his introduction in the previous arc. Of course, that's cause he's not an Original Orphenoch. Kiba and Yuka are mutants but he's more of a mutate. This means he doesn't possess the mutagen to turn other humans so Smart Brain will need to use his skillset in other ways.

Finally, the debut of Faiz Edge which I forgot to mention due to it being separate from the Faiz Gear briefcase. When Faiz diverts Photon Blood to the rod, you can see it light up similar to a Lazer Blade from the Uchuu Keiji series. Although this lighting feature was already revealed in the OP. It looks cool in action nevertheless!

Auto Vajin was a protective charm for Mari but it acts recklessly when "helping" Faiz with the friendly fire. In its debut fight, it attacked Faiz deliberately but it was in response to Mari as the Faiz Gear user was Cactus who it recognized as a threat. It's still a little humorous how Takumi, the primary user of the Gear, has to scold it for behaving this way.