I feel like the difference here is in how infectious Shouko's energy is. The Airimirers are very broad characters, mugging for the camera and playing for the cheap seats. Here, Shouko's energy is more internalized, bubbling over from excitement and happiness. It's not something done for others' benefit, like the way the Airimirers are constantly bugging Airi. Shouko's just a really happy girl, and it's very entertaining to see that.

I think I should warn you that, given your disdain towards Ozaki and Miura, that there’s a guy with a few similar characteristics to the former as a major character in the next season.

But given next season has Inoue (who’s first major series had a similar character who is considered one of the best things about that series by general audiences) as the head writer and Naomi Takebe (the producer who went on to do OOO and Gaim) as producer, I’m not sure how different your reaction will be.

As for the two-parter, I did enjoy it, but I felt erasing Shouko’s memories was a bit of a cruel twist. But luckily, the next two parter is one I’m much less keen on, so that makes this one’s strengths stand out more to me)

If you're saying that Kiva has a New Houjou, I'm going to lose my mind.

The Shouko conclusion worked, I thought, because it's giving Yuuto one more thing to be heroically tortured about, which is what gives Ryotaro the push to show Yuuto how deep the memories of him really go. It's sad for a moment, and then hopeful right after.

I really like this last pair of episodes. Shouko is a great guest character and I really enjoy it when the show starts playing around with the intersection between time and memory (see also: Piano Hobo).

I also want to give some kudos to Yuichi Nakamura. Takeru Satoh gets a lot of suitable praise for playing so many different characters, but Nakamura really does an underappreciated job of playing Deneb in Yuuto's body. The bit where he and Shouko kept apologizing to each other was delightful.

Yeah, the Possessed Yuuto has this great flustered exuberance that is such a polar opposite to Yuuto's grim cranky grimness that it always cracks me up. Terrific comedic performance.

And I could watch Deneb and Shouko bow to each other forever. Real glad they came back to that gag for the second part.

Well, now I also understand about Yuuto's aim about pushing people away from him to prevent the pain of forgetting him. However, I've seen ways in trying to closing off to other people for their sake that doesn't need to resort into aggressive and hostile methods, and is also straightforward in their approach to others, so while Yuuto has good reasons, his methods still makes him a jerk (at least for all before this episode), it's not that being rude is the only way to deal with this problem (of keeping people distant)... people have tendency that if someone unpleasant had at least beneath them, good reasons/points in what they do, then they right any choices they do and treat it as the only method to approach that, while blaming everyone else for "not understanding him". Though for this episode, it seems that Yuuto has changed a bit, where while he's usually angry at Deneb possessing him and making him look good in front of people, including last episode where people thanked him for Deneb's candies, here Yuuto, albeit more composed, acted in no different way to Shouko than Deneb in Yuuto's body did to her.

Well, you declare this moment as the most realistic way, and despite the popular belief, (though I'm not this, big time) optimistic people exist, usually, they use optimism as a defense mechanism for dealing with their lives better. This doesn't mind that they are always happy and cheery, they have their breakdowns, as any other person, they just prefer to keep going instead of moping around. And, yeah, it was only Deneb's act of generosity to Shouko at first, but, although most of the time Deneb was the one to interact with Shouko, this is a set up for something bigger, a pairing of, like you said, a troubled boy, against a girl that would be the solution to that, that is, if Yuuto would want to see Shouko as bigger impact than she is, as at least Yuuto is the one who asked Deneb to keep an eye on Shouko and likely would observe the situation too. Also got this... if Shouko's talk was about pupa transforming... or rather, henshin, into butterfly... then to integrate that into the world of toku... then someone who can't be a Rider, but keeps doing something (well Ryotaro had a talk about him being weak, but he's a Rider)... this should be put when Yuuto can't transform into Zeronos!

Well it's probably not just someday if Ryotaro admires Sakurai (at least in that time) and talked about he's the one to inspire Ryotaro like the declaration that being weak isn't an excuse to not do anything. And Ryotaro is, well, someone cursed with bad luck, but despite everything going wrong in his life, he never once falls into angst or emotional breakdown, and he always steps up to do the right thing, though at best Ryotaro isn't happy-go-lucky for obvious reasons. Ryotaro puts an iron approach to his misery as a determined guy. Well, as Yuuto being forgotten comes from his transformation to Zeronos, well, Ryotaro at one point forcefully took Zeronos' card away from Yuuto as likely an attempt to make him happy and remembered.

https://challengerscomics.com/images/kr/deno/den42c.png

Well, this was exactly what I meant, praising a character for being excessively energetic, but giving others hard time for not being that loud and broad type. I mean, of course it's completely valid to praise Shouko's acting and thinking that the chemistry between someone can be better than others, but this comment seems like being unable to tolerate difference; forcing anyone (albeit Airi isn't in despair and had a good reason to be excitable like that...) to don that enthusiastic and hyper behavior, that if not being morally grey or black, it's the only way for you to have a worth, otherwise people who don't act like that are "lifeless" or such.

Well, while people will (and ought to) have interest in 1 person to stay loyal to them, I do hope that Shouko doesn't act rudely to people not in her radar like declaring them as worthless and out of her league or something, like seemingly this scene does. Though like before, I would still wonder what would happen if Shouko hasn't had her interest pinned on someone yet and had people acting like Deneb of being charming and helping her in princely way.

But they're Kamen Riders who won't have humans' brittle body! Car would be nothing to Kamen Riders (even Kuuga Growing who pushes a truck without problem).

I mean, she's not rude to Urataros. He's specifically trying to flirt with her (because: Urataros) and she's not interested. The joke isn't that she's mean to him; the joke is that she doesn't seem to notice his flirting because she's already crushing on Yuuto/Deneb and Ura can't handle being rejected.

Ryotaro is usually pretty banged up after a Den-O fight, though. I can't imagine he could shrug off getting pancaked by a truck.

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 43 - "SOMETHING MISSING”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den43a.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den43b.png

Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidn't like.

The main problem with doing any time travel story, especially one that takes a year to tell, is that you really need to clarify what's happening. Like, Doctor Who gets ragged on for some dumb companion characters, but you 1000% need someone who can ask what the hell is going on in the story. There's a half-dozen things going on in this series, with singularity points and train lines and paradoxes and rewritten memories and etc and etc, but I more or less can't understand the stakes of just about any of them. Everything is in flux, constantly. There're plenty of solid emotional stakes, so there's still things to invest in on that level. I care about Ryotaro, and Momo, and Yuuto, and all the rest. How they feel about a story can save it more often than not. But the plot stakes are always suspect, always nebulous.

The main problem with this story is that not only do I not really have a handle on what the hell is happening, I also don't have a handle on why Ryotaro is behaving the way he is. It makes for a story that I don't get on a plot level, and I don't buy on an emotional level.

Like, one of the big things that Owner tries to explain (it is maybe this show's achilles heel that most of the timeline exposition comes from the character least interested in nailing down details) is that there's suspicion regarding Sakurai's importance to the plot. I mostly didn't understand a word of how they were getting at this (god bless the subbing team who had to translate this nonsense), but the end result is that Owner suggests that maybe it's not that Ryotaro is the only one who remembers Sakurai, but that Ryotaro's memories of Sakurai are the fake ones.

This is an absolutely preposterous theory. It's impossible to even briefly entertain, because there have been at least two characters besides Ryotaro who remember Sakurai, by name. (Ryotaro's nostalgia-addicted school chum and the evil banker both mention Sakurai's relationship with Airi. It's even a plot point when the school chum forgets it later!) The fact that neither person is immediately brought up to refute this theory is frustrating, because it means the show isn't paying attention to the details, or that they can't explain their dilemma in a clear and concise way. Either they're bad at the plot or bad at explaining the plot, and I'm not thrilled with either of those possibilities.

The emotional stakes for this one are way worse, and way more disappointing.

Basically, Kai shows up to remind Ryotaro that he's fighting to keep the Imagin's future from existing. Except, his closest friends are four imagination monsters from that future. If Ryotaro defeats Kai, then Momo and all the rest will disappear.

There are so many problems with the way this story is told after that.

First, we were already told about these stakes from the Imagin weeks ago. Not this specific avenue of their destruction, but the idea that their time was running out is not even close to a new idea. It's new to Ryotaro, but making it a huge turn in this episode weeks after the audience started to deal with it feels like Ryotaro is slow on the uptake. It's asking viewers to be as shocked and as shook as Ryotaro, when he's pretty much the only character who hadn't figured this out.

Second, the conundrum Ryotaro has (use the Imagin to destroy their own future or save their future by dooming humanity) is unbelievably cliched and not terribly compelling. Are we expecting Ryotaro to ride a magical time train with his good friends while all of humanity is obliterated by an army of imagination monsters? Is that supposed to be a realistic decision he has to make? I don't want to make a Kobayashi Maru joke here, because it's not just something that crops up in her stories. It's baked into the formula of Kamen Rider. Kamen Rider is, for fifty years now, about using evil to fight for good. That usually necessitates a story where the hero deals with the possibility that defeating evil will leave him with nothing to fight with. It's to this show's credit that it's not power that Ryotaro will lose but friendship, but this is still a disappointingly standard plot point (that it is tough to ever make work) with two startlingly unequal scenarios for the hero to choose from.

Third, in typical Impossible Decision fashion, the hero opts to make no choice, and so we get a long-ass fight scene of Ryotaro getting beaten up. He won't fight with the powers of the Imagin, but he can't survive without them. It's a non-solution that's especially bizarre because it's not like Ryotaro stopped fighting, he just stopped fighting with his friends. It doesn't make any sense. It's a decision that's impossible to understand (he's more or less opting for suicide?!) and leads to literally everyone on the show yelling at him to explain himself. It's meant to be frustrating, but it is such prolonged frustration that I wanted to turn the episode off.

Finally, after Ryotaro gets beaten up because he won't fight with the Imagin and he won't come up with a way to win without them, we get the big emotional standoff at the end between Momo and Ryotaro. Momo is the voice of the audience, furious at Ryotaro for tanking an easy fight because he wouldn't fight with his friends. Ryotaro's response is We Aren't Friends Anymore, which is probably supposed to be some extra-shocking moment in an episode that's probably supposed to feel filled with shocks. Instead, it felt tone-deaf and out-of-character to a degree I'd've never thought a show forty-three episodes in could manage. It makes Ryotaro the bad guy in what's either a misguided tough-love decision, or a full-on psychotic break.

I'd probably be more forgiving of the latter, since we literally just did a story where Ryotaro showed Yuuto the power of connections and the stupidity of pushing away the people you care for. Like, it was the end of the last goddamn episode. So to follow that up with Ryotaro saying that he's Not Here To Make Friends... dumb. Incredibly dumb.

And that's pretty much the whole episode for me. Incredibly dumb. I barely understood what was happening in the plot, and I hated what the main character was doing in reaction to that plot. Ryotaro is at his most unlikeable in this episode, and it made this my least-favorite episode of Den-O. Just a massively disappointing experience to watch this one.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den43c.png

THE BAGGAGE CAR

-So, one of the big reasons I don't speculate on Kamen Rider cliffhangers is so I don't get my heart set on any one theory. As such, I found the reveal of the God Spoons to be a pretty funny subversion. If you went out of last episode expecting some massive info dump or a cool new power-up, you were probably a little less amused! I can only imagine how much more I'd've disliked this episode had that been the case for me.

-However. It seems as though the show is hinting that the Pocketwatchman isn't Sakurai from the future, but Ryotaro from the future. Like Kai's reaction, it's an interesting twist, but I don't really know what to make of it.

-Even Kai is lame in this one! His whole standoff with Ryotaro is shot in a really mediocre fashion (check how shaky the camera move is as Kai enters the frame), and his taunts are just generic Sneering Villain bullshit. There's no spark to his role in this story. Everything but that one Yuuto/Deneb scene let me down!

Yeah, I wasn’t totally keen on this two-parter either. Ryotaro just came off as an unnecessary jerk to me.

Our main villain for Den-O, the Albinoleo Imagin (I confused him with the Leo Imagin before) makes his debut here. He’s voiced by Takuya Kuroda, who voiced the Owl Imagin earlier in the series. Check my response to episode… I want to say, 13?… for more on him.

But for now, here’s the voice for the briefly seen Armadillo Imagin.

Wataru Takagi

Notable Anime roles: Bunbee in the Pretty Cure series, Crimson Rubeus in Sailor Moon R, Wataru Takagi in Detective Conan, Jagi in Hellsing Ultimate, The Joker in Batman Ninja, Sparky/Epxeriment 221 in Stitch, Eikichi Onizuka in Great Teacher Onizuka.

Notable Tokusatsu roles: Kishiryu DimeVolcano in Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger.

Notable dubbing roles: Cheetos in Beast Wars, Daffy Duck in Looney Tunes, Flim in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Glen Whitman in Transformers, Ignacio in Nacho Libre, Jetstorm in Transformers Animated, Tip in The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea

I heavily disagree with you on your two major criticisms of this episode, in that the stuff about Ryoutarou's memory seems fairly straightforward to me (the primary relevant information is so simple it fits entirely within the episode title), and that I think the plot with him and the Imagin is a fairly natural sort of sequel to Climax Form's debut that's happening at a good point for it, but then, this could all be that Future Knowledge of mine making it hard for me to properly empathize with your viewing experience. Or we just have very different tastes sometimes, who knows? (We definitely have very different tastes sometimes.)

He is not exactly someone to root for in this one.

Yeah, boy, when it comes to the memory issues, I'm not getting it. I hope I don't come off as dense or stubborn or anything, but nothing in that part of the episode was clarified for me at all. Sorry if I'm missing something obvious!

For the Imagin/Ryotaro plot, I definitely think there's a way to address the conflict they're bound to have. The Imagin have hid their knowledge that this war will cost them their lives, and Ryotaro feels betrayed by that. He's been assuring the destruction of his best friends on a weekly basis. He's become complicit in their demise. He's right to be angry at them!

The problem is that the episode basically puts Ryotaro at a remove for the remainder of it, so he basically comes across as a spiteful jerk for about ten straight minutes of story, with a cliffhanger where he's an incredibly spiteful jerk.

But, like, of course Ryotaro isn't really a spiteful jerk, so I'm left with a story where he's not communicating anything to a group of characters he's never shown an inability to confront before, and he's being cruel in a way he usually reserves for murderers and genocidal tyrants. It's a story that feels like it's going out of its way to not have anyone talk to each other in order to needlessly prolong an uncomfortable story.

The premise could've worked, but the execution here was unpleasant and vaguely illogical. Maybe I'll like it better once I see the finale, though.

Thanks for the differing viewpoint, though! Always interesting to hear when folks disagree with me.

To be fair to you, I do think Den-O deliberately writes its big mystery plot so as to obfuscate the details, even during the bits where it seems like it's finally trying to fill you in (recall also how the movie tie-in stuff happened, for a similar thing you've already seen the endpoint of), so I can also see where you might have trouble picking out particular bits of information. It's very much a show that likes to play its cards close to its chest.

If I might throw your own words right back at you, I hope I don't come off like I'm saying you're dense or stubborn for not being super on-board with all of this. Again, that fog bank thing you said summed it up *perfectly* – there's a flavor to some of Den-O's storytelling that is evidently more up my alley than yours, and, you know, that's fine!

(And by the way – and I want to stress I'm not saying this to start some argument – but I find it very amusing seeing you talk about a script by Kobayashi the way a lot of people talk about anything Inoue has ever written.) :lol

Yeah, I think we're definitely in Agree To Disagree territory, which is totally cool. There's a level of mystery where I just feel frustrated, and that's sort of where this plot has me. (I seem to recall Ryuki toying around with its series arc in some similar ways that I was not into.)

Do not think you can distract me from disliking this episode by getting me to gush about Inoue!

One of the things that made Inoue great at these types of stories (...damn it) was that his characters were mostly designed to support them. Agito is a show suffused with mistrust, as humanity and mutants struggle to find an uneasy peace. Faiz is a show suffused with mistrust, as humanity and Orphnochs struggle to retain their cultures while expanding them with new viewpoints. They're shows about the impossibility of communication and acceptance, and how those impossibilities make them all the more necessary. There's a natural tendency for characters in these shows to be guarded about their interests and skeptical of sharing with others. Miscommunication and half-truths are baked into them on a premise-level. (Also, they're virtually all terrible people, give or take a Shouichi or Keitaro.)

With this Den-O story, Ryotaro isn't built to be this closed-off and confrontational. It's like he got replaced by Yuuto, who is a way more natural way of telling this sort of story. (It is about half of the Zeronos stories this show has done!) Pushing Ryotaro into Uncommunicative and Aggrieved territory strikes me as discordant; ill-fitting. Perfect story for a Takumi or a Gills, not great for a Den-O.

You don't need to tell me that; we've been in Agree To Agree territory with Faiz for a while now! :p

Okay, so I'm starting to remember my big issue with Den-O's endgame: a lot of it centers around stuff that makes very little sense. I used to blame Kai for this, but I think it's fairer to blame the writing because I feel like the concepts are definitely there, but they just are not being explained well. This episode was a great example of that, as we're getting a lot of discussion around who and/or what the Junction Point is and, well... this is my third time through the show and I still don't understand exactly what the hell a "Junction Point" is and how it's supposed to work.

Like, I get the idea that the Imagin are trying to adjust the flow of time for their benefit, but the mechanics behind it are really vague. I'm starting to think that it's not a case of the show trusting us to figure it out and more of the show throwing jargon at us and hoping that we'll assume it means something. It makes me think of that old South Park episode with the underpants gnomes, only it reads more like:

Step 1: Find Sakurai in the past.

Step 2: Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow to charge the deflector dish with tachyon particles and divert the midichlorians through the Junction Point.

Step 3: Who run the world? Imagin.

Yeah, I think this episode was kind of the archetypal Den-O Series Arc episode, because there are a couple key scenes that directly address the plot stakes of the entire season, and neither of them actually explains what's going on in this episode.

Like, the Kai scene (that is, again, disappointingly dull compared to how electric his scenes usually are) has him explaining that the Imagin are trying to build themselves a past, in order to ensure their future exists. That's a fun idea, and a nicely villainous twist on Memories Have Power. But the specifics of how that happens, and why Sakurai (or "Sakurai") is important to that, those fairly large pieces of the narrative are either left up to the audience or conveyed in the most elliptical way possible. It's an unbelievably crucial part of the entire series narrative, and I'm mostly just hoping there are a few funny lines and/or a clever moral to make me feel engaged.

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 44 - "RESOLUTION OF A SINGLE-ACTION”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den44a.png

Man, this episode.

It's almost a complete 180 from last time. There's a sincerity to this episode that I think the last one obscured with Time Nonsense and miscommunication. The fact that this episode kicks off with Momo and Ryotaro getting into a shouting match about Momo's secrecy and Ryotaro's martyrdom is extraordinarily refreshing, a total palette-cleanser from the previous chapter.

Like, last episode left a cloud of frustration and resentment hanging over everything, but this episode quickly grounds its emotional stakes: Ryotaro can't stand by and let people sacrifice themselves, let alone be complicit in the act. It's frustrating to him to have to explain all this to Momo. The fact that Momo still sees this all as just some chance to knock around heads, and to see Momo treat his own life so casually, it's disgusting to Ryotaro.

The thing is, that's not even close to what Momo's talking about.

My absolute favorite choice this episode made is to have Ryotaro be completely in the wrong. This story ends up being a sequel to the Return Of Zeronos story, where Ryotaro is fine with his own self-sacrifice, but he refuses to let others make that same decision. It's his heroism turning him into a martyr, where he can't allow people their own chances for heroism. Back in that Zeronos story, Ryotaro needed to trust in Yuuto enough to know that he was fighting as Zeronos with his eyes open, and doing it for the right reasons. It's the same thing he needs to understand about Momo in this story.

One of Ryotaro's biggest flaws as a hero is that he's oftentimes unable to see the heroes inside other people. His need to protect others makes him see them as fragile, keeps him from letting them protect themselves. He cares so much about his friends that that feeling is amplified, where he'll make terrible, selfish choices to keep them from danger. It's the sort of well-established character trait that really pulls this episode together and keeps it from feeling as cruel and adversarial as last time.

But it's Momo's side of things that makes this episode more than just a Ryotaro Needs To Learn To Let Go retread. We've seen Momo as a good friend to Ryotaro, as a concerned boss to the other Imagin, and as an unstoppable fighter. What we've maybe never seen him be is a hero.

The entire fight scene between Ryotaro and Momotaros was absolutely epic. It's pure emotion conveyed through an action sequence. Both characters are trying to explain how resolute they are in their decision-making. Momo is going to fight the Imagin, and Ryotaro will never allow it. It's a total stalemate, with Momo kicking the crap out of Ryotaro for about seven straight hours (I did not check the clock, bit of a ballpark) and Ryotaro refusing to accept defeat. They are both pushing each other as hard as they can, and neither one is willing to give an inch.

So they just stop pushing.

Ryotaro breaks down. He tells Momo that he can't stop fighting to destroy the Imagin's timeline, which would destroy his friends on the DenLiner, but he also can't let them be a part of that. What Ryotaro's doing is tragic, and it'd become impossibly tragic if had to use his friends in their own destruction. He feels guilty and responsible and it's crippling him. He sees his friends as something to protect, and he's letting them down, no matter what he chooses.

But his friends aren't just something to protect. They're people(-ish), and they're becoming heroes of their own. Momo tells Ryotaro that he's not just mad that Ryotaro won't let him fight; he's mad because Ryotaro won't give him the chance to protect people. Ryotaro has changed the Imagin, acting as a beacon to lead them into the light. He's taken imagination monsters from the end of time and, through friendship, made them want to be heroes. Momo's mad, just like Yuuto was, at the hypocrisy of Ryotaro to deny them the chance to help people.

It leads to an incredibly sweet ending fight that works on a couple levels. On an emotional one, it's this intensely cathartic battle with every single Form getting some licks in on the Armadillo Imagin, every DenLiner Imagin feeling seen by Ryotaro. On a tokusatsu level, it's a great late-stage showcase for how good these suits are. We're nearing the end of the show, which usually means signs and warnings that Your Form Must Be This Powerful To Ride. So a final fight scene for all these early suits is really nice to get. (Ghost did a quick story for all of its abandoned early-days Forms near the end of its run, which I hope I enjoyed as much as I did this one. I don't remember!)

Overall, this was everything I thought the last episode was lacking. It drilled the story into being a fight between Momo and Ryotaro. It made Ryotaro's argument simultaneously relatable and irrational. It let Ryotaro be wrong. And it grew Momo's character in a surprising, organic way.

I liked this one.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den44c.png

THE BAGGAGE CAR

-Of all the weirdo sets this episode used to show off the Time Station's flexibility, I loved that the big Momo/Ryotaro fight happens in Smart Brain's hallway. A Faiz reference? That... might be why that scene worked extra good on me.

-The Deneb/Yuuto runner with Deneb geeking out for Station Master merch was a hilarious non-sequitur. Yuuto is right to not want to interfere in Momo and Ryotaro's argument, but it leaves him and Deneb with no real reason to be around for this episode. Not a complaint, since letting them just be weird is never a problem, but worth pointing out.

-Any episode where Airi gets to lay down some advice over a melancholy montage is probably going to be a good one, no matter what else occurs. It's a well the show thankfully doesn't go back to too often, so it never gets to be cliched or predictable.

It's so nice to see the Momo and Ryotaro stuff get back on track. Den-O is at its best when it forgets about the big time shenigins, and its best when it remembers the characters at the centre of this. Ryotaro, the Imagin, Yuuto, they're still popular characters today for a reason.

...Pretty much! It probably goes without saying that this is one of my favorites of the whole show, but even beyond that, it's possibly the Den-O episode I think about whenever I think about Den-O. By the time I rewatched it, enough of the show had slipped my mind that I no longer remembered exactly what Momotaros and Ryoutarou talked about here, or why, but in all that intervening time, I could always still vividly recall this image, and the feeling that went along with it:

https://i.imgur.com/JWeMJpp.png

It's a scene that left quite an impression. All the other amazing things in the episode that I rediscovered watching it again – like Momo saying "our special attack" – were pretty much gravy at that point. Den-O is a show that's rightfully known primarily for being hilarious, but that always takes a back seat in my mind to just how fantastically endearing the character work can be, and episodes like this are why.

Momo alone is popular enough to show up in an unrelated Ex-Aid movie nine years later!

Do you want to hear real quick what the second top image almost was?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den44b.png

It's brilliant in the way that it has this big Momo/Ryotaro blowup, splits the characters apart, lets them stew about their feelings (and everyone else backs off! There are no scenes with Ryotaro or Momo explaining their problems to other people! That is super crucial!), and then puts them back in conflict. It's an episode that's in no real hurry to address a pretty major schism, and I loved it for treating these characters with some seriousness.

And then, after they make up, Momo reminds Ryotaro that Ryotaro's bad luck will probably get him killed way before the Imagin disappear, and this show proves that it can do whatever it sets its mind to.

Commented on this part late due to being unable to access Tokunation server before. Btw how about the part where characters are acted differently from Shouko's? (I mean if they aren't energetic genki type).

Uhh read again that's actually what I was saying that she didn't rude to Urataros, to my relief? I've witnessed the opposite happened in Faiz where Yuka rebuffs Keitaro rudely in favor of Kaido. Well, though Faiz as a whole is written by Inoue, can't really call that an OOC/derailing or such (i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶.̶.̶ ̶Y̶u̶j̶i̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶l̶?̶) but when that happened to other people's work...

I mean yeah, that's the morton's fork of time travel story, especially regarding you to plotting. As you said, they need to clarify what's happening, but exposition is a no to you. And this is the general consensus of Den-O having superb cast that you can care, but the plot isn't that good. Well, the thing about Yuuto is people forgetting him when he henshins, but it doesn't apply to Ryotaro. Singularity Point is quite simple that it means humans with the ability to exist independently of time itself, and be unaffected by changes in their own past, and thus Ryotaro doesn't forget about Yuuto. And well, you explained to me about this before, regarding of how Taros Imagins don't have physical form to have them partake and fight in real world, that's also the trait Singularity Points possess. I know you aren't enthusiasted but still won't talk more about this.

I mean Kai sees those like Ryuutaros as traitor, and previously he also has antagonized and mentally tortured him. I wonder why would you complain about Kai jeopardizing the Taros Imagins, when Kai has been doing this since his first appearence to Ryuutaros.

There are so many problems with the way this story is told after that.

I don't know about this complaint, that despite you insisting you "don't truck with Showa", this complaint sounds similar about how Kamen Rider formula should stay as it is, like those who stan Showa and takes it to the extremes. The phase 1 before has more of shows who experimented with certain things, like Ryuki containing evil Riders, Faiz containing good/neutral monsters, Blade with dummy long arcs or balanced Rider cast, Hibiki with slice-of-life approach, Kabuto (this one's playing it safe though) with morally ambiguous (and perfect) main Rider and idealistic secondary Rider, etc. Though well yeah, for the part of using evil to fight for good, those are mostly true for those stories, the Advent Deck being created by Shiro, the Rider Gears created by Smart Brain, the Undead Cards created by BOARD which is led by Tennoji, the Zecters created by ZECT, though I was confused about your complaint about Kuuga being walking natural disaster from the Rising Mighty nuke kick.

And how do you expect Ryotaro to ride a magical time train with his friends? Ryotaro still wants to fight, not letting humanity be doomed, still on the topic of Ryotaro being stronger., that the continuation is Ryotaro trying to handle things alone without risking the lives of the Taros Imagins. This is also similar to how Ryotaro responds to Yuuto fighting as Zeronos, in contrast to Kintaros (where you talked about it being Ryotaro's personality taken to the extremes), Ryotaro is really against sacrifice. He flips out of the possibility of the Taros Imagins just throwing their life without a second thought going down fighting. I think that the impossible decision dliemma is interesting here, figuring out what can Ryotaro do to give both of the choices good outcome, however...

... yeah the execution doesn't sit well with me either here, I mean Ryotaro already got Liner Form now, and that's not the Imagins taking part in the fight, other than the sword can be rotated to communicate with certain Imagins. I guess the show is trying to reinforce that friendship, but this is the part of the plotting that suddenly forgets what has been set up before, like was Liner Form a joke to him?

Heh. Well, Ryotaro was being standoffish here yeah, and was glad that Ryotaro turning standoffish isn't a good way, I mean, for you who is thrilled on character conflicts, and has accepted characters suddenly turned into jerks before for the sake of it. Leave the character infighting to those who had the personality to incite that, like Ryuutaros, don't turn morally white characters like Ryotaro into that just for the sake of conflict. Or the fact that tough-love decision isn't necessarily the best choice for anyone to make, despite the popular belief.

Well, I guess you're getting about the people's complaint about Kai here (not saying they're right of course), that the complaint is about this, but instead is applied to each Kai's appearence instead of only at this point.

I fondly recall the emotional scene with Ryoutarou, Momotaros and the atmospheric lava lamp, which could be symbolic for the heat between them. Even if the time nonsense is still just time nonsense, this episode does a great job and establishing once more the connection between the two co-protagonists and the thing this show never fails at. It's fitting though, that Den-O keeps coming back since everybody remembers him.

The moral of protecting the present first and worrying about the future later is something I've also seen in Wizard and Kobayashi's previous time travel show, Mirai Sentai Timeranger. You can try and protect the future, but if you don't protect the present, there won't be a future.

I guess I wasn't clear on what you were saying? Can you give it to me again?

I mean, I'm not sure I'd say exposition was a "no" to me. You need a certain amount of exposition when you're telling any year-long story, and that goes double for one with alternate timelines. I think my negative reactions are usually to dull exposition: something that's just a character giving a dry recitation of facts in a visually boring way, or information that's already well-known.

Yeah, that's a great read on it. There's a ton of work done, on this time travel show, to center everything on the present. Yuuto's someone whose future is destroying his past. Kai's someone who seems to exist in an eternal Now. And Ryotaro's handicap for the second half of the series is that he's at his least powerful when he's anywhere but in the present.

Definitely a program that's trying to talk about not dwelling on the past or overinvesting in the future!

This was a really good episode with some great emotional elements and a good showcase for the show's different suits. It's a good emotional climax for the team leading into the final arcs, as well. There's some excellent striking visuals, especially in the Momotaros v. Ryotaro section. All around, a really good episode and I have no idea why every single second of it felt completely unfamiliar to me. I didn't remember anything about this episode and that's really weird, given how good it is and how I know I've already seen it twice.

OK this, but I dunno if this talk would incite an argument...

Right, the episode still starts with Ryotaro acting harsh on the others like Momo forcing him to leave him alone as his wish now. But that got quickly brushed away. And you know, no offense, while Ryotaro comes off as(s) spiteful jerk before at the cliffhanger, Ryotaro at this part of episode shows, a significantly better way of conveying what his deal is compared to Yuuto acting standoffish to others, which is just being straightforward and explaining the situation of him not wanting others to disappear. And you're ok now with disappearing Imagins, which was your previous complaint there due to how Ryotaro acts now?

Well for Ryotaro, I guess I've talked before about how people use the misguided definition of hero as simply someone who saves other's lives and/or put their live at risk for others, but Ryotaro here... he's an ideal hero, but his approach is also a complete opposite to that norm people hold on, that he's really against people sacrificing themselves, especially as it's unnecessary, you die just accomplishing that 1 heroic deed, then you can't do anymore. Ryotaro prefers to let others alive, so they can keep doing heroic deeds. This is also seen before when Yuuto continues fighting as Zeronos.

I mean of course, Ryotaro acting as a spiteful jerk for just a mere moment and have him being in the wrong is a journey. But the thing is, from audience talk, I don't like that, I know that people here including me rightfully complained about Ryotaro acting OOC at the end of previous episode before, but people usually tolerate the screw-ups (Ryotaro did) that is caused by someone acting jerk or being a hardass, but if a screw-up is created by ordinary flaw (which is what is more expected for Ryotaro), like lack of confidence, then that one will usually earn more hatred from audience, even correlating that flaw with kindness to view that as weakness.

I still stand by the previous poor decision of Ryotaro's attempt to be heroic, that being stuck on Plat Form, but I still see Ryotaro's act here as the continuation of Ryotaro getting stronger plot (Momo said it himself to not get cocky just because of being stronger), that Ryotaro wants to fight threats alone, not sacrificing himself, and I'd like if Ryotaro makes use of Liner Form to do that (I think the sword is only radio, not Imagins taking part on battle and risking their live by possessing).

Also, about Ryotaro not seeing heroes inside other people, I don't think that it had correlations of others being fragile (remember, it's Ryotaro the loser who is fragile), but as Ryotaro is the most morally upright, I guess Ryotaro sets up too high of a standard of heroism, like those who are grey shouldn't partake the way the morally white like Ryotaro can (well, Ryotaro's moral does take the good part of the adventure like breaking the "rule" of protecting the flow of time by helping the contract holder in the past), which, well, personally I would also say that grey part of someone can't be overlooked and make them lumped together with ideal toku hero like Ryotaro and that they should improve themselves, but doesn't mean that they can't be any use in saving the day even if like, they only cover the fighting monsters part, I think instead of others being fragile, it's more about Ryotaro thinking in terms of black-and-white; even the slightest gray to him is immediately treated as black at the earliest opportunity. Also, the thing about Zeronos, it's not merely fighting for the right reasons, but there are other aspects as the worldview, methods, etc. Zeronos is pragmatic hero, that he can stoop into dirty tactics to get the job done, though Ryotaro should also let himself partake, which is by trusting him enough.

Momotaros, as this episode summed up, still a violent misfit that wants to take part in battle due to enjoying fighting too, so never seeing him as a hero (well, Momotaros is an anti-hero for fighting against evil but having several negative qualities, and that is still a subset of hero albeit morally grey) is brought up in the episode too. As previously has shown, Momo cares about Ryotaro a lot after a rough start, and I would see him as less concerned about the other Imagins compared to Ryotaro (I still see relationships with less conflict as the closer one, albeit of course there are exceptions, for this one, well Momo's main concern is Ryotaro, and he can see other Imagins as competition for taking care of Ryotaro, and he had almost no conflict with Ryotaro after Momo fully cares for him), but about being heroic, what they should do (except for Kin, but as you said he resorts to self-sacrifice at any opportunity, he really needs to learn about Ryotaro's outburst here about not sacrificing) is care for more than only what's close to them, like only between the Taros Imagins group, or Airi for Ryutaros. They should care for people less related to them, like the strangers, as heroes are about taking care of them.

So, capabilities wise, it seems that the Imagins are weaker than the Riders, that they fare worse to Armadillo as the default form Imagins (well I talked before about the Imagins taking part of the fight, and finally it happened now albeit against an Imagin too powerful), albeit they fare better than Plat Form. It seems that Den-O saves the day by stacking the strength between Plat Form and the Imagin's power. I also like if the fights showcase every Rider's capabilities, and that's my favorite for Rider's fights, which is also what I complained about the phase 2's handling of forms and powers.

But that's the purpose of episodes being continued.. to complete what's started and lacking in the previous episodes.

Well of course, getting help from others isn't only about your life being saved, Airi doing this stuff is crucial too, as there are many life problems than just being put in life or death situation. Though this is a contrasting view from your reception where Airi and Hana first met (it could've been a good domestic scene but is hampered by Milk Dipper setting which is infested by Airimirers - and there are no Airimirers bugging that scene actually!)

Not even Deneb dressed up in all his Station Master merch? That's the main thing about this story!

I don't think praising Shouko's character is being intolerant to another character? Please don't read too much into what I'm saying! If I'm paying a compliment to one character or performer, I am not insulting another one by omission. Something can be good without something else being bad!

I didn't mean it was literally lacking something, like a conclusion. I was more referring to 44 feeling true to the characters and emotionally relatable in a way that 43 wasn't. To me, 44 was easy to enjoy in a way that 43 wasn't.

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O HYPER BATTLE VIDEO - "SINGING, DANCING, BIG TRAINING!!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/denhbva.png

This was an exquisite disappointment.

I mean, the gold standard for HBVs (at least for the shows I've watched) are Faiz and Build. Faiz is legendarily bonkers, rendering the themes of the show in a musical fever dream. Build is absurdism hiding a beating heart, taking a random piece of tie-in media to talk about toxic male role models and media's tendency to favor paternal narratives over maternal ones. Those two massively exceeded what I expected, in ways that maybe colored my expectations for this one.

Like, I really thought this one would try and do something fascinating, and it did, but not at all in the way I was hoping for. I thought we'd get some intriguingly brief look at emotional well-being, or the ability to draw strength out of tragedy. Instead, we got a workout video?

It's seriously just a ten-minute workout video featuring the characters of Den-O. There's a fight scene at the end, where Ryotaro puts his exercise lessons into practice, but there's just about zero story here. Ryotaro wants to get stronger, tons of working out, Ryotaro defeats three returning Imagin. There isn't really an arc so much as there's cause and effect. Narratively, it's nowhere, and there's nothing happening in it to talk about.

But conceptually, I find it absolutely fascinating. In a lot of ways, Den-O is a series about self-care. It's incredibly internal, focusing a lot of the storytelling on how we live with ourselves (not to give away the Series Recap post for next week), and that topic is filtered through Ryotaro and the Imagin. So taking the HBV and turning the emotional self-care into physical self-care, making the lessons about physical fitness instead of mental fitness, I think that's a really cool idea. It's not, y'know, a compelling story (I will not be taking Ryotaro's advice and watching this video again, probably ever), but it's a completely worthwhile idea that's largely supported by the series' themes.

So, yeah, not really much here to talk about (I ate pizza and watched Wrestlemania with a roommate tonight; I am not doing calisthenics), but a pretty neat concept that I applaud the creators for attempting.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/denhbvb.png

THE BAGGAGE CAR

-Deneb shows up but Yuuto doesn't, which communicates to me that the show absolutely knows which part of the Deneb/Yuuto team is paying the bills.

-Sieg's appearance... was it just because of the movie? It's so totally random to have a two-episode character pop back up for a scene that I've got to assume the producers thought it'd help if they had a movie character show up. I don't know. It's a great surprise, but it's insane that Sieg's first post-movie appearance was in the HBV. (Unless I'm forgetting him showing up again in the show? I assume he'll be somewhere in the next few episodes.)

HBVs having any narrative heft is definitely the exception rather than the norm. I think KumaTelevi really spoiled you!

That said, if you ever need some encouragement to get in shape, just plug in this video and you too can one day be as capable as Den-O (Is that a good thing...?)!

I guess the biggest surprise/disappointment for me was the lack of any new suits or gimmicks? With all of the ways Den-O blazed a trail for Phase 2 Heisei to follow, I would've bet money that the HBV had some kit-bashed new Form to show off as a goof. Nope!

But, yeah, Phase 1 didn't really seem to know what to do with the format of the HBV yet. A ton of recap stuff, and maybe a couple good jokes, and a fight. That's about all you got. Phase 2 would start to play around with DVD technology to create quizzes and branching narratives, before abandoning that to mostly focus on new suits that could be sold down the line (or packed-in; not sure how that works) while building in a bit more story to sell those new suits.

They began with Kiva. As did the final stage getting a DVD release (Den-O started them, it just didn’t get any form of release, as far as I know).

Anyway, the HBV is the one live Den-O production I haven’t seen (I also haven’t seen the Imagin anime beyond a clip from the episode with Ultraman Taro). So I’ll just talk about something you mentioned when talking about episode 44: the all forms showcase. That’s something Japanese shows made to sell toys tend to do near the end of the show, basically the last opportunity the writers use to pump the toyline, before the last few episodes go nuts with what they do to the merch (I’m currently coming up to such a string of episodes in Hurricaneger). And since most of the shows start in February and last the year round, the “last chance” generally coincides with Christmas.

Hyper Gatack?

That was my thought. There's also Mini-Hibiki, which needs a Seihou more than any other suit in existence.

EDIT: also blade but with a scarf

Well ok, maybe I was reading too much into it, it was refering to "the type of chemistry that I think the show wrongly assumes that Yuuto and Airi have" part of that post, unless of course, the idea of improvement isn't "turn Airi into someone like Shouko".

BTW, well, again, how about the long rambling in ep. 44 I wrote? Especially the part of Ryotaro's view that I'd like to discuss.

I mean, that's two separate pieces of criticism? I wasn't trying to suggest that Yuuto and Airi's lack of chemistry was because of Shouko, as though Shouko was the right way and Airi was the wrong way. I was saying that Shouko/Yuuto have chemistry AND Airi/Yuuto don't. Those tow groups aren't dependent on one another, and there's no one right way to tell a romantic story. There are, however, a whole bunch of wrong ways, and that includes two actors not having any chemistry between them. That's the Airi/Yuuto problem.

Like, I for sure wasn't trying to say that Airi needed to act more like Shouko. She just needed to feel believably attracted to Yuuto (or vice versa), and she definitely does not.

I'm really sorry, but I read that part twice and I don't know what I'm supposed to be responding to. Can you maybe boil it down for me?

They don’t count as new suits.

Maybe you missed the part where the Blade duplicate had a scarf.

A. Scarf.

How that didn't end up as Blade's final form instead of King Form, I will never know.

I was a little less harsh on this one, naturally:

I feel like I need to go back and rewatch that Build HBV at some point though; you talk it up every chance you get and it always makes me feel bad for barely remembering anything about it.

It's unnecessarily smart, which is maybe the highest praise I can give an HBV.

Yep. But hey, at least Faiz gave us the boombox of death AND a musical. :lolol
Fun fact in case it was not brought up, that boombox was a winner of a design contest by Terebi-kun if I recall so props to that kid who is probably a grown-up by now. Imagine that kid putting that fact in a resume. :lolol