I wanted this post to just be an all-caps ISHIDA INDEFINITELY, to be a quick play on INOUE FOREVER, but TokuNation would rather not let me have that gag (it became all-lower case), so I'm going to just ruin the joke by over-explaining it while still getting my all-caps ISHIDA INDEFINITELY, twice even. If I don't get to enjoy my quick joke, neither does anyone else.

This is the first episode that really gets Airi involved with the plot and I am always a fan of that. She has this really nice, calming presence while also being slightly adjacent to reality that always adds a lot to a story.

There is a point in Episode 7 where a half-dozen dudes stare lustily while she quietly reads a book and it's the most terrified I've ever been watching Kamen Rider.

Other than that, though, a really great Airi episode. There's a thing it felt like they were doing in the beginning, as they cut between Airi and Hana and Yuumi, where it was going to be about these women and how their lives intersected with Riders and imagination monsters from the end of time... but, no, just some good character beats and an inescapable sense of ennui. I'll take it!

Boy will I have a lot to say about his episode’s second half. But for now, here’s the VA information for the Crow Imagin.

Rintarō Nishi (real name Kazuaki Kurita)

Notable anime roles: Asimov Solenson in Cowboy Bebop, Tetsuzaemon Iba in Bleach, Heracles in One Piece, Jake in X-Men, Bartra Liones and the Narrator in The Seven Deadly Sins.

Notable Toku roles: Lt. Colonel Shadam/Gorma Emperor XVI in Gosei Sentai Dairanger (live role), Doukuku Chimatsuri in Samurai Sentai Shinkenger.

Notable dubbing roles: Lu’Kibu in 10000 BC, Mr. Kil in Die Another Day, Hale Caesar in the Expendables trilogy, William Bludworth in the Final Destination series, Moreau in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

He needs treatment for that, and it'll require Airi household's treatment as one of the ways!

She's a relative of a main character, she would of course have something that she's about. She's Ryotaro's older sister, but is actually a motherly figure to her brother, she constantly tries to help Ryotaro in an attempt to find his lucky star, which fits for the telescope thing here. Though still, what do you count as something that explains a character is about? (before Airi was a keeper at a coffee shop, and her motherly trait to Ryotaro still exists like taking care of his body. She also had many admirers, but that's on the other characters not her though) Like it seems that, you only count the primary Rider (or someone that has that trait like Keitaro) for minding other people's business such as calling other people's views out, but for other characters, it makes them not understandable instead.

With Naomi as the enthusiastic referee. DenLiner should be given a makeover, like an actual boxing ring (and jokes aside, this is also related to my view for their gag in this episode) for another entertainment but making it safe for the customers.

And with DenLiner residing on Sands of Time, Hana is also someone who has walked on these terrain (this is episode 2, dunno how often she crosses that area):
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...43986/sand.png

Gotta suck for anyone being under those shoe.

A Miura defender! :p

Hitomi Kurihara here really resembles Shimada more compared to Smart Lady. Yuumi seems to fawn over Uryotaros. And this is the part where Urataros gives Ryotaro some good luck with him in his control, that he can score many ladies. But Ryotaro wouldn't be able to handle the sudden affection from those ladies, it's like if someone gets a sudden celebrity status without any real skills to maintain it.

The Owner is the real ruler of the DenLiner. And from the boxing ring joke above, this gag actually upsettles me. With of course the thoughtless brawl in middle of the customer just enjoying food at DenLiner, it'd just be a monster attack to them, and this also reminds me of how Hajime in Blade fought an Undead thoughtlessly in a restaurant with little regard for the others, and with the scene not played as a gag, that was really intense one. The Taros pretending to be buddy-buddy in front of him is a sure quality gag though.

Yeah, the fight scene is clever, showing how a fight is determined by matchup too, Den-O Sword Form, being a ground based attacker, would be mostly helpless against flying enemy. But the missing strategy (which of course, the character's flaw) is that, well, flying is only defensive move, that you need to close in to the opponent to inflict actual attack, but that's negated by how the Imagin has long range attack from his wings.

So this is the limit of over-the-topness. It seems that comedic outbursts can't replace what's a person is about. I've seen about how not knowing what a person is about comes from a character being grounded, hence them having "no personality" or "badly acted", and that a misconception about creating character is creating quirk (only that being enough) to give them "characters", the "quirk = personality" mindset. So far in this episode, it's about how Urataros brings bad luck to Ryotaro by wooing females, that Ryotaro had to deal with the ex.

I guess I'm just looking to hear from Airi, about Airi. We know pretty well by now how she feels about Ryotaro. She's protective of him, but wishing he'd start to grow and change. She's waiting for him to discover his potential, to find some direction, to find his lucky star.

But what does she want for herself? Beyond being The Hero's Sister, what is it that she's working towards or passionate about? This was the first episode that started to dig out some space for Airi to think about her own needs and goals, which was nice.

I don't think the folks on the DenLiner are comparable to the folks in that restaurant from Blade, though. The Blade bystanders were just normal people, and that was a vicious monster battle. The DenLiner passengers... like, those two Imagin live in that train car. A train car that is hurtling through a dimension outside of and constructed from time itself. If they were going to get freaked out by two Imagin wrestling over shenanigans, they never should've been allowed to board that train in the first place!

Is it weird that these discussions about the visuals of the episodes are helping me understand what/how I'd want to shoot television if I ever get the chance to make it?

Nope! We learn by analyzing the things we like. Why does this shot work? What is it adding to the performance? How can an episode have both the funniest gag in the series, as well as the sweetest ending? Once those things are understood, we can apply them to our own art.

Thanks! I really do enjoy these threads, even if I'm not keeping up with them a whole lot. Being able to talk about show-making in a setting like this where we're all learning about this together and exploring the intricacies together is really nice not gonna lie.