It's a thing that comes up more often than I'd like in Kamen Rider, where dads who are emotionally closed-off are shown as quietly noble, heroically detonating the twin monsters of A Child's Autonomy and Healthy Communication. You get these dads who are making sweeping decisions about their child's future, and doing it in cruelly deceptive ways (why doesn't Kasumi's dad just talk to her about her career instead of making her think she's a failure?), and then the end of the story is The Child Needs To Forgive The Parent. Like, this story needed, bare minimum, for there to be a scene where Kasumi's dad tells her he royally screwed up and he hopes she forgives him. Instead, it's 100% on Kasumi to make things right. She never did anything wrong! She's the victim in this story! What?!

Do not get the Kamen Rider fascination with valorizing emotionally-destructive dads.

Yeah, the best I can say is that the dad only wanted his daughter back. All the destruction it involved was on the Imagin. His contract was to bring my daughter home away from her career. The Imagin grossly misinterpreted that so he could cause destruction.

I mean, sure, the dad didn't want to see Tokyo destroyed or his daughter physically threatened... but what about making his daughter constantly miserable for a year? The Imagin's still a monster that needs to be detonated, but even without making a contract with the Imagin this dad is still astonishingly cruel.

Like, when I'm complaining about how horrible this dad is and how much of a villainous plot is set in motion by his nearly-criminal emotional negligence, I'm not even talking about the part where he accidentally deploys an imagination monster from the end of time.

Of course, probably Kasumi's dad is more irritating to see, but to label him as outright the worst (these paragraph doesn't seem to be about joking but dunno)? This is purely audience reaction and an... irrational view, Regardless of how someone may personally feel, jerks in daily personal life are by no means worse than a genocidal control freak mad scientist like Banno. Banno is easily the answer as he's one of the irredeemable villain in the franchise, who also happens to be a dad, same goes for Masamune. Otherwise, would this part seems similar to miscommunications in Faiz, or a part in Hibiki where Akira lashed out at Asumu? Where intentions aside, what matters is the way to communicate it well, obviously yeah the father doesn't communicate well with Kasumi, just kicking her out for her sake, with outright hostile approach to her and an overbearing one of "I'm the parent so you must obey me or GTFO". Albeit yeah, although dad and daughter reunite, they didn't seem to address this poor communication. But well, probably this also teaches that good intention means nothing without proper execution, that figures like parents or teachers may always have the best interest in their mind for those under their care, but doesn't mean that can excuse any methods they use to do that.

Well, the main concern is how the dad treats Kasumi, but this seems to be subjective nitpicking for this part of the plot just because it's not enjoyable, like these questions can be thrown over various other parts of the plot (that you can dismiss "I don't care about that") where, I should stand against this part of the questioning. Also, probably I feel that you have no right to judge over which one deserves repairing or not if it's only based on personal feel; if they're irritating or boring they deserve hell, but if they're worse but entertaining they deserve treatment (and I'm also irritated by how parents automatically got the pedestal even if they act like Kasumi's dad!). Can't talk about that (about it being right thing to do or not; of how someone is and what treatment they deserve) if it's based on selfishness from the get-go..

Momo is bombastic and he wants to make himself look cool as possible, with also his catchphrase such as ore sanjou. Kintaros also got almost the same treatment as Ryotaro for being accused as violating something (time flow or DenLiner rules) by doing that. Kintaros also got the superhuman stats to keep up chasing Kasumi.

I feel like Kasumi's dad is worse, though, for two reasons.

First, Kasumi's dad is horrible in a more banal, pointless way. He's just cruel for stupid plot reasons, something literally any adult would look at and go Wait This Is Too Far. The fact that he psychologically damages his daughter and then spends a year stalking her because he regrets his actions but never tries to reconcile with her... it's all so dumb. At least with Banno, his horribleness has a meatier goal, and he's fully aware of what he's doing. Kasumi's dad (I genuinely don't even want to learn his name, that's how much better than him she is) is just breaking something and then spending a year staring at it and feeling bad. Maybe fix it! Or something!

Second, the minor stakes (one ruined relationship) are actually more terrifying than something that can only exist in the world of tokusatsu. It's like the flipside of how the Yuumi/Tomoya story worked because it was about something most people will experience at some point in their lives. This story has a parent/child relationship where everyone can see themselves in at least one role, so the consequences land harder. When the thing that sets that plot into motion is so needless and ridiculous, it feels more terrible than some evil mastermind trying to turn people into robots or whatever.

This is a really interesting way of looking at this. I agree that the closer to reality stakes can feel the worse they can hurt. I wish I had more to add. I’ll think for a bit.

Yeah, looking back, I called the plot to these ones, and I quote:

...and I have to imagine the problems you have with them are the ones I was trying to get at there. It's really reaching for those big emotions in a way that detracts from the story. Like Yonemura knew how Den-O plots start and end, but couldn't ~quite~ figure out how the middle needed to work, resulting in some pretty important details being out of whack.

Probably, alot this comes down to cultural differences but yeah it's a trope I'm getting sick off which is why Ogami from Saber is such a breath of fresh air for this franchise.

The weird thing is that the story has an easy fix: if Kasumi's dad actually does disapprove of her career, and she splits, then it's a more compelling story about him realizing what he's given up and her trying to patch things up because Family Etc. They had a disagreement, and then they resolved it.

Instead, Yonemura wants to have the dad driving Kasumi away for totally altruistic reasons, and then immediately regretting it, but without ever trying to fix his mistake. It makes Kasumi totally blameless, which makes the dad the entire problem, but then has an ending about how Kasumi has learned an important lesson. Not a fun story to tell!

There's always Hibiki, aka Kamen Rider Oops All Dads, which is a show with nothing but fun dads who care about their kids. It's a total trope in Phase 2 Heisei, though, for sure. Glad Reiwa is turning it around!

Which one is Oops All Dads Again?