KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 32 - “A NEW GREEED, THE VOID, AND THE UNSTOPPABLE COMBO”

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In retrospect, the whole Sakata/Suzuka plot was a real I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This Story sort of situation. Suzuka never shows up again after her single appearance last episode, there are no more Ankh Yummies after the one that got detonated at the end of 31, and Sakata’s only around for a single scene with Eiji and the gang. It’s Sakata being like Welp Guess Helping People Is Bad, which prompts Eiji to talk more about his own experiences with trying to solve things with money, and how it can have horrifyingly unintended consequences. That’s the extent of the Sakata story’s use: giving Eiji a reason to talk about money being the wrong way to help people.

(It’s… I feel like I’m sort of diminishing what Eiji’s saying, or even potentially misconstruing it. It’s just a very weird way to apply Eiji’s intended lesson of trying to do good for the people in front of you, rather than trying to do massive societal good that you can’t control – basically a lot of the same friction Eiji used to have with Gotou – because that’s kind of already what Sakata was doing? He wasn’t randomly dispensing money to the world or throwing it from the atmosphere like a Yummy, he was just giving a bit of cash to a family who lost a major provider. He kind of was doing exactly what Eiji was saying, in reaching out to a single family that he knew needed help. The idea of anonymous money being worse than going to them and seeing if they needed help with, like, their laundry or whatever… it’s weird. It’s weird that this family got money in the mail and it made some woman go into debt and quit her job! I don’t think Sakata was misguided! This is like buying someone a sandwich and then they used it to burn down an orphanage – I think you were still okay to buy them a sandwich!)

But now that we’ve got Eiji’s tragic backstory of accidentally funding a civil war – who among us, etc etc – we can also get Eiji’s tragic backstory of having his failure and guilt turned into political capital by his dad and touted as heroism. It’s the sort of thing that could definitely sour you on not just money and privilege, but also wanting anything more than what you can grab with your own hands. Eiji’s lack of desire isn’t nihilism exactly, nor is it guilt, but it’s some weirder amalgam of the two that creates a drive outside of wanting something for yourself and into wanting to reduce the world down to a manageable psychological radius – a new kind of anti-desire.

Which is why half of the Purple Medals chose him, as explained in the THIRD consecutive exposition scene. (No wonder Suzuka didn’t get to show up again, she probably couldn’t explain anything new about either Eiji’s history or mechanics of hidden Core Medals!) Eiji’s ability to control OOO combos is based on the same thing that attracted the Purple Medals: he’s a hollowed out being, and they needed somewhere to live. The idea of Eiji’s ambivalence toward his own life and reluctance to prioritize himself in any situation becoming an apocalyptic scenario that the entire cast has to confront and contain? Very cool. (It’s so bad and such a threat that even Ankh expresses some brief, minor concern over Eiji. This is some endgame shit!!!) It’s sort of exactly the right metaphor in an episode all about reducing your actions to what’s right in front of you; the apocalypse as a friend who needs looking out for. When you can save the world by letting the guy who never puts himself first know that someone is putting him first, you are on the right track with your season-long plot.

I thought this episode was a huge step up over 31, but it could only really be. The Sakata Yummy stuff probably could’ve been jettisoned from that episode and replaced with a different way into Eiji’s story without really missing anything. (I mean, maybe you need the Purple Yummies to be in both episodes instead? So there’s a monster fight?) But when the show finally divests itself of a plot that was mostly taking up space -slash- being really weird (I don’t get why the mom quit her job!!!), it nicely centers Eiji’s sacrificial heroism as probably the most dangerous threat this show has ever faced. Not bad!

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I feel that about Sakata stuff, for helping the people in front of you, Sakata also tries to help the entire family of which, he seemingly never met the wife or daughter of said family, of which yes, it's not known how they'd respond to said help. Guess the entire family is what's unreachable, rather than only a single person. Eiji's also helping the people he seemingly never met like the corrupt people who used the money to fund wars by just sending money to a group of which Eiji doesn't seem to know the full extent of their members or how they operate. By this, likely an example of trying to do good for the people in front of you is like, saving people from monster attacks, or helping someone who you see is feeling down, and focus on only them rather than thinking about the people around them too for the help. And for the civil war, likely for Eiji, rather than leaving the group with the money, the help should be done perhaps by Eiji getting directly involved and using the money himself to ensure it's used right. Though yes, it's something outside of their control on how the people you help will act next, but likely this can be used to reduce the risk of the help instead bringing misfortune.

This should be a lesson for Eiji, but likely the fanbase would just expect the main Rider or similar type of characters as the ones who are already paragon of virtue and doesn't need any development or lesson, and only the worse other people around them need to learn from them. That true heroes/Kamen Rider should be always self-sacrificing and put others first, and Date needs to learn from Eiji, if one isn't self-sacrificing then they're "fakes". If Date isn't so endearing for being happy-go-lucky, dunno if he'd be viewed as negative influence to try to prevent Eiji from taking action and helping the people who got attacked, despite that Date too, clearly shows care for others, pointing out that you can't save anyone if you're dead as a doctor (what I wished for Sachika to say to Shoma in ep. 24 when stopping him). I've seen characters got demonized for stopping their allies to immediately help someone to think about the situation first in a fandom by having them accused as not caring about said someone. Though this also can seem that Eiji will not learn, rather it's what other people are supposed to do for him (still portraying Eiji as not needing to improve), as his ally, like Hina vowing to be on Eiji's side, stopping PuToTyra's rampage.

So I mentioned the time before last that I’d have more to talk about Dr. Maki’s story here, and I do. We learn here that like him, Eiji was also thrown to the wolves by their relatives - Maki’s sister planned to abandon him to fend for himself, while Eiji’s father and siblings basically used his failed humanitarian work to get political brownie points - and that left them dead to desire, even if they express it differently. And I’m not sure whether it’s mentioned in the episode, but the novel states that Eiji’s donations for what was supposedly a charity to fix the village’s problems were actually going to the group that destroyed it. (Though I know for sure the novel revealed the dead girl’s name was Lou) It stands out because they don’t really resolve Eiji’s psychological issues here, like more standard final form episodes would do for at least one character (Fourze did it for Ryusei, Saber did it for Kento and Gotchard did it for Nijigon, to give examples where the main Rider isn’t the one going through development), which is… interesting to say the least.

And although he was only in the movie, I can finally reveal the etymology behind Gil now that we see the Dino Yummies disintegrate the object used to create them, along with any associated desires. Giru means “destroy”.

And all I’ll say on PuToTyra and the needless debates it spawned is that I remember this comment from someone unfamiliar with the series who was told about the debate: “If (PuToTyra)’s the final form, they should’ve kept going”.

I think this is where the show comes down on it, and it absolutely fits Eiji's reduced vision on how best to do good in the world. It's still just sort of weird to me that some guy gave a family what looks to be a couple hundred bucks and it sped them towards ruin? Eiji's right that giving money can make things worse! (Just don't bring up his plot in Movie War Core!)

It did get mentioned here in passing by Eiji when he's talking to Sakata, yeah. "I tried to give a bunch of money to a poor country, and it ended up in the hands of the bad guys..." It's the first thing he says in his story, which makes everyone go "A Bunch Of Money?!"

Hypothetically, yeah. Hard to think of examples for this though. Dan Kuroto doesn't seem to have attachments to main characters other than Asuna.

Except that unlike Dr. Maki, I also celebrate life, which death is a part of. So unless the sufferer is so ill that they cannot fight to the death, then I cannot condone suicide.

No way, the OOO edition was much better!

:thumb:

Welcome! I am also a fan of the movie you're named after.

Looks like a mix of both. Dente and Nyelve are definitely working with mechanical augmentations.

When you put it like that, it sounds way more ridiculous than I remember! Maybe I've become so accustomed to Yonemura's nonsense that this actually feels mild by comparison. How would you compare it to Pretty Den-O, which had a similar plot twist?

I recall that scene at the end where they stand menacingly on a bridge (at sunset?) looking down at Eiji and Ankh. I thought it was pretty memorable for how it emphasized their villainous appearance in an ominous way.

Can confirm that I also have opinions about it and I totally look forward to resurrecting them when the time comes!

I think Uva got the last laugh though, since he got away with Ankh's one and only Condol Medal, thus preventing OOO from using Tajadol. You can tell that Ankh was ticked off about losing that Medal, in contrast to Uva's nonchalance about the exchange.

Maybe not as much as some others, but it does still happen. There's no such thing as a perfect show and anybody who claims otherwise is using hyperbole, even if they don't realize it.

Other than Latorartar, Putotyra is my favorite Combo for sure! I love the use of dinosaur motifs, the purple on white and the ice element! While it comes at the cost of compatibility with other Medals, I think this results in a suit that looks awesome and complete on its own.

Was it even a debate at this point in the show though? As I understand, the argument for Tajadol over Putotyra was spawned by something that occurs in the finale, which is more familiar these days due to ALMIGHTY Saber and Gotchard SteamHopper Ultima. Putotyra's debut here actually seems pretty expected for a Final Form.

How dare you! The Igarashis killed themselves making that movie!

Having absolutely no recollection of Pretty Den-O, I can only read through my write-up on it and conclude that I didn't have a big problem with it.

It's a very cool suit! I think the decision to jettison the traditional OOO undersuit marks it as being unlike the other designs, and therefore mysterious/dangerous/awesome.

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 33 - “FRIENDSHIP, RAMPAGE, AND THE BELT LEFT BEHIND”

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After a story that hinged on how difficult it is to support Eiji, when all he ever wants to do is support other people, here’s that story again, but with "(derogatory)" at the end this time.

Kitamura! What an insanely, compellingly weird dude he is. An underclassman of Eiji’s from high school who convinced himself that Eiji was his best friend in the world, a guy that only Kitamura understood, while Eiji’s like I Think We Maybe Went To School Together. It’s a completely lopsided… I mean, I wasn’t even going to say “friendship”, I was going to say “relationship”, but even that feels like it flatters Kitamura too much. Eiji genuinely doesn’t remember anything this guy is talking about, to a level that would make even the rampant amnesia sufferers of Revice be like No Wait This Rings A Bell. Kitamura’s a hero worshipping weirdo, and clearly the villain of this piece.

The thing that makes it sort of perfect, though, is that he’s also saying all of the Frank Grimes-esque stuff about the cast that anyone not steeped in the heroic sacrifice endemic to tokusatsu would say: Ankh is absolutely bad news; Eiji’s friends are dangerous to him; Eiji is squandering his potential by hiding from his desires; it’s weird that Date just assumed that any random bag of groceries should contain the correct ingredients to make oden. (Okay, Kitamura didn’t say that one out loud, but you could tell he was thinking it.) Kitamura is a pushy, sociopathic creep who clearly thinks that he and Eiji are the only real people in the world, but he does want Eiji to be happy and safe. The things he’s doing are in service of what he views as friendship.

It’s just, y’know, not friendship. Kitamura isn’t asking Eiji what he wants, he’s dictating what Eiji needs. Friendship isn’t saying you know what will make someone happy and refusing to be swayed, it’s reaching out to someone and letting them tell you how you can help them. Ankh’s a manipulative jerk who is furious that Eiji’s possession by heretofore unknown Core Medals isn’t immediately benefitting him and only him right this second, but he’s also someone who understands that the Purple Medals 100% cannot stay inside Eiji indefinitely. Viewing Ankh as the thing standing in the way of Eiji’s happiness misses that friendship isn’t about forcing someone to live the way you want them to, even when it’d make them safer – even Ankh waits until a fight to trick Eiji into popping out the Purple Medals.

Having a ridiculous-yet-normal creep like Kitamura front and center – kidnapping Hina for a minute and trapping Ankh in a net and inviting Team OOO to play around in an unstaffed amusement park that probably violates any number of safety regulations – fits a story where a Bird Yummy somehow feels like the least weird thing in it. It’s an episode that feels unnerved from the start, with kinetic camerawork and unique dolly shots (not Maki; like, a camera on a track) giving even a semi-standard pre-credit Yummy fight a frisson of tension: That parallel shot as OOO and Birth attack the Dino Yummy! The profile shot as Kitamura walks Ankh over the net trap! Even as the show is grounding the story in a pre-OOO relationship from Eiji’s past, it’s letting the scenery and the cinematography elevate everything into the heated realms of melodrama.

I thought this one was excellent. Any story that transports all of Team OOO (sorry Chiyoko) to a new location, picks them off one by one, and has Eiji try to negotiate not just a series of off-season obstacle courses but also a parasocial relationship with a guy who’s just saying what we’re all thinking is going to be a winner. Marrying all of that to stellar direction and growing tension in the show’s core/Core partnership is what clinches it.

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Eiji potentially dooms others by hiding from his desires by being a primary target for the purple Core Medals. But previous episodes portray Eiji's friends as those who'd actually tamper Eiji's reckless habits, like Hina calming down PuToTyra's rampage, and ofc Birth helping directly in battle and Goto indirectly in their battles. Though Kitamura's a creep, it can still feel that Kitamura's telling a truth about Eiji helping him back then in school, as it'd be where his obsession with Eiji came from due to being the only one to reach out to him, making one so attached and needy against the one that helped him out of his funk with no one else to have, while Eiji wouldn't specifically prioritize Kitamura above others, as he cares about everyone, so there shouldn't be special treatments from him.

What Kitamura does to Eiji is what's done in an abusive relationship for being a yandere to him. He kidnaps Hina and uses Eiji's panic and sense of helplessness to fantasize himself helping Eiji, isolating Eiji from the rest of his friends so he relies on Kitamura alone. Kitamura's claims of doing what he did for Eiji's own good, including accusing Eiji's allies as only using him, is also what an abuser does to deflect responsibilities from them and gaslight/guilt trip their victim. And yes, he's villainous in this piece of actually doing something criminal by kidnapping someone. Kitamura doesn't know anyone, including Eiji, because if he actually knows Eiji, it should be expected for him to go look for Hina going by what he claims to be his personality of caring for everyone when Hina asked him.

The cast clearly doesn't know the difference between base form and upgrades if Eiji asks Date to stop him when he goes berserk as PuToTyra (my favorite OOO form, more than TaJaDor as a probable hot take, in design/color/still green-eyes), of which obviously base Birth can't stop a final form. Unless they bring back Birth Day form for a more even playing ground. Though yes Goto did a smart move to lure TaJaDor to an actual enemy so he'd save everyone from a menace. Unlike TaJaDor, PuToTyra actually beats Kazari and forces him to escape. Other than Hina and Ankh, Kitamura through his Yummy also kidnaps Date and later Goto, of which Goto is teased to become the next Birth here.

It seems to be your personal thoughts though to think that if a morally bankrupt person stays with the main cast generally means they should care about them in their own way, if you claim it's hard to think of examples of this and that cases that aren't this is hypothetical, in your eyes. Dunno if there'd be those who ship Kuroto with Kiriya due to Doctor Mighty XX stuff, and think that bromance is formed between them for that, unless they think Another Ending stuff means they're really not a thing, though there's a difference if a villain want to resume their evil plans but can't, or them no longer wanting that (redeemed or retired, but can still be an uncaring asshole).

About it being hyperbole... dunno if their perfect reputation is also helped by/about nostalgia, like them often being earlier shows a KR fan watched, it often happens that people put things that make them nostalgic on the pedestal. Not limited to KR, but I rather often see double standards from people between older stuff that make them nostalgic and newer recent stuff despite it being something similar, and often those that criticize said nostalgic stuff get backlash from them. Outside of nostalgic stuff, it also can happen that fans of something popular shut down any criticisms about said stuff, or that those who don't like said popular stuff accuse the fans as only following trend or sheep rabid fanboys for disagreeing with their criticism or such, which does sound like propping up these shows as perfect, unlike that when one admits to like a less popular show, they usually start with "yeah it's flawed, but...".

It's also an ungu Combo.

I mean, Kitamura does know that Eiji would go looking for Hina -- it's part of his plan! Helping Eiji look for Hina not only gives Kitamura time to poison Eiji against his friends, it lets Kitamura look like a hero by helping Eiji "find" Hina. Kitamura's thought this through! The only problem would be if something ludicrous happened, like multiple desire monsters attacking Team OOO at the same time as Kitamura is springing his trap, but, again: ludicrous.

For some reason, the abandoned park setting is one of my most concrete memories from this phase of OOO.

I definitely also remember that this was the episode where it really hit me that we're just going to be keeping Date around for pretty much the foreseeable future. For context: back when the show was airing we kept getting rumors every few weeks that Date was going to be killed off and Gotou would become Birth. Date may or may not then come back like the dude in Movie Wars Core. But then another month would go by and Date was still here. I don't have any behind-the-scenes insight, but from some of the cast photos (I'll talk about the bunny hate eventually) we got it just seemed like Hiroaki Iwanaga was a really fun guy to hang out with so the show just kept him around a lot longer than initially planned. This episode, though, with the scene where Gotou refuses to put on the Birth belt, is where it really felt like the show was fully committing to Date.