Yeah, I don't... I didn't really have Fond Memories of Kougami, you know? Tonally, he somehow felt at odds with the already incredibly weird tone of OOO, to a degree that I never got what he's there for. With this rewatch, I sort of love him? He's playing it to the cheapest of cheap seats -- using a tube of frosting to draw an ouroboros on a table, and then add a circle so it's an OOO, and then scream out OOO at the top of his lungs -- but it somehow feels tethered to a story about the wondrous unpredictability of existence, and the excitement of discovering something brand new in the world.

You know, like a new Kamen Rider series.

I was delighted at the time when Miura was announced as Ankh having seen him as Caine/Beetle Sazer from Sazer X. Toei did a great job casting him.

Side note, for those who want to see what pre-Ankh Miura was like, enjoy.
Skip to 00:34 if you want to see his part right away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YNVorgMuac

But did you have fondant memories of him?

That just exactly describes how virtue is deemed as a weakness that left one open to exploitation, manipulation.... people think being kind just allows people to use you and if you change to be unkind then you won't be used anymore, when any human desire or traits can be manipulated, not limited to one being kind (which people often equate with naivety, also a weakness). About Greeed manipulating the desires of others to get what they want.... obviously, they're evil monsters, including Ankh at this point. Evil-doers often think virtue is weakness as a reason to embrace being evil.

I don't know if miscommunication which is also a tool used to add drama would be similar to this, in general about hiding/refraining something and making the situation more contrived, which you loved for Faiz, of which it's not only about Sachika, Gavv also has similar thing as Takumi and Yuuji not knowing each other's identities or secrets, in how Shoma and Hanto hides each other's secrets too while fighting as Gavv and Valen respectively. Cake is also... Gavv's mid-season upgrade, and was what Shoma motivated himself for as a promise to Sachika, eating it together.

Probably the fanbase in general never remember the goody-two-shoes lead as cool tbh, they'd dismiss their feats as just plot armor and ofc, looking down on them as being dopey, dimwitted, or easily misled, which they attribute to kindness making one dumb and naive, thinking (with how smart people in fiction are often cold jerks). Only the cold jerk protagonists got acknowledged as cool like Tendou with their feats being acknowledged as actual badass, or that they constantly talk about how cooler the secondaries or the villains than them. I do wish that the cool parts of the goody-two-shoes leads who are more likely to be dismissed as boring, flat, or lame to be acknowledged more, if it's there, which'd be why I want the analyses to be more widespread. Maybe there's much more than only Eiji who has this aspect.

This is like the previous Kobayashi show too, Den-O, where the main lead forces their monster companion, who was still evil at that time but needed said protagonist, to abide by their morality and actually help their good cause, where Momo apologized after Ryotaro was beaten up in Plat Form (which was also repeated in Revice ep. 2), while Ankh finally promised when Eiji was about to fall to his death. Eiji has no leverage to Ankh when he broke the promise though. This also explains Kougami where he gives birthday presents to new births, including OOO here in the toys Goto gave to him. The Medajalibur finisher gives cool visual of cutting the reality but it's undone so it's just as if only the monster target is slashed.

Continuing Kobayashi's tradition, Chiyoko is the lovechild of Den-O's Owner and... Ryuki's Sanako/Auntie. About the desire talk, TV-Nihon initiially used the word "greed" (which has negative connotations) before changing it to "desire". Though "desire" is more neutral, as you said here that it can be weaponized or evolving, seems it's still negative enough for KR fanbase, given those who hate Geats for advocating 'selfish desires', and that Eiji is a hero who is about having no desire, which is something negative for him, but some people may still use that to explain how heroic Eiji is, no desires that would tempt/corrupt him and that he'd only cater to other's needs.

Icing what you did there.

I mean, I think it's just my poor memory? I don't remember a lot about this show!

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 3 - “CATS, EVOLUTION, AND GLUTTONS”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ooo/ooo03a.png

Our first real two-parter, so let’s try a slightly different format to these posts.

CATS:
We’ve switched up from the last couple Uva plots into one by Kazari, the Greeed’s cat guy. For all of his prominence in the title, he’s not really present for this story? He kicks it off exactly how Uva did in Episode 2 – random guy gets coin in head, mayhem ensues – and then doesn’t pop up again until the cliffhanger. He doesn’t… he’s not really anything to talk about yet?

Beyond Kazari, or only cat character is this episode’s Yummy, and I really liked it. It’s this sort of monstrous Lucky Cat, exploding out of the shredded bandages of the proto-Yummy form. I like how the cheeks of the cat face act as a brow for the human face underneath it, and how the bulk of the Yummy makes for a tougher combatant that Eiji has to strategize around. It made for a fun, if brief, closing battle.

EVOLUTION:
A lot of time spent in this episode with the Greeed – both Ankh and the more overtly-villainous four – starting to realize that their gameplans from 800 years ago are not going to get the job done against a human civilization that’s progressed significantly while they’ve been asleep. While Kazari is trotting out a parasitic Yummy to gather Cell Medals, Ankh is harvesting Shingo’s knowledge to figure out what parts of human technology can give him the edge.

I think Ankh’s prominence in my memory over Eiji has less to do with Eiji’s sweetness than with Eiji's tendency in the narrative to be mostly reacting to Ankh’s cruelty/hilarity. This episode alone is largely just Eiji trying to work around Ankh’s more human-indifferent goals, while Ankh is the one deciding where to go next and how to approach a problem. Eiji’s job is to work within Ankh’s restrictions and push back on Ankh’s imperiousness, which makes for a solid episode of tense conflict between our leads, but definitely gives Ankh the juicier part.

Regardless, I think Ankh having an iPhone is just a really fun idea. He seems like the type to get incredibly distracted by the ubiquity of modern human communication!

AND GLUTTONS:
Because Ankh is, naturally, one of two main gluttons in this episode.

The other one is our (I believe) unnamed human victim, who Ankh lacks even the illusion of pity for. There’s a little bit near the end of the episode where Ankh’s objection to safeguarding the human becomes equally about Ankh’s desires for Cell Medals and with the way the human created the circumstances for his own manipulation by the Greeed. Like, this guy was already a glutton, and Kazari just took advantage of it. This guy was probably going to eat himself into an early grave regardless of whether some ancient desire monster pushed him into a rampage, so why bother trying to save him from it?

It’s the sort of cold pragmatism we’d expect from our avian asshole, and Eiji’s resistance so far is more about a general belief in human life than a specific counter to Ankh’s worldview, but I’m sure that’ll come in time. The tracks are already being laid for a discussion about how some of the people who least deserve help most need it, and that probably includes Ankh.

Ankh, who is absolutely gluttonous this episode when it comes to harvesting Cell Medals. We’re still at a point with Ankh where his blatant contempt for humanity is making his partnership with Eiji horribly ineffective, and threatening both of their objectives. Definitely a good place to leave the first half of a two-parter!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ooo/ooo03b.png

At the same time as this episode, Dan Kuroto is mid-breakdown over his dad pushing him too far when a kid in weird clothes freezes time to make him a king…

Anyway, this time, I’m trying to stick to actors who’ve already appeared in something before OOO when discussing the episode cast, but I will say that our victim this week is one Sentai fans will be seeing again 13 years on, in another world. If you get what I’m talking about.

Also I think this is the one time OOO does his Rider Kick for TaToBa… and it fails. I’m guessing someone wanted to get it over with.

I mean, it's also pretty cool? It's neat to get a hint that something's weird right before Kazari (finally) shows up again. It's a cool cliffhanger!

*Googles person* Good lord, it is him. :rock:

I really love Ankh and Eiji's dynamic at the start of the series. Ankh is such a complete bastard but Eiji does a good job of holding his own in their interactions. He's idealistic, but you don't get the sense that he's naive enough (because this isn't Move War Core) to think Ankh has better angels to appeal to.This leads to a lot of creative thinking on his part to work around Ankh rather than with him. I enjoy that.

I also like that the four Greeds have different ways of creating Yummies. One of my favorite old-ish school tokusatsus is Metalder, which had this great concept where the villain had four different armies under his command that were made up of different kinds of monsters. Black RX played around with similar ideas. The Greed aren't quite that divergent (the Yummies share the same aesthetics regardless of origin), but it still adds variety to how an OOO story can play out.

Oh shit, it is. I'm 100% with Ankh on this one: let him eat until he explodes.