I think it all goes back to when he lost the Faiz belt to Kaido. A lot of his problems could've been avoided if Takumi had expressed himself emotionally, or asserted his emotional needs. That... that is not Takumi! Here, he'd have to defend himself, trust his friends, argue for his own perspective. Those are things that he just isn't capable of doing right now. To extricate himself from all of his friends' anger, he'd have to be vulnerable enough to ask for their understanding and compassion. Instead, he is definitely going to run away for awhile, and then he is definitely going to come back and make things worse.

Some people call it miscommunication but it's definitely in character for Takumi to accept the blame for something he didn't do, as shown in Episode 5. At his old job, his colleagues blamed him for stealing money and he outright said it's better that way, for him to be scapegoated, even though Master never believed he did it. Takumi thinks he deserves punishment. That fear of hurting people makes him alone. If he doesn't fight, people die. If he fights, people die. He accepts the blame cause he blames himself. Even if he did defend himself, against Kusaka's reputation, who would they believe? He knows he wouldn't stand a chance as he is now. Kusaka doesn't hesitate to kill Orphenochs, which makes Takumi feel like he's not good enough anymore.

So you understand Kusaka's two means: Manipulation and Destruction. He also has two ends, one of which is a means unto itself, the end of Orphenochs. He doesn't see the good in them like Takumi does, he doesn't try, he doesn't care, not unless he can use them. This is actually his least important goal. His main goal was briefly mentioned by him in Episode 14 but it's not in the foreground quite yet.

See, this is the thing about the "miscommunication" in Faiz, for the most part anyway, that I'm really happy to see Die finding in it too: it's legitimately, dramatically, interesting. Even incidents as big as Takumi making zero attempt to explain why he protected Yuka from Kaixa, they say things about the characters, and the things they say are most definitely not merely "we needed a plot to happen to these people". There's some real juicy meat on the bones of this stuff if you just read into it even a little bit, I swear!

I didn't think that Mari and Keitaro are that hostile to Takumi before Kusaka fakes being hurt at their house... because that time it's been clear to them that Takumi is an asshole for attacking Kusaka, but if it was when Kusaka was brutalizing Yuka at the beginning, they are still confused on Takumi's act (and even Mari noticed he didn't really attack Kusaka) so explaining to them that time would have them listen I think, if only probably gets them confused af with an Orphnoch saving others. What's Kusaka's excuse for that time? Just standard "he's lying"? Not really valid imo because Kusaka knows nothing about the deal with Takumi and Yuka. For the moment in their house he obviously got a clear one with Takumi attacking him before without explaining.

Yeah, for pretty much all the miscommunication that's driving this story, it's really just Takumi not knowing how to fight for friendship. He's a dude that opened the series having run from a job where other people made him the fall guy. And when his boss was like I Know You Were Innocent, we don't get Takumi feeling happy about that. He's was totally fine with everyone hating him, and trying to get back what was taken from him probably seems way too daunting. It's easier for him to be the bad guy, to be a shunned outcast. That's a reasonable outcome for him. It's the same thing in this past episode. In much the same way he'll fight for others' dreams but doesn't have one of his own, he'll defend other people's feelings without being able to defend his own. Having to struggle to be heard, having to argue for the right to be treated fairly, to ask to be liked, that's too enormous an ask for him.

That said, while I'd argue that frustrations with Takumi's attitude and choices are basically the show Working As Intended (you should want to Takumi to get better at friendships!), I don't blame anyone who doesn't find that emotional throughline something they want to spend 50 episodes with. It's... I mean, you need to feel like Takumi's growth has value, and if you don't, this show is not going to work. If he's not a compelling protagonist, I can see this show being a rough watch.

(Also, hey everybody, the AEW PPV ran a little later than I thought, so no new Faiz episode today. Sorry! Maybe two on Sunday? No promises, but I'll give it a shot!)

I think I'm starting to get this after Kurona called the show "marmite"? Because I've always found it weird how much flak Faiz takes for everything that isn't a suit design, and now I'm getting the feeling none of this is really about how good or bad the show is at what it's doing so much as the simple question of "how much of a s*** can I give?", and looking at it that way, it like, immediately makes sense why opinions on it are spread the way they are.

Kamen Rider's soap opera stuff is basically professional wrestling. If you talked about AEW and slapped Faiz's face over a screenshot, nobody would be able to tell the difference!

The thing I'm most reminded of is the Sixth Doctor, from Doctor Who. I never watched it, but I remember reading interviews with the production team talking about the problems they had.

The conception of the character's arc was that he'd start prickly and insufferable, but grow to be the the more heroic Doctor that fans were used to. Problem was, while the writing team knew they were on an arc about character growth, the viewers tuning in each episode were like Why Is This Show About This Asshole. It ended up really not working, despite seeming like a pretty cool concept. (Of course, I'm sure there were plenty of other reasons why the show didn't work for that era. Like I said, I didn't watch it.)

I wonder if arcs like that are better suited for finite, contained works, like a book or a movie. Doing them as a series of installments means a viewer has to keep wanting to continue the story, a story that they're not sure will be worth it. Like, with a movie you're probably going to see it through, while with a TV show you have to continuously choose to watch something that is purposefully difficult.

Just a thought!

Y'know, between Kamen Rider, AEW/NJPW, and superhero comics, I'm apparently pretty pretty into long-form storytelling about men who alternate monologuing with bursts of violence. Huh.

Anyway, that AEW event was wildly uneven. The Casino Battle Royale and Stadium Stampede matches, the ones that bookended the event, were great. (Well, I definitely don't give a shit about Brian Cage, so that's gonna take a few points off of the Casino match.) But, man, besides the MJF/Jungle Boy match, I thought the rest of the card was real dull. Maybe my least-favorite AEW PPV.

That’s the core of the issue Faiz, if you aren’t invested or care about the cast the narrative choices are going to tick you off due to them being solely caused by the personality’s of the cast

You fool, you've mentioned Doctor Who, so now it is my time to chat!

The Doctor Who related thing this is reminding me of more than anything is probably Series 9 of New Who (The last Clara one). The overarching theme losely woven through is about the Doctor and Clara's relationship, whether or not it's good for them, how much it's changing them, etc, and it culminates in the final episode, Hell Bent, which is one of the most divisive episodes I know purely because of the reasons we've been talking about. It's effectively a whole episode where the plot is a device for these two characters to analyse their bond. If you vibe with the pairing, it's one of the mose heartfelt and personal episodes ever made. If you don't, it's an hour of pointless navel gazing that meanders between wasted settings. It's not a 100% similarity, but it kept coming to mind.

(Incidentally, the reason I don't like Hell Bent and don't want to watch Faiz is because I really don't vibe with people being jerks to bad for each other purely because that's how they are. Like, I get that it's interesting and all, it's just not what I enjoy watching. I have enough problems with comminicating with people in real life, I don't wanna watch it!)

(Also, you're not wrong with there being lots of reasons why Colin Baker's two series didn't quite work out well. My personal favourite is how the writer of his final episode died before finishing it, and the person who'd been trying to fix it quit after an argument with the producer (and thus they couldn't use any of his work on that serial), so it had to be patched up by writers they'd already had do a story, withoug looking at either previous persons' notes on how it was meant to go, in the space of a week or two.)