With you wanting for the MOTW stuff to be back here, wonder if there are fans that feel the same way regarding KR, especially those who still put W, OOO, and Fourze on pedestal. For this kind of Yummy, even the final form weapon Medagabryu (which should prevent OOO's body from making contact with the spikes due to having a weapon, despite a melee) is less effective than the ranged weapons like Kujaku medals or untransformed Goto with Birth Buster. With OOO having a hard time using melee attacks on the Yummy's spiked parts, I thought it's obvious that OOO has other forms and he can use ranged attacks so he won't get hurt, but perhaps he uses Medagabryu to prevent it escaping and catch the Yummy off-guard with it destroying it with the help of Unagi Medal?

The cliffhanger does seem to be menacing about Date pulling a heel turn, but you'd think it's unconvincing, despite how at first you seemed to view Date in a negative light as a flamboyantly selfish contrasting Eiji, which seems to finally happen here in him doing dirty work for money. This is a no-spoiler discussion, but before condemning Date as a two-faced person by this, would rather see how much'd he do in the villain's side to get what he wanted, like it depends on what he does rather than if he's joining the bad faction; if he'd attack and murder many, then yeah it's a heel turn, but if it's a facade, then it's another story, of which the latter is likely with Date usually being straightforwardly heroic like Eiji. Date is really closed-off about what he wants with the money, despite his symptoms now being obvious leading for Goto to become strict with him to focus on his life, and he ironically becomes reckless like Eiji regarding fighting as Birth and skipping check-ups. I wonder how'd Tamura fare when performing a surgery on Date's bullet injury of which many other surgeons are afraid to do so.

I mean, I don't want to make it sound like Finally OOO Is Good Again or whatever -- I've liked the show throughout! But there's something a little nice about a show, late in its run, spinning up the early-days format for a cute and simple B-plot. (Technically it's the A-plot here, but I think we can all agree that the Date/Greeed stuff is where the show is really putting its efforts this episode.) But the breakneck plotting of the overall Greeed story for the season is still incredibly good, and pretty much that type of storytelling at its absolute best.

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 38 - “CIRCUMSTANCES, A PARTING, AND A TEARFUL BIRTH”

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Or, the one where Gotou becomes a real Birth.

Structurally, I thought this was an exceptional episode. There’s a nice runner about the value in leaving something behind – Eiji and Gotou talk about it in regards to Date’s theoretical medical school (theomedical school), Date and Maki talk about it in regards to Maki’s apocalyptic intentions – that resolves itself both in Gotou’s heroic pledge to continue Date’s work as Birth as a way of honoring his perceived death, and then as Gotou actually doing that for when Date returns because this show wasn’t going to really kill off Date. (Another show, with another actor? Probably.) Every major scene creates a thematic framework for Gotou carrying on for Date, while giving Date pride in a job well done. It all works flawlessly as a storytelling premise.

Your mileage may vary on the value as entertainment, though.

For me… not a Gotou Guy? (That’s what his fans call themselves, right?) What’s here is a nice culmination of Gotou’s incredibly long and winding road to be a Kamen Rider, honoring every iteration of the skinniest pretty boy this franchise has yet held up as a heroic ideal. But it also feels sort of schematic, an outcome that might as well happen, with only 10 episodes left to go. We ain’t getting a legit third Rider, so why not let Gotou step up and carry the mantle of Birth while the clock slowly ticks down. His urgency to save Date, performance-wise, exists in the same narrow band of emotion as every other thing the actor did, so it never quite feels like Now It’s Personal. Gotou steps up because it’s about time he did step up, and the story he’s in is The One Where Gotou Steps Up. As Kougami might’ve put it, I felt it in my brain, but never in my heart.

On the other hand, big fan of all of the Date stuff in this one! The reveal that he’s only ever wanted the money to get life-saving surgery is a motivation that will definitely land for any American adult, where we would gladly fight ancient desire monsters to eliminate medical debt. But even with that less heroic motivation, he still was never really going to sell out Gotou or Eiji to save his own life. It was a scheme, as laid out in a scene that featured – if I remember correctly – seventeen different reversals of fortune. (I was sort of waiting for Maki’s doll to turn the tables next.) Date’s combination of exhaustion and resolve is like the anti-Gotou performance, where I believed everything he said, even when I knew from memory that it was bullshit. Or, thankfully, not bullshit – Date’s “confession” is just him saying he’d like to not die, he’ll do anything to get the money to do it, even fight OOO and Gotou… which is all completely true. It’s just, he’s doing it on orders from Kougami in order to trick Maki, a plan which doesn’t really make a ton of sense at any stage of the process. (Like, what was the best outcome of this plan? That Birth was gonna shoot Maki in the face? If this had just been a plan to get into Maki’s stronghold and run off with the Core Medals, I’d get it, but this is some Yonemura-level Eventually We’ll Stop Pretending subterfuge.) But it’s Date still not lying, even as he’s tricking his friends, and I sort of love that.

I loved all of the Date story in this episode devoted to elevating Gotou into Date’s role, which is as succinctly as I can describe my ambivalence towards this genuinely stellar episode. The writing is great, most of the scenes beautifully leverage 30-odd episodes of character growth (Date/Maki for sure, Kougami/Gotou in second place), but I don’t really care about Gotou as Birth. I just don’t! Like Gotou, I await Date’s inevitable return!

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So fun fact, Date was actually supposed to die here, with his return in a few episodes achieved via using Cell Medals to perfect the art of human cloning (aka Nobunaga in Movie Wars Core). But then the 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami happened, and there was more of a push to make children’s shows less dark. Whereas Fourze and Wizard translated this to uplifting premises, OOO turned it into not killing off a beloved character and instead having him leave and come back.

Also yeah, aside from getting the insert song to play for him, Gotoh has pretty much negative zero presence as Birth. Which is probably why once the actors were no longer contractually obligated to make appearances (roughly as late as Super Hero Taisen), Date became the main Birth in future appearances. Even the novel for OOO makes him one of the three viewpoint characters getting their own stories (though compared to Ankh’s sad story of why he became so bitter, and Eiji’s dealing with his past trauma in Africa, Date’s is just a fanfiction where the Candroids and Birth Driver work together to fight Dr. Maki’s latest Yummy, dubbed “Kamen Rider Death”.

He just weirdly makes way more sense as Date's assistant? Not narratively -- his entire arc has been building up to him becoming a Kamen Rider, it's gotta happen -- but just... the vibes. Date going away for surgery just reinforces that we're getting Substitute Birth, which for sure doesn't help Gotou's bid for primacy, but I just didn't think this episode made the idea of Gotou as Birth very appealing dramatically. (Except he can fly now! Badly, but still!)

Date and Maki's companionship seems rather genuine, with Maki trusting Date enough to pay him 50 million so he gets to join him and feeling Date's the closest to him besides Hitomi, with Date still doubting about Maki's omnicidal desire, thus Date already gets halfway there even if he's not truly on Maki's side. Still, wonder if Eiji or Goto knows about Date's true intentions earlier, and Eiji recommends Tamura for his surgery. While it's understandable for Eiji and Goto to believe in the best for Date, Ankh's skepticism for Date, that he's just a greedy two-faced man who can only wait when he'd betray, sounds sensible, but that'd be a usual cliche for someone wanting money or something personal, that desire is just something bad in anyone, a matter of time when it'd manifest, unlike Eiji who has no possibility to do bad things for having no desire. Though Date's heel turn was a facade, thanks to Kougami, where he still points out at the end to Eiji that he can't make the dream Eiji predicted to come true if he doesn't survive, he did cause some real damage still to punch Goto as Birth, and endanger OOO in an outnumbered fight, but it's limited to only somewhat seriously fighting his allies rather than standard villainy like helping the Yummy spawns, but rather wish if Date's shown to secretly do something that ensures Eiji and Goto's survival behind the villain group's back.

It's that Yonemura thing, of the undercover hero's plan basically only working if the other heroes don't get completely murdered by the villains while the scheme is unfolding. Eiji, Ankh, and Gotou are fighting three Greeed, plus maybe Maki and Ankh Lost, plus Birth -- what if Kazari gets the drop on Ankh? What if Gamel skewers an unarmored Gotou? This is an incredibly sloppy plan with no clear advantage!

Wow, that's...quite dark, even for Kamen Rider! I wonder how the characters would react to a cloned Date - that's really strange to think about. Would kids in Japan be happy to see the return of Date, except not really and it's some weird mockup of him? Was his death and subsequent cloning just a way to get some cheap drama and then push additional merchandise? (That seems like the most likely outcome).

I am also very much not a fan of Gotou, he really bores me, so I was dreading this episode, but I think it came out pretty alright. The middle stretch of OOO felt really long, so maybe I was waiting for a change! It's a shame that Gotou only really gets like 10 episodes as Birth, too, not much opportunity to prove himself. However, not to spoil the next episode too much, but I think there are some shake ups to the Birth formula that I ended up really appreciating, even though Date is gone!

Ha ha, don't worry, I have a feeling the show will still find some way to get new merch out of Date's survival...

Yeah, it... I think you sort of have to have Gotou become Birth now, like it or not. (And I assume some people do like it!) His story for almost a full year has been about him wanting to become a Kamen Rider, and even the assistant role he's fallen into with Date was meant to be an apprenticeship. I don't think you could reasonably do the rest of the season with Gotou just backing up Birth and doing the Supporting Player thing of getting civilians to safety while Date Henshins. This was a solid version of a plot the show had maybe sort of written themselves into a corner with.

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 39 - “A NIGHTMARE, A SECURITY CAMERA, AND ANKH’S COUNTERATTACK”

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Y’know, if Gotou being Birth is even partially responsible for the best episode yet of this show, I am okay if Date never returns. Like, this thing was perfect, and I barely know where to start, so we’re just going to do this one bullet point-style:

• GOTOU AND SATONAKA: There’s something about the chemistry between these two that always delivers for me. (If I have one complaint about this series as a whole, it’s that the show never used Satonaka enough.) Gotou’s serious heroism set next to Satonaka’s whole I’m Just Doing My Job lackadaisical indifference -slash- constant understated competence is funny on its own, but this show always ups it by reminding the audience that Satonaka is actually Gotou’s boss. Him having to politely suffer through her lack of urgency is maybe my favorite attribute of Gotou’s, and this episode thankfully leverages that to immediately undercut Gotou’s big boy costume change and tactical backpack to make him STILL the sidekick to a more charismatic actor. Even if the rest of this episode had been scenes of the production team destroying my Figuarts collection, I’d’ve still cheered this episode on. Satonaka and her sidekick, Birth! SPLENDID!!!
  
  
• SPECIAL GUEST-STAR ARCHIMEDEL FROM GEATS: Sorry to steal Androzani’s thunder, but you think I’m not going to talk about the guy who played a memorable character on my all-time favorite Kamen Rider series?! He’s hilarious here, a self-important busybody who’s actually the flunky of his domineering wife. He’s broad as hell, but that’s all to clue you in to the register this one’s operating at: full buffoonery. I mean, there’s a segment where Hina throws a ladder to incapacitate a Bird Yummy, followed by a segment where Hina holds a rag in front of Chiyoko so she doesn’t see that Ankh is fighting alongside OOO. It’s ridiculous, Archimedal (wink) is ridiculous, it’s all so much fun.
  
  
• WHOLE EPISODE ABOUT ANKH’S ETERNAL FEAR OF BEING ABANDONED: It’s the tragic part of Ankh, his fear of abandonment. A lot of his abrasive personality traits are symptoms of his betrayal by the original OOO, and his certainty that he’s only at risk if he lets people get close to him. But it’s been 10 months since he possessed Shingo and teamed with Eiji – he’s let people get close to him. He has relationships, and that means he has something to lose. His nightmare isn’t that Lost Ankh will kill him, it’s that Lost Ankh will replace him with Eiji; his fear is that no one wants him around. The irony that he’s most at risk because he’s a sneering asshole that hijacked a comatose body isn’t lost on Ankh, but it’s also nothing he can do anything about right now. He’s terrified of being replaced and abandoned, but that fear is just making him more of belligerent weirdo than usual. The tension of all of that drives this episode, and it’s almost the best thing in it.
  
  
• THE BIRD YUMMY SPAWNED FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION FIGHTS USING RED TAPE: This is it. This is the best thing in this episode, and it’s also the episode where Satonaka fights a Yummy in a cute outfit. BEST EPISODE YET!

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