To be fair, I was going to vaguely allude to the Archimedel in the room, but I couldn’t think of any good cryptic hints. If anything, you’ve saved me a job.

This episode left me asking two things: 1. Does being on a neighbourhood council or whatever give you free rein to violate people’s privacy? Because government ish position or no, this seems dubiously legal. And 2. Why are the main characters the only ones protesting this? There should be a crowd of extras picketing outside the dude’s house at least.

I think a lot of people have shitty neighbors, and suburban communities frequently have That One Person who's always letting you know what the HOA rules stipulate, so the non-Yummy parts are just an annoyance that you have to put up with in society. This has only been going on for a day or so, so I'd imagine most people don't view it as harassment yet. (Plus, the public-facing stuff is mostly Oh My Gosh I'm So Sorry To Ask This But It Would Be Great If You Could Maybe Move Out Ha Ha I'm So Sorry To Ask Bye, which is something that's hard to take super seriously. Ankh is right to blow this dude off! The rest of it is all behind the scenes.) If Archimedal keeps screaming at people in the streets or whatever, I imagine the police will get involved, which I'm sure they love.

The green eyes really sell it, they look great on the purple. Putotyra is better for sure! Weird how the Purple Medal-piloted Combos are identified by purple eyes though, as one of the non-purple parts of Putotyra.

Of course, there are people who'd ship anybody, so it totally applies to those two as well. I doubt Kuroto would see it that way though, considering how the whole Doctor Mighty XX thing resulted in him getting forced in to house arrest and community service, despite actually being willingly helpful for that part.

Makes sense. Decade was an entry point for a lot of people (at least judging from that thread), so I can see how they would feel nostalgic about the first 3 full-length shows that succeeded it. As one of those people, I have Double and Fourze in my top 10 Heisei, but I'll still acknowledge their flaws and listen to people's fair complaints, even about Faiz.

Fitting that Power To Tearer is my favorite OOO insert!

There's an intriguing parallel with how Eiji trusted his family and Ankh trusted King OOO and both of them were betrayed. While Eiji reacted by giving up on desire, Ankh went the other way of doubling down on desire, neither of them wanting to experience that suffering ever again. And yet their ambiguous and admittedly kind of toxic relationship is gradually giving them back the parts of themselves that they lost, which means they have something to lose, but also something they don't want to let go of.

I know right! After reading Die's opinions about Gotou, I realized that I have basically no opinions about Gotou, other than him being less entertaining than Date. Reminds me of Hikaru from Revice, for how much he just exists.

More Satonaka is awesome compensation for absent Date! Should've made her the new Birth instead!

This is a really nice way of thinking about it!

I feel lackadaisical indifference fits Satonaka more here than understated competence. No one looks down on Satonaka I guess, but she really is someone who only fights/works for getting paid. She fits more towards the negative assumptions about Date, albeit money isn't her main goal (but it's often the primary aim on why one works). Dunno how limited is her indifference, like if she'd be like Ankh to stand by and let innocents get massacred if she directly sees them but no pay. This does feel more impactful about Goto having to learn humility, than back then when Goto suddenly eats the birthday cakes to work in Kougami Foundation again, probably what makes Goto need to become Birth earlier is not only about his screentime but also room for his development here to deal with unreasonable teammates. Though still I always wonder about complaints of characters being sidelined like Satonaka here, that they still deserve to be praised highly similar to characters like Momotaros, or that they're inherently lower of value in quality for being sidelined.

Guess Shihou Harumi really knows your favorites to be both in here and Geats. It's understandable, but even Chiyoko can get mad and throw tantrums, despite being seemingly always unfazed by other people's hostility, such as Ankh and Maki. Chiyoko directed her anger towards something more justifiable, unlike Sanako in Ryuki, though still wondered what'd be her limits by this if she could tolerate a depraved bastard in Maki. Though the Shimoda couple is clearly villainous, with a stock goal to rule over others, taking over the neighbor, being tyrannical watcher that does whatever they want, the other one who purposely uses the Yummy for their own benefit after Kanbayashi.

It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah, to have a fear of no one wanting you around, but act in a manner that makes one really not want you around, like being abrasive, or distancing yourself from others (the "rejecting people before getting rejected" philosophy). These are also what I can go through. Oh, there was a character that brought this up, Yasu, the criminal victim of the week in ep. 19-20, about how he frequently backstabs others because he can't trust people. Though dunno too if Ankh seems to have contempt for humanity that adds to his abrasiveness to them, like how he immediately assumes the worst about Date, and that he feels humans deserve their just desserts for being consumed by their desires.

Never talking about Kuroto or any of those villains as the actual characters themselves, generally, no one will see it that way, but more about the audience that'd always view any case about them being helpful and contributing to saving the day as being tsundere about said claims, where I want for the differences in why the good guy team cast (or just any team, like the Saber moral of organization =/= people) fight to be acknowledged.

Guess this is why I bring this up to you, in an OOO thread, albeit you claim you'd acknowledge the other two's flaws too (I'm only on the fence about Fourze regarding this). But dunno about acknowledging flaws and listening to fair complaints part, which I struggle with as well, that you must agree on said complaints without debating (perhaps like those liking less received shows by just acknowledging said show as flawed and that it's their guilty pleasure), and that if one explains or defends about a complaint if one feels they catch something that needs to be explained to said people, it means you're not listening and dismissing them.

And yeah, with what I talk about regarding nostalgia above, probably criticism about Goto would be met with more backlash or silencing, compared to something (even if they do earn the criticisms) like Hikaru from Revice you said there, or characters like Yua from Zero-One. Though ofc, doesn't mean that the ones who defend the popular show is always sheepish or the ones who criticize is always right (a view I hate too on the internet), just that this is perhaps an example of the double standard (I hate this regarding judgments) I brought up - still don't want for those that defend a popular show to be just dismissed as a sheep, as long as they'd give reasonable explanation while hearing out about the less liked shows. Otherwise, guess as another example, about what I talk in characters like Hiyori or Tsukuyomi being seen as wooden, it'd be similar to how you or Die view Goto.

I really wasn't paying attention to Satonaka until this episode, so I was very pleasantly surprised with how hilarious Satonaka is as a foil to Gotou! I can't believe how fast the show won me over with the Birth switch. I was loving Gotou as Birth within half an episode after like 20 episodes of dreading the very thing! I honestly think that, although I much prefer Date to Gotou, Satonaka/Gotou is an immensely more entertaining duo than Date/Gotou. I would watch a whole spinoff!

I'm also very glad that, although KR definitely has a bias against she/her (apparently other terms are forbidden/auto spam filtered?) riders, they're not afraid to have them in more wacky, comedic roles (for the most part). I know not everyone's a fan of her, but Akiko's antics were incredibly funny to me, even though she never got involved in the combat. OOO was mostly missing that frantic comedic role, but I'm glad that it's coming back and it's just as funny! Definitely makes me wish we saw more of her.

Which is okay! I don't know that a job HAS to be a calling or anything. She doesn't need to eat a ton of birthday cakes out of a deep desire to do so -- it's maybe more meaningful that she can live up to the impossible expectations of someone like Kougami just for a paycheck. A solid work ethic ain't nothing!

If it wasn't easier to get one actor back instead of two, I wonder if we'd've gotten a bunch of Gotou/Satonaka over the years instead of Date?

I imagine Chiyoko is meant to fill that Akiko role, judging by how quickly she starts throwing herself around Cous Coussier at the very mention of the boys leaving. The main problem is that -- as shown in this episode -- she's completely outside all of the Yummy/Medals stuff, so there's only so many ways to integrate her wackiness into a plot. Clearly they should've tried harder over the last 30-odd episodes, because she's awesome in 39.

Probably my favorite bit from this episode was the part where Eiji and Gotou had really worked up this idea in their heads that Date was using his remaining time on Earth to build up enough money to use on some grand philanthropic gesture and his response was "Nah, I just need a bunch of cash to pay for a black market bullet-ectomy." Peak Date moment.

It's a great joke (matched only by Date pretending to die in order to motivate Gotou so he can also get paid for that), but the thing that's sort of sweet is that, at the end, Date's sort of like Your Thing Is Cool, Too, and maybe is actually going to build a school now? Somehow, Eiji and Gotou's radically incorrect view of the situation made Date a better man?!

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 40 - “CONTROL, A BIRTHDAY PARTY, AND A VANISHING ANKH”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ooo/ooo40a.png

The middle part of this episode, though.

Team OOO goes to the Evil Neighbor house, but it’s full of controlled cops. Eiji won’t risk harming innocents in pursuit of the Yummy, so Eiji and Ankh have to wait around outside until the Yummy comes out. But they can’t go back to Cous Coussier – controlled cops, remember – and they’ve got no idea when the Yummy will reappear since they don’t know what its food is, so they just… hang out. They’ve got nothing to do, nowhere to be, and it’s summertime.

It’s the best little section of TV any series could ask for, giving the show room to cash in all of the investment the audience has made over the last year to create something so beautiful and melancholy. It’s all grounded in Ankh’s desperate need for control (like in the title!), where he needs to always keep others at a distance through cruelty, or threats, or intimidation, but it’s all just him trying to be the one that decides who can be hurt, so he can make sure it isn't him. Ankh clearly cares about this dumb family of morons he’s collected, and like he says, he doesn’t give things back. He hates that Eiji and Hina know him well enough to see through him, and it’s the blaring subtext of the best scene in the best episode of this show. (Sorry, 39, you had a good run!) Ankh still wants to be seen as the ruthless Greeed that’d kill any of them if the mood struck, but everyone knows that isn’t true anymore. It’s been a year, and too much has changed.

The best shows have this moment, around this time. It’s this realization that The End Is Coming – not some global apocalypse engineered by a genocidal villain, but the natural consequence of time, and Toei’s production schedule along with it. Kamen Rider OOO is only a couple months away from ending, and the middle of this episode really lets you sit with it. Another show might’ve held this off until the penultimate episode (possibly with a game of catch), but this one really wants you to feel the turn in the narrative. We’re at a point so removed from the beginning as to be facing a completely different cast. All of the battles and victories have forged bonds that don’t need to be spoken about to be recognized, which makes it even more poignant when the show decides to highlight them like this. There’s value in processing our journeys, and understanding what we desire. Ankh cares, Hina cares, Eiji cares; you care.

(I don’t have a lot to say about it, but I really like how this episode gives Hina room to talk about why she’s letting the status quo proceed, but then her answer is basically just Vibes. It’s so smart of this show to just let Hina enjoy her pseudo-brother without trying to define it or excuse it. It’s nice to have her brother around in some form, even if that form is Ankh, and Ankh is letting her have this time with her brother, so maybe he’s not so bad after all.)

The rest of the episode is a typically brilliant collection of fun fights and large-scale plotting – the wacky couple, Lost Ankh’s shocking cliffhanger victory, Satonaka negotiating a better salary to work at Gotou’s pace – but it’s the middle, and how it breathes in 10 months of exceptional storytelling to breathe out 2 months of trying to hold onto a thing as it's disappearing, that really made this one perfect for me.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ooo/ooo40b.png