Not sure if it’s worth bringing up, but despite only being a one episode thing, V1 actually has a debate surrounding it. Namely, over whether it counts as a Kamen Rider or a Metal Hero (due to the suit being a hybrid of Jiban’s head, Janperson’s body, DraftRedder’s legs and the guns from Solbrain, all painted a lovely shade of silver).

It won't be obvious until later, but there's a pretty huge, ginormous hint hidden in these episode as to what is really going on the the overall plot. If you don't notice it, I'll pop back to point it out whenever the proper explanation is made, but that won't be for a bit.

I mean, when I saw it, I was like, "Is Space Sheriff Gavan in this one? Oh god, does he have a movie coming out and the Agito story has to stop dead so they can promote it? Is Houjou going to put his brain in a robot for one episode like it's a flash drive?"

But, yeah, not really a suit that meshes well with the other heroes on the show. It is definitely a very un-Kamen Rider design. And, thinking about it now, I kind-of like that? It looks wrong, and so I instinctively root against it. It figures that Houjou would want to wear a suit that was garish and, like, clearly not G3. I guess I don't like the suit, but I like what the suit does to tell a story.

I don't think I did! Unless it's that Ozawa's supernatural power is running entirely off of draft beer? And she gets more powerful the more she drinks? Oh man, is that it?! Very exciting possibilities now! I can't wait to see the debut of Kamen Rider Asahi Super Dry!

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 24 - 25

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So good!

This whole story, the G3-X thing, was just front-to-back great. There's a constantly shifting landscape as characters take the fall, jockey for position, get reassigned, get (I guess) dereassigned, switch sides, and just generally behave like they're on a reality show version of Masked Rider Agito. There's a speed to this section of the story that I really appreciated. It made each scene unpredictable, even though obviously Hikawa's going to be the G3-X operator/equipper/leash.

There's a pleasant amount of twists before that happens, though, making his inevitable "victory" (we'll get to the quotes) feel earned. It's fitting, to start, that Hikawa's inaugural outing as G3-X a) nearly killed him, and b) was a roaring success that he basically was comatose for. That's... I mean, as someone who loves to see Hikawa fail, *chef's kiss*. I could not have asked for a better way for Hikawa to obliterate his competition. So the rest of the story becomes a question of which should be replaced, Hikawa or the G3-X, and I love how nearly every character who gets a vote seems to change their answer several times throughout the story. Ozawa wants to replace the G3-X, leaving Hikawa as the operator of V1. Houjou wants the G3-X replaced, leaving himself to operate V1. Hikawa wants himself to be replaced, OF COURSE, with Shouichi as the G3-X operator. But then, Shouichi kicks ass as G3-X, leaving G3-X as basically the only choice, and then it's a race to see who the pilot's going to be. Houjou tries buttering up Ozawa (hilarious) and picking the brain of Shouichi (priceless), while Hikawa happily lets himself be demoted back to eating ramen with his old partner, and Shouichi pretty much decides that being G3-X is lame. With that variably-motivated group of weirdos, it's not much surprise when Ozawa takes charge and dumbs down the G3-X enough so that Hikawa can both pilot it and not die. Another thrilling victory for Team G3-X!

So, yeah, about that choice by Ozawa. It's sweet, it's her belief in Hikawa, it's totally character-driven. I'm not mad about it, really. But, man, the fact that she had to make the suit less-effective in order to give him the victory, I don't know. I suppose a tainted victory, a win with an asterisk, that's pretty much the most Hikawa kind of victory there is, but it still felt... not great. If the compromised nature of the G3-X AI becomes a plot point down the line, then I like the story choice. If it doesn't, ehhhh.

But there's somehow still more to talk about from this episode! In keeping with the way the monster plots have been going, they are decidedly not worth discussing, despite how cool the kills look. (Dropping someone through an entire building? Such a great visual!) It's just, the victims have no story. They're a thing to motivate the heroes to go out and fight, but there's no narrative to them right now. The monsters are no better, being completely interchangeable from story to story, to the degree that the episodes now don't even really acknowledge what steps the police are taking to prevent them besides hoping to catch them in the act. I don't really need the monster parts to get better, since there's so much other great stuff happening, but it's still worth noting how not worth noting they are.

No, the big non-police things from this story are another brutal Gills/Agito fight, and the cliffhanger.

First, the fight. Uh, pretty terrific! In the same way the monster fights have felt lackluster because the monsters don't really have a character or a compelling motivation, this fight was two characters I'm highly invested in emotionally having a fight to the death. There's a great use of the location, with a very vertical staging. Folks are thrown up and over, a big chunk of the fight happens on top of a tall structure, and the way Gills knocks Agito off into the river, yeah, I'd assume that dude was dead, too. It's a hell of a climactic fight.

Except, that's not the climax. After pulling himself out of the river, Shouichi's now washed ashore with his memories. All his memories! Everything! ...allegedly. We'll see for sure next episode!

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In the 2000's Rider shows, up to maybe Den-O, falling in a decent sized body of water meant the fight is over, wet dude presumed dead. It's a thing.

Yeah, I think it's neat how comparatively restrained the power levels are in these earlier Heisei shows. Coming from the later ones where being tossed into a black hole wasn't necessarily more than, like, a brief pause in the combat, this is a nice level of danger.

Also! Speaking of bodies of water! So, probably obviously, it's nice that Shouichi's got his own motif going with bodies of water, how they represent a change state for him, rebirths, that kind of thing. But! There's this other thing going on at the end of this story, where maybe Ryou has a complicated relationship with the water, a place he used to find refuge but now feels separated from, and ending Agito in the river is, like, penance, or an offering. Aki's dead, he thinks it's Agito's fault, let the water have him.

I mean, it's a very thin interpretation, there's a couple episodes where Ryou rescues that swimmer so it's not like he's sworn off the sea or anything, but it's a thing that came to mind.

Yeah, you definitely did, but it's really only obvious in hindsight, so I'll come back to explain once we get to the appropriate part of the story. You missed the point in a particularly funny way though.

Go easy on the hints of future developments, people!

G3-X's GX-05 or whatever it was called is one of my favourite weapons in Rider ever. What an appropriate finishing attack for Hikawa, riddle your enemies with bullets until they blow up. The bit with Ozawa lowering the AI for the armour so that Hikawa, and in a sense choosing him over the tech, is really nice. Though honestly I can't notice much difference it makes, if any, in this latest episode. He shows up and beats on the Unknown basically the same way as he did when he was 'out of control' anyway.

My favorite way to miss the point!

A chaingun is a great weapon for G3-X, yeah, since it drives home the human/mechanical type of attack. Gills is raw animal rage, Agito is smooth and precise martial arts, so G3-X needs to be technology. A giant goddamn gun that's maybe better deployed in service of mowing down an army, that's a great thematic statement.

For the dumbed-down AI, the only real hint is that it takes Hikawa a few more moves to put away the Unknown than the previous iteration of the AI delivered. It's still pretty powerful, though! I was mostly skeptical about Ozawa's choice, understandable though it was, since we're only at the halfway point of the show. The Unknown are going to get tougher, that's just how it works. What happens in 12 episodes or whatever when G3-X could use a flawless operator, and it's been handicapped so Hikawa can use it? That feels like something that should come up down the line, a consequence of Ozawa's choice. Just, like, dramatically, I want to see there be a sense that there was a real tradeoff they'll all have to compensate for.

Pretty much. The explicit idea behind the three riders of the series is to represent the three types we've had in the past: Mystical, Organic and Technological.

Can I just take a minute to state how much I love the G3-X suit? Almost a decade of watching the show later and it's still one of my all-time favorites. I have a Figuarts collection that only exists because I wanted a figure of this suit.

It is a great suit, and makes for a great Figuarts as well. Actually everyone from Agito made for some great figures.

I'll allow it.

You know, I'm super glad that I haven't gotten bit by the Figuarts bug. (Yet?) With how many cool suits there are, and how many of those cool suits are Premium Bandai-exclusive... yeesh. Yeesh! My heart goes out to each and every one of you. Please extend my condolences to your retirement planning.

Anywho, G3-X! It's a fun suit. I'm more a fan of streamlined suits, generally. I don't love the idea of a suit that looks like someone put it on, you know? I like designs where it feels like it can't be the same person who just henshined. So, it's because of all that that I like G3/G3-X, not in spite of it. I like how it's bulky instead of slim, how it's robotic instead of superpowered, how it looks like a goddamn chore to wear, instead of being a liberation from the weight of humanity. It's doing all the things I don't like, to remind me of why I like the things I like.

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 26 - 27

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Ugh. Ugghh. Ugggggggghhhhh.

Let me talk about three things I enjoyed from this story.

First, there's a moment in the opening scene where, after throwing a tantrum when he's told that Hikawa will be operating G3-X, Houjou leaves a meeting in a huff. As he's leaving, he kicks the wheel on Ozawa's chair. That is amazing. It's so childish, so petulant, so hilarious, so perfect. It's far and away the best thing in this story, and it happens about a minute in.

Second, after Shouichi splits to investigate the true Tsugami ("Truegami”), Mana and family are sitting around eating breakfast when the phone rings. At each ring, Uncle looks to a kid, waiting for them to go answer the phone. At the third ring, when they just sit there eating breakfast, he resigns himself to getting the phone. It's a small bit of business, but it makes them feel like a real family. That comedically frustrated look on Uncle's face, the No, Fine, I've Got It, You Keep Eating Breakfast passive-aggressiveness of it all, I thought it was great storytelling.

Third, Agito's new Combo Form is a nice visual representation of his healed psyche, of a complete person. I don't know that I love the This Plus This basicness of its aesthetics, but it was a thing that helped lift some of the story.

The rest of this thing, though, jesus. Such a slog. A pretty epic miscalculation on a lot of levels.

The biggest problem for me was that the camerawork was atrocious. I don't know why the film crew decided to spend two episodes using 47 ferrets as a camera stand, but it did not make for good television. I still have a headache from trying to watch this jumbled, jittery mess. A scene of two characters talking while sitting on a couch does not need to have the camera shaking like it's on a paint mixer! I get that the director wanted to instill a sense of tension, but this mess was practically unwatchable. It made me sick. They keep shooting them like this, I'll genuinely have to quit watching Agito.

The overbearing use of filters and gels certainly didn't help things. I have no idea why someone, anyone in the production thought that each of the three threads needed a monochromatic color palette. It makes no sense and adds nothing to the storytelling. It's just, green for Shouichi and Truegami, blue for Ryou and the mutants, red for the occasional flashback/climactic moment. These are not threads that needed a heavy-handed color palette to help differentiate them! It's literally the same types of threads we've had the last twenty-odd episodes. We have seen all of these characters before. Far from adding anything to the scenes, either narratively or thematically, it only detracts. Every scene is doused in one color, flattening out anything happening with lighting, with set design, with costuming, with anything. It makes an already nauseating set of visuals dull and boring. I wish I could go back in time and fire everyone who shot these episodes. Terrible, terrible ideas on a fundamental level.

And the story... eh. I don't 100% get the ending yet, or at least I hope I don't. Gills seems pretty dead, despite showing up pushing his bike in the Next Episode teaser, so I've got no clue what happened there. But HOLY SHIT did Shouichi just forget all of his memories again?! After two episodes that served to fill in a couple minor blanks (Truegami and Mana's dad worked together on mutant powers, Shouichi had a sister who died under mysterious circumstances, Shouichi was on the Akatsuki-gou to visit Truegami and get answers), whatever character growth we might've gotten is now completely scrubbed?! Am I... Am I seeing that right?!

Unbelievably mad at these episodes!

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Yeah believe me I was mad at these episodes too. Though luckily I believe this is the only time the directers did the color filter and camera tricks so at the very least you won't be sick from watching it. Oh the new form Trinity that you just praised because Shouichi lost his memories again your never going to see that again for the rest of the show. Actually it took 13 years before that thing makes a reappearence in a crossover movie so yeah this wasn't Inoue best work.

I am legit still feeling not great after those episodes. I was going to watch more Agito tonight, but, man, I don't know. Maybe after dinner, if my head's a little more stable.

Thirteen years until Agito Trinity comes back? God, I must've seen it at some point, then. Which movie was it? I'd check the Wiki, but that'd undoubtedly ruin other stuff for me.

Agito Trinity made a really quick cameo in Heisei Vs Showa.(5 seconds in total Yes I counted) And I wouldn't blame you if you forgot.

I honestly have no memory of Trinity form even being a thing. Which shows you how important it is to the show.

Yeah, the whole getting all him memories back and immediately losing them again things is stupid.

I opened that film up, thinking I could find that suit real quick, and, uh, no dice. I didn't see it in the big final Rider fight, and I didn't really have time to scrounge through and locate it. (Not my favorite film, so it's not like I could use Agito Research as a way to rewatch it.) It's a little weird to me that the show would go to the trouble of making a whole new suit to then basically bury it in the ground for a decade and salt the earth above it, but it's not like nearly any decision that was made about that story worked for me. One more for the anger pile!

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 28

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Oh my God, I needed this episode so bad. What a relief.

I mean, I could actually watch it, so, like, huge plus. It's weirdly in a 4:3 aspect ratio, not counting letterboxed flashbacks, but it doesn't detract from the story. (Any amateur historians who want to explain why this one's 4:3 for a reason other than "so you can tell it's something that occurred earlier", I'm all ears.) It's shot cleanly, with an emphasis on clarity and light. The whole thing takes place in an afternoon, so it's got a great summer road trip feel, all clear skies and freedom. Just, visually, a very pleasant episode.

And, story-wise, a real charmer. It's nicely built around not just Ryou's "life is pain, you can only survive it, it won't ever let up, but one day you'll die" attitude, but it also makes room for a quick Shouichi scene where he can reframe things as "life has pain in it, but it's not just pain, and that pain can even lead to something better one day." It's an episode that feels shaped around established character traits, something where we can see how characters like Ryou and Shouichi live their ethos, how they try to help people within their orbit.

Which, maybe it's just me, I really like Kamen Rider stories where they try to help kids. It keeps the stakes personal and rarely too violent, grounding everything in emotional journeys that can have a full arc in one to two parts. (Kids are not that emotionally complex!) This one's a great example, where, despite his mom and dad being killed earlier by an Unknown (ALL DADS ARE DEAD), there's kind-of no body count. Agito fights the Unknown, and eventually Gills kills it (by MENTALLY SUMMONING HIS BIKE!!!), but it's not really a huge action story. It's got maybe three action beats, the two Rider fights and a chase sequence, and they're great, but the story's pretty much just this kid who's going through a tough time and Ryou trying to help him out. It's sweet, and it's maybe my favorite use of Ryou in a bit.

This was really good! I'm glad I watched this one today, to wash that previous two-parter out of my mouth. It nailed all of the basics, telling a story rooted in character, while adding a new context to develop that character. We know what kind of man Ryou is, but seeing him have to protect a kid both physically and emotionally was a fresh way to experience his outlook.

Too bad I guess he's still dead or something!

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If you want the time when Agito Trinity shows up it 59:20. And yeah Heisei Vs Showa personally it maybe my least favaorite Rider anything. At best it a generic taisen movie at worst I feel like it damages the Showa Rider reputation in the fanbase.

Trinity is only the arms taken from the other two suits pasted on regular Agito, and it really doesn't look as impressive as either alternate form, so I'm honestly not that bummed that they choose to ignore it. Also that two-parter is so bizarre, like it only exists to tell the audience information but then conveniently wipes the main character's memory so he can't act on that information until they want him to.

Anyhow, his name is Gills so maybe floating in the water for weeks upon weeks won't be a big deal!?

Found it! Yeah, jeez, he's in that form for a few seconds before he gets Lockseeded.

It's not my favorite film, but I wouldn't call it my least favorite. I mean, it's got some positive qualities. The whole thing with Kaito and Shotaro having to find a missing dog is perfect, especially since that's Shotaro's last-ever onscreen case. And I don't know Decade, but Decade was pretty great in this. (Honestly, I've liked every Legend Rider thing Decade's shown up for. Psyched to watch that show at some point!) It's mostly, I don't remember the villain plot making any sense, even for Shocker, and the Vs Showa finale is disappointingly lame, either ending.

It's not even great info! Literally the only two things we learn that we couldn't figure out before that story is that Shouichi had a sister, and he once ran away from home because he hated tomatoes. Hand to god, I think I cared more about the tomato story. The mysterious death of a character we never met, that the main character won't remember after this, it's bad storytelling. It doesn't motivate our hero, it doesn't create new storylines, it doesn't open up new or interesting avenues of emotional expression, it's just a data point. It's like finding out the name of Shouichi's old mailman. It's irrelevant to every character in the show now, except maybe Truegami, and I don't give a shit what he cares about yet. It's a long walk to go nowhere.

Nope, Gills is dead, totally dead. One of the most unbreakable rules in tokusatsu is that "dead means dead". No one survives life-threatening injuries, no one ever gets resurrected, everything is always exactly as it appears. Sorry!

I have... a lot of thoughts about Heisei vs Showa, most of which I've posted to this board before. Tldr is that the flaws are obvious (What Are You Doing showa riders), but they form some tight emotional stakes with their returning casts and I'm still surprised they went as hard with the main plot of the movie as making it about a dead kid. It's also far better at conveying Gaim's themes than Gaim itself in my opinion, so, there's that.
Oh and Tsukasa's back again and he's perfectly Tsukasa, so bonus points as always

But this is an Agito thread, and I recall having much the same feelings as you about this two-parter! I just struggled to get through it and him losing his memories again had me pissed. I love Agito overall but I think I feel confident in calling this the low point.

I'll probably have to rewatch it at some point. I haven't watched all of the Phase 1 Heisei stuff yet, obviously, so all of the Faiz and Decade parts went over my head, as did the Showa stuff. There's some storylines in that movie that I had no emotional reaction to. I'll probably hit those Phase 2 movies in a go after I finish the Phase 1 stuff, so I can get that experience of I Can't Believe They Got Whomever Back. I watched the Ex-Aid/Build movie before I watched anything but Ex-Aid, and it meant so much more after I'd seen OOO and Fourze.

Yay! It doesn't get any worse!

Back on Topic, the reason episode 28 has a different tone is that it’s a filler episode that the show’s head writer had no involvement in. And given that he’s a “write everything to do with my current project I’m in charge of” guy, that’s saying something.

Yeah, I saw on the Wiki (I got real curious about this episode!) that it's from a fill-in writer who'd go on to be the head writer for Ryuki (very interested), Den-O (gets so much acclaim) and OOO (my favorite Rider show), so, uh, a lot less surprised that this episode was so goddamn good.

It was incredibly kind of the universe to deliver this episode to me when I was at my Lowest Agito Ebb.

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 29

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It's hard to find fault with a delightful little Hikawa/Shouichi (with a dash of Mana) caper, but I managed it. You are welcome.

There's so much fun stuff going on around the edges of this one, goofy character beats and terrific call-backs, that I wish the story had more going for it. There's a bunch of weird backstory to the victims, the fact that they were jewel thieves who stopped thieving seven years ago for some reason, got plastic surgery, and took up tennis, but that's just kind-of stupidly fun to me. It's the climax of the story that felt really slack, with a couple dumb story moves. So, the brother goes and gets the bag of cash at the bar, then gets chased by a monster. Then he goes back to the tennis club the next day to play tennis. Then he waits until night time to leave town before he's monster-murdered. Wh... why does he wait a full day to run away from the monster that's trying to kill him? Then, during the big monster fight, Hikawa, like, forgets the code to unlock his gun? This is not his first monster fight as G3-X! I know he's been off for the last three episodes, but, my dude. There's the usual "Hikawa is not great at his job", and then there's this. Sloppy writing on the monster plot this time out!

Luckily, everything around the monster plot is aces. (Tennis reference!) Shouichi and Hikawa both are unbelievably weird in this one, with Shouichi more childlike than ever and Hikawa becoming a boastful jock. It's a little weird, in that they're both fighting over access to a teenage girl's free time, but it's so relentlessly funny and bonkers that I can forgive that part. Shit, I can even forgive the Shouichi Gets His Memories Back For A Story thing, since the opening to this story clearly can't explain why that story was told, either, but is ready to move things along. It's not a Mea Culpa, exactly, but it feels like everyone involved would like to forget those episodes existed, and, hey, wouldn't it be fun to see Shouichi and Hikawa play tennis? Huh? It's a fun TV show again!

Also, Gills! Still dead!

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I guess I'm the only one who liked these episodes? Pretty typical for me, I suppose.

Mind you, I watched Agito years ago, so I have no clue if they were actually any good or not anymore. In fact, I'll take your word that they were a disappointing misfire.

But I do remember them a lot just on the merit of how weird the idea was. It was so surreal to have Shouichi put in that position all of a sudden. Like, the show has been teasing these little clues for half the run, and now it's basically stolen the lead character off the same page as you, and forced you to watch him basically go about his day, while you have no idea what he's doing or why, because you didn't learn all the truths when he did (which also made it not that surprising when it doesn't stick).

It's probably less cool than I remember it being. But for better or worse (worse?), it was an unique little experiment, even if, like the direction, it didn't pay off.

This one, though. This is my favorite episode of the show. Yasuko Kobayashi is a treasure, but I don't need to tell you that, because you've seen OOO. Even in just that little span of 20-some minutes, the attention she gives to characterization shines. That bit at the end where Ryou's tough guy facade starts cracking after that kid shows him sympathy when he finds out Ryou is Gills? Too good, man, I tell ya'.

No clue about the 4:3 thing, though. It may legitimately have just been another strange stylistic choice.

There're two big problems that I have with the conception of this story. (The execution is a whole other set of problems) It's an amazing, risky decision to have Shouichi get all of his memories back, and that'd be laudable... but then he immediately loses them again. For me, that's not, like, a partial success. That is trying something interesting and immediately negating it. That is worse than not trying something interesting. That is negative points. The other problem is that it just doesn't feel worthwhile to even give him his memories back? There's not some huge secret here that gets unraveled, even if only the audience is aware of it. It's not that Shouichi was secretly a scientist who designed the very tools the villains are using, or that he's secretly related to the villains. It's just, his sister had powers but she's dead now, and one of the villains was her fiance. It doesn't Change Everything Forever. It doesn't even change things two episodes later. The only person this entire story affects is Gills, and it would've happened even if Shouichi didn't have his memories. Gills died for this story's sins.

She's great! This episode was great! Looking over her CV, a) shocked to find out she did my favorite show, OOO, and my least favorite, Amazons, and b) I really think I'm going to watch Go-Busters at some point. I think that's going to be my first Sentai show. I love her writing (uh, mostly!), I like those designs, I'm going to need something new when I've finished off Heisei and caught up with Reiwa... yeah, I think Go-Busters is on the list now.

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 30 - 31

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Hey, let's spend a story with the tenth-best hardcore band in the Tokyo area, Mana & The Mutants!

I really like what this show's done with the Mana character. She started off as a fairly stock Girl With An Inappropriate Crush, but the show quickly moved her out of that role, in favor of a younger sibling sort of space. Eventually, thankfully, the show's slowly evolved her into an ally, a support system for Shouichi that has a stake in his battles. This story did a great job levelling up Mana's character, as well as Mana's role in the story, and it leveraged a half-season of hard work with her character to make it a great story, to boot.

Mana's a fairly upbeat girl, so it's doubly effective for this story to put her through the wringer. I mean, you make a character like Hikawa or the forever-dead Ryou have a hard time, it probably doesn't mean as much to viewers. You make Mana put up with Mean Girls, kidnappings, and a possible inadvertent role in her father's death... it's rough, you know? It's rough to watch her get chewed up by the world. It's also an incredibly effective way of establishing the stakes of the story, because I'm 100% invested in Mana. I want her to live, to be happy, so a story that threatens her physical and emotional well-being, it's a story that's already done half the work. And to have those threats be things like The Mutants or Truegami, it takes those at-times nebulous threats and makes them immediate and visceral. It's a great use of a character I like, and some antagonists I don't really get yet.

The Mutants come into focus a bit more from this story, though. Not all the way, their various personalities and outlooks don't totally cohere (that glasses girl Mutant is the worst), but enough for this story to land its beats. I mean, once I was like, "Oh, they're all mutants, like from the X-Men,” it was easier to go along with their story. You know, Hated And Feared, etc etc. Their powers are an evolution that puts them above humanity, but it makes them a target. Because of that, they can really only trust each other. Truegami may have pulled some strings to get Main Mutant to kidnap Mana, but he really does think she's better off with them. They're a bunch of weirdos, and they don't really like each other, but there's value in them sticking together. It's an understandable motivation from a character that I was not really getting before.

It's also, uh, the theme of the show, so, yeah, definitely going to work well with these other characters at this point in the show. The idea of needing a place where you feel you belong has been a recurring theme in Agito. Shouichi talked about it before, and Mana reminds him of it when she says that she's staying with the Mutants. (I kind-of wish she hadn't explicitly stated the themes of the show when talking to Shouichi, but what can you do.) It's nice to have that exploration of Found Family fall on Mana. As a teenager, she's at a point in her life where she's trying to define herself outside things like school and family, so a weird Mutant cult that gaslights her into thinking she's a danger to every non-Mutant around her seems like exactly the kind of emotionally true but irrational decision a teenager might make. It seems reasonable to me, anyway. I get how she took a journey over this story, scared of her growing power and looking for people that understood her. The show maybe botched the last 3% of its story, though.

I don't get how the Main Mutant died? His whole power was healing himself. We'd seen him heal himself after other Unknown attacks. This one, he just... doesn't? And then he dies? It feels like a plot contrivance to me. He had to die so Mana could unlock her power, but there's no way he could've died, so the show just goes Okay But He Died Anyway. It's a cheat, is what I'm saying. If they'd had a line of dialogue explaining why this fight was different, I'm good with it. But they didn't, so it feels forced to me.

I'm not that mad about it, really, since Main Mutant and the rest, Truegami, were just a way to tell a story about Mana. Even Main Mutant's dying speech was a way to land some of the story's points about homes, about families, and how those ideals escaped him and he hopes they don't escape Mana. It was a nice story, a solid exploration of the show's themes, a good way to make Mana more central in the series' conflicts, a face to the idea of the Mutants as a group worth caring about, and maybe even a way to bring back Gills.

Who is still dead!

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MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 32 - 33

These episodes are a great mix of emotional storytelling and big plot reveals, but it's really one episode of one followed by one episode of the other.

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I really enjoyed the first part, centering its story on a teenage girl's need to balance her commitments to others with her need to grow as a person... as well as making a huge deal about just how badly the men in Mana's life understand her.

Okay, not Shouichi. As always, Shouichi is generous with his feelings, trying to get Mana to see not only her options, but the support she has waiting for her. That emotional honesty, it's super refreshing to see. It's such a core part of this show's identity. It also reinforces that it's not up to Shouichi or anyone else to make Mana come home, she has to feel comfortable with that on her own. It's a very brave choice, for the show to have Mana's decision-making be such a prominent part of the story, to let her keep her agency, and it really elevated this story for me. Like that last two-parter, this one's about her needing to navigate her own feelings, and Shouichi's support-without-advising, that's a good way to have him involved in what's really Mana's story.

I mean, the other way in to Mana's story, Hikawa and Uncle being lunatics, that was golden. Having Hikawa and Uncle just be hilariously awful at understanding how to emotionally support a teenage girl, so perfect. Trapping them on a little boat to work through their anger, their fear, their regrets... it was a very, very funny way to cover all of the ground they needed to in order to wrap up the Mana Leaves Home plotline. I would watch a thousand episodes of Uncle and Hikawa trying to understand teenage girls. A hundred thousand episodes.

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But it can't all be two grown men knowing exactly what value of glassware a teenage girl would be. (If only!) No, we're entering the final phase of Masked Rider Agito, so this one's a packed episode, full of reveals and returns and revelations and, sadly, retreats.

Truegami lays out a bunch of the Mutants story, linking together the idea that all Mutants may eventually evolve into Agitos, and the Unknown are trying to stop it by killing them all off. Spooky Man (is anyone from the police trying to put him on trial for the murder he confessed to months earlier?) gives a bit more clarity to his motivations. If I'm understanding him correctly (ha ha, probably not!) he wants to empower the Unknown to wipe out the Mutants, leaving some of humanity intact? I think? There'll probably be a few more Spooky Man speeches to come, so hopefully that'll nail it down for me. Overall, the mega-arc stuff feels like it's coming together. I get a little bit more of what each side wants, anyway.

There's not a lot with most of our other characters, Team G3-X and Houjou, Uncle, Taiichi, because the bulk of this one's about Shouichi having to face the monster that killed his previous self.

As a show, Agito doesn't really treat the fights as very difficult for its title hero. Rarely does a monster get the better of Agito, and if it does, the next fight puts it away without too much hassle. Unlike Kuuga, we've yet to see a Rising-style upgrade to deal with the Unknown. Agito just, like, fights and wins. He may need a hand if multiple enemies show up, and occasionally he needs his bike to henshin, but it's never a big part of the story, how to defeat the Unknown. Just kick 'em 'til they explode. Kamen Rider 101.

So it's huge to have Shouichi terrified at the sight of Manta Unknown, to flee in fear of his life. (I honestly can't tell what animal it's supposed to be, so I'm going with Manta Unknown.) That primal terror, it's not the hilarious physical comedy of Houjou's escape from the third-weakest Unknown. (Series high-point, maybe?) It's a statement of severity, an acknowledgement that, for all intents and purposes, this monster already killed Shouichi once. It takes what could feel like a stall, an episode-long wait for a rematch as Shouichi does his best to ignore his fear, and gives it a sickening inevitability. The monster that ended him once is back for more. Shouichi was lucky to get a second chance at life. How many other people can say that?

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OH SHIT GILLS IS BACK AND HE'S HERE TO FIGHT WITH AGITO IT'S HAPPENING IT'S ALL FINALLY HAPPENING

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And I'm back, as promised, to point out what you missed before, since the necessary reveals have now been made and I won't be spoiling anything.

Remember why they said Hikawa couldn't use G3-X? Because people are imperfect and the AI expects the user to make the perfect/optimal moves? Well, it's not because HIKAWA was flawed, it's because HUMANITY is. People just aren't advanced enough to make the optimal flawless moves.

But Shouichi could use the suit with no problems whatsoever, so what does that tell you about him?

Oh, okay! That definitely sews up the "Shouichi as G3-X operator" plot. I don't know that I love the lesson being Mutants Are Better Than People (Sven, don't you think that's true), but, yeah, I can see that being a read on it.

I think I like it better when it's more character-focused, that SHOUICHI was just better than HIKAWA, that he was better equipped to be a part of something than Hikawa was. Shouichi is fluid, accepting. He's Drift Compatible with everyone, a universal donor. Hikawa is clumsy, unyielding. He only knows how to push, he doesn't know how to let go. I don't know, I'm not saying your read is wrong (it's almost definitely more right than mine!), but I just like my read better.

I mean, they aren't mutually exclusive. Both things can be true at once. But I'm fairly sure that was intended to be a bit of a hint.

Oh, sure, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a clue. It's just, like, my headcanon? I think it's about them as two characters, not anything about their species or whatever. When it's a writer doing a thing about Humanity, I kind-of tune out. When it's something about a character, I'm more interested.

Still! Thanks for cluing me in!

Yeah, like I said, I don't doubt that was actually a very subpar set of episodes. Also, I went and watched some of 28 again, and let me tell you, after seing the 10 or so seconds of Agito doing a Rider Kick from the previous episode at the start, I completely understand what you mean about the nauseating camerawork. :lol

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 34 - 35

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It's getting more difficult to try and talk about these in two episode chunks. There's this weird Agito thing where an episode ends on a cliffhanger that is immediately resolved in the first two minutes of the next episode. It makes it so that these stop feeling like discrete stories, and more like individual segments of larger, more amorphous stories. Like, all of 34 and the first few minutes of 35 is paying off a story that started maybe ten episodes earlier, and then the last three-quarters of 35 sets up a new story with a brand-new (but heavily-referenced) character. I don't know, it feels like going forward I'm just going to talk about these episode by episode? It feels like that's where the show is heading, pacing-wise.

This time out, though, yeah, three big things to talk about.

First, it's the resolution to all of the Shouichi/Ryou/Mana stuff that's been roiling for the last dozen episodes or so. It's very, very satisfying to see Shouichi and Ryou finally talk as Riders, to see them find common ground, to feel like they're finally in the same story together. (I mean, Hikawa's there, too, but boy does this story just have not a lot of time for him.) It feels like a huge change in the storytelling on this show, as more and more threads start to come together. Everyone's getting to know everyone else, folks are sharing information to fill in the larger picture, and there's this feeling of, like... fulfillment? Like all this anticipation is finally being paid off and rewarded. It's something I've been looking forward to, and while the interactions between Ryou and Shouichi are relatively low-key (they don't even really fight together yet, which is how Riders say hello to each other), it's still nice to see them in scenes together that don't need to contrive a weird escape for one of them.

Also, hey, Agito finally gets a new form! Bulging, fiery, slightly creepy Super Imaginative Chogokin Agito. I don't... yeah, I don't love S.I.C. Agito. Gills does a good job of marrying Primal and Animalistic to a Rider suit-aesthetic, but S.I.C. Agito, it just... it feels very "eXtreme", you know? Like it was designed by a very aggressive preteen, anxious to show how powerful his O.C. is by making him Agito, but jacked up and grosser. I mean, sure, it communicates Angry Shouichi, so good job there, but I find it a little laughable in how crude it is. Not my favorite suit!

I sort-of feel the same way about Another Agito, which, hey, he's here now! While I've never watched Masked Rider Agito before, I have watched Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, which means I did watch the Gorider specials, which means I've met Another Agito before. (Those Gorider specials are really terrific. I love the ending so much. It's just, like, great problem-solving to defeat the villain. That doesn't happen a lot in Kamen Rider finales! That feels problematic!) So, yeah, when a cool-as-hell surgeon rolls up and takes charge with his intense demeanor, it's like, Oh, Another Agito. As soon as we see him and the Mutant kid is all Hey Where's Kino, it's a very 2+2 situation to know he'll be showing up to henshin his way into saving the (weirdly way easier to beat up) Gills and the Mutant kid. Which leads into the next episode, which makes talking about these two at a time feel ineffective, which is why these things are going to be one at a time for a little bit, probably.

Anyway, these two episodes! It was great to see the whole main cast interact in one story for a minute, to see them all pulling in the same direction. It sort-of stinks that the very next plot is a brand-new Mysterious Rider who's coming from outside the story. (Like, Another Agito completely takes over the back two-thirds of episode 35. It felt like a backdoor pilot for his spin-off.) Still, I like where the cast is at this point in the series (Another Agito excepted, at least until I see how he fits) and I like that there's a lot more emphasis on drawing things together and resolving long-running mysteries. These two episodes, across two different stories, really did a solid job transitioning into the final act.

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I'm guessing that the original beginning of episode 26, informing us that all of 26 and 27 were supposed to have taken place on the deck of the Akatsuki-gou, that scene got cut for time.

Wait, shoot, I totally forgot!

I hope you haven't started 36 yet, because Agito done this really weird thing where they aired a special in between 35 and 36; and it's actually not a throwaway clip show or anything -- it's actually important to the plot, they gain something super important and it's really just another episode of the show. Kamen Rider Agito Special: A New Transformation. Watch that first!