I honestly wouldn't be against the story shifting Asumu into wanting to be an Oni if it was set up well. (I mean, that's what the story was feinting towards in the first dozen episodes, before it went a different direction.) What's here just treats Asumu's motivation as a foregone conclusion, and I don't get it? Am I watching this one, like, 10 episodes too early? There was no release date on the Wiki, and it's clearly after Armed Saber shows up, so it feels like the right time to watch it? But the Asumu in this short feels completely wrong.

Asumu in a tiny Hibiki suit, though, yeah, totally cute. It's Marshmallow Hibiki!

To be honest, I’ve nothing to say about the content. Just that, as far as I know, the actual show runners have little to no input on these sorts of projects.

Asumu becoming an Oni? From what I can gather from comments made by the guy playing Hibiki, that WAS the plan at some point in production (I can’t say when they stopped that being the plan, mostly for spoiler reasons)

And now, for the cast trivia.

Akane Taka/Madder Hawk is voiced by Hiroshi Masuoka, who Super Sentai fans may recognise as Navigator Gator from Changeman and GaoGod from Gaoranger.

Rūri Okami/Lapis Wolf is voiced by Bin Shimada, who’s previous Rider credit include being a voice double for Nigou and Stronger during the late 70s/early 80s. He’s also had several villain roles in Super Sentai, most notably Sixth Spear Satorakura in Hurricaneger (and his son who looks and sounds exactly like him in Gokaiger)

Kiaka Shishi/Orange Lion is voiced by Ryuzaburo Otomi, who you may recognise as the voice of the bad guy from OOO’s movie and the Dragon from Wizard.

Seiji Gaeru/Celadon Frog is voiced by Taiki Matsuno, who you may recognise as Cubi from Kamen Rider Ghost.

No next time lyrics this time, I already used them last time.

Awesome! Thanks!

KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 34 - "LOVING BONITO"
KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 35 - "BEWILDERING ANGEL"

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki34a.png

"I spent all day trying to decide
About the things that you said last night
Did they mean nothing
Or were they filled with hidden clues"

-The Wedding Present, "Take Me!"

INOUE FOREVER.

I mean, this one's just perfect in my eyes. The only thing I'd change is to make Todoroki's colossally weird dinner date an entire two-part episode, but beyond that? Note. Perfect. Just an exceptionally funny and insightful couple of Hibiki episodes.

The real interesting twist on this one for me is that it's really Hibiki who ends up learning something from all of this. Oh, sure, there's wacky misunderstandings and relationship problems that basically every cast member has to overcome, but Hibiki's the one who changes and grows over this story.

Like, that's not typical? The basic configuration of the show is that Hibiki is the idealized mentor, and Asumu (or Todoroki) is the POV student. Hibiki is the one who teaches, not the one who learns. So this story putting Hibiki in the role of mystified observer, someone who can't figure out how to help because everyone's being way too weird, it's a new perspective for the show to explore.

Not that Hibiki's some sort of What Is This Emotion You Humans Call Love robot or anything. He's been in love! Passionate love! But he's always been able to focus on his responsibilities as an Oni first, so the concept of the rest of the cast being just wrecked by their various feelings of shame and jealousy... I like how weird that is to Hibiki? He's just like Do Your Job and everyone else is a disaster. He's trying to give them advice, but when that advice is basically Suck It Up... that's not going to work.

It's Midori (or Hitomi, I don't know) who sweetly fixes Hibiki in this one. Hibiki's the best non-Sabaki Oni there is, and that's partly because of how dedicated he is to his role as an Oni. That's what makes him great, but it's also what makes him unique. Everyone else is a mess of interlocking neuroses, where confidence in a job gives them confidence in their personal life, which gives them confidence in their job, which gives them confidence in their personal life, and so on. Hibiki's greatest skill is compartmentalization. (It's definitely not cooking.) Everyone else is a giant pile of noodles on a tray.

So Hibiki figuring out that Todoroki needing to get Hinaka back is the key to getting back on track as an Oni, I thought it was sweet. I can understand if people thought it made Hibiki a little too emotionless (he comes off mildly tactless for multiple scenes), but I thought it stayed on the right side of believable. It's a cute story.

It's also a hilarious story, so much so that if it did have any failings as a story, I'd be more than willing to write them off. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard during a Kamen Rider story. From Todoroki's almost-impossibly bad attempt to celebrate Hinaka's birthday (love that 2005 fauxhawk); to the all-time great sightgag of Todoroki pulling a meter-long wooden fish box out of nowhere (a gag so nice they did it twice); to Todoroki's clearly misplaced relief when Hinaka says that she's Just Tired (with Kasumi rapidly shaking her head in the background); to Zanki's awful, awful turn as Cyrano (he slinks away in failure while two random dudes are like WTF); to Todoroki listening to sad songs in his Honda Element (the exquisitely sad Moshi Moshi killed me dead); to Hibiki trying to get Todoroki to understand why a meter-long wooden fish box is maybe not what Hinaka was expecting (it takes a minute!); to the tears of joy shed by Todoroki and Hinaka over some world-class udon (pure joy for me, in that moment, I love these two weirdos); to the goddamn genius capper of Hinaka being slightly bummed at getting a ring when she wanted "something shiny"... you know, sushi.

It's hysterical. It's a succession of killer scenes that never let up, while still keeping things in a very A Superhero Deals With Romantic Troubles mode. There are fights, there's a monster, Armed Hibiki shows up (ugh) with a really stunning drum solo finisher (so great)... I don't know, man, I thought this one worked gangbusters. A+ episodes for me!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../hibiki34b.png

This is the episode I most remember for the flanderisation most heavily settling in.

Hibiki's characters... I'm not gonna act like they were all incredibly complex, but they were all very grounded. It's something I joke about Hibiki a lot; that it's a show about demons with musical instruments beating up giant spiders, but also it's easily the most laidback, down to earth, realistic Rider show. Todoroki, for instance, he is a little dim and a little naive; but in a way that you could imagine him being a real person. He's very normal; just someone who needs a bit more experience to be the Oni he wants to be.

Aaaand here he's devolved completely into a cartoonish comic relief character who mugs for the camera and is so stupid he thinks his crush wants a giant fish as a present, whoa-ho-ho isn't that so wacky and funny! I'm fine with a little change in pace, but there's just no resemblance here to the Todoroki that came before. Where his naivety and relative foolishness were previously just some of the aspects that informed his character, they've now been dialed up to 11 and define him now. We saw it in the last couple episodes too with Kogure -- that guy is completely out of place in a season like this. If he was in episode 17 or 25 we would have been reeling from the sudden tone shift, and I don't appreciate it any more just because it's been a few episodes since the original creative team left.

It's not too surprising given this is often how Inoue writes his characters, and that's not an insult -- when it's a series he's actually writing, and it's not about vampires, he does very well with it! His work on Agito and Ryuki was fantastic most of the time, and I've come to respect everything 555 does even if I personally don't vibe with it - hi Fish! - but like Kuuga, this is not a season Inoue was a good fit for at all. And even isolated, even viewed through a lens of Hibiki 1-29 not existing (please god no), this is easily some of his most dire work. A lot of it feels like his tropes just thrown out hastily onto the script; I just can't get anything out of this other than "this sure is an Inoue story about dating which gives me secondhand embarrassment every two seconds and the title character somehow turned into a fucking idiot".

... I'm glad you found something to like in it, though!

There is nothing quite like someone eviscerating something you've enjoyed and then ending it with "I'm glad you found something to like in it, though!" Rhetorically, it's like getting your face punched so hard that you're knocked on your ass, and then that same person helping you up off of the ground.

So, obviously, this is going to be a real Your Mileage May Vary rebuttal, but, wow, did not have that experience with this one at all. Doing this story through the lens of Todoroki and Hinaka's relationship made perfect sense to me, considering how Heightened they've always been as characters, and specifically how Extra Heightened those two are when it comes to their dating. There's a moment in the beginning, after Todoroki completely ruins their date, where Hinaka confesses to Kasumi that, y'know, Todoroki's got a lot of weird anxiousness to him, and that's not great to date. It's a little space to explore the idea of what happens when you care about someone, but they're not right for you. The tension of that runs through everything Todoroki and Hinaka go through (his lack of focus, his depression, his More Than Usual amounts of anxiety), and it keeps things pretty relatable, as far as I was concerned.

As for Todoroki seeming too weird in this one... again, I'm not really seeing it? It's more of a comedy couple of episodes than, say, the ones where he doesn't want to be a drummer, but nothing in this one felt out of character for Todoroki. Todoroki's always been a guy that gets in his own way, that lets his anxiety and enthusiasm sabotage his success. That's pretty much what he does in this story?

I don't know, yeah, really didn't have the experience you had with this story. I appreciate your honesty, though! It's a take I hadn't considered.

happens all the time here but alright


All that is technically true but, like... to continue the food theme; in much the same way that a mild basic beefburger with sauce and a triple-decker hamburger with bacon, lettuce and mayonaisse both have tomato sauce, so therefore they're the same thing. Todoyama and Hinaka were definitely some of Hibiki's more expressive and heightened characters but they were never anywhere near this level -- it's as if you took Jean from Kuuga, who had a couple jokes and a few moments of comic relief; and wrote him like you would Shunpei from Wizard. There's maybe the same theme of both being comedic characters but it's nowhere same the thing. Hibiki's had comedic episodes before and, again, they're just nothing like this. It's a completely different show and cast of characters, and I'm not convinced the writer knows what he's doing with any of them.

I guess I just don't see (beyond it being a lighter couple episodes) their volume getting turned up that high? I don't know. Feels like we're seeing these episodes very differently. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your viewpoint, though!

No doubt Die is just a little confused thanks to Hidenori Ishida's flawless direction elevating the material. Fortunately, these are the last episodes of Hibiki he worked on, so that won't be an issue from here out. :p

Seriously though? I'm loving how much Die is loving Inoue's writing on Hibiki... about 66% percent of the time so far, anyway. Even I can't be this generous towards this part of the show, so the positivity is much appreciated.

Hey, and speaking of not being positive about Hibiki – the new opening is a good song (it's still 100% Sahashi with the same lyricist as Shounen Yo), but I've always hated how abrupt the transition into it from the cold open is. Normally that's one of my favorite things in a Rider show, but something about that HARUKA TOO~KU NOOOOOO cutting in never, ever felt right to me. The more subtle way the first opening flowed from Asumu's (now retired) narration worked so, so much better than those spinning Takeshi logos.

The direction was pretty exceptional:

-The way the seating kept changing in the opening, where everyone's everywhere and it's all Todoroki's anxiety making things confusing.

-The shot from below Zanki and Todoroki's faces in their car! Zanki seems like someone you'd trust to fix your relationship!

-The orange filter over the repeated scenes of the Oni trudging, defeated, to the railing off of the river.

-Every single dream sequence!

It's definitely fun being the only person who's comfortable finding strengths in these episodes! It doesn't feel weird at all!

Nnnnnnot crazy about the new opening. Maybe it's just because Lyrics On A Hibiki Opening just feels wrong in a fundamental way? I don't know. Feels like a downgrade, for sure, but it's more that I miss Shounen Yo at the end. That was just a great way to end an episode.