You gotta practice self-care!

You’ve got to love how the hand wave for why they didn’t notice Yuki was a Horoscopes in waiting is them asking Hayami, and him basically going “I didn’t care enough to double check”.

And my favourite gag in the whole series is the one where Gemini Sats “Shut up, Gen-chan I hate you”, and Gentaro decides she must be the real Yuki because she called him Gen-chan, and takes a minute to realise what she said next.

Ha ha, I was just thinking about that this morning! I didn't remember if it got covered in 44, but the fact that people's astral destinies -- which, sort of by definition are unchanging -- could just be different in a week seems like the sort of thing that would make Libra have to constantly check and recheck everyone on campus in case they suddenly became a Horoscope, making the Eye of Laplace 97% less useful. Which, oddly, sort of sounds like Hayami!

I guess, as Riku Sanjo is behind this, and is the one that makes Yuki as insane as he can be, it seems to be more than just her response to Erin (unwittingly dismissing her with her rocket god worship), where here, the real Yuki also acts jerkish throughout the episode, talking about before she was being mobbed, like pulling an old Kengo to accuse Gentaro as being a bad friend like for forgetting ticket, or also going apeshit on Miu for properly questioning what's going on, accusing her as abusing her chairwoman position. And Yuki's portrayed as dark inside too here at Riku Sanjo's hand for having Dark Yuki claiming she secretly wants to sabotage Kengo, making space popular through any means, pranking her friends. No wonder Yuki can come off as jerkish, albeit subtle, in Riku Sanjo's hands like ep. 37. Yuki does earn hatred in this episode in fandom for unwittingly causing disaster.

About Gamou acknowledging Yuki's story of hearing things from space, this'd be seemingly also a setup for Gamou's actual goal for now, and him using Gemini is a step towards achieving it. I guess Hayami would mock Yuki's story as ridiculous, as he also didn't really know what is Gamou's true goal.

The parents not believing Yuki when she heard sounds from space makes them sound like normal in contrast to the weird Yuki (especially in Riku Sanjo's episodes), but the parents turns out to be as crazy or probably more. As a longtime friend, should be obvious that Gentaro has been in Yuki's house before, where her parents seem familiar with Gentaro. Yuki's parents rather give me Tassel vibes, of which it seems to be more accepted to you, while they're too broad for you here. I'm not really into either, for my case.

Yuki is given a Bully Maguire arc here by Gemini claiming that Yuki has repressed darkness of secretly wanting to be mean, of which said dark entity realizes them by Gemini tearing up the astronout proporsal, vandalizing stuff about space, and also throwing Miu who pisses her off as the chairwoman off several stories. Also another combination for Cosmic States in Launcher + Net, the rockets form a net to trap the opponents. Wonder if by this, the rockets would be less dangerous as something that didn't release damaging explosions, but more effective long-term to have them vulnerable by the net. There's a benefit after Tachibana died, Meteor doesn't seem to need to keep any secrets anymore, as Tachibana was the traitor Virgo who backed up the KRC.

He doesn't (which is still weird!), but it's kind of funny to see Hayami immediately go VOICES FROM SPACE, HOW ABSURD while he's a cosmic-powered horoscope-themed lieutenant to a would-be celestial tyrant. Kind of a strange line to draw!

Figuring out Gamou's plan is like putting together a puzzle, but I guess Hayami finds that piece too tough to swallow. :p

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 44 - “CEREMONY OF CELESTIAL FATE”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze44a.png

Apropos for a Gemini story, I’m of two minds on this one.

One part of me admires what this episode’s trying to do. The shift from Maniacal Doppelganger to something more probing and revealing about Yuuki’s buried resentments and desires, that’s a more interesting route to take. Forcing Yuuki to deal with her own propensity for darkness, and come out the other side a more healed and reflective person, that’s a solid concept.

The other part of me thinks that this episode never really addressed any of that, instead giving us a story less about anything from within Yuuki, and more about Gen’s newly-revealed tendency to forget key details of his past with his oldest friend, including defining moments that would normally be burned in someone’s memory, casting a tragic light on how little Yuuki actually meant to Gen.

This one pretty much entirely didn’t work for me, and not for the expected distaste for Double Yuuki. While I didn’t love Yuuki’s maddened and distraught performance, the whole episode was geared towards such a constant level of psychological horror that it fit the surroundings enough to be not distracting, if not entertaining or moving in its own right. No, what didn’t work for me was how little agency Yuuki had in any phase of this story, mostly being criticized and betrayed by her friends, and then eventually pep-talked enough by Gen to paralyze and regress Gemini. While Yuuki does at least acknowledge Gemini’s place within her psychology, Yuuki herself never really defeats or confronts Gemini; instead, she just, like, stops feeling bad about herself – and her justifiable anger over Gen completely forgetting the defining moments of their childhood together, this is still actively infuriating as a viewer, Ryuusei 100% nailed Gen’s lack of follow-through back when they first met – until Fourze can detonate her. The key speech in this one is just Gen apologizing to Yuuki for being a bad friend! That isn’t even about Yuuki! It’s about Gen!

This whole episode ends up being about Gen, and while that’s arguably more appealing for a lot of reasons, it’s like: what are we even doing here? What have we learned about Yuuki in the present day that changes anything? She’s not responsible for anything that happens in this story, she doesn’t actually confront her darker side in any way that matters, and she doesn’t really change as the result of anything that happens here. Her beef with Gen starts in the middle of 43, and gets resolved in 44, but it’s all new information that only exists within these two episodes. In a story that hinges its emotional stakes on the two halves of Yuuki’s mind, the climax is about Gen avowing his friendship to a girl after he basically blanked on the most important moment of their friendship; which, again, not a thing Yuuki did! It’s a Gen story!

Man, of all the reasons I thought I wouldn’t like this story, They Didn’t Make It Enough About Yuuki was not where I thought I’d come down on it. Good to see Fourze can still surprise me this far into its run?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../fourze44b.png

If nothing else, this particular two-parter really did a good job making you feel sorry for Yuki regardless of how you feel towards her as a character.

I mean, I was definitely as mad at Gentarou as she was!

Skipped these, but I at least have my notes from last time:

The image from my original quote isn't come through so I've reposted it here: