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I don't even remember this teasing for Hyper Form happening.

Not that it's surprising I wouldn't, when the whole point of rewatching Kabuto is reminding myself of the countless moments and plot threads I've forgotten over the years. It's hard to see why such a jarring last minute wouldn't leave more of an impression, but then, it's also easy to see why such an unconnected last minute wouldn't.

As neat of a sequence as that is, obviously this episode really ends with Daisuke and Gon back together, all nice and content, which is as heartwarming as you'd expect. These two are an unbeatable duo who add a ton of heart to any story they're in, and that's something I've never forgotten. The way the Worm impersonating Daisuke plot is solved by Gon knowing exactly which one to give the Drake Grip to with zero explanation presented to the audience is just perfect. Because, really, are you going to question the fact that she can just tell? A detailed reasoning would only undercut the impact of seeing things finally work out for them in the end.

Speaking of working, while it's a minor thing, I have to mention my favorite gag in the episode, where Kagami and Misaki are waiting on their orders at their usual noodle shop, and as the food is being prepared offscreen, you can distinctly hear the sound of things violently shattering to pieces... which suddenly makes sense as soon as Tsurugi hands them their bowls a moment later. It's a tiny bit of sound work, but it got huge laughs out of me. It's not even acknowledged in any way by the characters, which gives the impression it wasn't something intended to be in there from the start, but implying Tsurugi destroys an entire kitchen to make two people some soba only makes it even funnier when seconds later he's begging them for cash as though they should grateful for the opportunity to donate to his relief fund. Bless his heart, he's trying; he really is.

ZECT is also trying, and failing, in their whole scheme to replace Drake with a more loyal Worm Drake. Love the way all the Riders are called in after Daisuke's "death" to go avenge him. It's like some kind of mob movie or something where all these guys who don't really get along are summoned to pull one last job as part of some unspoken code of honor, with the twist here being that none of these four guys are here for the same reason. Kagami is the only one who's directly concerned about seeing justice done; Tendou is already assuming there are layers they aren't being made aware of, and is mostly here to crack the case; Tsurugi just showed up because he heard they'd be defeating Worms, and is back to selling noodles within the same day; and Kageyama, the guy who stalks little girls at night, is naturally lying through his teeth about this entire manufactured situation.

There's a great bit when the four of them are all transforming to fight Drake where Kageyama is visibly grinning at Kagami, and I loved that so much because once again, you can tell how satisfied with himself he is for manipulating him. With the exception of licking other people's ice cream, and probably kicking puppies, nothing makes Kageyama happier than setting up an innocent man's murder, and that's the kind of thing that's earned him the title of TheWorst.

Let's talk about that fight for a bit, though. It's no wonder I only vaguely remembered the Rider-on-Rider fight by the water focused around Daisuke from episode 18, because it turns there was another one! I've probably had both of these tangled up in my head the whole time. This one is just cool in its own right, and I really can't stress enough how much I love the four Riders all rolling up in a perfect line to transform. Ordinarily, that would convey teamwork and heroism, but it's all a complete lie here, because the viewer already knows the real Daisuke is the one in their crosshairs. Just a really interesting contrast. And of course, it's hard to go wrong with an Inoue episode where a Rider narrowly escapes death by being washed away in a river.

So yeah, when you break it down, there's definitely quite a bit going on in this one, and it's still boatloads of fun with the same capable direction, but I can see what Die means about it being a bit of a struggle to say too much meaningful about. It definitely hurt not seeing Hiyori's name in the credits? But like, if we're making this sound like an underwhelming conclusion to this two-parter, allow me to reframe that last point – it's an episode of Kabuto with no Hiyori whatsoever, and I still think it's great.

It's rigid. And for a suit that paints the Kabuto suit blue and add more shoulder pads and chest armor and a new helmet, it is BEAUTIFUL. Also it is Kamen Rider G3 2.0. :lolol

Yes, Gon is a recurring character, not a guest star, but of course none would talk about her returning before, if it's spoiler to you (judging by your reaction here). And about your remark here regarding Gon doing pretty well with her mom (, that's the reason why I thought you'd have that kind of reaction in GSL's Hiyori. Some KR series have been engaging in amnesiac and some of them are without clear reason (there are clear ones though like Build's Sento), and Gon's (and Hiyori) a case of this, I mean that's where Yuriko's Gon name came from, where she first had an amnesia of her mom, then after regaining her memories of her mom, then she also suddenly forgot those that are in present like Daisuke, what would you say regarding that, memories only? Gon wants Daisuke back because she reads a magazine featuring him and she remembers him again. And right, Tendou doesn't really care about human justice... that means when there are no Riders or Worms in Kabuto world... well that's why people shouldn't limit heroism as only those that beat up bad guys (and saving lives in the process).

But, above and beyond the killer storytelling, this thing is gorgeous, from curtain to curtain. There are about a billion things from this episode I want to shout out as being gallery-worthy, so let’s get started:

Name's Rena Mamiya. Yeah.. they really are the same, and not for this reason alone, including how this is their world (if you're mad with GSL, in the part where Mishima's endgame being shown, then..). Can you explain better what's for you if this scene isn't about ZECT in dark warehouse, but bright and exposed? Personally I think Rena here gives me Ra-Baruba-De vibes, of her just standing there, threatening others, while stationary, with the expression that I think is similar. And you're wrong for stating that they aren't the top dogs, if anything, they're the closest ones to it; Rena's the first executive leader Worm. And actually, you can't say that punking out Kageyama is not the toughest feat; Kageyama previously was able to knock out Hiyori with a punch in the gut as human form, that's something someone like Asakura did in Ryuki (to Reiko, in similar fashion), but well, non-fodder monsters punking out any human isn't the toughest feat in general (even Tendou and Kagami has mostly shown to take on fodder Worms only iirc).

I actually think this is a clever gag. Japan words/letters sometimes aren't separated by space, so grouping different letters can make for a different meaning, so Kagami just assumes based on that; where both the surname (as Japan's naming order is surname-Kagami then personal name-Arata) and the personal name is 2 kanji letter - making it Kaga Bishin. But of course Kagami is dumb for instantly jumping to the conclusion without thinking it through further.

I don't know if cartoonish isn't a compliment for you, it'll be a compliment word for these places. If Tsurugi wants to be the top of babysitting, then he had to work with his asocial and elitist personality, because he needs to tend someone, likely those that are much lower status than him, and the top of that field should give full compassion for them! Tendou would blow him out of water in this for sure, because Tendou already had soft spot for little girls like Gon. I don't understand yet the bill collectors assaulting Gon with various outrageous bills...

The rival isn't important for overall story, but he's important for Daisuke, as his position as the definitive make up artist is challenged, so in Daisuke's perceptive. Audience perception isn't completely the same as the in-universe character's perception (primary example: dead loved ones for certain characters, those dead characters may be posthumous but it's forever for those characters who lost them). As someone who had played games like Climax Heroes and followed which Rider (not the story) in most of the series, it's already known to me that he's not another Rider. So while the cooking rivalry with Tendou against Yaguruma is just done by the participants cooking as usual with someone (Hiyori) as a jury, then the (earlier!) make-up rivalry with Tendou against Daisuke, with them just doing make ups on Misaki, and altering things that suit them better, then the sports rivalry with Tendou against Tsurugi is watching 1-on-1 sport matches, which means physical rivalry is physical (sports) and the non-physical rivalry (cooking, and previous make up) is just the participants doing the thing they're asked for by themselves. This one though, I wonder too how would they settle their rivalry if there are no subjects for make up (I'd expect for them gathering, likely the previous female Daisuke tended, for her to see by herself whose make up is better), but this one's a combat make-up rivalry (although sorry, but I'd probably prefer the make up scene not to be done in flurry hands, just to see the choreograph in make up combat with more detail, but I understand the purpose; it's parodying pummel duels usually done in combat with fists), and they're giving make ups to each other males instead.

What happened to Tsurugi's ramen business previously? And I mean, Tsurugi's someone who's Tendou 2.0, and he wants to be at top of everything right? (quoted as replacing the gods with a slash of his sword), well yeah this one's cooking too with him delivering a ramen, and he did too with the La Men restaurant (which I asked here), but why wouldn't he pull a Tendou and apply in multiple job fields, but for Tsurugi, it's more serious work instead of temporary like Tendou did only to figure out Worm disguises. I would like to see that. And again, shows Worm's disguise as catastrophic where disguise can frame someone innocent to ruin their lives (and like where I said that saving lives is only a part of heroism instead of the only form of it, your lives being ruined without a fault of your own is a big problem either, it's not just someone being killed), and Worms have started to disguise someone still living, and both of them are after Juka, previously WorMisaki and then the Worm Daisuke here.

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Well it just seems that nearly everyone thinks the same way as you do in those posts. And not talknig about the good ones like this, but also when something isn't really good. There are really a hivemind thing that goes in groups, including internet, and people like you would hold the biggest influence here. People agree to those that influences the most in the group, and those that doesn't, are treated with scorn. except likely those that are as much influental.

But I do drink box milks almost everyday, and that includes strawberry milk too! Nothing happened to me regarding memories, can you back up your claim?!

hey i just spent a day and a half not looking at this thread because i was trying to cool off after being sad and angry about it so let's see how this gooooooes

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 29

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Cooking is weirdly central to Kamen Rider, as a franchise. It's something I was thinking about recently, and I guess this episode that is 1000% about a battle for the soul of cooking is maybe a decent place to unpack some of those thoughts.

Above and beyond the decades of shows set in restaurants and cafes (and adjacent to donut trucks), the idea of cooking being a reflection of the goodness of a soul, that's pretty prominent? Shouichi from Agito springs to mind, but Tendou is quickly displacing him as my main example of A Kamen Rider Who Cooks. It makes sense to have a cooking Kamen Rider. It's a great shorthand for a lot of things about the character. It's a skill that requires training to excel at, but is also largely considered an art that needs an innate talent. It's about mindfulness and control, but still needs passion, desire. More than anything, it's about providing for others, working hard to make other people happy. Of all of the occupations a main character can have, being a chef or a cook... those are maybe the most Kamen Rider to me?

So to have a story that asks if those skills could ever be twisted to evil, to be used in pursuit of control over others? Yes. Yes, a hundred times. There are parts of this episode that scream for the novelty-oriented Canon But Not Really shrug of the wilder HBVs, but the theme of good versus evil, of compassion versus selfishness, of heartfelt sacrifice versus eternal dominance... yeah, this is fully a Kamen Rider episode to me.

It's a funny one, and we'll get to that, but it's also so dialed-in to the dramatic side of its jokes. There're a ton of long takes in this one, these shots that just keep going and going. It allows the jokes to play, but also allows the scenes to feel grounded, to let the reactions feel genuine. The idea of The Dark Chef needing to prove his greatness is completely in-theme for Kabuto as a show, despite the wackiness of the premise. The long takes keep his menace from being washed out with gags, so his appearances feel tense, unpredictable. The food prep scenes, the tryouts for Kagami Outrageous, Tadokoro's soba thing... it's all longer takes than you'd think, considering how often quick cuts amplify the humor. But that's not what the production team does here. Everything spreads out a little more, blending humor with menace with foreboding with excitement. It's a pretty good dish!

And, yeah, a hilarious episode. The idea of just going all-in on Iron Chef But Kamen Rider... again, it sounds like an HBV, but every step of the story makes that idea totally logical. The random appearance of the Dark Knife (subtitles on this episode start off calling it the Dark Knife, then The Dark Chef calls it the Black Knife, but I like Dark Knife better) in the beginning feels like a curse is put on the show, drawing everyone into this insane world where battles are conducted in the language of flavor. But so much of this show is built around honoring the power of cooking (one of Tendou and Hiyori's most memorable arguments was resolved with flavor!) that it's inevitable that Tendou would feel personally invested in it.

But, god, every joke in this thing lands, no matter how large or small. Right from the jump, Kagami is pointedly musing to Tendou if Hyper Kabuto will be a non-weird Rider for once, and Tendou's like Yes Gatack It Sure Would Be Nice If We Had A Non-Weird Rider For A Change. It's a sort of casual rivalry that I'm glad to see the show still has a look towards, where Tendou will tolerate some gentle ribbing from Kagami, but there is a limit. That joke... again, it's this really long take that keeps it from going overboard, and it's paced like two people are just talking. It's a joke that isn't trying to make itself bigger than it needs to be, while still leaving nothing on the table. Precisely targeted laughs in this one.

Honestly, nothing that's really a bum note here? You could argue that the Worm battle is tacked on (it comes out of nowhere, and the show cuts away from it super fast), but it still includes a three-Rider fight with a killer Kabuto finish. And it tosses in Hyper Kabuto to lurk menacingly at the edges. And Kagami sees Tsurugi go into a full-on Worm Tantrum, which is a pretty big action-y cliffhanger for an episode that eschews Rider stuff for over two-thirds of its run-time. It's maybe inelegantly added to the recipe, but it makes for some welcome closing notes.

Nothing bad to say about this one!

A QUESTION

One of the funniest bits in this episode is maybe the most vestigial. It's when Tsurugi proudly shows off his first paycheck to Jiiya... for 73 yen. At the low amount, Tsurugi boasts that it's because he is terrible at his job, and he has now Won At Penalties. (There is a tiny drop-in sound effect in 28 of Tsurugi slinging his carrying case around, smashing the bowls inside, so this plot point tracks!) Jiiya is, classically, overcome with pride for Tsurugi, and it's adorable. It's nice to see Tsurugi expanding his excellence to include being the worst at things (watch out Kageyama, I guess), which is maybe more his wheelhouse than he comprehends. What's something you're reliably terrible at? (For me, it's mistyping the word "episode”. Every time! Every single time! I can't make my fingers type that word correctly!)

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I kind of consider this and the next episode to be the final part of a trilogy started with Ryuki's Megumi arc and continued with Blade's amnesia arc: the mid-series comic relief episodes where Inoue just goes full-on ridiculous. It's the final show to have dedicated screwball episodes and it's probably the most aggressively silly of the three.

I have been waiting to get to these episodes since you started the Kabuto thread and I have enjoyed them every bit as much as I did the first time. Everything about this arc is just so delightfully over-the-top and weird, from the crazy intense performance of the evil chef to the fact that it's an arc about an evil chef. What I really like is that it doesn't feel like a huge departure from normal Kabuto, it's just that certain elements and character traits are dialed up to 11. Kagami's dad judging a cooking contest in a cheap basement Kitchen Stadium? Not that much objectively weirder than anything else he's done. Him floating up into the sky on obvious wires while an inflatable halo awkwardly dangles over his head? Objectively weirder, but still incredibly funny.

Meanwhile, they also manage to slip Kagami discovering that Tsurugi is a Worm in, which is actually a very serious and major moment.

Yeah, this is something of an infamous episode, mostly because they decided to use Tendou’s actors legitimate cooking skills as the focus of an episode rather than a source of jokes. Also, some people think the show drops in quality after this two-parter. I am not one of them.

The Dark Chef is played by Shinnosuke Abe, who’s previous Rider appearance was as Kiba’s bastard of a cousin in the first two episodes of Faiz. He also portrayed Eiji’s old travelling buddy in an early two-parter in OOO. Outside of these guest spots, he’s best known as Impactor Logia, a recurring villain in Chouseishin Gransazer.

What can I reliably do unreliably. Write with my right hand (I’m a southpaw through and through)

That's what's so impressive to me about this episode: it's actually pretty normal and straightforward? It's still a show about Worms infiltrating human society to cause chaos; it's still a show where Tendou fights to protect the ability of others to excel; it's still a show where Tendou has an adversary who's Him But More. The details of the conflict are memorably bizarre (it's an episode where a magic cooking knife is entrusted to Tendou and Kagami Outrageous hosts a cooking cage match, after all), but the themes and structure are 100% Kabuto. It's not an episode that sacrifices coherency or relevancy for the sake of jokes.

Rena is one of the instigator of this episode with her conspiring with others to label Daisuke as dead and have the other characters gang up on real Daisuke. Tendou seeing Daisuke Worm almost attacking Juka gave me chills, as where you said, he was helping Daisuke for Gon's sake, but Tendou won't forgive those that attecked Juka. If it happened for real... he could've gone hard to Daisuke, especially given their previous animosity. And for caring to Jiiya, for Tendou, it seems to be similar to Gon, where he can potentially help out Tsurugi. only for Jiiya's sake, like what he did to Daisuke for Gon. Tsurugi still makes ramen but takes over the shop Kagami and Misaki are eating in (still what happened to his restaurant?).

Well yeah, Tsurugi had a crush with Misaki here, and that did came from his moments with WorMisaki. And probably, it's true that, it takes someone that a jerk cares for to make them realize their flaws. After all, some jerks on stories have morality pets that brings their better side, such as Sento/Misora to Banjou at first. Especially when the morality pets are those that won't hesitate to call out the jerks who care for them, which can potentially make them a better person not only in 1 case. Seems (cmiiw) that naturally, people would want to listen more to someone that they care about, including jerks. Others calling out Tsurugi for what he did is brushed off by him because he treats them as inferior and their words aren't worth considering to him. But when Misaki, the one that Tsurugi had a crush on here, does that, he considers it more as she's someone he puts on pedestal, and immediately realizes that she's right that he's selfish. I wonder then what makes Mika seemingly isn't someone like Tsurugi, that she can call him selfish, if their upbringing should've been similar as they're raised by same parents.

Because of course treating other's death as something insignificant is bad. Yeah, if someone's a stranger you've never met before, you don't need to mourn like you do for loved ones (like I had recently), but to treat death as something that has no weight at all (y'know, But For Me It Was Tuesday thing like Bison on SF movie) is bad and callous, and they need to be called out. It may not affect Misaki, and it's probably true that Misaki is judgmental (someone who's professional can be like that), but what is wrong for someone to act out against something that doesn't affect them? Should everyone be selfish and don't give a damn (because of it being "more realistic") about anything that doesn't affect them negatively, and only responds when they or something that matters to them are jeopardized?

Yeah, and it paid off at the end, where Gon managed to give the Drake Zecter to the real Daisuke, from her belief. I guess from what I catch, it's because of the real Daisuke being faster to reach out to Gon and the Daisuke Worm being more forced to beg? (well, there's a case of the real one hesitating more though in other case of real vs impostor) And Daisuke finally did a make up on Gon, which is, well, as Gon is a girl (albeit little kid), and Daisuke only caring for girls too otherwise (but Gon being someone close instead of object of affection).

Who became Hyper Kabuto again in its earlier appearence? What I thought was only that, it's bound to happen for Hyper Kabuto, as he's someone who can travel through time.

I somehow managed to completely forget that this was the episode where Kagami saw Tsurugi turn into a Worm. (The very brief mapo tofu contest? That part I remembered, haha.) It is also slightly more grounded than I remember it being; I think, if I were to describe it now, it would be Kamen Rider Kabuto But Turned Up To Eleven.

Tho with all the hilarious spectacle - and there is so much to enjoy - my favorite bit is still the Kagami and Tendo conversation about Maybe This Rider Won't Be A Lunatic conversation :lol And then everything slowly (?) descends into madness and shenanigans ensue. Man, this one was so much more fun to watch knowing what was coming :D

I am, by the way, reliably terrible at blood draws. I have never in my life gotten a vein on the first try, which tends to make patients cranky. I really, really cannot blame them.

Only thing I have to say is mapo tofu is the best. :rock:
One of my favorite Chinese foods. If there was a top 5 dead or alive ranking for Chinese food mapo tofu should be number 1.