The Medusa and Gremlin skits are probably the last thing I'll see before I die. That's what's saved up in the last neuron.

And, shit, while I'd say there's no topping those, can you think of a Net Movie series better than Wizard joining the All-Showa Kamen Rider Police Force? Can you?!

KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 29

This time on Whatever The Hell Inoue Felt Like Writing About: Hajime loses his memory, meets his conflict-averse doppelganger, and falls smack-dab in the middle of a Romeo & Juliet-style war between two street food empires! That’s basically it, because did you even read that last sentence!

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It’s a really fun episode, obviously. It’s very light-hearted, giving almost everyone in the cast a chance to either play straight man or comedian. Hajime even gets to play both! It’s also doing a thing I don’t think Inoue gets enough (any?) credit for, which is trying to foreground what it’s doing thematically. It’d be enough to just have the stuffed street foods, two of them, to represent Hajime and Ryou. It’s smart to have both families stymied by people thinking you can just shove something new inside and it’s going to be better. (I'd honestly be into that banana taiyaki.) But Ryou and his dad both give their family’s advice on takoyaki, which is that you have to honor the ingredients, stay true to them, and by doing so the whole snack tastes better. You don’t have to make it differently, you have to make it by understanding why those things are inside. It doesn’t need to have anything replaced, you just need to appreciate what’s already there. It’s a good theme to have if you’re doing a switcheroo/amnesia comedy, and I like how central Inoue makes that theme.

Also, holy shit, the directing and editing in this one is… you guys. I’m just going to talk about screencaps on this episode.

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Opening scene with Medusa Undead Or Whatever. I love this angle on her, shot from below. The filter makes everything feel uneasy, unsafe, and the big metal railing shooting diagonally through the frame is a nice touch. She’s not a powerful looking woman, but this framing sells her as a terrifying opponent.

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The whole first Team Blade scene is shot outside on the farm, with Kotaro looking for Natural and criticizing Hajime for being either someone who trusts in the people around him to make the best decisions for themselves, or a complete asshole, depending on who you ask.

But the scene keeps playing and we pull back through a window, over Hirose’s head, and we’re in a scene where she’s talking to Kenzaki and Tachibana about what happened to Shima and Mutsuki. Just a great camera move to get us from one tone to another.

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Then we get them extreme dutch angles! Look at how obscured nearly everyone in this shot is. Hirose is washed out by the window. Tachibana’s got his head in his hand. Kenzaki’s the only one fully visible, and he’s so pensive that he’s all you need to see. It’s a shot that says that they are lost, with a huge sacrifice that either saved the day or doomed them all, nobody knows. And then they fade to black before the credits! It’s solemn as hell!

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This is a little one, but I like the tracking a lot. It starts on the sign outside Mutsuki’s house, while Nozomi gets turned away by his parents. It’s only after she finishes talking that the camera pans left to catch her walking away from the front door. (All of that was almost definitely because no one felt like paying Mutsuki’s mom or dad for one nighttime scene with Nozomi.) Also, man, the vertical break of that sign and hedge are a great visual bookend to Mutsuki’s scene, which is next!

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It’s not my favorite shot. It’s a little on the nose, with the spider web of mirror pieces reflecting… whatever is going with Mutsuki. (Spoiler, this is the last we see of him in this episode!) But it’s still a gorgeous shot, and there’s that vertical break of the wall on his left as he walks out of the shot, into a headlight, fading into nothingness. Great composition.

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But, y’know, not just a dour episode of psychological mystery! It’s also a story where Hajime loses his memory and switches places with a pushy sexcreep named Ryou, so there’s going to need to be some gags. The Ryou ones are mostly based around how easygoing and ingratiating Ryou is, and how those would be the last words you’d use to describe Hajime, coming in just after Victorian and woolen. This shot is killer, with Ryou mugging it up, practically telling everyone that it’s time to par-tay, and everyone else frozen in shock. Even Kotaro’s dropped milk bottle stays frozen in the air, until Ryou finishes his shtick. Priceless.

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I love this exterior shot. The room that Michi and Hajime are in is microscopic, barely enough for the two of them and the camera, so we get this nice shot of her out the window, doing a little bit of dialogue. It’s a pretty shot, a bunch of rectangles receding into the distance.

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The blocking for this gag! Chef’s kiss!

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Double chef’s kiss!

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And then we hit the cliffhanger, crosscut between Ryou screaming in Tachibana-esque terror, and Hajime getting married to Michi in an attempt to solidify the takoyaki family’s standing in the cutthroat world of Japanese street food.

INOUE FOREVER.

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Next time on Jesus Who Even Knows: I’m pretty sure my birthday isn’t until November, but I’m not sure I’ll be getting a better gift than whatever I just saw in this teaser.

Bye Hajime. I hope his new life in perilous street food treats him better than being Chalice has.

I can't believe I don't remember these episodes at all, but it's already reminding me (or I guess it should be the other way around) of the Gaim Gaiden starring Baron, the one where Kaito meets a goofy doppelganger. I have to imagine there was some inspiration there.

The part of this most reminded me of Baron is when amnesiac Hajime remembers that he MUST BE VICTORIOUS and dedicates himself to making takoyaki. That core value of Dominance coming out in whatever field he finds himself is 1000% Kaito.

But, yeah, plot-wise, this is very similar! The comedy character tricking the stoic badass into taking over their weirdly-dangerous life, it's got some echoes of that Gaim Gaiden flick.

I personally feel Inoue's style of writing works best in these more outlandish episodes of Rider where he can just go wild.

He's a big swing type of writer, where it's got to be either insanely goofy or heartbreakingly sad. Anytime he tries to write a Normal Kamen Rider... it's like, why would you ask him to do that? Why ask the Cirque du Soleil to do a card trick? I want spectacle from my Inoue episodes, goddamnit! Weird psychopaths dying heroic deaths, or grim monsters from eternity getting married so a takoyaki crime boss can believe again! YOU CAN'T SHACKLE ART!

The head of the takoyaki chefs is Taro Suwa, who has multiple appearances in toku. Most notable roles he did are the Kyoryu Curry regular from Abaranger, ramen vendor in Kamen Rider Agito, and the pianist in one of the Kamen Rider Den-O episodes. Also another familiar face is Mio Fukuzumi who plays the serpent undead, and is most known as Wendinu from Hurricaneger. And she was also Mayumi aka the girlfriend of Ryo/Gills in Kamen Rider Agito.

Yeah when I realized this I really started gel with his work so much more. Heck, one of my favorite arcs in Zi-O is the Kiva arc not from a tribute perspective because that awful tribute, but from a Inoue-spectacle perspective. just the manhole covers.

Yes! Thank you! I knew I knew that dude from somewhere.

One of my favorite things about Inoue's writing is that, while SPECTACLE is the height and the width, there's always depth. This is a story that (so far) is about Kotaro not appreciating Hajime, and him (hopefully) finding out that there's value to Hajime's outlook and approach. It's not just wacky hijinks, it's thematically-grounded wacky hijinks.

He said he had no choice to reveal his Undead form when fighting Hajime in ep. 26.

Though for not taking away the addictive substance, in this instance, it's out of touch with reality as the Leangle belt keeps returning to him! It's truly inescapable here, it's not simply that he has to give up because he doesn't deserve to be a Rider, Mutsuki is right that he's chosen... by Spider Undead as his host. Kenzaki needs to accept this, he's been told several times as for now, previously by Tachibana, now by Shima, and instead focuses on dealing with Spider Undead instead of jjudging Mutsuki as for now. The only way this time was letting Mutsuki keep the belt and guide him to suppress the Spider Undead's influence, which Tachibana tries to do. Nozomi's proximity was also handled by Shima, as he can use the wind to deliver what someone says inside their heart to others (i̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶p̶e̶r̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶,̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶).

With Tachibana being worthless here, just asking what do you think that Tachibana should do to deal with Mutsuki here? It seems that for now no one else other than Shima that can do it. And for talking with Nozomi.... him remarking about how he's used to be what Mutsuki is currently... the girlfriend part is (justificably) neglected here, something that strikes me the most here, while Mutsuki only let down Nozomi here (thankfully she doesn't react like she did at her debut where Amane guilt-tripped Mutsuki), Tachibana's actions made Sayoko outright died. Tachibana does something to help him but it was too late, he was hospitalized! When he arrived at the scene, Shima was already sealed.

I won't spoil you about what happened for Spider Undead, but Shima's sacrifice did an impact, as I've said above, it's something that only Shima can accomplish here.

There's a scene where Shima adviced Hirose to not let her face wrinkled, and Kotaro/Kenzaki missing the point that the beautiful woman refers to her right there, looking for others and Hirose taking a mirror. Also what they do here is trying to keep Shima alive by preventing him going sacrificing himself... though not really thinking how to deal with Mutsuki (Kenzaki said he doesn't want to lose him too).