I guess I feel like how it all traces back from Otoya's womanizer trait. As a womanizer, who actually values women, Otoya inherently views all women as treasures and allies himself with any of them. His demeanor to women can put them off (or instantly charm them), but he entertains all women, and protects them when they're in danger. And I thought most of Otoya's scenes are him interacting with Yuri and caring for her, which is ofc a woman, which is the womanizer trait above, albeit doubly affectionate as she's the one he had chance to build a meaningful relationship with, his affection to Yuri doubles even more so. He also spent his time at odds with Jirou, which is another man (though he's a monster, but fighting Fangires), and the only reason they can temporarily team up is, again, woman, which is Yuri. I guess his relationship with Jirou finally changes for the better in this episode as he became honorer of Otoya's promise, but I guess this shows how different the treatment to women and men for Otoya, where men can need long dispute, tension, and various difficulties interacting with Otoya before finally bonding with him (albeit it's not one-sided, the vicious Jirou takes part of it as well), while women would just need to get used to and tolerate Otoya's antics. Probably yeah he's little better of a man than he was before, and you admit that he's never going to be like Ryotaro here, but the thing is I catch refering to him as "champion of justice" before as treating him equal to the likes of Ryotaro.

Well I don't think that Nago actually fell in love with Maya, unless Nago's going tsundere with him only being in denial for his love to Maya, which will mean yeah it's all sudden to me too. What I think is that Nago already had the burning passion (hatred) to exterminate all Fangires, so I'd think it's redundant for Nago to get 'playful' side to be passionate. I also kinda want to show that passionate doesn't mean you have to act flamboyant or something, which they don't here. Like how I despise educational insitute equating passionate for shouting your lungs out (and doesn't take it well when a student doesn't shout it loud).

Otoya was already a warrior actually before, well I mean about fighting skills, as he fights off men to take away their women. I guess Maya should really meet with Kengo... he thinks Kiva or IXA's performance in fighting as a rock, which is a form of music, and a form of art. Though I feel like I was left hanging on Tanahashi's fate... what Nago's doing was, sending a shockwave to separate Tanahashi from the Fangire? I also thought Tanahashi's beef comes from how Maya never come again.. how about that part for Maya coming again or not?

I thought Kengo and Wataru's training is, like Nago, a plot that went from A to A.... as Wataru's already a Kiva, and dunno if it's a problem to reveal Kiva identity to Kengo. It's shown that fighting as Fangire Hunter with Aozora organization can temporarily delay the Fangires, but doesn't really make an impact to the Fangires, as seen in Yuri or Megumi always needing help from the Riders, and of course it'll be worse for someone like Kengo doing it. Dunno what you refer as Rising IXA's dance... but I thought it's just how the finisher work, firing an orange beam then Rider Kicking it.

There are a lot of Champions Of Justice in this franchise that are also sort of terrible people (Ex-Aid! Almost the entire cast!), so I guess I didn't think that I was implying that Otoya had suddenly become a shining beacon of altruistic service or anything. He can fight for justice as IXA and still have problems.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/nagohno.png

Nago certainly thinks he fell in love with Maya!

Rising IXA does a little dance move after he detonates the Fangire, a little shoulder-shimmy to bask in his success.

For the Kengo/Wataru part... I mean, it's such a minor element of the episode that I really didn't mind that it was irrelevant. It gives Kengo and Wataru a bit of screentime together again, it pulls Kengo deeper into W.A.K.E.U.P., it allows for a slightly different type of action scene, and it lets the show flip that scene around when Megumi is back. It's doing a few small things well, even if it's not doing any big things.

I'm not surprised to hear that there are scenes cut from this episode, given how so much of it feels incomplete. I still read a lot of the X-Men comics and this episode reminds me of what's probably my least favorite book in the current line-up: Excalibur (I feel like I may have made this comparison in another one of the KRD Watches... threads, so if this sounds familiar just skip to the next paragraph). Part of that is subject matter, as the comic deals with what is easily the dumbest and most uninteresting part of the current status quo, but mostly it's a structure thing. Most issues of that comic feel like they have panels missing, meaning it often feels like we skip over important moments that would better connect the narrative. I got a lot of those vibes from this episode, with Nago getting his butt kicked by Yuri ending with him kidnapping her being the worst example.

Honestly, my biggest issue with this one is that I don't really like Nago very much and while it's fun to see him get smacked around by far more interesting characters, it doesn't make for the most compelling story. The stuff with Maya, Otoya, and Yuri is pretty good, though. The show does a much better job of selling Maya as a partner for Otoya than it ever did with Yuri (mostly because their relationship isn't built on a foundation of worn-down resistance).

And respect to everyone involved in that final scene, especially Saki Kagami. It's a big risk to just let a naked baby hang out on your fancy set, much less to pick him up and hold him. I wouldn't do that without at least a drop cloth and probably a poncho.

I had to go back and watch that transition twice, because I completely could not understand what was happening. For those who don't remember, the chain of events is:

-Nago tries to punch Yuri
-Yuri catches his punch, just like Otoya did, and proceeds to beat the crap out of him
-Cut to Mal d'Amour, where Otoya is informed via phone call that Yuri is being held hostage
-Cut back to a handcuffed Yuri being menaced by a badly-beaten Nago

As a logical progression of events, it's sorely lacking. My assumption is that, in a largely one-side fight (Yuri is blemish-free), Nago managed to get his handcuffs on Yuri. But it's mostly unaddressed onscreen, and almost all of the denouement suffers from the same problem. Like, is Kengo officially a member of W.A.K.E.U.P., even though the story where he was inducted never happened? Stories where characters rewrite history usually need more time spent on the details than other stories, and this one somehow spent less.

(Also, I'd say that Children of the Atom is the worst of the current X-Men books. Vita Ayala is my least-favorite writer for that line. CotA and New Mutants are basically unreadable.)

I'm pretty sure Yuri let herself get cuffed so Nago would let his guard down. Otoya played along, throwing him the IXA Knuckle, trusting that Yuri would catch it.

The other thing that bugs me about this? Who called the cafe to report on the kidnapping?

(I don't even remember about CotA half the time. New Mutants would be fine by me if the art wasn't so smudgy; I can't hate any comic where Honey Badger is part of the main cast. Honestly, the line as a whole isn't doing a ton for me. With X-Factor cancelled I'm mostly just here for Hellions and to see if there's any payoff on Marauders' tease that Rachel and Kitty will be stepping out of the subtext closet and into explicit canon.)

Yeah, but why go to all that trouble when she appeared perfectly capable of kicking Nago's ass on her own? Why get captured if you're just going to beat Nago up again? Was Yuri just trying to include Otoya more? Is punching Nago, like, a date?

I'm pretty sure that was just Nago. He knew they all met at Mal d'Amour, because some things never change, and he hoped to trade Yuri for the IXA Knuckle -slash- draw Otoya out in the hopes of beating him up and taking the Knuckle.

I'm not sure what it says about my mental state today that I considered that, but then was all "how would Nago even know about that place?"

Yeah, it was an opportunity to show how in sync Yuri and Otoya are now and to make Nago's defeat more humiliating than it would've been if Yuri just beat him up on her own. That would've been too easy.

He's actually there in the beginning of the episode, too! It's when he's talking to Shima, Yuri, and Otoya, where he's trying to explain to them that he has traveled from the future via a Time Door inside a Dragon Cathedral, and he needs to prevent Otoya from stopping a deadly Fangire. Somehow, Nago's rude and unconvincing demands come off as rude, unconvincing, and demanding, so he just falls back to stalking Otoya.

Also, the team of W.A.K.E.U.P.86 hear Nago's story of time travel and basically go Hilarious But We Only Believe In Monsters Not Science-Fiction. They've seen a lot of weird stuff over the last 28 weeks, but they are not willing to believe Nago. I can't imagine why.