And now we have Kohana. This really shouldn't work nearly as well as it does, but replacing Shiratori with a child actually turned out surprisingly well. It helps that they got a good actress to play her, but honestly the show does a good job of justifying it as part of the time travel nonsense that forms its backbone. Kohana definitely brings a new dynamic to the show, but it feels less disruptive than it could have.

That's Taro Suwa, one of the most prolific guest stars in all of Kamen Rider. In addition to Blade, he also had a recurring part on Agito and showed up in Decade, W, Wizard, and Ex-Aid. He was also a regular on Toshiki Inoue's Shougeki Gouraigan. His turn here as the piano hobo is one of my favorite contract holder stories in the show's entire run, primarily for reasons that we'll get to in the next episode.

I’m in the camp that prefers the new Hana to the old one. A grown woman doing that stuff was so-so. A child doing it is hilarious (especially since the Den-O novel has Hana getting drunk). Though I’ll never understand why Bandai decided to devote 3 figurines to Den-O’s female characters (specifically, adult Hana, kid Hana and Naomi) in what is normally a Super Sentai line (one where the only Sentai series to have at least that many was Magiranger, which got 5).

Anyway, I also remember this episode for somebody’s reaction to it on Twitter (which is what got me to watch Den-O beyond the movies in the first place)

Anyway, I almost forgot the regular feature.

Tetsu Inada

Notable Anime roles: Ishibashi-sensei in Kanon, Mr. Izinski in Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, Ira Gamagoori in Kill la Kill, Muneshige Tachibana in Sengoku Basara: End of Judgement, Over Jsutice in Space Patrol Luluco, Hijikata Toshizō, Alexis Kerib in SSSS. Gridman, Wakkein in Mobile Suit Gundam,

Notable Tokusatsu roles: B-Crusher Descorpion in B-Fighter Kabuto, Juma King Golmois in Kyukyu Sentai GoGoFive: Sudden Shock! A New Warrior, Highness Duke Org Shuten in Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger, Ultraman Cosmos in the Ultraman Cosmos movies, Doggie “Boss” Kruger in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, Dark Faust in Ultraman Nexus, Hades God Ifrit in Mahou Sentai Magiranger, Strange Demon Robot Schwarian in Kamen Rider Decade, Kamen Rider Ichigou from Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs Dai-Shocker onwards, Revol in Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Homuras in Kyoryuger Brave, Gachireus in Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger, Mashin Hakobu in Mashin Sentai Kiramager.

Notable video game roles: Elzam von Branstein in the Super Robot Wars series.

Notable dubbing roles: Commander Cruger/Shadow Ranger in Power Rangers SPD, Daggeron/Solaris Knight and Magma in Power Rangers Mystic Force, Groundpounder in Transformers: Robots in Disguise, multiple characters in Transformers: Cyberverse, Prowler in Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

*The sign says “The first class begins at 8:30. There will be a physics exam this week.” British universities at least don’t start earlier than 9 AM. And exams are usually announced weeks before they happen, not put them on a placard with no date affixed.

**They presumably being either the writers, the set designers or both.

Same here. Matsumoto is sometimes compared unfavorably to Shiratori, but not as egregiously as the comparison between Mizoguchi and Sato. Kohana is still pretty popular on her own merit even though the actress is unfortunately retired last I heard. Honestly, I couldn't imagine Den-O without Kohana, considering how she appeared in a lot of the post-series content. Matsumoto is also the youngest actress to play the female lead. Unlike the actors of Kato Yakumo and Jin Masato who have identical kanji in their surnames, the second kanji in her surname is 元 which is different. Yay for different kanji readings!

Something else that is good about Kohana, as Die already mentioned, is her relevance to the dragging Zeronos memory subplot, which makes it just a little less boring to watch by actually showing a tangible and interesting consequence that isn't just Airi conveniently losing her memory due to weird time travel logic. Sakurai/Airi is an already established ship, but Yuto/Airi isn't, which makes it hard to get invested in the subplot, so throwing another character in to that in such a surprise plot twist is a good way to reroute the train on to a different more scenic rail, figuratively speaking.

Yeah, Kohana's pretty great! In much the same way Deneb has an echo of Jiiya from Kabuto, Kohana visually and dynamically feels like Kobayashi looking at the stuff Inoue got to do with Gon on Kabuto and saying Yes Yes That That. Replacing a part of the Kamen Rider formula with A Cute Kid is just a fun idea, and Kohana seems to be filling the bodyguard/muscle part of the group in a similar way to Gon's role as the brains of the group. Kohana rescuing Ryotaro from a couple of unreasonable motorists by egging them is as fantastic an introduction as anyone's gotten on this show.

The big thing the Hana/Kohana change adds to all of the Yuuto stuff is a sense of problem-solving, a switch from I Wish This Wasn't Happening to Maybe We Should Fix This. It's a positive change! The peril in all of the previous Yuuto and Hana stuff was so ill-defined as to make me think I had merely dreamt it. Hana's timeline is gone, but maybe not? And the ZeroLiner is part of that? And maybe Sakurai? And also Yuuto is wrapped up in it? Now we've got a clear dilemma with appreciable stakes occurring at a time where folks are motivated to put its investigation front and center. There's a vitality to what's going on now with Yuuto and Kohana that I really appreciate. Instead of making me sit through a bunch of handwaving about timelines and the mysteries thereof, we've got a clear problem that deserves our attention. It's way more fun to watch!

Well, yeah, nothing wrong (you say you wouldn't hate it) for giving her growth, but you commenting about well-documented comedic role makes a point about people don't go through dramatic changes in their life all of the time for those wanting characters (the main character for you here) to constantly grow and change. Also, true Poppy is light-hearted due to her being fully peaceful, wanting to ensure both humans and Bugster's longetivity. Can't be applied to someone like Naomi who revels in comedic sociopathy, that's a trait worth to be wary about. Both are genki yeah, but Naomi shows that being cheerful doesn't necessarily mean decency, and I already talked about comedy isn't necessarily light-hearted.

I mean, not all characters in series are meant to interact with each other? This is, so far, probably the reason of no good Hana/Yuuto plot before, at least to you. Hana serves different role, mainly as a caretaker to Ryotaro and enforcer to the Taros Imagins. Yuuto is the secondary Rider who brushes off everyone to work on his terms by protecting the time flow. I do think that, Hana and Yuuto should interact regarding something they're similar of, about how they were against Ryotaro changing things up in the past to make the contract holders feel better, with of course Hana fully supporting Ryotaro doing that later, and likely Hana acting as a testimony against this Ryotaro's practice for Yuuto's view. And wdym by cosmically-shit-upon? The ones get affected by time? Well, that's something still not revealed yet within the show now. Also, Ko means little, so Kohana literally means little Hana, and this is just like Ryotaro in the movie before, where he's refered as Kotaro for child version of him.

I thought you were ok with Den-O being all about the characters as you aren't into plot if chosen between the 2? But this is what will happen about restating of premises and present tense storytelling.

This is worth waiting about what will happen to Zeronos later, he may have no cards left for now, but there's still almost 20 episodes left of this show. Secondary Riders likely won't be retired out by this. Deneb already "rebels" from Yuuto few episodes ago y'know, and he earns scorn from Yuuto for this, and Deneb is at least unlike Taros Imagin, he has physical form.

Good to know I'm not alone in really digging Kohana! I don't really want to knock Shiratori, because she did a great job too, and the circumstances of her leaving the show are super unfortunate, but I absolutely find Hana's shtick way funnier coming from a child, and to this day, I'm really impressed by how smoothly the staff managed to work the change into the story in such a positive way.

I summed up how not jarring it is like this during my rewatch, and I don't think I could put it any better:

Yeah, add me to the "Kohana is great" train. Having to replace one of your primary cast halfway through should not be a great sign for a show, and yet the actress makes it work just as well as before. Maybe better, since the only thing seeing Momo get clowned on, is seeing Momo getting clowned on by a 10 year old.

Sure, but conversely, I don't see the reason to permanently silo characters? Some of the freshest storytelling occurs when we get to see characters interact with each other for the first time, or when someone's on a set you wouldn't expect. One of the most fun stories this show's done is the Hostages story, and that's great because it's crossing over nearly the entire cast. I'm not sure why a show wouldn't want to keep combining characters to see what happens?

I think my point was more about the various advantages and disadvantages of plot-driven storytelling versus character-driven storytelling. My problem with this past episode was that it was basically not-driven storytelling? It was a very neutral episode of folks expressing information-less curiosity at spiralling train lines, and recapping of recent developments that maybe weren't 100% clear to the audience. It's halfway through the episode before anything really happens to our cast.

For sure, it's maybe saying something about the conception of Hana's character that Kohana's behavior is funny, on-brand, and more fitting. If your 19-year old character can be switched out with an actual child and the character's normal dialogue sounds more believable... Oof. Not sure that's saying great things about Hana's role to date.

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 34 - "THE PIANIST OF TIME"

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den34a.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den34b.png

I swear to god, I feel like this show is trolling me. Not a day after I write a whole bunch about how excited I was for the new Yuuto/Kohana team, and how excited I was to see some real movement on their shared dilemma, HA GODDAMN HA, I get this episode. It's one where Kohana and Yuuto share (if memory serves) absolutely zero screentime, and where their shared dilemma is addressed with, to quote Reverend Lovejoy, "short answer 'yes' with an 'if', long answer 'no' with a 'but'." Literally everything I loved about last episode got chucked out the window, and what I'm left with... well.

I liked the ending? There's a sweetly pure idea about memories being both sacred and illusory. The idea that forgetting people can be like a death, but that we remember things we've forgotten all the time. No one's ever really gone, as long as we're quoting prolific voice actors. Someone can disappear for ten years, and then rekindle a connection to the world in an afternoon. It doesn't take a lot. It's a tragedy, to be forgotten. But it's not really fatal, not really the end. If we stay true to ourselves, and reach back when someone reaches for us, it can all work out.

The rest of the episode I found largely lifeless and dull, and I'm not completely sure why.

Some of it is because, like a lot of problems I end up having with Den-O, it takes forever to explain what the hell is really happening in the story, and then it rushes through the exposition because there's no time left for subtlety. Every flashback scene with Piano Man and Coma Man was, honestly, pretty abysmally acted and written. The dialogue is just this guy shouting all of his thoughts at a stranger, and the performance is him SHOUTING ALL OF HIS EMOTIONS. It reads as nearly psychotic, instead of as two kindred spirits finding a connection. And that accident scene! I was not meant to laugh at it, I'm pretty sure? But, man, come on. Coma Man dashes in front of an oncoming car like he's secretly two dogs standing on each other's shoulders and wearing a sport coat. It's a ridiculous moment, and it nearly sunk this story for me.

The regular cast is weirdly deployed in this one, with special disappointment for how unintegral Kohana is. There's a scene where the DenLiner crew reacts to her new form, which was funny, but she's largely irrelevant to the Imaginvestigation. She doesn't do anything that helps Den-O save the day, and she disappears from the plot about halfway through. Her aside, it's really just some Urataros smooth-talking (one scene?) and a little bit of Deneb possessing Yuuto to keep things lively. The rest of the episode is a lot of piano playing, and not much story.

Yeah, god, this one bugged me. I don't mind a story that wants to take it down a gear, I guess, but to abandon the electric storytelling developments of Yuuto and Kohana to do a story that's About Yuuto without really featuring Yuuto... it made this one really unimpressive to me. Some nice thematic stuff at the end, but the nuts-and-bolts of this one were nowhere for me. Was not anticipating the show working this hard to let me down! A+ trolling!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den34c.png

THE BAGGAGE CAR

-The thing I laughed the hardest at in this episode were the insert shots of Urataros playing the piano with hands that are way thicker than Ryotaro's. Does Ryotaro retain a bunch of water when Urataros possesses him? It would make a sort of sense...

-Mostly didn't care about the fight at the end of this one (the Imagin has, like, an army inside him why?), but I'm pretty sure that office building got used in a good Ryuki and/or Blade story for a fight. That is, uh, that is how into this episode I was: fondly half-remembering Blade and Ryuki fight scenes.

This is the core of why I like this bi-weekly monster story so much. The whole concept of someone disappearing because of an Imagin rampage in the past and nobody remembering them in the present is such a neat idea. It's a great example of the show's theme of memories and it ties directly into everything that's going on with Yuuto, too. Plus it leaves us with that haunting final note (pun intended) of Piano Hobo boarding the Denliner to drift along through time until he can find his place again. I really love everything that's going on with this concept.