Well yeah, as the next episode pointed out, the Imagins have gotten stronger. Also I'd like for any series to not have the rule of forcing any escalation to be set in stone, like how in Wizard, one of the stronger enemies are on the middle part of the series like Phoenix.

Kintaros being "too well-meaning" is appropriate btw. It's training to be stronger as a hero, by saving others from evildoers that needs to be solved by fighting like monsters, not about throwing your power around to others, like what Momo did to hapzardly fight any humans that he deems as "bad guys", Momo still hasn't changed from what he were at the beginning (pulling this shit against bullies).

Why would the thought of Kohana challenging Ryotaro come out? Kohana is well, 'ko' (little) version of Hana, and she was fiercely protective and nurturing of Ryotaro. She always did something that would be favorable for Ryotaro, and a quick one regarding that - no "something that is painful but will be favorable later" like forms of tough love. Her debut was also protecting Ryotaro from car drivers who acts overboard to Ryotaro accidentally crashing his bike on their car door (bad luck again). Well, it's true that if and when the stakes are high and there is little time left for the sweet toku hero like him to continue mourning (e.g. the world will literally be destroyed very soon), even though it's understandable for them to mourn, it's the time when being emotional is detrimental, they should try to temporarily put aside their mourning and just do something to try stop the incoming catastrophe, being able to temporarily put aside the mourning is a sign of maturity, instead of a sign of being emotionless.

But doesn't mean like what some audience suggests that they should become emotionless and dead set on completing the mission without hesitation. Ryotaro's compassion and tender-heart, like him feeling guilt over here, is the one that makes for a true hero, as being heroic isn't only the cool stuff like destroying powerful beings that threaten innocent or putting their life at risk for others, but they do more than just (super)heroics. They are generally friendly and helpful towards strangers, even in little things that non-super characters can easily do. Little acts of kindness, you know, like what Ryotaro does in the Imagins' travel to the past that he makes an effort to put the contract holders in better place, something that other characters object at first due to flow of time.

Well of course, there's still 14 episodes left, Yuuto wouldn't just retire by being a secondary Rider after running out of cards. Something would happen, which for this one, Sakurai giving him second chance to continue fighting as Zeronos. And about Sakurai coming from the future, your complaint here is more about the set up of Sakurai as a concept from the beginning rather than the time travel aspect, which I discussed before, that can be confusing (like you questioning why there are no repairment from Imagin's rampage to the past to the buildings). I mean you did say that this episode is an ace to you, and you're someone invested in the character part, so no need to explain these mysteries that it can just be ignored for the characters part? Also, older Sakurai was expected to be played by Hibiki based on how current Yuuto is played by Kyosuke and that Sakurai's personality resembles Hibiki's more, but instead, the stand-in they put in the trenchcoat and hat is the same actor they bring back anytime adult Sakurai appears in the Den-O movies such as Episode Red, as Hibiki's actor not liking how the cast and Shigenori Takadera were treated, he swore never to return to the franchise once the show finished. It's tragic for Yuuto yeah when it's revealed that Yuuto's cards erase the memories of anyone he meets, every friend he ever had will never remember him, where Ryotaro is the only person who wasn't affected.

Really? Between Sakurai and Yuuto, it's the inverse of what you claim here about Sakurai being "gigantic asshole who keeps wrecking his own life". Sakurai being a concept aside, while this part hasn't been fully revealed yet, needs to remember about what Ryotaro said about how Sakurai treated him when comparing him to Yuuto. And, about dying a hero or living long enough to become horrible person part, that kind of person actually had a failure against trauma, as well as a poor way to cope with trauma, and don't justify or rationalize the living long enough to become horrible. The better, truly successful way to cope with overcome trauma is to face those trauma head on and grow to become a better person from it; and if teenage Yuuto can be a spiteful jerk, this would be a case for Sakurai then.

But pursuing Ryotaro's course of action is a gigantic waste of time? He needs to confront his feelings of inadequacy, not treat them as valid. The longer Kohana lets this go on, the further Ryotaro gets from feeling better. It's not tough love to stop enabling someone?

Yuuto was vaguely content with his obliterated future, and then Sakurai showed up and told him to Get In The Robot! It's a dick move! Deneb treats it like a death sentence! The entire climax of the episode is that Yuuto has doomed himself by accepting those cards! Sakurai is an asshole!!

I'm ashamed to say how long it took me to realise I was confusing the ToQGer plot and a Den-O plot that hasn't happend yet. Not ashamed enough to not type it of course, but still.

I can't believe they did this same plot on a ToQger episode! Small world.

Same writer!

I think. Same head writer anyway

According to Rangerwiki, that one was the third out of three written by Aikawa (head writer for Boukenger).

I can't speak for the quality of any of those episodes though, since they came after I quit.

Ha! Classic April Fools' humor from Die here, as he deliberately says the exact opposite of the truth for comedic effect. I know it's in poor taste to explain a joke, but just in case anyone makes the mistake of taking that post seriously there, rest assured that we're all familiar with the real rules laid down by the most iconic beige trenchcoat-wearing Kamen Rider character:

https://i.imgur.com/W9clhel.png
https://i.imgur.com/fmqV7bn.png

I mean, come on – a dude in a trenchcoat actually encouraging Riders to fight? Where do you even come up with gags this good, Die?

Anyway, we should probably get back to talking about more serious matters.

I'm so happy you're finally to the legendary midway Den-O retool! I haven't really mentioned it yet for fear of spoiling something, but yeah, this was a whole thing that happened, and honestly? This might be what makes Den-O my favorite Rider show by Kobayashi. She just laughs in the face of what happened to Hibiki here by effortlessly pivoting the show in this wild new direction while still staying so utterly true to what made it so good to begin with.

Particularly brilliant was the subtle jab of replacing Yuuto's actor – who was of course infamous for his role as the new Kamen Rider Hibiki – with Ryuusei Yokohama, another returning Rider alum, who previously played the much better character of That Guy Who Formed The Basis Of Meteor's Backstory in Fourze. Or, uh, do I mean he would go on to play that guy? Time sure can be confusing!

But still, this is definitely the part of the show where Yuuto hits his stride, and really becomes one of my favorites in the series. I know you don't like spoilers, but I just have to mention that there are some episodes coming up that involve him dressing up as a Sherlock Holmes-esque detective that I can't wait for you to get to. It's super endearing seeing Yuuto's more geeky side come to the surface, and Kobayashi really redefined him into this much more rounded character who even had some leadership potential, which is not something you would've expected a dozen episodes ago.

Again, the changes are big, for sure, but I think they were really all for the better. Like, that new Den-Liner, right? Way cooler, with the whole rainbow motif giving it a striking look, and even having it turn into a big robot to fight giant monsters. I mentioned before I wasn't a huge fan of the mecha action in Den-O, but that only applied to the stuff before the retool. Proper giant robot fights should be at the end of every tokusatsu episode by law, and it's baffling that it took so long for Kamen Rider to realize this.

It speaks to the confidence Kobayashi and the new staff had to realize these changes needed to be made. Kicking Shirakura out from the producer position was a deserved bit of karma, and Takaaki Utsunomiya was also the producer for Wizard, which is of course a beloved fan favorite, and I think that same energy really shines through here as well.

But you know, I'm kinda just rambling at this point, so I should probably call it quits until you get further into this new era for Den-O. I can really imagine you'll have a lot of fun with it!

(this was an excellent way to atone for your failure to make that dragon knight post by the way. kudos)

Who was Chalice even talking to in that scene? I'm not so great at remembering Blade stuff. Sorry!

Yeah, it's sort of bonkers how much the aesthetics change, but there wasn't a moment during that episode where I wasn't confident I was watching an episode of Kamen Rider Den-O. Much like Yuuto's confidence in his ability to reach Sakura, there's a clarity there that no amount of change can obscure.

And, like you were saying about Yuuto taking more of the lead now, how awesome is it that the Den-Obot has a huge drill as a weapon?! Super smart way to cue folks in that this show's going to be more about his journey than Ryotaro's.

I'm glad you ended up liking this new direction as much as I did! On the one hand, I'm thankful I didn't get spoiled on it. On the other hand, something this big happening without people bringing it up made me wonder if no one really cared about this era of Den-O? I'm glad I'm not the only one to be onboard with all these new developments. I don't know what's going to happen next, but like the Den-O theme song famously says, "Let's board the exciting train and find out!"

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 36 - "NO POSSESSION, NO SECESSION, TRAIN SLASH!"

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den36a1.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den36b1.png

First off, thank you as always for indulging my nonsense. Thank you for helping me pretend that the 36th episode of the Weird Train Kids Superhero Program, aka ToQger, was actually the 36th episode of Kamen Rider Den-O. There's little in this world I love more than committing to a ridiculous bit, so thank you for giving me a day to do that by playing along.

Second off, extra-special thanks to AkibaSilver for giving me the idea to do this. It was a year ago, when I was writing up Ryuki, where they said Hey You Should've Written Up A Dragon Knight Episode For April Fool's, and I was devastated that I didn't think to do that. Since then, I knew I'd need to do something for 2021, and April 1st was when I'd be watching Den-O, and I remembered the Weird Train Kids from that Gaim crossover, and here we are. Once they put the idea in my head, I couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

On that note, this episode of Den-O.

Like a lot of Den-O episodes that I find sort of uneven, there's a middle section to this one that I'm astonished by. As Ryotaro grapples with the existential nightmare that defines Yuuto's existence, he's never seemed more uncertain. Like his inability to handle his failure with Piano Man, he can't abide by Yuuto's decision to keep fighting as Zeronos, nor Sakurai's decision to set this all in motion. The idea that not only can he not save Sakurai's memory, but that Yuuto's every action makes that loss more permanent... it's too much for Ryotaro to bear.

There's a lot of weight put on Ryotaro in this one, emotionally, and the first half really drives it home. There's no victory for Ryotaro to fight for, nothing to defend. When Airi casually mentions selling the telescope in Milk Dipper, Ryotaro's aghast. He's at his most fractured, straining against causality to get Airi to remember Sakurai, to fight for his memory. But there's nothing left in Airi to do that. Ryotaro is grasping at sand that already slipped through his fingers.

The confidence in the show to do that, to not give the hero a way to fight back, it is exceptionally brave. It forces Ryotaro to stop looking for a way to save the day. Instead, it asks him to believe in the ability of others to save themselves.

Ryotaro... he definitely has a hard time practicing what he preaches. Yuuto's smart to throw Sakurai's words back at Ryotaro, to point out the hypocrisy of Ryotaro being willing to fight impossible odds because he can't stand by and do nothing, while forbidding Yuuto from making that same choice. Ryotaro has a difficult time letting go of his savior complex enough to trust that Yuuto knows what he's doing and why he's doing it. But Ryotaro can't save the day by himself. It's going to take other people, and he has to let them help in the ways they feel is right.

That leads into the Liner Form finale, and, I don't know. I never felt like the Ryotaro Needs To Get Stronger story needed a literal conclusion. It's way more interesting if it's a metaphor for Ryotaro needing to stop burdening himself and let everyone else help him shoulder the weight. For me, that story reaches its climax with Ryotaro handing Yuuto the Zeronos cards. Having a whole finish where Ryotaro gets a Den-O form and defeats the monster with a cool new roleplay weapon, the Speak-n-Slash, whatever. It's a superhero show, and that's the superhero finish.

It just struck me as both tonally incongruent (it's this big colorful rah-rah finish to an episode that kicks off with a disillusioned Ryotaro cursing the unfairness of the cosmos) and also weirdly diminishes Yuuto's argument that he's crucial to averting disaster (since Ryotaro gets an awesome new power-up that seals the victory). Across these two episodes, it's like the first five minutes and last five minutes are a story about Ryotaro needing to be a better fighter, while everything in the middle is a story about Ryotaro trusting in other people to take care of themselves. Those two themes... I don't think they work great in one story? There's some overlap, stuff about guilt and responsibility and faith and accepting help, but at the end of the day they feel like they're working at cross purposes.

It's a weird Den-O episode for me, in that I felt like Ryotaro's disillusionment and Yuuto's need to explain himself, that shit worked great. That was some top-shelf writing and acting. The fun elements of Den-O felt like a distraction this time, to the degree that I wanted to tell the show to, like, read the room. Usually I'm the other way around, where the dark costs of being a Rider feel like a waste of some really fun adventuring. Maybe those ToQger empty calories from earlier today had me appreciating more robust storytelling? Maybe!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den36c1.png

THE BAGGAGE CAR

-JUST TELL YOUR STUPID "NEW TRAIN LINE" STORY ALREADY! GOD.

-Was not super thrilled that the reason why Den-O needed to use Liner Form instead of any of his normal forms was just Time Reasons, and here's a fun toy and new costume. I usually like the costumes and power-ups to feel narratively motivated, and this wasn't that to me. Felt not very necessary. It's just one more part of the series-arc that comes across as thinly established and uncompelling.

-Nothing in this series is ever as scary as Ryotaro getting upset with Airi, so I'm glad the show pulls that lever sparingly. There's a level of realness to it, that relationship, that makes the heightened melodrama of a Kamen Rider freak-out seem cruel. Still, unbelievably effective at communicating Ryotaro's fracturing mental state.

So the main association I have with this episode is, to bring up something we haven't discussed in awhile, TV-Nihon's translation. Like I mentioned when the thread started, one of the things TVN did with the show was leave things untranslated if they thought it sounded cooler in Japanese. That led to the debut of Ryotaro's ultimate attack with Liner Form being written as "Densha Giri" instead of "Train Slash." I don't think there was a translation note, either, which left me really confused about why everyone thought the name sucked.

The rest of the episode is fine, but outside of Liner Form's debut, it just feels like a continuation of the same concerns over Yuuto's powers that we've had for the last few episodes already. There are some nice moments, but it's not one that really stands out for me.

As for Liner Form... well, it's okay. I think it looks better than Climax Form, but I still don't love it. The most interesting thing about it is the fight it starts over which of those is meant to be Den-O's ultimate form.

Anyway, tomorrow's episode is one I've been looking forward to. No spoilers, but there's only one way to appropriately herald episode 37:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy3SjwtkE0E&t=2s