I think it's how miserable Tetsuo seemed at the end of that story? It's easy to see his behavior as rooted in loss, and so it's easy to want to see him get closure. The Airimirers, they're just horrible? In obviously disgusting ways? There's nothing about Ozaki or Miura where I can see a sympathetic character inside of them, and that's not even what I was saying about a guy who beat up Ryotaro.

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 10 - "HANA AND THE STORMY SINGULARITY POINT”

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Kintaros! Every story should be about Kintaros from now on!

I mean, star of the show for this one, am I right? Easily the best Debut story we've had so far for the Imagin. There's a ton of amazing comedy in this episode (Kintaros finding out from some kids that he actually never learned karate! Hana reminding him that he's supposed to destroy time because he forgot!), but the more surprisingly effective part is the pathos. I was so busy looking at how the Ryotaro/Honjou story had parallels, and then this episode shows us that it's all about how similar Hana and Kintaros are.

Hana's someone who should absolutely hate all Imagin. They destroyed her home, and left her all alone. She's a singularity point now, someone who's basically Survivor's Guilt in the shape of a woman. But then there's Kintaros, an Imagin who just wants to make some struggling athlete feel better. He doesn't care about destroying time; he just wants to help. And that's something Hana can relate to. She isn't the hero of the story, but she can protect that hero. Kintaros isn't ever going to be more than someone who could make someone else's dream come true. And they're both adrift. Neither of them has a home, a people. They just want to help.

There's a real sadness to this one, something that lets it do a totally predictable Kintaros Is Completely Going To Die You Guys fake-out and not have me mind. Hana's fury at a good Imagin choosing to die, as well as at her own sadness at an Imagin dying, is some choice Hana anger. She's so unbelievably pissed at this stupid imagination monster from the end of time making her see him as heroic, and apoplectic over how that is screwing with her worldview. She punches a disintegrating monster that she likes directly in his disintegrating face! Because it's too sad! It's a scene that's just about how Hana has forged a connection she absolutely does not want with this heroic monster, and it's pretty effective at being simultaneously hilarious, heartbreaking, and sweet.

It is still an incredibly sweet episode, of course. Kintaros is adorably dedicated to making Honjou's life better, whether that means incorrectly studying karate or sacrificing himself in the past. He's purely heroic in a way that Momo and Ura definitely are not. The other two Imagin, they'll grudgingly accept that saving Kintaros is the right thing to do, but they'd never suggest it. But Kintaros, he's living for Houjou in a way that they don't for Ryotaro. Kintaros cares, and that's what separates him from the other Imagin. It's very easy to care for him in return.

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THE BAGGAGE CAR

-Really liked how the show utilized Momo and Ura in the Rhino Imagin investigation. It not only kept this episode from feeling repetitive (since it doesn't really have any Ryotaro/Hana scenes this time), but it's just nice to see them both using their horrible personalities in productive ways. Also, so... does Ura just assume he's supposed to be flirting with everyone he meets? Because I'm wondering what the middle of that Kikuchi interrogation looked like that led to Kikuchi realizing how much Honjou meant to him...

-There's some neat thematic stuff in this one about how sometimes enemies can really just be rivals, and how rivalries can be beneficial, but I couldn't quite get it to line up with Hana/Kintaros parts enough to be happy with it. But it's there!

-Also there: Urataros is at the end of the opening credits! He's dancing in half of the squares. He is... not as good a dancer as Momotaros. We'll see what those squares look like in another few episodes!

-Love Axe Form, by the way. The suit itself is a little nondescript (as Den-O Forms go), but that mask is iconic. He's an axe guy! There's an axe on his face! It does what it says on the tin!

-And I'm assuming this was the Banana New Shoes episode, so anyone who wants to tell that story? The stage is yours.

Now I would like to personally apologize again last time for my hiccup of a mistake but here it is:

Addendum. One thing that makes him stand out is he talks in a Kansai dialect, a dialect commonly found in the Western region of Japan collectively called the Kansai region. Osaka and Kyoto to name a few are part of the Kansai region. And he doesn't say his finishing attack's name until he has defeated his opponent. Also Kintaros is suit-acted by Jiro Okamoto, veteran suit actor who grew into prominence with Kamen Rider Black and RX, and later for Kamen Rider went on to play Kamen Rider G4, Kamen Rider G3 Mild, Ouja, Leangle, and Caucasus to name a few. He had a cameo as the first dojo master that gets defeated in episode 9, the middle-aged man with short grey hair.

I love it! Thanks!

Like I said last time, I really like this arc. Kintaros is just such a good dude and I love how he just wants to help his contract holder complete that one final karate match. I also like that this time Ryotaro lets the Imagin partner up with him knowingly; it's not an act of desperation or someone hijacking his body while he's asleep. Ryotaro actually makes the sacrifice of taking on another partner because he respects Kintaros and doesn't want him to die.

The stuff with Hana is pretty good, too. Kintaros shows her that not all Imagin are bad and she legitimately comes to respect him, but she can't quite commit to not still hating him. This helps flesh out why she's always so violent towards the others, even when they're being helpful (even if Momotaros and Urataros are usually about as helpful as a parachute in a lifeboat).

Not a lot to tell, really. TV-Nihon just completely whiffed the translation of the French phrase "madame et messieurs." I'm not sure how they made such an obviously stupid mistake, but they did and it became one of the most infamous examples of bad subbing on their part (probably second only to this gem).

And this episode marks the appearance of the third variant of DenLiner, known as Rekkou. Like Gouka and Isurugi, it doesn’t mean anything individually. But recently I learned that if you put the appropriate kanji together, it becomes Denkosekka (Lightning Speed).

Yeah, boy... not sure "helpful" is among the first five words I'd use to describe either Momo or Ura at this point in the series! It's certainly easy to believe that Hana would be reluctant to see Kintaros as anything other than a selfish villain. Some of the best comedy in this episode is generated by her obstinate need to call out Kintaros total non-villainy as some imminent Imagin scheme. That bit where he's watching kids in the park do karate and she's like Don't You Dare Battle Those Children You Fiend and he's like Lady You Crazy!

Neat! Thanks for the info!

Not defending them too as my thoughts are the same, but just feel that "disgusting ways" (it's true that they're like that) is more like a subjective and leans on irrational view so... it's probably now about how worse those characters are? And especially talking about those not possessing horrible qualities like Ozaki or Miura but not entertaining.

From before yeah, Kintaros is the only one Imagin that doesn't start out as bad. Kintaros is the Imagin that grants the contractor's wish, and did so not in destructive way, but in safe way, and the only reason he went back to time is to protect Honjou from the rhino Imagin. As per the current time, Momotaros and Urataros are also both fighting for good, but they're morally ambiguous, so they're anti-heroes. So it's shown that if an Imagin completes someone's wish, they'd disappear, until Ryotaro gives him a chance to live on him. Hana's burning hatred for Imagin can potentially screw up this time, losing someone like Kintaros or, likely breaking things up for reminding that Imagins should destroy time, creating self-fulfilling prophecy. And probably if that happen, she'd act self-righteously as Imagins being always that way, she had tsundere-ish reaction to Kintaros dying, but that also can come from refusing to accept the existence of righteous Imagin. So for this time, Kintaros being more righteous compared to Momo and Ura is a plus point for you? It's usually the other way around for audiences. But one other thing though, Kintaros is a total dimwit, the part of him mistakng sumo for karate is an example, but he's by far the dumbest between the Imagins.

If there are Rider series where someone outright villainous can be used to help out the protagonists like Kuroto in Ex-Aid, of course the morally ambiguous ones also can. It's also how most of characters like secondary Riders come to aid for them despite their morally ambiguous approach. At the end.... it seems that Honjou lost because he's the one encouraged to train more?

The axe on his face should be functional in fights other than just a decorative.

I think Hana prefers the uncomplicated narrative of Destroy All Imagin, so accidentally convincing Kintaros to try and wreck time would lead to less anxiety for her. It's bad enough she has to deal with Momo and Ura, who are able to be coerced into saving people. But an Imagin that chooses to save someone of their own volition? That probably stresses Hana out!

I just like that there's a purely Good Imagin in the cast? Momo is all over the place, but Ura veered a little far into Unlikeable territory, so I like Kintaros being a decent monster to rebalance things.

I think the training we're seeing is just physical therapy. Houjou still had whatever mystery ailment he had in the original timeline, but now Kikuchi is helping him get better so they can finish their match. It's an episode that hits on some points about letting a rival help you improve as a person (like with Hana and Kintaros), so that's just the button to that storyline.

I wish I had more to say about these episodes, as I remember them being quite good on a rewatch while also vaguely recalling getting weirdly burned out on Den-O watching them the first time, either of which would give me fun things to talk about if I could only remember those pesky details.

But I can definitely chime in just to add on that, yeah, Kintaros is pretty great. When you have a big ensemble of quirky, morally flawed characters, I often gravitate towards the obligatory decent normal-ish one (see Kenzaki in Blade for reference), and while it's to the credit of Den-O's strong characterization that Kintaros isn't quite my favorite, he's an extremely welcome presence for the cast who only grows on me more and more with time.

Axe Form itself is a somewhat similar story, where I consider it my least favorite of Den-O's main forms, and yet the more I think about it, the more I realize it might secretly be my favorite? I mean, it is a REAL tough call with designs this good, but Axe Form has a sort of knight in shining armor vibe going on with the visor and the gold that makes it... I'm still not quite sure how to put it. It just looks super stalwart, I guess, and that means it's a perfect expression of what I love so much about Den-O's forms, which is that each of them actively feels like a different character, rather than a different suit of armor for one guy. Extra impressive considering it's just backwards Sword Form, too!

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 11 - "MADNESS, DELUSION, KASUMI FLOWERS”

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I've watched Kamen Rider Ryuki, a show that was explicitly about Riders trying to kill each other. I've watched Kamen Rider Blade, a show that was about overcoming failure, headlined by some of the most self-sabotaging Riders in the franchise. I've watched Kamen Rider Ghost, where every new Rider needed to pass through the emotional catharsis of trying to kill Kamen Rider Ghost. I started with Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, a show about four men fighting to jump on the same grenade.

Is this the most dysfunctional cast in the franchise, though?

They really are pretty hopeless in this one. It ain't exactly a Final Boss-level adversary they're up against, but thanks to our cast firing on absolutely no cylinders, the team is doing pretty awful. Between Kintaros barging in every time he overhears something that even rhymes with the word Cry and Kasumi trying to grow up way too fast, we've got a Den-O episode that's largely about getting in your own way.

And I'm good with that! For a series that's mostly about how we balance the various parts of ourselves in order to be the best versions of ourselves, characters like Kintaros need to be out of whack. We need to see the heroes as barely functional in the early going, if their journey to Can Exist In Society is to mean anything. I'm definitely okay with them having an adventure that is built around them screwing it up for themselves, especially when the stakes are so low-rent.

I mean, I know there's a 12-year old girl in some sort of danger, but the haplessness of our heroes just makes it all seem pretty pathetic. Like, one of the things was a girl shoots a squirtgun full of ink at Kasumi's outfit? It's some light shenanigans, and it fits the tone of Kintaros overenthusiasm, but it keeps the stakes from ever feeling that weighty. Like, I sort of don't care about this little girl and her weird problems with a prankster/imagination monster from the end of time?

Even the stuff with her dad... there's just not much to go on? Saving all of the parts of Kasumi's story that explain her as a person for the second part, it just makes her so uncompelling of a guest star. She's not sweet enough to be charming, and she's not mean enough to be funny. She's just this bland girl who is crying on the inside, and there's not enough specificity to her performance (or the writing or direction) to make that pop. It's fine, as far as setting a story in motion, but it's nothing to really dig into.

The Kintaros stuff was really great, though. Him constantly jumping in and screwing things up, Momo's inability to vent enough of his rage at Kintaros'... everything (he even hates how Kintaros sleeps!), it's all pretty fun to watch. Seeing how Kintaros fits into the group as poorly as everyone else does, it just makes it clear how much this group of disaster-prone misfits need each other. For an episode that's wall-to-wall Team Den-O Is Real Bad At This, it was the most I've maybe ever rooted for these dopes to pull out a victory? I love an underdog, and this cast are the biggest underdogs I've ever seen in Kamen Rider.

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THE BAGGAGE CAR

-Still, it is practically criminal that an episode about the world of modeling didn't once comment on how absolutely gorgeous Hana is. How was that not a way into this narrative? Why are we telling this story through Ryotaro's incredibly terrible bodyguarding (like, why keep him on staff after he gets trampled by preteen girls?!) when Hana is there, looking that good? Bonkers.

-I've mentioned it before, but I love how excited Momotaros gets when he's able to fight a monster. It's always fun to watch people nerd out about their passions, and the unrestrained glee Momo gets when he's brawling in Sword Form is some real hashtag goals stuff.

-What was up with the bizarrely long The Premise Of The Show opening on this one? It's nice that it's done by Momo, but I felt like someone stitched an HBV on the front of this episode. It goes on forever. Not a great way to begin a story!

I’m guessing that last point is because this is the first episode under a different writer… namely, Yonemura.

And a bit of a weird application of my usual feature.

Keiichi Sonobe.

This one was a bit of a weird one. I couldn’t find any really notable roles for him, so I’ll just link to the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiichi_Sonobe

Also, I’m surprised you didn’t recognise this week’s contractor, considering you could tell episode 3’s was Sid.

As Androzani pointed out, this is one of the (vanishingly few) episodes of Den-O written by its singular guest writer, Shouji Yonemura, though it's worth noting that Kobayashi is still credited as the dialogue editor for all of his episodes, something pretty unusual for Rider that I think speaks to how much this show values its tight banter.

This is also another episode that's having some fun with its title, as in Japanese it's "Bousou・Mousou・Kasumisou".

Kasumi's dad? I barely got a good look at him. I'll have to keep a closer eye on him in the next part. Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, the banter. I... I think it may be too much fun, sometimes?

Like (and I know it's unfair to tag a show for the guest writer's work), the plot on this story is pretty thin. For a mystery story, it's super lazy about maintaining a sense of peril, and the ostensible victim elicits almost no sympathy.

But the show just springs to life when it's everyone hanging out on the DenLiner, and that's a problem I'm seeing more and more of on this show? With a growing cast of unique personalities, just checking in with them can eat up time. When you're also having a blast writing series-defining comedic bits for them, it doesn't leave you a lot of canvas to build out a solid mystery or monster plot.

I mean, what's here is still good enough, and it's miles better than some previous A Monster Shows Up Out Of Nowhere For No Discernable Reason To Do Murders plots, but I feel like I can already see the writer(s) choosing to spend more time on the fun hangout stuff, and less on the structural elements for a story.

I'm probably not explaining this great (it's early, and some impatient customer sent a 4am email that pissed me off when I woke up and saw it), but it feels like the show is prioritizing the instantly enjoyable hangout stuff over the hard work of creating compelling two-episode stories for that comedy to exist in.

Well if Faiz was Kamen Rider as a soap opera, then Den-O is Kamen Rider as a sitcom. Only thing it's missing is the canned laughter.

I wasn't really looking forward to this arc. One of the reasons why I rarely get into Sentai is that I feel it relies on too many stock plots and situations that you keep seeing again and again, year after year. This episode's A plot is one that feels like that. I've seen this exact story before in tokusatsu and I know that I'll see it again. I don't have a lot of time for idol and manager stories.

That said, I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. Part of that is that we get our first exposure to Kintaros's trigger phrase (and things that sound close enough that why the hell not?) and I'm always down for some Kintaros well-intentioned bumbling destruction. Mostly, though, I just think that Kasumi is really well realized as a character. They got an actress that can make the character sympathetic and engaging, which does a lot to help carry this story.

And yeah, her dad does look really familiar and it's bugging me (albeit not enough to just google it).

Oh well, I'm also thrilled over a purely good member among grey to black cast, but it's not always the case for some audiences and sometimes the oddball (decent one) can be criticized among that type of cast. And for you, that I feel that you won't care about rebalance before, that to you there won't be any limits for insufferable but charismatic assholes (and at least in-universe, Urataros is that, with him charming any girls he met).

If it's a final boss-level adversary, they'd screw up even harder against those, probably outright exterminated. The consequence of the team doing awful still depends on how strong the adversary is. And probably you're only good with this, about the team doing awful, where probably I want for credit for non-dysfunctional ones too (and my point is more about how the morality of the cast is provided by a show; like giving those that are morally ambiguous to morally bankrupt, that'll result in dysfunctional work, while giving those who are more upright will result in the more controlled collaboration. I don't want for any member of the cast to be made worse in moral especially existing one just for the sake of dysfunctional stuff). Kintaros being made out of whack is better than making Kintaros as morally ambiguous as the other Taros, yeah, don't want that to happen for the sake of not being functional. Between those Rider series you mentioned, Ryuki has almost entirely no teamwork, except for the morally grey to black Riders (the rest of the Riders except Shinji and Ren) in 13 Riders, or the occassional main cast and Kagawa's group. Blade actually has the most cooperative relationship of the primary and secondary Riders between Kenzaki and Tachibana. Ghost is the one that has one of the most heart in the cast. Ex-Aid is dysfunctional yeah.

There's a counterpoint here from Switchblade regarding Kasumi, I'd like to see how this goes, the opposing views. And talking about bland, probably those 2 aren't guarantees, that unfortunately to me, being too sweet is a recipe for being bland to some people (and I think this is a double standard view for character alignments), and there are those who for being mean, is someone like Kabuto's school principal, also there's a common view in series that jerks are subjectively viewed as worse than villains just because they irritate more.

There are already some parts in the franchise where character's good looks is remarked in-universe, but yeah, no mention of Hana's looks in this part about modeling?!

But the thing is, I don't think it's meant to be a sitcom? Or even explicitly sitcom-influenced? There's still action and drama and mystery and and and, it's just that the chemistry is so good with the DenLiner crew that I feel like the writing is skewing too far in that direction. It's a problem of Going With What Works in a way that I totally understand the reasoning, but wonder if it's detrimental to the long-term health of the series.

I don't know that Kasumi worked for me! A little too bland, in that her sadness is kept so under wraps that I wasn't connecting with the character. She didn't win me over in the first installment, but I'm glad it all landed better with you than you were anticipating.

It feels like a bizarre exclusion!

It might just be that I've seen enough idol guest characters that Kasumi feels relatively likable and fleshed out in comparison.

That's fair! She's weirdly normal, for an episode where an imagination monster from the end of time decides to patch up a preteen girl's relationship with her dad. Just this girl who's committed to her career in a way that maybe robbed her of the chance for a normal childhood?

I just maybe wish she was weirder, or meaner, or something-er, because I feel like her normalcy works against the tone of the rest of the episode. Everyone else is in some wacky slapstick investigation that they are bungling hard, and she's just trying to keep her shit together and not feel haunted by her father's rejection?

I guess we'll see how the finale plays out tomorrow!

Yeah, it's probably not, even though it does a good job at that. I think the show does give some care to its side characters like the musician in Episode 3 and 4 or the heartbroken girl in Episode 7 and 8, while not so much to others in favor of more Imagin shenanigans. It's a difficult balance and that gets tipped sometimes. But if a certain subplot of the fortnight isn't particularly interesting, at least if nothing else the main characters can be entertaining.

The Den-Line gang have one brain cell between them and Ryotaro left it at home. I love this gang of dorks.

Yeah, and I don't mean to make the current favoritism towards hang-out vibes sound like some critical error or anything. I really don't blame a writer for looking at a funny, charismatic cast and writing more material for them. It's a logical thing to do! But there are moments where it's like Maybe That Comedy Scene Could've Been Shorter So This Mystery Scene Had More Juice. It's an easy balance to get wrong, even if it only takes this show down to an A- instead of a higher grade.

It's the rare team where the more they cooperate, the worse their chance of success.

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It's hysterical that it should take me half an episode to figure out where Kasumi's dad is from, since his major role down the line was also as a dad who cared so much about his daughter that it endangered lives and required the intervention of a Kamen Rider: Koyomi's dad from Wizard! The White Wizard! Wiseman! Another show where he was the cause of, and solution to, all of the story's problems! Just like Sid from a couple stories ago, maybe a little typecast!

(Also, this screencap is from a scene where a character connects the dots between An Hourglass Vine Monster Heard Me Make A Wish and My Daughter Is Being Attacked By A Vine Monster, realizing he might be responsible. Not the best plotting, you guys!)

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 12 - "RUN TAROS!”

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I've watched Kamen Rider Ryuki, a show where the entire premise of the series is generated by cartoonishly abusive parents. I've watched Kamen Rider Blade, a show where the female lead is crippled by guilt brought on by her father's actions. I've watched Kamen Rider Drive, a show that has a dad who is trapped in an iPad that is manipulating his son into global genocide/domination/it's been a while and I've forgotten what Banno's plan was. I started with Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, a show with Brave's dad in it.

Is Kasumi's dad the worst dad in the franchise, though?

I mean, it's hard to say that anyone who purposely or accidentally causes a global catastrophe (Hipster Dad from Build, for example) doesn't have the slight edge over a diner owner who is needlessly martyring himself, but... this whole plot is so massively unnecessary! Kasumi's dad is intent on irrevocably tearing his family apart for very poor reasons! It's all incredibly stupid!

Like, the conflict in this is so forced that any emotional stakes or corresponding catharsis are more insulting than anything else. There's a germ of an idea about how to motivate someone without losing them, but Disowning Your Child Because You Love Her And Want Her To Succeed... it's way overshooting the mark of being supportive? I don't know that an 11-year old girl needs that kind of tough love? I'm pretty sure she could model (it's not like she's curing cancer!) and also be in her dad's life? He's not on a fishing boat somewhere out in the Pacific; I'm pretty sure they live in Tokyo? She can still go to castings? It's just going to be question marks until the end of this paragraph because I feel like no one involved in the production of this episode asked a single question they should've? About how ridiculous the motivation of Kasumi's dad is?

The rest of it was fine, though. Entertaining, but unfortunately tethered to a stupid, stupid plot. (How does the dad keep getting on these closed sets for a preteen model? Where is security? If he's just like I'm Her Dad, why doesn't she know he's the one leaving flowers? Why any of this?) The Kintaros stuff mirrors the dad's I Don't Know My Emotional Strength thing, where they're both well-meaning but accidentally destructive, but I just cared so little about Kasumi and her dad getting back together (he's the worst!) that I cringed every time Kintaros beat himself up about them being separated. It's very nice that Kintaros wants to repair a daddy/daughter relationship, I just don't want him to repair this one.

Still, hard to ever get too down on a Kintaros-lead excursion into problem-solving. It's still fun to watch the DenLiner crew rally around each other, where Momo and Ura only briefly delight in a possible future without Kin. They're all only slightly making each other miserable! They're basically a real family now!

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THE BAGGAGE CAR

-I echo Momo's despair over there being no Sword Form this episode. I get that it's a Kin spotlight, but, man! Sword Form is the best form so far! Sucks to miss out on it!

-Despite his heroism being focused on the least-deserving parent imaginable (and I'm counting Kamen Rider Deadbeat Dad from Ex-Aid: True Ending!), it was adorable to watch Kintaros speed away from a monster fight to chase down Kasumi. It's the Big Dumb version of Ryotaro trying to give Tetsuo some closure in the premiere story, and it's just as winning. Just a great story choice, no matter what story it appears in.

And so here he is comes.

fun fact (if I'm remembering correctly) Ryuutaros in the show planning stages was meant to be a more malicious character who could take over whenever he wanted because he wasn't contracted like the others, the breakdancing is because that's a talent that Takeru Sato had that could be showcased and I think his childish nature was probably also developed after they settled on the design but I could be wrong about that

There are worse dads, but this one might be the worst written. (Actually, I'd say he's on par with Specter's dad)

Once more, people talking about episodes that haven't happened yet! It's like people aren't actually reading Die's post about the show and this is just the general Den-O thread :P

Why are you trying ruin show for him?

I'm sure it's nothing that dramatic! Just more like people are so quick to share trivia or incidental knowledge about things, that they forget to or aren't interested to follow along the thread.

Everyone's at a climax from the start, and all...

It's a thing that comes up more often than I'd like in Kamen Rider, where dads who are emotionally closed-off are shown as quietly noble, heroically detonating the twin monsters of A Child's Autonomy and Healthy Communication. You get these dads who are making sweeping decisions about their child's future, and doing it in cruelly deceptive ways (why doesn't Kasumi's dad just talk to her about her career instead of making her think she's a failure?), and then the end of the story is The Child Needs To Forgive The Parent. Like, this story needed, bare minimum, for there to be a scene where Kasumi's dad tells her he royally screwed up and he hopes she forgives him. Instead, it's 100% on Kasumi to make things right. She never did anything wrong! She's the victim in this story! What?!

Do not get the Kamen Rider fascination with valorizing emotionally-destructive dads.

Yeah, the best I can say is that the dad only wanted his daughter back. All the destruction it involved was on the Imagin. His contract was to bring my daughter home away from her career. The Imagin grossly misinterpreted that so he could cause destruction.

I mean, sure, the dad didn't want to see Tokyo destroyed or his daughter physically threatened... but what about making his daughter constantly miserable for a year? The Imagin's still a monster that needs to be detonated, but even without making a contract with the Imagin this dad is still astonishingly cruel.

Like, when I'm complaining about how horrible this dad is and how much of a villainous plot is set in motion by his nearly-criminal emotional negligence, I'm not even talking about the part where he accidentally deploys an imagination monster from the end of time.

Of course, probably Kasumi's dad is more irritating to see, but to label him as outright the worst (these paragraph doesn't seem to be about joking but dunno)? This is purely audience reaction and an... irrational view, Regardless of how someone may personally feel, jerks in daily personal life are by no means worse than a genocidal control freak mad scientist like Banno. Banno is easily the answer as he's one of the irredeemable villain in the franchise, who also happens to be a dad, same goes for Masamune. Otherwise, would this part seems similar to miscommunications in Faiz, or a part in Hibiki where Akira lashed out at Asumu? Where intentions aside, what matters is the way to communicate it well, obviously yeah the father doesn't communicate well with Kasumi, just kicking her out for her sake, with outright hostile approach to her and an overbearing one of "I'm the parent so you must obey me or GTFO". Albeit yeah, although dad and daughter reunite, they didn't seem to address this poor communication. But well, probably this also teaches that good intention means nothing without proper execution, that figures like parents or teachers may always have the best interest in their mind for those under their care, but doesn't mean that can excuse any methods they use to do that.

Well, the main concern is how the dad treats Kasumi, but this seems to be subjective nitpicking for this part of the plot just because it's not enjoyable, like these questions can be thrown over various other parts of the plot (that you can dismiss "I don't care about that") where, I should stand against this part of the questioning. Also, probably I feel that you have no right to judge over which one deserves repairing or not if it's only based on personal feel; if they're irritating or boring they deserve hell, but if they're worse but entertaining they deserve treatment (and I'm also irritated by how parents automatically got the pedestal even if they act like Kasumi's dad!). Can't talk about that (about it being right thing to do or not; of how someone is and what treatment they deserve) if it's based on selfishness from the get-go..

Momo is bombastic and he wants to make himself look cool as possible, with also his catchphrase such as ore sanjou. Kintaros also got almost the same treatment as Ryotaro for being accused as violating something (time flow or DenLiner rules) by doing that. Kintaros also got the superhuman stats to keep up chasing Kasumi.

I feel like Kasumi's dad is worse, though, for two reasons.

First, Kasumi's dad is horrible in a more banal, pointless way. He's just cruel for stupid plot reasons, something literally any adult would look at and go Wait This Is Too Far. The fact that he psychologically damages his daughter and then spends a year stalking her because he regrets his actions but never tries to reconcile with her... it's all so dumb. At least with Banno, his horribleness has a meatier goal, and he's fully aware of what he's doing. Kasumi's dad (I genuinely don't even want to learn his name, that's how much better than him she is) is just breaking something and then spending a year staring at it and feeling bad. Maybe fix it! Or something!

Second, the minor stakes (one ruined relationship) are actually more terrifying than something that can only exist in the world of tokusatsu. It's like the flipside of how the Yuumi/Tomoya story worked because it was about something most people will experience at some point in their lives. This story has a parent/child relationship where everyone can see themselves in at least one role, so the consequences land harder. When the thing that sets that plot into motion is so needless and ridiculous, it feels more terrible than some evil mastermind trying to turn people into robots or whatever.

This is a really interesting way of looking at this. I agree that the closer to reality stakes can feel the worse they can hurt. I wish I had more to add. I’ll think for a bit.

Yeah, looking back, I called the plot to these ones, and I quote:

...and I have to imagine the problems you have with them are the ones I was trying to get at there. It's really reaching for those big emotions in a way that detracts from the story. Like Yonemura knew how Den-O plots start and end, but couldn't ~quite~ figure out how the middle needed to work, resulting in some pretty important details being out of whack.

Probably, alot this comes down to cultural differences but yeah it's a trope I'm getting sick off which is why Ogami from Saber is such a breath of fresh air for this franchise.

The weird thing is that the story has an easy fix: if Kasumi's dad actually does disapprove of her career, and she splits, then it's a more compelling story about him realizing what he's given up and her trying to patch things up because Family Etc. They had a disagreement, and then they resolved it.

Instead, Yonemura wants to have the dad driving Kasumi away for totally altruistic reasons, and then immediately regretting it, but without ever trying to fix his mistake. It makes Kasumi totally blameless, which makes the dad the entire problem, but then has an ending about how Kasumi has learned an important lesson. Not a fun story to tell!

There's always Hibiki, aka Kamen Rider Oops All Dads, which is a show with nothing but fun dads who care about their kids. It's a total trope in Phase 2 Heisei, though, for sure. Glad Reiwa is turning it around!

Which one is Oops All Dads Again?