Hey, considering the currently airing Rider show is written by a guy named Yuuya Takahashi and stars a completely unrelated guy named Fumiya Takahashi (same kanji and everything!), I'd believe it. Coincidences happen!

Funny you should mention that, because I read somewhere that "Coincidences Happen!" was the poppy, "Anything Goes!"-style opening song for Faiz, until "Justifaiz" beat it out.

(I did not read that somewhere.)

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 44

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz44a.png

--1--

Oof.

Oooooooffffff.

Heavy episode, man. Some real joy, and some real darkness. One of my favorite characters gets an end to their story. One of my other favorite characters struggles with their core defect. Kaido abducts a child I guess?

It’s a big episode, for good and for ill, for Team Orphnoch.

--2--

Hey, let’s talk about Yuuji first.

Yuuji’s most heroic quality is his belief in people, both singular and plural. He has friends and family that he’ll fight for, but he’ll also protect total strangers from Orphnochs. Yuuji’s most fatal flaw is that he can’t handle being betrayed. When his compassion is taken advantage of, he’ll straight-up heart-murder someone.

So, you can imagine the conflict he feels when it seems like humanity as a whole has betrayed him. Everything he’s been doing for the last year has been to protect humanity, and now he feels like they’re manipulating him, betraying him. Does humanity deserve his help when they’re trying to kill him and his friends?

It’s tough to see Yuuji so pitiless, so enraged. (I mean, it’s fun to watch. There’s a really fun almost-single-shot dialogue scene with Takumi and Yuuji in a car that’s a little showy, but still impressive. The way the camera starts on Yuuji’s side and then rotates around the front of the car to end on Takumi answering his phone? Definitely working hard to make that scene pop!) He’s long been the most empathetic, most measured of all the Orphnochs. To see him decide that Orphnoch safety isn’t worth jeopardizing anymore… huge development.

The episode doesn’t really get much of a chance to interrogate it, beyond a few characters being unnerved by Yuuji’s new attitude. With Yuuji’s tentative hope that things could improve being assaulted by a ton of snipers, I’m guessing we’ll get to spend a little more time with Angry Yuuji.

--3--

Hey, let’s talk about Kaido next.

I’m having a little bit of a tough time seeing where all of this Kaido/Teruo stuff is heading. I like what’s been in here, but it’s definitely the most Wait And See plot on this show right now.

I feel like there’s a side to Kaido that just hasn’t been explained yet. Because what I know about him… I don’t know if it’s at all clear why he’s so invested in this bullied kid. At first, it seemed like it was out of guilt, and maybe it still is, but I really hope there’s more to it? I’m excited to get to a point where Kaido explains to someone why he’s so worried about this traumatized kid that he’d skulk around outside his school and abduct him.

Visually it… man, it don’t play real great! “Problematic” would be an understatement. I know this kid’s been bullied, but this is a grown man taking him away from his (like it or not) home, without informing anyone who’s responsible for him. This is a pretty big deal, and it needs a really good explanation in the next episode.

--4--

Hey, let’s talk about Yuka.

I mean, it felt like she wasn’t going to make it out of this one. She was so happy. Everything was working out. Dramatically, it all felt like One Last Good Day. And, like, she’s got a date with Keitaro planned? Jesus, was it also her last day before retirement?

But it was still a lovely episode for Yuka. She got to have some affection from someone. She spent some time fretting over whether or not she’d ruin Keitaro, before Mari told her to choose happiness instead of misery. And she died like she lived: with someone telling her to just drop dead already.

That Kageyama scene! I keep rolling it around in my head. Of all of the last people to see Yuka alive, they made it Kageyama. And she tells Yuka to die, here and now.

There’s a clear disappointment to it. Kageyama hoped for so much more from Yuka. Every other young Orphnoch, all of the pretty boys, she’d treat them sweetly, nurture them. With Yuka, she was stern, imperious. She knew that Yuka held back, and it insulted her. She tried to tell her that caring for humanity would get her killed, and it did. So she sees Yuka there, wounded, unable to summon the Orphnoch form that could save her life. And she just watches Yuka.

But she changes into an Orphnoch beforehand, and I feel like I know why.

I think it’s breaking her heart.

I think she saw something in Yuka that she didn’t see in any of those others. She wanted her to succeed in a way she didn’t for any of those others. And this is the end of Yuka’s story. She’ll never be anything more than she already was. She’ll never be the person that Kageyama hoped for, and it’s shameful. It’s a loss for all Orphnochs.

I think she’s crying.

But, y’know, Yuka isn’t. She’s been through so much, suffered so often, rarely felt accepted. But right at the end, at the very end, she got to live her dream. She was accepted by someone, and she knew she deserved that acceptance. It didn’t last, but dreams rarely do.

--5--

Poor Yuka. And, man, poor Keitaro. All-star episode for that guy. (I made a joke about him not making a “Yuka is Yuka” speech last time, which he then trots out in his scene with Takumi. Inoue’s got a catchphrase! I’m excited to find out who on Kiva gets to have a tautological affirmation of their innate goodness.) He’s so in the zone on this one that Takumi, Takumi, is overjoyed. Keitaro’s a character that could’ve been a one-note punching bag, but he ended up being a series highlight. I wish things would’ve worked out better for him and Yuka. They earned a happier ending.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz44b.png

Yeah, this is one I was really curious to hear your thoughts on. It's a real gut punch of an episode.

It's interesting how you interpreted Kageyama transforming beside the injured Yuka. I think the general reading is that she didn't watch the injured Yuka die, she actively delivered the killing blow (albeit one that left her enough time to type a lengthy goodbye message on an early 2000s cell phone number pad).

Wow, that honestly didn't occur to me? I think Kageyama sees what happened to Yuka as a tragedy, not as something she should punish. I think her cutting remarks are her trying to regain emotional control, her putting up a facade. And when that fails, it's only her Orphnoch form that can protect her emotionally.

They've done so much with Kageyama as a mentor figure in this show, and it'd be a bummer to me if she murdered (or finished off) Yuka.

Still, this is all just how I processed it.

Oh this episode man do I have a few comments about this one. Let's start off with the peak comedy of both Keitaro and Mari receiving concussions this episode, Keitaro from Takumi roughhousing with him after proclaiming how he's so cool and awesome ...... and Mari from falling up the stairs in a perfect gif moment.

Regarding Kageyama killing Yuka I think the reason that's more acceptable is for how it makes everything that's going to happen from here on out all the more tragic.

And I want to go back to my comment about Kiba using his left hand in his henshin pose as Faiz how if you know the older connotations about left handed people and how it tends to be used in media paints the idea that something is off and just wrong. As Kiba is someone who in another Rider series would be the main character excluding his two murders but he's been at best an incredibly heroic and just anti-hero as I feel Takumi's comment about how they're fighting in an attempt to deny what they truly are has merit for Kiba. He's someone who after resurrecting as an Orphnoch experienced first hand how scummy people can be and killed his ex-girlfriend and cousin for betraying him and being assholes about it. and his steadfast refusal on killing other people was due to wanting to repress those memories and pretend that it never happened. With that being why he's claimed a few times that he's a human first and foremost *providing I'm remembering correctly).

The Mari thing is great for how absolutely out-of-nowhere it is. It feels like improv, rather than anything on the page.

Which, sure? I don't have the context to say how/if it fits into the final act, but I like Kageyama being saddened by Yuka's death. I think there's a tragedy to Kageyama losing out on that mentor role, to see a life that held so much potential be squandered thanks to humans.

Sure, I can definitely see some of that. Yuuji's a guy who has a real violent dark-side, and that don't come out of nowhere.

I'm not sure I see a lot of repression in him, though? There's atonement, maybe, when it comes to him trying to deal with the lives he's taken. But he seems to be the least interested, of Team Orphnoch, in pretending he isn't an Orphnoch. His thing is about trying to show that Orphnochs are just another type of humanity, which is maybe why he claims to be a human so much. Like, I don't think he's ashamed of being an Orphnoch, or hiding from it, but I think he views Orphnochs as part of humanity.

I don't think he's ashamed of being an Orphnoch (what with him objecting taking offense that they need to be made "human" again to be accepted) and more afraid of that darkness in him that he might associate with his Orphnoch side what with both coming to light at the same time in the narrative and that's what he's trying to repress and deny due to it running counter to his true nature. That no matter what he does or says that dark side of him is the correct choice and the sole truth of living as an Orphnoch, that he has to give up his compassion in order to survive. The fact that all of his fears are being played on by this betrayal by Humanity as a whole is tearing him apart and without knowing the truth of Yuka's story in this episode that the guy she likes now is Keitaro the only guy nicer than him.

I like your interpretation on the last scene between Yuka and Kageyama and will choose to see it only that way now, because if she did just finish Yuka off, it unneccesarily muddies the whole thing about humans being the ones hunting Orphnochs.

Angry Yuuji? Hahaha... no you'll see more than just that. But yeah now, the last arc has been dealing with humans as the real monsters, to show that morality isn't dependent on what species you are (has been shown on other Rider series too), other than Kusaka previously (who commits all his cruelty in the name self-entitlement, pettiness, and spite), there's Minami right now, who represents the absolute worst of humanity, far more monstrous and cruel than any of the Orphnochs in the series. Also with Yuji witnessing more cruelty committed by humans and decided if they are probably not worth saving, his species is no different either, there are a bunch of MOTW who just attacks people, and those that he already killed too, directly or indirectly. Yuji's probably being irrational here, and probably just drives home that he's dysfunctional inside. The point is any species have good and bad sides of them.

So is it confirmed that Kaido is a tsundere to Teruo?

What I read in other infos, are that Kageyama killed Yuka. But with the scene actually played out probably it's made more ambiguous. Like others said, Kageyama just watching Yuka died is meant to serve a point where humans (Minami) can be the cruel one. But as the episode played out, it also emphasized the part where Yuka can't henshin (yeah she's not a Rider but that's what she said!), which would serve a point where Yuka cannot defend himself by becoming an Orphnoch from Kageyama's attacks and forced to take it on human form, easier to die. Also the part where Keitaro and Yuka are still sending emails (the one time where phones are used for "unecessary" things) as if it's status quo... they're wasting cellphone credits! (well probably not for Yuka as she's dying). Either way, the vengeance will be coming to the one actually deserved it more next.

Now into them as couple now? Keitaro and Yuka are star-crossed lovers (also Yuji want to drive them apart this time). Also Takumi was hurting Keitaro like he's an enemy by tackling him to a nearby tree.

I sense the "compassion is weakness" mentality here... and I don't like it. good for them to have some level of moral and/or professional constraint. If we throw away compassion and all other forms of restraint, we'd easily end up unhinged and trigger-happy at just about anyone, and that is definitely not good for others. The truly strong, gritty, resilient characters aren't those who abandon the things that tie them down, but rather those who nevertheless continue to shoulder on those things and move on towards the future, and eventually making new grounds and unlocking more of their potential. There's also a fictional example where the "emotionless, hide one's intentions and vulnerabilities", "cool", no-restraint anti-heroic approach may be less effective than the "expressive, display and admit one's vulnerabilities", "soft", compassionate heroic approach in solving problems like Itachi from Naruto. Also Minami here is solely to show the rare absolute worst humanity can offer, proved himself to be far more evil than many Orphnochs, so don't treat him as guideline for humanity, or justifaiz his actions and instead pinning the advice to Kiba.