Of course he only used it once when the show made it a goal to put a unique twist on Faiz Accel Form's fight scenes each time it made an appearance. What good is a winning strategy if you can't have showmanship?

I seriously love how sparingly Faiz's powerups are used. It goes back to the attitude this show has always had, but, especially in retrospect, it's kinda nice to have a main Rider this absurdly averse to using anything but his base form. Faiz Blaster hasn't even had a chance to fire his Blaster yet!

Oh yes, the coolest move Faiz did, or just the fight in general here. Crimson Smash is already one of my top list of base Rider kicks, and for Axel it topped that with multiple of them! I've seen this on the video games first though. Also what's the reason for Rina to hate Kusaka? The Ryusei School alumnis see no reason to hate Kusaka, at least for now.

What do you mean by not usurping that Keitaro only appeared in certain scenes before all the focus is shifted to the other plot? And this is Inoue, what do you expect? Pure snowflake of optimism and friendship.... are his punching bags.

Yeah, now Yuji's slipping down on morality spectrum. Though his act isn't unjustifaiz here by killing those responsible and the worst human to ever exist in this series (including his staffs who are probably just following orders indiscriminately though, sense of plunging to darkness). And again, it's all Minami's fault. It's his fault that all the drama happened and Yuji's turning into a threat by himself, a self-fulfilling prophecy for Minami and other humans.

I wonder if Teruo's is complainable because this is put up in near the end of the series, what if it's put like in earlier part? (I'm thinking about main bad guys who gets known more in late part of the series) And for Orphan Daddy, yeah probably at this rate, he's not going to give much impact. Though iirc, people's complaint about it are about how it's not fully resolved, not how it's not left out like you likely hoped. Wasn't the machine is more about how shocking it is to Murakami instead of what Minami's about (he's likely just going to keep doing his thing)? Him discovering that one of his employees are plotting a sinister plan against whole Smart Brain. And for protagonists, it doesn't take morality into account, even if most protagonists are heroes. Protagonist doesn't equal hero. Antagonist doesn't equal villain. Protagonist just means the main characters of a story, and antagonist means those who oppose them. Kusaka is one of the protagonists in the story (he's on protagonist side only because he hates Orphnochs more than human for sure, and share a mutual goal), but he's not a good guy - an example of villain protagonist.

Hatred for Saeko? Hatred for Kusaka? I thought you're being lenient on Kusaka like pointing out his redeeming qualities to paint him out as a still anti-hero?

It's true that I consider Kusaka an extreme antihero with a few redeeming qualities, but that doesn't mean I can't hate him as well. However, he never killed anybody I care about, which is why Saeko gets most of my hatred.

Showmanship? Faiz?! I believe you're confusing Faiz with Wizard, which is a notoriously easy mistake to make.

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That's what's a little confusing to me! Mihara is getting his ass kicked, and Rina calls Takumi. Why wouldn't she call Kusaka for help first?

It might've helped, maybe? It's more that I don't feel like I'm learning a lot about Kaido from this plot, so it doesn't do a lot for me.

Not to skip too far ahead to a series recap, but I do sort-of like what the Teruo stuff could explore thematically. A lot of what this show is about is assimilation, of coexistence beyond survival. Teruo represents the next generation after the one that fought for change, and about the world that gets left for people like him. I can respect what it's trying to say, but I still want that storyline to have an impact on Kaido.

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 46

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--1--

Or, uh, shit, I guess I could start talking about it right now?

There’s stuff in this episode that’s relevant on a thematic level, while still feeling incredibly misguided on a dramatic level, and it’s hard to talk about that without drilling into the thematic part of Faiz. I was going to save that sort of top-level discussion for the end, but this episode made that wait impossible. So let’s dive into it.

--2--

To me, Faiz is exploring some of the same themes as in Agito, but in a more nuanced way. Agito was largely about how we react to change, and that was dramatized through a new species. They fought for their survival against a humanity that would sooner obliterate them than understand them.

Faiz uses the Orphnochs in a similar way, but it’s largely avoided the fight for survival against humanity; instead, exploring deeper, more relatable themes. How does a disadvantaged group argue for its right to self-determination? How does an in-group coexist with an out-group? How does society better relate to new ideas? All of that’s in the show, and the metaphorical way it’s approached is almost always impressive.

The two groups of characters in the show, Team Faiz and Team Orphnoch, they’re approaching the same themes from opposing sides.

Team Orphnoch is all about how a marginalized group tries to find its place in society once the threat of extinction has been removed. What of their identity is their own, versus what of their identity is inherited from the rest of society? How do they deal with a world of intolerance in a healthy way? Threats like Lucky Clover are a previous generation trying to keep old divisions intact to maintain their importance to their culture. Minami is the fear that violence and prejudice are bubbling under the surface, ready to return as soon as they let their guard down.

Team Faiz is a culture that doesn’t know how to respond to change. They strain to understand this new group. They make mistakes, cause conflict, all while becoming more aware, more understanding. It’s how allyship is well-meaning but occasionally insufficient. They’re heroes because they try to get better at being people.

The way this episode centers around Murakami and Orphan Daddy’s dispute, it’s all about the irrelevance of the Old Guard. It’s folks who can’t view incremental progress as real progress. It’s about old men who shouldn’t get a vote in what happens next, clinging to power they shouldn’t be allowed to exercise.

Teruo is a representation of the next generation after Team Faiz and Team Orphnoch, the hope that they can leave a better world than they found. How he could take acceptance as his birthright, or get ground up by a world that won’t see him as anything but an outsider.

Thematically, like, all of this stuff is there for a reason, and I really enjoy thinking about it.

--3--

Dramatically, though, it’s a huge misfire. Huge. It’s about zero percent fun to watch, save for a really excellent fight scene.

The big, big, big problem is that this story is all about Murakami. Team Faiz is completely ignorant of what’s happening at Smart Brain. Yuuji’s involved, but he doesn’t even have a line of dialogue in this episode. All of the tension is around how this is affecting Murakami, what he’s going to do next. And, I like the dude as a villain, but it is a terrible idea to give all the decision-making in an episode over to the villain, and to make his ideological and physical opponent a dude who has been in three episodes of this show.

Team Faiz is so irrelevant to the storytelling and narrative of this episode that it was infuriating, but only when it wasn’t dull. Most of the time I passively watched what was happening, noting it without caring about it. It’s all Orphnoch King machinations, and that shit only matters to Murakami and Orphan Daddy. Team Faiz is so secondary to this plot that they mostly wash bikes and play baseball!

--4--

The Kaido/Teruo stuff, not much better! There’s a few good comedy beats in there, with Kaido feeling protective of Teruo while getting completely frozen out by the others (I mean, he’d be a terrible roommate, they were right to kick him out), but it still doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten to the core of Kaido’s story. He’s funny in this, but he doesn’t really progress any stories.

Again, the Teruo stuff, his importance, it’s all Murakami! Team Faiz takes this kid in because he’s being hunted by Orphnochs, and… that’s it. They don’t really get to know him, and we don’t really see him interact with them in a meaningful way. Thematically it’s fine, and Mari mentions that taking in an orphaned kid is poignant for the Ryusei alumni. But, again, dramatically, there’s no character to Teruo and no specificity to that storyline. If the Orphnoch King was a poorly-trained dog, or a 50-pound bag of rice with a face drawn on it, you’d have roughly the same story with as much emotional resonance.

It’s all plot, and it all feels like it’s happening to the characters without trying to make it about the characters.

--5--

That fight at the end, though! That was no joke.

If that’s all you recall from this one, it’s probably going to stick in your brain as a good episode. Everyone remembers all the cool shit their gear does, and they make it look awesome. Jet Sliger. The ED-209 thing that Kaixa’s bike turns into. A combo Delta/Faiz finisher. It’s all very fun, and a total highlight.

But, man, the rest! A ton of energy spent on ideas that work in theory, but fail in practice. Did not like this one!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/faiz/faiz46b.png

I think one of the issues with Murakami right now is that the show is trying to wring one last mystery out of the plot. There's something that Murakami knows that's driving his actions right now. It's the thing that Minami showed him on the computer and it's why he's suddenly so desperate to find the Plot Devi.... er, Teruo. The show is still being coy about what that thing is, though, which can definitely make it a little more frustrating to figure out exactly what's going on.

"Frustrating" is right! Plot-wise, it's like having a friend say "Guess who I ran into today," and then giving you no clues. Isn't it fun and mysterious?! No, not really.

Honestly, though, my problem is how much the Murakami plot would work exactly the same if you took out all of the other main characters. That... that should be a huge red flag to a writer!

If it helps, you will learn what Murakami found out eventually and oh boy is it a doozy.

Well that goes without saying, doesn't it? The problem comes from how the journey to get to that answer is just not interesting. It would be extra ridiculous if they spent all this time building up dramatic plot points and just end up never doing anything with them!

Ah yes, the "Time Vent" defense. It's been a while. I nowhere near as interested in saying this was some amazing episode, especially with the albatross of "there's like 4 episodes left why is this story not tighter?" hanging over it, but, you know, you can have some fun with it! I'm am totally cool with spending a ton of time with Murakami, especially watching him gradually lose his usual cool almost completely by the end. The dude is a super fun character, and after doing some thinking about it, he might be the first main Heisei villain to truly be a character with presence? He's not an enigma like Agito or Ryuki's main bad guys, and he didn't take forever to show up like Kuuga's. Knowing what was coming up here, it even made me realize he set an important precedent, because by using the Delta Gear, he's technically the first big bad to become an evil Kamen Rider, since Odin was just Kanzaki's meat-puppet. Of course, he got the belt just in time to get fired, so he can't join the club of evil CEO Riders, but still. Murakami was maybe a pretty significant character in the evolution of the franchise, so maybe just let him have this one?

It's definitely not a coincidence that the fight scene at the end goes so big, by the way. This episode aired on December 21, so they wanted to make sure all that merch was flying off the shelves. I don't think Rider makes it a point to do this that often, but I know Sentai regularly does a similar thing where you'll suddenly see old mecha combinations that haven't been relevant for months in the lead-up to Christmas.

Also, this episode has Kusaka spraying Kaidou down with a hose like a petty child, which is even more proof it's not all bad! TV-N's translation is still pretty choppy though. He's telling Kaidou and Takumi there that they'll eventually be resented by both humans and Orphenochs for trying to exist in the middle, not that Takumi and Kaidou will resent them, which is way less pertinent to the themes of the show. Also!

This one isn't something that will really affect your reading of the plot all too much (unless you have some deep theories about this line I'm now crushing), and I try not to go out of my way to complain about those, but this error is so bizarre I feel like you'd appreciate the explanation.