I want to make a joke about how depressing it is for a cast if your favorite Rider is the bike... but my favorite Rider from Ex-Aid is also the bike, so it'd be a little hypocritical.

Also, I'm only four episodes in, but anyone besides Keitaro giving someone else credit for anything seems like it'd be WILDLY out of character.

Does it make me a bad person that I'm disappointed in how much of Yuka's gym class rampage happened off screen? After two episodes of unrelenting shit from those girls, it feels like we aren't getting the full catharsis from a few quick cuts, a dead hand, and a couple shots of Yuka closing doors. I don't need something out of a slasher film, but after Yuuji's very on-screen revenge it feels a little unfair that Yuka, who got it way worse than a crappy ex, was the one the show chose to go stylish on. I would've settled for at least one shot of her grabbing a mean girl by the throat before the cutaway.

Faiz's trailers lie a lot. The one for episode 3 also made it look like Keitaro was going to successfully transform into Faiz, too.

Those first four episodes of Faiz before they get to Tokyo will always be pretty special to me. Just such a nice little arc that makes getting all the pieces on the board an interesting story in its own right. I'm really glad you've taken such an immediate liking to the main cast, because I think whether you do or don't care about them is ultimately what makes or breaks Faiz. It's one of the more character-driven Rider shows out there, after all.

I'm also really proud of how you reacted to the Yuka stuff. It feels a little weird to say, but I think you kind of need to be able to laugh at this stuff to appreciate it. Like, it is unbelievably unbelievable, to a level even Inoue doesn't always go to, and while I'm not sure myself exactly how seriously you're supposed to take it, I do think having it be so extreme provides a very clear, strong foundation for Yuka's character going forward.

All I'm saying is I'm 100% with Mari on this one -- I'll shove Faiz onto someone else in point zero three seconds flat, but you gotta convince me to let you use the bike for 5 minutes. It'd take until TFP Arcee to get a bike transformer this good, I'm not budging!

That's a fair criticism. Part of me wonders if the show choosing to let it exist in the imagination is to avoid the visual of a teenager killing other teenages... but then I remembered this is Faiz, which will completely show young people jumping off of buildings, so it's probably not going to cut footage out of a sense of decorum.

I think I could defend the choice as something that has less heat behind it than Horsepower's revenge, less This Person Wronged Me And Needs To Die, and more a sense of Society As Represented By These Girls Needs To Pay. Like, the Yuuji scenes were about vengeance, while I think Yuka viewed her actions as justice. Yuuji's scenes therefore had catharsis, while Yuka's problems didn't really get solved.

Or they just couldn't spare the money to show all of that monster-suited action when they had to find the budget for FaizCyKill?

It's been interesting to me how slowly the show is rolling out what it's trying to do, you know? It's very deliberate, how it keeps letting the characters ignore the action in favor of setting up their motivations. It's a neat choice. I don't think it would work if the main characters weren't so different from what you'd expect out of a Kamen Rider show, which... maybe that combination of Slow Build-Up and Different Character Types is exactly why a lot of folks don't seem to dig Faiz?

Look, if we're going to talk about Transformers Prime, my way into my other favorite franchise, things are going to get quickly and irrevocably off-topic.

(My favorite Arcee bit is when Jack is working on his bike, and Arcee's trying to help but she's not a mechanic. Jack, incredulous, asks her how she can be a motorcycle and not know how to build a carburetor. "You're a human being, Jack. Can you build me a small intestine?" Killed me.)

That's an interesting read on it and something to think about as the show progresses.

Just realized while reading that quote, that, uh, the final line should read "Yuka's problems didn't really get solved", which maybe changes my explanation a bit? Sorry for the lack of clarity! I need to be better about editing!

Oh no, I was referring to the vengeance vs. justice angle.

I'm trying not to spoil things, but there's still a ways to go with those characters before we get to their main status quo for the series.

(I think - I'm going on a combination of rewatching along with you and remembering stuff that I watched 11 years ago)

Wow, that was fast.

Yuka's little sister was so lucky the car knocked her down or else she would've been murdered in the gym like everyone else. She totally would've deserved it after getting Yuka kicked out for saving her but a reckless driver and sprained ankle pretty much spared her that karmic death.

It's crazy how extreme the bullies go to torment Yuka at every opportunity. This episode is always engraved in my mind for how terrible they make her life and even though my school life wasn't as bad as what she had to endure, it does bring back a few bad memories. That's why I find her so relatable.

Just to recap: They cut her bag, take her money, her parents don't care about her, they throw basketballs at her, she saves her little sister and gets kicked out as reward, agrees to go to gym so they can abuse her some more and gets her shoes stolen anyway, which are shown cut when she goes to gym.

That was the moment when she snapped and murdered them in vengeance. I don't blame her. Of course it was the wrong decision since murder is bad but they pushed her too far. They were terrible human beings. The only good thing in Yuka's life was Keitarou, a pen pal she only talked to in emails.

Speaking of Keitarou, he's an example of what makes a good human being, perhaps the nicest guy in the show, often to a fault. He goes out of his way to help others. No problem is too small or big for him. He has the courage to fight as a hero of justice and Takumi is fine with letting him be Faiz. The only problem is, as Cactus lampshades, "not everyone can be Faiz" which he proves immediately with his successful henshin. Like Mari, Keitarou is lacking something, but the fact that he tried is commendable enough. He'd make a great Kamen Rider, but Faiz wasn't meant for him. Takumi never wanted to be Faiz, but he's the best they got right now.