Kamen Rider Gaim Episode 18: "Farewell, Beat Riders" Discussion
 

For any users who'd like to view this episode via live stream feel free to head over to Taima TV. They play other random programs up until the live broadcast starts.

Looking forward to seeing Duke and Knuckle's debut.

This show keeps topping itself week after week, let's see if the streak continues.

Someone really needs to tell Mai that the show isn't about street dancers anymore. I don't think she's watched past episode 10 yet.

The dancing is still a major aspect of Mai's character. She won't drop it so fast.

But at the same time it's something that literally nobody else cares about anymore - both in the show and the audience. She really needs to get her head out of her ass and rejoin the show's real plot.

Or in my case, never cared about Mai to begin with.

You do know we are talking about characterization here? Mai expresses herself by dancing and this is how she gets over her problems. Even if everyone else stops it, she won't. Because it's the most important thing in her life.

And part of characterization is character development. And Mai needs to develop out of the dead-end street dancing plot. Hopefully this will be the episode where she realizes that it doesn't matter how big of a show she puts on in the barn, beat riding is dead. I don't dislike the character, but she needs to start realizing that this isn't the first ten episodes anymore and there isn't going to be any more stage battles and public dance shows. Because so far all of her scenes in the last few episodes have been about trying to return the show to the same plot it had at the beginning and last week's episode was stronger for not having a "guys we need to save beat riding!" digression.

But development won't come with a snap, like: "Rider battles? Oh well, I guess no more dancing."
Remember that Mai doesn't even know the fate of Hase and Yuya, she knows nothing about the Energy Riders or what Kouta and Kaito heard from Sengoku. She has no idea about what Micchi does either.
For Mai, it's just the old setting getting disturbed by Helheim- but she doesn't know any details. Of course she'd want to continue as before. She still hopes everything will return to normal, because she doesn't know it's too late. And even if she learns about all this, it will take her a while to fully understand what's going on.

Exactly. Mai needs to be informed. I find everything about her so immature and old hat, and somebody just needs to tell her "it was all made up, stop trying to pretend we can go back to normal."

It's tiring, the way she's been left out of the loop. Bring her up to speed and get her to knock off the dancing shit.