[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 29




It's hard to find fault with a delightful little Hikawa/Shouichi (with a dash of Mana) caper, but I managed it. You are welcome.

There's so much fun stuff going on around the edges of this one, goofy character beats and terrific call-backs, that I wish the story had more going for it. There's a bunch of weird backstory to the victims, the fact that they were jewel thieves who stopped thieving seven years ago for some reason, got plastic surgery, and took up tennis, but that's just kind-of stupidly fun to me. It's the climax of the story that felt really slack, with a couple dumb story moves. So, the brother goes and gets the bag of cash at the bar, then gets chased by a monster. Then he goes back to the tennis club the next day to play tennis. Then he waits until night time to leave town before he's monster-murdered. Wh... why does he wait a full day to run away from the monster that's trying to kill him? Then, during the big monster fight, Hikawa, like, forgets the code to unlock his gun? This is not his first monster fight as G3-X! I know he's been off for the last three episodes, but, my dude. There's the usual "Hikawa is not great at his job", and then there's this. Sloppy writing on the monster plot this time out!

Luckily, everything around the monster plot is aces. (Tennis reference!) Shouichi and Hikawa both are unbelievably weird in this one, with Shouichi more childlike than ever and Hikawa becoming a boastful jock. It's a little weird, in that they're both fighting over access to a teenage girl's free time, but it's so relentlessly funny and bonkers that I can forgive that part. Shit, I can even forgive the Shouichi Gets His Memories Back For A Story thing, since the opening to this story clearly can't explain why that story was told, either, but is ready to move things along. It's not a Mea Culpa, exactly, but it feels like everyone involved would like to forget those episodes existed, and, hey, wouldn't it be fun to see Shouichi and Hikawa play tennis? Huh? It's a fun TV show again!

Also, Gills! Still dead!