[Fish Sandwich]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I was three paragraphs into talking about this episode, and I just deleted it all.

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Ha ha, wrote another one and a half paragraphs, deleted ‘em. Man! Why is it so hard to talk about this episode?

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Aaaaaand that’s a whole paragraph on Sano that got deleted.

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I’ve been writing and deleting dumb things for an hour, probably. I’ll have a way in, I’ll think, and then it’ll just be nonsense.

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Well, that’s only the start of a paragraph that got deleted, so, you know, progress.

I see you've absolutely mastered steps 8 and 9 of my process for writing thoughts about Kamen Rider episodes.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Step 8 - Self-doubt.

Step 9 - Rewrite all that worthless trash you just typed up.

Yeah, man, the Imperer arc though, what a ride that one is. These are the last episodes of the show written by Inoue, and he really leaves on a high note. I don't think I've explicitly mentioned this yet, but as much as I enjoy his episodes of Ryuki for the most part, I find his take on the series clashes with Kobayashi's a bit at times, especially when it comes to Shinji's characterization, which tends to play up his more goofy traits at the expense of a lot of his depth.

I think that's why these four episodes, focused so squarely on two side characters that everything involving Shirou and Yui somehow becomes the B-plot, they're really good. There's some spectacular characterization going on, and the gut-punch tragic ending is among the least forced that kind of Inoue melodrama gets. Like, it's legitimately a little haunting, and I've always remembered it visually super strongly even all these years later, which made a lot more sense to me when I went to check the director credits for these episodes and found out that the 43 and 44 were done by Hidenori Ishida, who I keep finding out I apparently have nothing but good things to say about.

Even the episode title for 44 is just perfect in a way that makes me upset so many early Heisei shows straight up refused to put them in the episodes. "Glass Happiness" Get it? Because it's Ryuki, so obviously glass factors hugely into the imagery in general, but here it directly implies how the sense of satisfaction Sano is seeking in life is both transparent and easily shattered? That's wonderful. These episodes are awesome.