[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

And the Faiz belt comes from there... I guess early termination for the Orphnochs?

Maybe? There's certainly "a" belt there, but Faiz mentions that the belt Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza has isn't "his" belt, so I'm keeping it as a question mark in my mind. Also, no one on this show has said "Orphnoch" yet, so I'm guessing that's the monster(s)? I'll probably learn more about them in future episodes.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Oh well, as others have told you here, the melodrama is strong in Faiz, and Yuji's story here is just a glimpse of it. Like how the people around you, like Chie and Yuji's cousin/uncle, are heartless jerks who only care about themselves. Dunno if actually at first they mourn over Yuji's death if they are not overjoyed by his resurrection, but instead forget and manipulate him. Yuji's so screwed up sure, but at least, he's the one who gets the extra power, to fight back in this cruel world.

Sure, but there's an element of reality to Yuuji's story with Chie and his family that keeps it from just piling on him. Like, Yuuji had been in a coma for two years, and it doesn't seem like anyone expected him to wake up. Chie spent some time as a devoted girlfriend before getting on with her life. (Like, she'd only been dating Yuuji for less than a year, so I don't think she's totally heartless for moving on? She seems a little conflicted when he shows back up, so there's clearly some guilt at play.) His family selling the house and the business... it's monumentally shitty to lie about financial mismanagement and shrug over Yuuji's homelessness, but they also clearly thought no one was going to be coming back for that money. They're scummy now, but the root of their decision feels at least slightly reasonable.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

This is probably one of the running gags in Kamen Rider where "girls cannot be Kamen Riders", I can't talk about it here, but I think for this case, bashing the series like this is unfair for Faiz's case, in the same fashion as Ryuki before (Femme) where Riders are meant to die there and other males also die. Also this is another glimpse of the series, dudes lusting after Mari Sonoda (I think whenever they're Orphnochs are not are irrelevant) that already happened in the beginning. She's obviously exasperated with the constant unwanted affection and males hitting on her (Inoue is the epitome of horny writings), and later on there's a very good reason for this.

Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza not being able to Henshin... I'll let it go, because there's probably going to be a good in-universe reason why the belt worked for Faiz and not her, but it's still a bit of a bummer. I remember in Drive, where the bad-ass and motivated Kiriko had to threaten and cajole Shinnosuke into being a hero when she was right there, and the series actually addressed it. Like, right away Shinnosuke was asking Why Doesn't Kiriko Just Be Drive and I was so excited to find out why she couldn't be. And then we eventually found she just wasn't Something enough? So she had to be a sidekick? It's, again, a bummer. I'm not as upset if a show has a bulletproof reason why only one character can be the hero, but it's lame when a franchise is fine with three or four dudes in a year being Kamen Riders, but, gosh, the kick-ass woman is somehow lacking, what can we do, our hands are tied, oh well.

(I love Drive to pieces, but you're telling me Go deserved it more than Kiriko?)

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Well, here goes the main Rider that isn't a goody-two-shoes. Name's Takumi Inui. Also one of the fights where Kamen Rider doesn't use a finisher to finish its enemy (I'm excited to talk about the finisher, but it hasn't been seen yet), just a standard kick does!

The kick is great, because there's this beat after he hits it where nothing happens, and I honestly didn't know if they were making a joke about the monster not exploding. Like the Rider Kick had malfunctioned somehow. But, nope, dramatic pause. I'm good with either one, but I probably would've lost my shit if they'd had some sort of Explosive Dysfunction happen on Faiz's first Rider Kick.