[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 12



--1--

Does everything on this show have to malfunction the first time it’s used? The first time we see someone use the Faiz belt, it’s Mari, and it doesn’t work. The first time we see the FaizCyKill, it attacks Faiz. (Deservedly, but the image of it is wrong.) And now, the first time we see Kaixa in action, he Errors out and dies. Twice!

I think it serves two purposes. First, it’s kind-of funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but unexpected and surprising. The show builds up to a big Hero moment, and then it, like, *sad trombone*. Second, it definitely keeps Team Faiz (and the new Team All-New kaiXa-Men, complete with Dennis Hopeless-esque RV) feeling like an underdog. The less-charitable view would be that they are hopeless screw-ups, but these plucky kids got me rooting for them. They’re trying so hard, you guys!

--2--

And they’re really trying in this episode. Takumi tries his hand at being a problem solver, and it’s really entertaining. I feel like he’s the friend that can’t ever listen to your problems, he has to give you a solution. Sometimes you just want to vent, but he’s like Just Do What I Tell You And Your Problems Are Solved. Takumi is… not the friend you vent to.

It’s neat to see how quickly he enjoys telling people what to do. His whole thing is not getting involved, but as soon as he does it’s like he’s addicted to it? After giving Mari some actionable advice (hey, why don’t you call some of the people in this photo that did not immediately turn to ash in front of you), he’s ready to fix Keitaro’s heartache, and it goes bad. He goes from being shocked that Keitaro is juggling two women (“with that face”!) to making it all about him and his lack of a love life. He’s helpful to the group for, like, one problem and then just flames out hard. Granted, trying to get involved in anyone’s romantic problems is S Class problem solving, even more so when it’s Keitaro’s weird one-woman-two-relationships thing, but he’s barely able to last a sentence before he goes back to not wanting to get involved. (That little slink away he does in the background as Mari levels her gaze at Keitaro is expert physical comedy.)

--3--

That domestic stuff, Team Faiz doing a scene together, the show did some fun stuff with it I thought. There’s a little musical cue I love, a little bit of acoustic guitar, that they’ve layered over some of the Team Faiz At Home scenes. It reminds me of watching Cowboy Bebop, that lazy energy, people just existing in a space together. I like it.

Visually they went surprisingly high energy. Mari’s expanded story of her childhood (excellent callback from a surprised Keitaro, crushed that Mari and Takumi had a backstory conversation without him) has this hilariously dramatic spotlight on her, taking what could normally be a dry scene of exposition and daring you not to laugh during it. Turns out she was one of several orphans who was adopted by a rich but emotionally-distant father-figure and trained for a mysterious purpose, which, y’know, that’s a totally normal thing to have happen. Or, no, it’s super weird, but the show doesn’t really dwell on it. Like, Takumi all but says to Mari that her childhood is unbelievably suspicious, and Mari’s delivery and body language during her story is basically Now That I’m Hearing This Out Loud I Can See How You Might Find It A Little Weird. It’s a scene that’s almost all exposition, but the lighting and performance keep it from being even a little dull.

Similarly, there’s a beautifully staged shot later in the episode. The, I don’t know, Jean Grey of Team All-New kaiXa-Men, she’s meeting Takumi and Mari for coffee. While she’s giving us some context for the episode’s first dissolving Kaixa, she says that they’ll both get more answers from Mari’s old teacher. Who is pulling up the RV outside the cafe during that sentence, and the camera tracks it over Jean’s shoulders the whole time, single shot. That seems like it’d be an enormous pain-in-the-ass to get right, and it’s for a scene that wasn’t even screaming out for a flashy camera move. Which is why I love it? It’s easy, on a show like this, to save all the crane shots and dolly rigs for the Faiz Fight or an Orphnoch debut. I love it when it’s used on a line of dialogue at the end of an expository scene.

Some clever, unnecessary directing choices in this one, and I 100% approve.

--4--

So, Team All-New kaiXa-Men.

As individual characters, they’re whatever. No one really stands out, since they only get one or two lines each. (Scott Summers bites it in the open, Jean gets the dialogue scene with Mari in the cafe, Warren Worthington III bites it in the second Kaixa fight, Bobby Drake tries to protect Hank McCoy But A Girl, and Substitute Xavier bites it at the end.) I love how half of the group is dead within their first episode. Fantastic.

As a group, it’s maybe slightly better than whatever? Mari having a Secret History is barely even something you could call a surprise at this point, since a) her parents died in a mysterious accident when she was a kid, b) she was adopted by the president of the country’s largest corporation who has mysteriously disappeared, c) she went to a mysterious school that was buried deep beneath the Earth, and, most damning, d) she is a teenage girl on a Kamen Rider show. I’d’ve been more shocked if she just cut hair for 50 episodes. There’s some fun to be had with the way the show piles on the Secret History tropes here, as though all of that other stuff was just too common, not special enough. Now she’s part of a group of mysterious orphans, and they’re all in danger.

It… I sort-of don’t care? I don’t know how much I’m supposed to care, though. I can’t tell if the show’s screwing around, or trying to do something serious. Again, half the group gets bumped off right away, and the show hasn’t started to get at Mari’s feelings on any of this (it is just so much exposition you guys), so I’m left trying to invest in a group of kids who get immediately murdered. Tough ask!

That said, I don’t know that I want the show to do more with these characters or this plot. I’m good with it as a gag, a parody of Secret History tropes. Trying to expand it, or make it more central to Mari’s story… no thanks? I mean, I’d love to regret saying that, to have the show find some angle on it that impresses me. In this episode, it just didn’t click for me.

--5--

And, man, there ain’t much else in this episode! A couple quick scenes with Yuka and Yuuji to reiterate some stuff (Smart Brain wants Yuuji to attack humans, Kaido’s on the mend), and a Lucky Clover scene that tells us they’ve got three lives each. They’re good scenes, but too brief to really discuss. I think the only other thing is that Faiz and the FaizCyKill actually, effectively team-up this episode?! It’s a stunning development, and I hope the show hasn’t squandered one of its biggest rivalries just to shock the viewers. I don’t think it’ll last, though.