[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

Excuse you, I have never had an 'insight' of any kind! Also wow, I remember how fun it was to see Takumi and Kusaka drive each other up the wall in such a specific way in this episode. Takumi's incredibly petty but in this case, it's exactly what is needed to crack Kusaka's oh-so-perfect shell.

It reminds me a bit of the Fourze/Meteor rivalry, where everyone in the KRC bought Meteor's whole Aw Shucks I'm Just Happy To Help bullshit except Fourze, and how you could see that start to wear on Meteor. Fun to watch!

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

I have some early thoughts about Kusaka, but I'm going to save them until you get to know him a little better. I'll just say for now that he is, hands down, the Toshiki Inoue-est character on the show by far.

And speaking of Inoue, we got one of his major go-to story beats this time around: a fight ending when somebody gets knocked into water. Two times in a row, no less.

My ultimate fear is that both Yuuji and Takumi wash ashore in Episode 15 with their memories intact, leading to a two-episode storyline that ends up filling in backstory but resetting at the end, rendering their characters completely unaltered by the experience.

But we'd also get Faiz Trinity, where he does a finish with his punch AND his kick AND the Phone Gun, so it's a bit of trade off.

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Originally Posted by Sunred

So which Marvel character and which DC character do you think Kusaka is similar to?

The quick answer is "None of them, he's Kamen Rider Meteor," (or more accurately, Meteor is Kaixa) but to play along...

Terra, I guess? It's tough to say without knowing his whole deal.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

Since I’ve held off long enough, I’ll share my two cents on Kusaka. Heaven emphasis on “two”.

He’s a pretty good idea (that the wrong kind of person can still be considered a hero), but the execution… jury’s out on how that went.

As for whether he’s well written… he’s certainly handled better than the likes of Accel, Birth and Meteor, who the writers were practically snoring their way through by the end.

I don't know if I think of those Riders as having stories that stalled out? They got the whole middle-third of their shows to tell a story in, and all of their motivation got dealt with and resolved, which is pretty standard for the secondary Rider. After that, they've got to take a backseat to the primary Rider and the season-long arc stuff. The secondary Rider's moment is almost always just in the middle of the season.

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Originally Posted by Magnugiga

I mean, they don't have to be mutually exclusive, Takumi can still be a petty insecure little shit and totally right about Kusaka (you can even argue that the latter is more of a confirmation bias that happened to be true rather than actual objective reasoning on his part ). In that sense, it kinda reminded me of the Dexter show (when it's actually good), where Kusaka is like the Dexter to Takumi's Doakes.

I just went back and rewatched the episode for the Takumi vs. Kusaka scene in particular, and can't decide whether my favorite scene would be that living room scene, the Takumi: Ironing Ace sequence, or the Kusaka "Shit He Saw Through Me" scene, but I adore this small interaction before all that:

Kusaka: whoa it's your home, Mari?
Mari: yea, let's come inside
Takumi: hey, it's actually Keitaro's!
Mari: *pulled off a split second, perfect, fuck-you-Takumi face*

That Let's Invite Him In sequence is great because it's this mix of Takumi not liking this guy for reasons he's still figuring out; feeling insecure about his effectiveness and usefulness; just wanting to get away from this dude for, like, five seconds; and him grasping at straws to throw up any obstacle he can to make Kusaka's life difficult and make him feel unwelcome.

I think the thing with the incompatibility of Takumi being irrational with Takumi actually being right, it's all in how Takumi needs to act. When he's just being a dick for no reason, it's that shot of Kusaka reaching out his hand and Takumi slowly turning his head away, acting like he doesn't see the hand in front of his face. It's impotent rage, more embarrassing for Takumi than it is for Kusaka, and so goddamn funny.

But if Takumi's right, then he needs to forcefully confront Kusaka with real accusations, actual concerns, and that's all drama rather than comedy.