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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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I missed Kusaka! He’s the worst, but I missed him!

He’s a shit-stirrer, is his thing. It’s not that the show lacked for drama in his absence, but him showing back up propels so many plots that it feels like I just watched three episodes instead of one. He’s a busy dude!

I was going to mention this earlier, but kinda forgot, so here we go:

Toshiki Inoue's first big hit was Chojin Sentai Jetman, the Sentai series that aired right before some obscure, largely forgotten series with dinosaur robots. Jetman is often ranked as one of the best shows in the entire franchise and its breakaway character was Gai Yuki/Black Condor. He was the dude who spent most of the series butting heads with the team leader and aggressively creeping one of his female teammates. He was kind of an asshole but he was incredibly popular. I can't say that what happened next is Gai's fault or a pre-existing inclination, but all of Inoue's shows since then have featured a character who works with the heroes but who also stirs up loads of interpersonal drama while doing so. Houjou was a relatively low-key version of this and you'll see another example when you ignore my warning and watch the Inoue era of Hibiki. Kusaka is probably the peak version of this trope, though. Trust me when I tell you that we have only seen the tip of the doucheberg that is Masato Kusaka.

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The Kusaka thing… his whole scene with Mari in the van where he makes his appeal for her hand? It’s like cringe comedy. It’s so blatantly false that I was howling. (This and the You Guys It Was Killing Me Not To Call You Back bullshit from the beginning of the episode, huge fan, big supporter of Disingenuous Kusaka.) Mari is so visibly uncomfortable during his heartfelt (“heartfelt”) plea for her affection, and he just lays it on thicker. Like, she is clearly not into him like that. He’s embarrassing himself, and it’s brilliant.

I'm going to mention this now because it's one of the more notorious things Kusaka is known for and its sometimes mis-attributed to the series. Toshiki Inoue wrote a novel version of Faiz that retells the story in an even darker form. Kusaka's attitude towards Mari on the show gets pretty creepy, but in the book he infamously straight up sexually assaults her. It obviously doesn't happen on the version that kids were watching, but there's a lot of overlap in how Kusaka views Mari in both versions.

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That shot of Kaixa and Horsepower, back to back, swords at the ready, with the camera rotating around them… chills! Very exciting way to end a Kamen Rider episode!

Another thing I forgot to mention before now: the Kaixa blaygun (the X-shaped gun/lightsaber) is my all-time favorite Rider weapon. I love that damned thing so much.