[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by Magnugiga

The Ryusei stuff is an absolute drag, no disagreement on that. Funny thing is, it's not actually that bad when you just consider the actual narrative itself, it's the execution that simply didn't land every single time. Might be the combination of overcrowded cast and bad pacing, I dunno.

I think a lot of it just comes down to how much exposition is required to justify their presence. They're so outside of the day-to-day reality of the show that the show has to reorient itself around them. Like, they become the defacto Main Plot every time they show up. The effort of that... I'm not sure if there's a story that'd be worth all of that effort.

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Originally Posted by Magnugiga

...and while the Lucky Clover/Smart Brain stuff was nowhere as awful, they're also part of the problem to me. All of them felt a bit too one-note to have them take up that much screen time; they just don't have that aura of lore/mystery (a la the Grongi in Kuuga) or actual interesting personality (ala some of the Undeads in Blade), they're more like, 'Team Rocket, but kinky' to me if that makes sense :v

I'm super okay with them just being secondary characters; my favorite moment of them at this point was actually when Kageyama and Houjou (too lazy to look up dude's actual name ) swiped Faiz and Kaixa belt. It's when their actions reflect on the show's themes or contribute to the progression and development of the core seven characters (i.e. the characters that really matter to me) that they bring good value to the show, IMO. For some reason, the longer they stick around, the more I got annoyed and took them less seriously as actual threat with the constant defeat-and-retreat pattern.

"Team Rocket but kinky" is a pretty great way to describe their dynamic!

For me, this episode helped elevate them in the narrative by creating an internal tension that defined the group's hierarchy and struggles independent of the rest of the cast. Like, this story is just about Lucky Clover, and it managed to be as compelling (to me!) as a Team Faiz or Team Orphnoch story.

Much like Team Orphnoch excels by having a plot and a goal that doesn't depend on interacting with Team Faiz, this story gave Lucky Clover a spotlight that's all about Houjou's crumbling ego, Kageyama's matchmaking, Murakami's belief in solid teamwork, Sawada's desire to lose his remaining humanity in carnage, and Kitazaki's search for meaning through also carnage. The fact that there's a belt or a Rider involved is almost incidental? I really like that.

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Originally Posted by Magnugiga

Go for it! If only for my personal morbid curiosity, because I haven't seen any opinion by someone who actually watch it at this point and continue to watch the series afterward. Would be really interesting to see how you re-interpret both everything you've posted and the rest of the series after that.

Also I guess it's too late, but... if you really went in to watch that with the mindset of a fan in 2003, I don't think you'd even realize it's a spoiler :v It's an AU movie that has nothing to do the actual series' timeline or even narrative, and audience in that era has a different kind of expectation, I believe.

I am a-okay being this board's test subject!