[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 36



--1--

Perfect episode? Maybe the perfect episode.

I loved this one so much. I don’t think there’s a bum note in it, and it’s easily my favorite dramatic episode of the series. Last episode was a qualified good, with a lot of emphasis on what characters would do. (Namely, ignore the situation as best they could.) This one, it’s about how characters feel. It spends almost all of its run-time drilling into the characters and their relationships.

Last one, it was a rush to address the sword hanging over our heroes. This one, it’s the release of a held breath, and silence, and sadness. What seemed like it would be a catastrophic schism is just (to quote Superchunk) a soft collapse, a slow-motion fall.

--2--

Nearly every scene had something in it that broke my heart.

The beginning, with Mari fleeing through the woods. I don’t love the trope of The Girl Can’t Know The Truth, but this series rehabilitates it by adding in the reality that Mari isn’t just scared of Takumi being an Orphnoch, she’s terrified that Takumi is the one who killed a bunch of her friends/siblings a year or so earlier. That is an okay reason to be scared! But there’s this shot of Takumi, from Mari’s perspective on the ground. He’s trying to reach out, to show her that he’s still her friend. But he’s backlit by the moonlight. He’s all silhouette, no expression. His shape is distorted by shadows; it’s foreboding, monstrous. He can’t get her to see him as her friend anymore.

Or, there’s this moment when Keitaro’s ironing. (I’m actually tearing up typing this.) Out of nowhere, Takumi walks in, like nothing happened. Keitaro’s overjoyed. Takumi isn’t really there, though. It’s a mirage, a flash of hope. It’s over so fast, but it hits like a truck. That realization that, no, we’re so far away from things being alright.

Even Takumi gets in on it, with a moment spent imagining that a group of people playing in a park are him and Mari and Keitaro. It’s sappy, and out-of-character, but it feels so honest. It’s someone who’s lost more than he ever realized he could lose, dreaming of a friendship he took for granted.

And, god, the moment when it all breaks for good. Everyone in the living room, as Mari recoils from Takumi’s touch. Accidental, but it’s what his friends have been trying to hide from him all day. Keitaro couldn’t stop shaking at the lake, and now Mari flinches, starts sobbing at the fear she’s trying to banish. The muffled sobs as the only noise on the soundtrack, barely audible but drowning out everything. She can’t pretend she sees Takumi as less than a threat, a monster.

He can’t stay. It’s all over for them.

--3--

There’s a lot in this that felt like Inoue digging into Agito, and trying to view some of its plots with a bit more nuance. An older, wiser Inoue? Maybe.

There’s a key moment in the beginning of Agito, when Mana thinks Shouichi might’ve murdered her dad. The evidence is circumstantial, and Shouichi can’t remember enough of the events to say what his role was. In the end, she decides to believe that he’s the kind man she knows, not the killer she’s afraid he might be. “Shouichi is Shouichi,” she says, and that gets called back a bunch of times over the series. It’s about, I think, being able to see what you love about someone no matter what. It’s about friendship, and standing by your friends in difficult times.

In this one, we get a couple versions of that phrase. “Takkun is Takkun,” Keitaro says, as he trembles in fear of his friend. “Takumi is Takumi,” Mari says, as she bottles up her apprehension and mistrust. It’s the callback to Everything Is Going To Be Fine, but unsteady, insincere. It isn’t about acceptance, it’s about the distance between wanting to accept someone and actually accepting them.

Shows like this, they can make acceptance seem easy. Believe in your friends. Support those you love. But, man, that shit can be hard. Human beings are messy, contradictory. Keitaro and Mari genuinely want to make Takumi feel safe, seen, accepted. But Keitaro fears Orphnochs. Mari views Takumi as a killer. They try to push it all down, focus on what they want to see in their friend. Takumi is Takumi, right? But it’s like someone changed the definition for Takumi, made that name equate to horror, to bloodlust.

Acceptance… it should be easy, you know? But sometimes, it’s hard. It’s work, even if we don’t want it to be. Mari’s tears begin as a visceral reaction to Takumi’s closeness, a primal fear. But they change into something much sadder: she’s hurting her friend and she can’t make herself stop. She wants to be a better person, and she can’t be that person fast enough to help Takumi.

--4--

Luckily, there’s always Yuuji to make things better.

One of my favorite dialogue scenes was a ways back, when Yuuji and Takumi hung out at the batting cage. Yuuji has this ability to reach Takumi in a way that no else seems able, and their scenes are generally terrific. Well, shit, Inoue must’ve been reading this thread (Faiz is the current show, right?), because here’s a very sweet scene with Takumi. It’s mostly about how much Yuuji believes in Takumi, and how much Takumi respects Yuuji, but there’s a thing in it I thought was really interesting.

As they’re talking about how they can hold onto their humanity while still being Orphnochs, Takumi tries to explain to Yuuji what being Faiz means to him. It should be about protecting humans, but he was really just doing it to deny his true nature. It wasn’t heroism, it was self-negation.

I don’t really buy it. Yuuji, when he hears this confession from Takumi, has a look on his face that reads as That Doesn’t Sound Right. Takumi’s always had a tough time recognizing his altruism, and that certainly hasn’t changed when his friends view him as a monster. But the idea that Takumi sees everything he’s done as obfuscation, as a distraction from the secret sickness inside of him… I really love exploring that self-loathing. Like, that’s the stuff I want to know more about, and I’m glad to get a Takkiba scene that lets those thoughts bubble up.

Then, man, icing on a delicious melodrama cake, we get Yuuji showing up as Faiz to defeat the week’s monster. It’s a quick fight, nothing too heavy, but the aftermath of it is outstanding.

Faiz has defeated the monster. Not Takumi, but Faiz. Faiz standing there in front of Keitaro and Mari, it’s rubbing their faces in how they couldn’t support their friend. It shouldn’t be Yuuji standing there. It should be Takumi. Mari can’t even look at Faiz. She starts picking at the plaster on a pillar, something to keep her mind off of the harm she’s caused. It should be Takumi standing there, but she drove him away.

Into the arms of Lucky Clover, who arrive with a pitch-goddamn-perfect slow clap of condescension from Houjou. They want the Faiz Belt, and their newest member’s job is to take it off of Yuuji. Takumi, who transforms into Wolfeyes, and rushes straight at Faiz.

Best goddamn endings on this show, you guys.

--5--

A heavy, beautiful episode, this time. But not without the usual gutter charms of horrible people being horrible, aka Oh My God Kusaka.

He’s phenomenal in this episode. Every time he acted the white knight around Mari, saving her from the brutish Takumi, I lost it. So funny. All of his ingratiating bullshit, the faux chivalry, it was not any less funny despite the deep, rich storytelling on display. And when Mari’s like Hey About The Reunion and he screams at her to shut up, it was so excellent. There’re a couple points in this episode where Kusaka can’t deflect fast enough, and he just explodes. That scene with Mari, and the one where Keitaro defends his friendship with Takumi to Kusaka, and Kusaka gets so flustered he just starts randomly insulting Keitaro. I feel like, as the stakes get higher, maybe Kusaka’s having a tougher time navigating through all of these decaying bonds? Like, everyone’s harder to manipulate when they’re feeling the Big Emotions.

And, shit, we are in Big Emotion territory for sure. I am fully dialed-in for what this show is doing. A+ episode.