[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Okay, first off, this I've just gotta say this: Die, I'm starting to feel like you've gotten really good at this whole process over time. Maybe it's just that Faiz leaves you with a lot to talk about or something, but episode write-ups like that are A+ work in their own right. You are making an astonishingly good case for how you see this show right now.

Aw, thanks! I don't know if you had to say it, but I really appreciate that you did. Coming from someone who's pretty much the highwater mark for writing about Kamen Rider around these parts, that's incredibly flattering.

I don't know if it's Faiz specifically, but I really enjoy emotionally dense episodes like this one, both as a viewer and as someone writing about their viewing experience. Give or take a Ryuki episode that had a hundred ways in and no ways out, they're the most fun episodes to talk about. (Even that Ryuki one got to be fun in its own neuroses-inducing way!) Like, I really enjoyed trying to talk about the Build episodes with the Hazard Trigger. When it's all emotions driving it? That's my stuff.

Plot-heavy episodes, honestly, not always that fun to talk about. So much of what makes a plot work isn't in the details, it's in the overview, the arc. Talking about one segment in a long-form plotline, it's like trying to delve into one sentence in a paragraph. Sometimes it's a really good sentence! It might use some neat words! But sometimes, it's just getting you from the previous sentence to the next.

Episodes like 36 for Faiz, though, that's where it feels like you're having a discussion with the writer. The machinations are pushed to the side, and now it's time to talk about the heart of the story. Who are these characters. How do they feel. What would it take to break them. These types of episodes, they're so dense, like I said. So many details to obsess over. They are, honestly, so fun to try and talk about. I'm glad I'm doing them justice!

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

*insert clever way of pointing out that since Rider episodes are largely written and filmed in pairs, this is still Ishida doing what he does here.*

I sort-of figured, but thanks for the confirmation! Also, man, I was so nervous that Translation Cop was going to show and tell me that, actually, that scene where Takumi is talking to Yuuji got horribly mistranslated, it's all about how Takumi blames his friends and hopes they die in an explosion. Finding that out would've been such a bummer, you know?

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Well, Yuuji does have tons of experience being on the receiving end of the Faiz Gear. I think he probably got the basics of "hit people and then stick a laser pointer on your leg" figured out somewhere around the time he was deflecting Rider Kicks? Although I guess stunts like that point right back to him maybe secretly kinda being a way better fighter than Takumi.

Structurally, that fight needed to be over fast so that the show could really let that cliffhanger breathe. But, I don't know, it would've been fun to see Yuuji, like, put the Faiz Pointer on upside-down at first. Tonally inconsistent, and a distraction from what the story is trying to do, but still fun!