[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 37





--1--

Okay, this one is way more of a plot episode.

My favorite part, though, is the further exploration of the difficulty and necessity of acceptance. Last episode put the spotlight on Mari and Keitaro, and how they weren't able to be the friend that Takumi deserved. This time, the spotlight swings back to Takumi. We're going from what happens when you can't accept a friend, to what happens if you aren't accepted.

It's... it isn't good. Takumi's tendency is always to blame himself, to endure the judgment of others. It's worse when he thinks of himself as responsible for a massacre at the Ryusei School reunion ("Run Meteors!"), but more on that later. For now, he can't really live with himself.

He so can't live with himself that he spends the episode's opening fight begging Faiz to kill him. Yuuji won't, so that makes Takumi run for the woods. (He is a wolf, after all.) After that, we get some small, but crucial, looks into Takumi's crumbling sense of self.

Murakami brings up in this episode, when the Lucky Clover is talking about how ill-suited Takumi is to be a member, that Orphnochs are at their most powerful when they shed their humanity. He says that Sawada couldn't shed his. But he says that Takumi has to shed his.

The thing that's killing Takumi isn't that he's an Orphnoch, it's that he can't be a human. His friends, accidentally or not, regretfully or not, have closed that door on him. When Mari calls, he tells her to forget him. When Yuuji calls (in just the loveliest scene, there's always so much warmth when Yuuji talks to Takumi), he asks how he can move forward. He's adrift. He can't find an answer that makes sense. His friends don't want him. Lucky Clover would be the death of his soul. He doesn't know what to do.

We got to see Takumi trying last episode to be worthy of being accepted. It didn't work. The people he trusted most viewed him as a threat. Now, the lack of acceptance calcifies in him, fills him with this unshakeable belief that he's wrong, that he's bad, that he doesn't deserve to feel at peace. It's the tragic consequence of being turned away. It's listening to people that are wrong, and believing they're right.

The parts of this episode that let that idea play out, that really allow Takumi to feel upended by his new isolation, it still works amazingly well.

--2--

It's just, that's not really the episode that got made? Hoo boy, there's a whole bunch of setup for the final run of the series shoved into this episode, and it is inelegant.

The Ryusei School reunion plot comes out the least worst, since it's the most tied in to what's going on. We get to see why Kusaka's always cleaning his hands (he's been cleaning off Mari's blood that he can't unsee), and we get Mari sharing her memories of the event with Kusaka. It ends up motivating Kusaka to try to do what Yuuji wouldn't, which is kill Takumi.

It's... I'm not that into it? The big problem is that we still don't have the full picture. I don't believe that Takumi just showed up and murdered a whole bunch of kids for no reason. Moreover, Kusaka is a very unreliable narrator at this point, since he's losing his goddamn mind (that crazed look when he tells Mari that he's fine!), so a lot of what he's "seeing" or "remembering", I don't a hundred percent buy it. So that leaves a lot of the big motivators of the story feeling indistinct, or slight. I get that Kusaka's swearing vengeance, and I get that Mari's traumatized, but the why of it feels so difficult to believe in or care about that it's... hollow? There's a hollowness to the plot, a space where the part that connects with the audience should be.

It leads to some good fights, that Kaixa/Wolfeyes fight is pretty brutal, but I'm mostly waiting for more information before I can start caring about it.

--3--

Speaking of waiting for more information, we get another check-in with Kaido, whose plot with the kid he saved inches forward.

It's funny stuff (holy shit, he does the Ichigo pose when he scares off those bullies), but it feels like we're just waiting for more to happen. It's cute, and I'm reluctant to ever call a Kaido comedy runner a waste, but it feels so weird to pull focus from the very very good Takumi stuff to do a couple scenes that are clearly just setting up some future story. (I mean, they've mentioned this kid in multiple episodes; I don't feel like I'm out on a limb here.) It's that Inoue thing of maybe not being disciplined enough with what plots get addressed when?

--4--

Like, holy shit, Soeno's back?! And it's connected to the orphaned kid? And all of the many, many explosions that have created (or nearly created) decades worth of orphans? It's sort-of hilarious that this show found time to include Soeno again, and that he comments on how irrelevant he is to anything, but... him?

I mean, where the hell is Yuka? Has she gotten anything more than a role supporting Kaido and/or asking Yuuji questions in the last ten episodes? She's in the credits of every episode and the show can't find anything for her to do, but we're back with Soeno?

And, did Kitazaki go back to his home planet or something? He gives the Delta Gear to Sawada and then, like, vanishes. He's not in any of the Lucky Clover scenes at the bar, and when Houjou attacks Takumi for failing to defeat Yuuji, he brings a completely new Orphnoch with him. (I get that Houjou wouldn't necessarily bring Kitazaki, but it's bonkers to bring a third Orphnoch to a Lucky Clover fight that isn't Kitazaki.) Where is the fourth member of the group?

That sort of stuff wouldn't bother me if this episode had spent more time on Takumi's story, or even Kusaka's story. (It sure as shit didn't bother me last episode!) But this one has time for all these subplots with background characters, but there's so many regulars we barely see. Even Keitaro's just in one small scene. Maybe he'd do better with the blonde hair again?

--5--

I probably sound like this episode was a disaster, but it really wasn't. The Takumi stuff alone makes it a must-watch. It's just, it's a little less tight than last episode, a little more sloppy. The Kusaka plot, honestly, it's a big Ask Again Later for me, and the other little plots are slightly frustrating for their inclusion while still being fun in the moment. (That Kaido scene, for real, so funny.) But the more they focus on the long, difficult road of valuing your own feelings and finding the strength to say to others that those feelings matter, it's still a good show.

At its worst, it's still got Houjou, you know?