[Fish Sandwich]

Nice of you to finally talk about the fight scenes in an episode only to call no attention to how Takumi becomes Delta here, and then pointedly refuses to use the gun in favor of his usual "punch the guy in the stomach until they give up" strategy. I mean, sure, Mihara wasn't blasting away either right before that, but that's just what makes it so much more embarassing. Takkun can completely fail to take advantage of the Delta Gear's actual strengths, and still win.

Anyway, now that Kitazaki's finally shown his monster form as the Dragon Orphenoch, I figure this is a great time for some more trivia. The motifs of Lucky Clover's Orphenoch forms (a crocodile, a lobster, a centipede, and a dragon) were all directly taken from a group of antagonists called the Hakaider Squad from Kikaider 01, the sequel to classic non-Rider Ishinomori series Kikaider.

That might not mean much to you as someone who doesn't truck with Showa, but you probably at least remember Kikaider's guest appearance in Gaim to promote his reboot movie. It's kind of hard to forget Professor Ryouma putting his brain into Hakaider's body and going on a rampage. Which brings me to my next point, that Hakaider's iconic exposed brain was the inspiration for Murakami's see-through dome in his Rose Orphenoch form. Hakaider's overall design was also the inspiration for Kaixa's design, which is evident in the color scheme and overall silhouette. The two takeaways here are that someone who was desiging things for Faiz REALLY loved Hakaider, and that choosing a character who's name is taken from the Japanese word for destruction as Kaixa's motif maybe tells you something about Kusaka's character. Actually, about Kusaka...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It's very much a moment that, subjectively for me, is the irredeemable moment. He's done scummy things, slimy things, but this felt... unforgivable for me. I don't know. There's maybe a way that the show treats it as unforgivable that can get me to be less offended by it all, but we'll see. Not something I feel like giving the show a lot of slack on.

I'd argue that slapping Mari isn't that far from anything Kusaka normally does. The man is a bigot, a thug, an attempted murderer several times over, and a nearly pathological liar who constantly engages in gaslighting and other kinds of emotional manipulation without remorse due to his sociopathic inability to acknoweldge the autonomy of people that aren't himself. I reject the idea that there are different levels of unacceptability to all of that. I feel like putting any one of his sins above another diminishes the weight of the things he's done. Wrong is wrong, and, from my subjective point of view, that's really the end of the story. I don't think the show needs to do much more than it is to address this. It may not directly admonish his behavior through the other characters, but Kusaka is being swallowed whole by his own madness by this point in the story, and I don't think even Inoue is insane enough to ask you to just brush behavior this reprehensible off.

All that being said! I do understand where you're coming from here, especially if this kind of thing is a particular hot button issue for you to begin with. This absolutely feels different from your everyday terrible Kusaka, but I would personally suggest the issue isn't that the act is more heinous, but that it's only heinous. When Kusaka hits Yuuji in the face, it's so out of nowhere it becomes darkly humorous, right? When he cooks up some elaborate scheme to turn people against each other, he's trying so hard it's hilarious, right? Hitting Mari the way he does here, that's none of those things. It's a lot more visceral than normal. It goes back to what you were saying about context, but that slap is a lot less... theatrical, than his usual stunts, for sure. A lot less fantastic. Mari recoiling in fear in the next scene when an "apologetic" Kusaka tries to stroke her face is legitimately a little gut-wrenching? I mean, right now I'm playing devil's advocate for a guy who might actually manage to qualify as the devil, but it's not like I truly disagree with anything you're saying. Hitting people for not agreeing with you is bad! And it's petulant, too! Don't be like Kusaka, kids! I think there was some other show with a protagonist who talked a lot about this kind of thing? I can't remember his name right now, but he was probably a very Cool Guy.