[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Which is not that much interiority to Lucky Clover, no sense of who they are when they aren't in Lucky Clover. Because they're solely focused on their mission, where heroes can neglect or be distracted by the daily stuff. The heroes change and grow because they're as you said, less competent than the villains, albeit the villains aren't necessarily more effective, but there's not much to change or grow for the plans.

I don't think I really find the villains lacking in specificity anymore. At one point, sure. But recently (mostly with the arrival of Kitazaki) I've got a much better sense of what each of them is about. Like, there's a real sense of what their group dynamic is now, how they behave around each other. It's gotten a lot better!

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

I mean the thing you've complained about Kusaka before was him interacting with Mari like.... getting in the way of Kaido/Mari.... so his way with Mari is the only thing that makes you complain about Kusaka like this one and treat this as a far worse thing he has done? That's quite subjective, treating an important character bad doesn't make the act worse than his acts to a less significant character just because it has more spotlight... or because a bias to a specific thing.

Yeah, it's not that it's hard for me because it happens to Mari, it's that the visual of Kusaka slapping Mari in the middle of an argument that takes place in their living room is a loaded visual. That type of story element... they are opening a door to some incredibly difficult storytelling that I don't think they want to walk through.

I mean, I don't know how much more I can say about this. When I see Kusaka hit Mari in the middle of an argument, it takes me out of a TV show where men in colorful suits punch monsters. It so far removed, for me, from the sort of allegorical storytelling that allows for relatively consequence-free violence and peril. This is... it is an order of magnitude larger than the usual Kusaka Is Terrible. There isn't enough distance for me to be able to view it as a story. The can of worms that they've opened!

And, again, as always, I don't know. It is super subjective! I just got a real tough time watching this show try and add regular-world evil to the cartoony evil they normally traffic in. These things aren't apples-to-apples substitutions.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

And ha.... you said you weren't into Murakami as a monster? What you described here, is actually what makes me intrigued to Murakami as monster, not to mention, with so little info about him as a monster otherwise.

I did say that, yes! I liked his monster stuff here, but I still prefer him as Smart Brain's president. Like, I think I enjoyed the scene where he's on the phone with Kageyama more than I did the Orphnoch fight? I like how he approaches his Lucky Clover team as though they're valuable employees who he has to be a little sweeter to. He can't boss them around, he needs to cajole them a little, make them feel like they're doing him a favor. I love that stuff.