[Sh Ranger]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

--3--

This episode, though! I mean, if you can tell by how much of this episode I just spent talking about a North American wrestler, this episode didn’t really land for me.

There’s ways I’m trying to talk myself into finding something positive, but I don’t love talking myself into liking something. I didn’t like this one, you guys.

It’s pretty much all because of how the show centers itself, and what Mari and Takumi are dealing with, on the Redemption Of Sawada.

Like, that is a gamble. That is a character that has earned basically zero sympathy, and he gets the sad death scene. That is the emotional crux of the episode, and the only way it works is if you feel Sawada’s death is something to avenge. And, I don’t?

It’s a very Kamen Rider thing, to take someone responsible for atrocities (Sawada has killed so many people) and say Well He Was Just Confused And Hurting. And, sure, Sawada didn’t ask to be made an Orphnoch. And Sawada was having a difficult time navigating his human emotions with his Orphnoch freedoms. But he killed so many people. He killed Mari. I don’t know that he ever apologized for any of that? Ever?

So that part of it, for me, completely didn’t land. I was not looking for the show to redeem Sawada, and its attempt made a whole lot of false assumptions about how that character made me feel. As a way of unifying Mari and Takumi’s story, though, it worked a little better, with a couple huge caveats.

Honestly, though, the scene of Mari and Takumi just talking in the church was doing all the work for me. If they hadn’t interrupted it for the fight, it would’ve made this episode a winner. I liked that it neatly closed off the storyline about acceptance by leaving it up to Takumi. Mari can accept him, but Takumi has to feel like he deserves that acceptance. He has to hear Mari say he’s her friend and a good person, and he needs to feel like those statements are valid. I think that scene gets 75% to where it needs to be in its truncated form.

The rest of that storyline concludes with Sawada’s death, and what Sawada trying to redeem himself means to them.

The big problem I have is that I barely understand why Mari is so desperate to see Sawada redeemed. If I squint, I can see it as similar to Takumi’s hopes for Sawada earlier in the series, that it proves something about Takumi that Mari needs him to know. But, still, he straight up murdered her! Unapologetically! And she’s still assuming he’ll turn a corner! WHAT DOES SOMEONE HAVE TO DO ON THIS SHOW TO GET MARI TO DROP THE -KUN HONORIFIC?! Having her show this much blind faith in terrible people who have abused her and her trust… I don’t see it as a laudable character trait!

But, the point Mari’s trying to make is a good one, that it’s within Takumi’s power to be human instead of a monster. It’s a choice he gets to make. Sawada wasn’t a monster because he was an Orphnoch, he was a monster AND he was an Orphnoch. Just being an Orphnoch doesn’t make becoming a monster inevitable. It’s all just choices.

Or, that’s what I want to take out of that death scene, because the alternative is that Mari was willing to forgive both a weeks-long killing spree and her own goddamn murder because a boy who had a crush on her back in school helped out a friend of hers once. God, I hope that wasn’t supposed to be what I got out of that scene.

You deemed Sawada an irredeemable character not long after his introduction so I was curious to see how you would react to having your expectations subverted.

I don't think his death needs to be avenged. His killer was Kusaka after all who was in turn avenging Mari. He lived like a monster and earned the right to be killed as one. However, he died like a human, so I think he earned a little sympathy and a sad death scene as well. There was once a humanity to him. To Mari, it was a kindness, but to him, it was a weakness holding him back. No matter how many people he killed in cold blood, it still burdened him. Killing people didn't give him any satisfaction.

In the end, he couldn't throw away his humanity. He never wanted to become an Orphenoch in the first place. Just like so many of his Ryusei School friends, his backstory made him dysfunctional and impressionable. Smart Brain taught him how to be a monster, that he couldn't live as a human. Being a monster doesn't mean you have to act like one though, it's very relevant to the same problem Takumi is going through. While there are some, like Skateboard Guy, who were killing people without prompt, Smart Brain is most of the problem, coercing Orphenochs to kill when they don't have to or even want to.

Seeing Sawada hold on to his humanity, as he tried in vain to throw it away, was proof that Orphenochs aren't inherently bad people. Being one isn't a condemnation for Takumi, he's a human and a monster and he has the power inside him to choose who he wants to be. It's all about the sense of identity and self, which he's searching to understand. He defines himself by how others see him but here he learns that how he sees himself is also important. He might have no self-confidence, he might suck, but still....

He's Kamen Rider Faiz, a protector of dreams.

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

Plus Mihara's reason to be there is not compelling and almost nonexistent.

That's the thing about Mihara. He's always there, even if he is irrelevant.