[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 49



--1--

Holy shit, I laughed a lot during this episode.

Probably... I don't feel like that was the intention? There's a very somber tone to what's going on, as Team Faiz grieves for the murdered Kusaka and Lucky Clover frets over their newly-discovered impending demises. There's a very Last Night On Earth feeling to this one, as life and death feel separated by hard choices and blind luck.

A lot of funny stuff in it, though. Really cracked me up.

--2--

Like, first scene, first scene, it's Takumi and Mihara racing along the shore to find Kusaka before it's too late. And it's completely too late, he's dissolved into ash... except for his beloved photo of Mari, which is still in one piece. Literally everything on his body turned to ash: his clothes, his wallet, his keys, his train pass, all of it. All of it but this one photo. And, like, I get it. The heroes need some visual signifier that the pile of ash is Kusaka. Plus, it's striving for poignancy, that his beloved Mari was left behind, saved by his actions. But the thought of this one photo being developed on, like, Anti Turn To Ash paper... hysterical. I laughed for a little bit.

And then the next shot is Kaido running up, asking what the deal is. The camera pulls out to catch Mihara giving a big ol' KUSAKAAAAA while Takumi dwells on the ash that covers his fist... and Kaido's just standing there, probably feeling super awkward. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Like, Kusaka was the dude who was just spraying him down with a hose and telling him he'd probably be killed soon. Should he... what is he supposed to say here? "I'm sorry your friend died, but not that sorry because he seemed like a real asshole?”

Which... sort-of my feeling for half the episode? There's a lot of shirt-rending over Kusaka's demise, and it's something that I truly believe some of the characters feel (Mihara probably thought of Kusaka as a pushy older brother; Mari seems to have treated getting slapped in the face as a minor character defect; Keitaro has a very big heart; Rina is a terrible actor) while I was still feeling like it's all overstated.

I'm not saying that the characters are playing it wrong (well, Rina), or that they're making Kusaka out to be more than he was. To the Ryusei kids, he was family. To Keitaro, he was a champion of justice. (Keitaro doesn't watch the same Faiz as the rest of us.) To Takumi, he was a flawed human being who died at the hands of an Orphnoch, an Orphnoch just like him. There's a lot of emotions, and they're all valid.

It's just... Kusaka. It's a lot of time spent mourning someone who was awful. If it'd been, like, Kaido, sure. (Favorite scene in the episode was Takumi and Kaido hanging out and talking about heroic ideals. Amazing chemistry. The two of them as the main two Riders? Jesus! If only! Missed opportunity!) Kaido's great, and I'd feel it in my soul if anything happened to that guy. But Kusaka was awful, so time spent watching people ache for his absence, while totally justified... it's like being at a coworker's uncle's funeral. You want to support someone you know who's going through a tough time, but you don't really feel anything for the person who passed away. I felt like I was letting Team Faiz grieve without ever feeling the need to do so myself.

(Also, so, Mihara was just never going to tell Mari that Kusaka died? Her sibling? Was he just going to tell her that Kusaka went to live on a farm somewhere?)

--3--

The other half of this episode was about how Lucky Clover was dealing with the Ticking Clock of their newfound mortality, and it went pretty much how you'd expect: Kitazaki treating it like a joke, Houjou feeling stark terror, and Kageyama being the best.

I mean, don't tell Houjou, but... Kageyama's my favorite? There's such specific authority to her performance. It's self-confidence, sure, but it's the way she'll share the spotlight to let others feel in control, and she'll use that to manipulate them. She leads from the back. Her outfit at Lucky Clover is a bartender, a servant. But without that servant no one would drink, no one would be able to enjoy themselves. She has control over their happiness, their safety. She comes across as an employee, but she's the one guiding the group.

Plus, just always making smart choices in her performance. She does so much with a look, or a stance. When the camera pans down to catch her in the President's chair, overhearing that they're all going to die, she sells Maybe YOU Are with a two-second creased brow. Because she's not going to roll over. She's going to find a way to survive, even if it kills the rest of Lucky Clover.

And, ha ha, it for sure kills Kitazaki! The lead-up to his death scene, not super memorable to me. His reaction to finding out he might die was to believe in his invincibility, and that ended up getting him killed by two-thirds of Lucky Clover, as well as Delta and Faiz. It's a little quick to take out someone who was such a huge threat, but it still took four people. He wasn't a slouch!

His death, though, that was one more thing in this episode that cracked me up. He gets petrified by the Orphnoch King... who then proceeds to break off his face and eat it. It's immensely disturbing to Houjou, who loses his goddamn mind again, but I was laughing so hard. Just that visual of the Orphnoch King looking at Kitazaki for a moment and then starting with the face... it's like a kid at Easter, eating a chocolate bunny from the head down. Just... I found it way more funny than scary. I don't know why, but I did.

--4--

Speaking of things to which I can't really explain why I respond the way I do, let's talk about the Orphnoch King and the Ticking Clock and all the big plot stuff that's tying our cast into knots.

I don't love it? The main reason, beyond not feeling like one to two episodes is enough space to explore it, is that it drags a series that was about more nuanced ideas than Survival down to, like, Fight Or Die. (Was that this show? I feel like it was.) It's more simplistic than I'd hope this series would be. There were moral conundrums that powered some really insightful writing, and now it's Who Should Be Sacrificed. It... I don't find that as compelling a metaphor for tolerance and acceptance?

There are some fun angles to it, and the Lucky Clover stuff was a prime example. They aren't just a villain group trying to take over the world or kill the heroes, they are living beings asserting their right to exist. They don't want to die, and they're going to fight to stay alive. And these are the villains! It's a refreshing ambiguity that this series always managed, and it's nice to see it have a part in the finale.

The other big part that ends up working is that, with Kaido and Takumi, we've got heroic Orphnochs who have to decide what their lives are worth, and what they owe to humanity.

Takumi's at low ebb here, convinced (yet again!) that Orphnochs are irredeemable and deserve to be destroyed, him included. But the only way to do that is to kill a child, and that's... I want to say it's a non-starter for Takumi, but it's definitely Yuuji who stops him from punching a small boy in the face, sooooo, yeah.

It's nice to see both Takumi and Kaido agreed that Orphnochs don't deserve to exist at the cost of every human life. (Kaido's version of this pledge doesn't feel totally thought through, but, y'know, Kaido.) They're ready to give up their lives to help strangers, and that's a huge thing for two people who were the most selfish characters when the show started. There's a weight to that decision that makes this whole Orphnoch King story, and the sudden reveal that Orphnochs are doomed without him, almost work.

But I'm still not really feeling it. It reduces the show's themes down to Life Or Death, and I thought this show was so much smarter than that. It soared when it aimed small, kept its focus tight. All Humans Die or All Orphnochs Die, it ceases to feel like it's about these characters. It doesn't feel like an argument between Yuuji and Takumi, it feels like two concepts being thrown out for debate. It doesn't feel dramatic, it feels calculated, a writer who's lost sight of his characters in favor of some big allegory he wants to share.

--5--

So we've got one more episode to go. Yuuji vs Takumi, probably for the last time. I wish I cared more about why they were fighting. I'm sure it'll be a good fight. I still care a lot about these characters. (Not Yuuji, obviously, but the rest of the cast.) But, man, they are ending the series on a conflict that I don't buy, that feels thematically thin, and that's kind-of a drag. Not exactly raring to see this one wrap up!