[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Orphan Daddy... he seems like a very Ends Justify The Means guy, as stated in a song I heard somewhere. I don't see him feeling a deep anger towards Minami's philosophy. Orphan Daddy, to date:

-experimented on all of his children
-gave them belts that made them Orphnoch targets
-hid in a basement as they were all dying horribly
-entrusted a total stranger with the survival or extinction of a species
-wore that bandana for decades

He doesn't strike me as someone who has a deep understanding of morality, you know? Seems okay with a crazy amount of sacrifice.

But, the Minami thing aside, Yuuji isn't making a secret of the fact that he doesn't care about humanity!

Minami thing aside, I didn't think Yuji had a lot of dialogue uttered to Hanagata. Also for the Hanagata thing you listed there, he founded Smart Brain to try to evolve humans. As a part of his agenda, he took in orphans and had them be experimented on to be observe their evolution as a potential Orphnochs without being initially killed. But for the giving belts parts, he realized the error of his ways and attempted to stop humanity from becoming the monsters by taking the belts which initial purposes were to protect the Orphnoch King and gave them to his students in hope there would be the time they could oppose the Orphnoch and the King, observing them behind shadows for years. So yeah, the only thing that isn't deep understanding of morality was the experiment part, but he realized the error of his ways.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It’s just… Kusaka. It’s a lot of time spent mourning someone who was awful.

Obviously, we all know Kusaka is awful, the series has gone a lot to show his true colors to the viewers, and his death last time is meant to be karmic (did you read my post detailing about how it's karmic? taken from other sources of info, but it's how it is), especially that, it's at Yuji's hands, where the heroes after his death are now mostly dealing with the fallout of his constant sabotage of their efforts to unite, most notably Yuji's heel turn, which means at least Kusaka is quickly forgotten. But Kusaka has a good reputation among the cast, namely because of him being a high-functioning sociopath; exceptionally charismatic and manages to keep his true nature hidden from nearly everyone (except Takumi), and a skilled manipulator, Keitaro never really knew about his true colors. And to Ryusei School other than Mari, they're the most tight-knit companion in the series, obviously other Ryusei School alumnus like Mihara and Rina's gotta be on good terms with Kusaka (what I wonder is how Kusaka feels to them), especially that for what's shown, Kusaka's never shown to be hostile to the Ryusei alumnus, other than those who targeted Mari (though I wonder that, the reason Kusaka's such a yandere to Mari is because she's his only friend when they were little, but as you've said here, at least others like Mihara thought of him as a pushy older brother, I wonder if he slowly turneed it around with his cruel manipulative skills he gained from the tragic past). And for Kaido being main Rider, some people asked for him or Yuji to be Delta instead of Mihara. But yeah, Kaido is dickish on Takumi's (or most standard secondary Riders) level where they're just dicks, not on Kusaka's level where it's full-blown psychopathy; asshole =/= villain. Now I understand of Kusaka not wanting to tell Mari anything that he treats her inappropriately, but I don't know why Mihara tells Rina but not Mari (out of care); because I'm sure that Mihara probably should care for Rina more than other Ryusei School alumnus including Mari.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

Why don't tell Takuma? He has a huge crush on Kageyama and his hobby is trying to impress her. Probably he's gotta think the same way as you do regarding her. And yeah you only said things about her now, while praising Murakami previously (even at his "anticlimatic" death). And for Kageyama, something about her; she can be the "mother" of the group, without taking away her sadism and cruelty. The Lucky Clover was mostly managed by Murakami (who is not a member, but a head of Smart Brain), but probably as he died, for now, Kageyama's guide stands out even more. And for Kitazaki, this is what I'm talking about for actually the final reason why he's Faiz' version of Ouja; for all the power and screentime he has, at the end he's still a small fry and a big bad wannabe, where he thinks and wants to be the strongest, but he's all big talk with Orphnoch King. Though it bums me out that he met him when he was weakened and didn't even try to strike him. And Kitazaki being so utterly cruel also bites him in the ass here other than his narcissm to prove himself as the strongest by killing the King just to prove him so despite it would kill the entirety of his race (like Daguva, not caring about his own race), that now Kageyama works together with Takuma to betray him, and as another catharsis factor moment; Takuma beating up a powerless Kitazaki, a clear revenge of anything he's going through. (̶l̶o̶l̶,̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶t̶y̶p̶e̶d̶ ̶T̶a̶k̶u̶m̶a̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶T̶a̶k̶u̶m̶i̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶1̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶F̶a̶i̶z̶)̶

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

Yeah, but the fight or die part is separate from the character's problem, because it's the biological body Orphnochs have. The character part which embodies the "more nuanced ideas than Survival" can be remain unchanged, but Orphnochs have to exist as per Kamen Rider show, and the writers make Orphnochs have this mechanic for their body. For Lucky Clover, as I said above, surely not Kitazaki, he doesn't care if he dooms his entire species just to prove he's the strongest. And just because they partly also want to stay alive, doesn't mean what they do aren't vile like their supremacist belief and schemes on humans (as Orphnochs are human's evolution) and encouraging them to be as cruel as them; as a must for Orphnoch behavior, and it's probably like Kusaka too for killing Orphnochs to humanity, what they do are probably just cruelty, but is also incidental in keeping their race alive. And well, that you said Orphnoch King's machinations are isolated from Team Faiz, this episode you got to see the kid they're taking care of, being attacked by Takumi, who fights with Yuji that wants to preserve his plan of keeping and awakening Orphnoch King (the one thing's missing is Mari never knowing the only boy she liked kidnapped her), both characters they've known well (and Teruo) seemingly much darker than they think. I guess if Takumi and Yuji had a dialogue about their current clash (Yuji thinking its better to live as an Orphnoch and Takumi refusing to throw away his humanity) it'd still feel like argument?

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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!

Obviously, there's going to be the threat of Orphnoch King. Kamen Rider's gotta have a final boss (we haven't seen Blaster Form for forever! I didn't expect the series to have so few appearences for the final form). And for Orphnoch King, for an enemy, he sure has a design that resembles traditional (show) Kamen Rider more, than the Riders itself (like previously, Ryuki's Alternative compared to other Riders). He has a grasshopper motif with a scarf, he resembles Ichigo, the first Kamen Rider. Also for Teruo, it seems the difference of him compared to other Orphnoch is that his Orphnoch form is separate from his human body where it's more like a monster assist (like Faiz' Auto Vajin). I wonder what if Teruo's human form is attacked while the Orphnoch King is unleashed. And haven't said this, but Teruo's insolent behavior wasn't done for nothing; because he's truly evil as the Orphnoch King.

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Originally Posted by Deepsea

Me who's only been reading like 1/16 of this thread at most: Wait I thought you liked Yuuji, when did he fall off the horse?

I don't know if you're intentional.... but typing it as "he fall off the horse", when Yuji himself is the Horse (Orphnoch), lol.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

Kageyama is probably my favorite villain on the show. She's more consistently present and threatening than pretty much anyone else. Murakami had his moments but he often felt disconnected from the heroes' stories, Kitazaki was AWOL most of the time, Takuma got neutered badly around the time Delta showed up, and the Orphenoch King is more of a concept than a character (even in human form - when was the last time Teruo actually had dialogue?). Kageyama is just great, though. Her actress was really good at saying a lot through her facial experessions, too. It's such a pity that I can't find out anything about the actress; I'd love to know what else she's done.


I'll say this: Faiz's ending is definitely an aspect of the show that people have things to say about. I'm really curious to see what you think.

How about explanation for Sawada then? Or Mr. J.