[FreshToku]

Awooooaaaagggeereettghhh!!! That was my excited yell at reading you covering the final episoide. You ReOpened My Eyes For This Final Faiz.

Takumi and Kiba's final showdown. Even though Ryuki was the show all about riders fighting one another, I can't help but feel it's Faiz's final episode that we have to thank for things like Gaim vs Baron. I super didn't like Yuuji's turn in the last few episodes either, but in this episode, I was able to come around just enough to enjoy the climax of it. It really is all thanks to that conversation he and Takumi have, facing each other off just before transforming. Yuuji asks once again, a little angry, sad and incredulous all at once at why Takumi is so insistent on protecting humanity. You could read that as either him being frustrated that Takumi won't listen, or maybe him being sad that this person he considers a friend just doesn't understand the world like he thinks he does. I lean towards the more compelling and emotional interpretation of course.

The actual physical fight is only so-and-so, but it's fine because all the emotions are there. The most key moment for me, as small as it is, is when Super Horsepower brings down his sword on Faiz Blaster, who just utters Kiba's name once, just stands there and takes it before firing away. You already mentioned the screen thing in depth but it is really good, like the kind of cheesy melodrama visual that is kinda a lot but I was totally into it. The last lines shared before Takumi walks off is a great punctuation mark to the whole thing.

It's so great, that when I look back on this episode from now on, I will only think about this climax between the two main characters! ...I kinda have to, of course, because what the heck even happened afterwards? The show certainly doesn't say so.

Remember how the Orphnoch King was going to like, kill all humans, but if stopped then all Orphnochs would die? Well of course you remember because that's been the big dramatic point the show has been driving in for the last few episodes. And then that just. Doesn't happen. Like, they didn't find a solution, they didn't even overcome it with the power of friendship or anything. The plot just stops existing. There is no rationalisation I can come up with, even as a personal handwave, for how Takumi's last Rider Kick leads to any of the scenes that comes afterwards.

I remember the plane analogy you said, and thinking it was funny how you mentioned that the plane has to land. Because when it comes to Faiz's plot... It doesn't just not land, it is simply never to be seen again. I'm pretty sure Faiz's last episode left a lot of people feeling sour, confused or hollow precisely because those last scenes are so weird that they forget everything that happened before it.

But! After many years of stewing on it on and off, and thanks to some insight from both others who have watched this show and to this very thread, I am much more willing to just brush all that aside and focus on how much I appreciated the Takumi and Kiba aspect of the last episode. I mean, it's objectively a bad thing that all the story stuff in the last five episodes or so can be so easily brushed off, but that it's an option also speaks to the strength of the characters, I think!?

Anyhow, I heard there's a new show airing next week. Kamen Rider Brave? You might want to check your mail though, I heard someone got you a DVD of that movie you didn't get to catch in theatres a few months back.