[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

I really like this structure you got for the wrap-up. It's like I'm reading reviews on blogspot or something again. Anyhow, I like the theme you took from the show. Obviously the thing about fighting fate is the one big thing that the show intended to be about, but it goes hand in hand with the idea that any misstep or failure doesn't ever have to be the end or your defining point (even if it did kinda became Tachibana's, huh).

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd've dialed into Failure or The Need For Second Chances as big themes if it weren't for trying to figure out what in the hell the show was doing with Tachibana for an entire year. He's a dude that is all about how you need to support people who screw up, how second (or third or eighth) chances can eventually pay off, etc.

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Originally Posted by FreshToku

I feel like chiming in on the villains. I excuse the Unknown and big god man from Agito being 'simple' as villains because to me, their role is just to be a force that antagonise the heroes and little else. While I could say that about the various antagonist characters in Blade (and like, I do say that for the Sealing Stone because that's what it is), it's a lot harder to forgive how there's absolutely nothing interesting about Peacock, Trial, or Cerberus, especially with how much time the show spends on them gloating about their evil plans. King and Scissors/Giraffe were way more interesting despite their relatively limited appearances and simple personalities even.

Agito's big thing is about evolution, and change, and conflict, and how people fear or embrace new experiences and perspectives, so those forces existing to oppose the heroes is pretty much all they need to do. (That said, boy did I feel like the Akatsuki-go stuff ended up being not that cool, and Spooky Man was a letdown.)

Here, it's like, they're just a bunch of weird bosses? And they all want exactly the same things? Tennouji, for me, is the biggest offender, because his character only makes sense if BOARD stays relevant for the entire series, and it totally doesn't. He feels parachuted in from a version of the show where Team Blade stays tied to BOARD, working out of their offices the whole time, so Tennouji revealing he's only ever needed the Riders to wipe out his competition and procure him test subjects, that's a huge betrayal! Instead, he's just some guy who looks down on them, and it's not nearly as interesting as it could've been.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreshToku

Regardless of all that, I love how personal the conflict in the final episodes are. Nothing wrong with having a bad guy you wanna see get blown up, but it's nice to mix it up with something more unique every now and then.

Even before the show was ever clearly about anything, it was at least always fun and even quirky to watch (hence all those memes). But it was nice to see that the show's managed to deliver the big emotions as it got going. I hope you think of Kenzaki every time you walk past a bench...

The character stuff was the total highlight of the series. Kenzaki's charm, Nozomi and Mutsuki's teenage romance, Tachibana's utter weirdness... it's a fun cast to spend a year with, honestly. A pretty fun hang-out show.