[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER HIBIKI VOLUME 33 - “ARMORED BLADE”



“I’m working
But I’m not working for you”

-Superchunk, “Slack Mother******”

Remember when this show used to be about something?

I mean, there’s a moral here, ostensibly. In the one and only Asumu scene, Hibiki sort of compares Kiriya’s inability to see Asumu’s worth with Todoroki’s inability to see past Kogure’s brusqueness. Hibiki says that there’s value in getting to know people, no matter how irrelevant or off-putting they may be, because there’s a chance you could learn something from them. Don’t judge a book by its cover, basically.

It’s just an incredibly stupid moral, is the problem.

Kiriya has been a monumental (but entertaining!) jackass to Asumu, treating him terribly and then having the gall to act offended at Asumu’s reluctance to tolerate him. When Kiriya sees Hibiki, he asks him right in front of Asumu why he’s hanging out with Asumu since he’s so lame. Asumu not telling Kiriya to go to hell is actually the kindest thing Asumu’s ever done on this show, including swerving his bike to avoid running over Hibarki. (Just like Hibiki!) This isn’t a case of Asumu being too quick to judge, it’s arguably a case of Asumu being too much of a doormat.

So Hibiki just going Befriend Everyone, like some sort of proto-Fourze… I mean, it’s got nothing to do with Kogure’s plot, honestly. Kogure is a stern disciplinarian, but he’s also a) their boss, and b) someone who actually wants the Oni to succeed. Kiriya’s just being an all-the-time dick, and Asumu is almost certainly better off dedicating his time to his training and his actual friends (hey remember hitomi and akira) than feeding Kiriya’s bottomless narcissism.

I appreciate the show trying to have Kogure’s weird taskmaster thing reflect onto Asumu’s storyline, but it’s unbelievably strained to compare Kiriya/Asumu to Kogure/Oni, and even that connection is literally one scene. We don’t see Asumu or Kiriya for the rest of the episode. It’s the slimmest, most tenuous connection the two main storylines of the show could have while still technically connecting, and it’s not super fun to think about. Bad writing, plain and simple.

Which, that’s my biggest (and, maybe only) criticism of Inoue. He’s a Big Swing guy, which results in either home runs or strikeouts. If he gets ahold of a topic or theme or motif that he really has something to say about, it’s genius. When he can’t really figure out something deeper than A Fun Concept, it’s frustrating and mediocre. There’s no inbetween with that dude, no singles or doubles or triples. If it’s not a total success, it’s probably going to be an abject failure.

Which… yeah, hard to find more than surface pleasures in this one. The Kogure thing really only has one move on it (he was a great Oni once, you should respect him), and it’s asking a lot to forgive how just plain mean he is for the bulk of this story. Like Kiriya and Asumu, it’s a beat that needs the Oni to just take it for the entirety of the story and then be like Oh He Was Right All Along.

Even the Oni getting their powers back, and Hibiki being able to use the Armed Saber… it barely feels like they did anything to deserve it? They just train a bunch, get browbeaten by Kogure, HENSHIN, new form, monster explosion, roll Shounen Yo. Hibiki didn’t really change his opinion of Kogure over the course of this thing, didn’t really learn or grow. Todoroki maybe learned something, but he’s irrelevant to the defeat of the Makamou. It’s just a dumb plot (they lost their powers!) that gets treated as no big deal and has a nothing resolution.

Overall, yeah, god, this one’s a big bomb for me. There’s some cute character stuff (this new phase of Hibiki seems to have promoted Hinaka to Main Sister) and… I don’t know, it eventually ends? I’m not still watching this story? I guess that’s a positive.