[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 13

Due to the way this show is written, I'm pretty sure I won't get another chance to ask this question if I don't right now – what in the heck is up with the goofy TheBee tattoos!? It is such a baffling narrative decision that the series is also totally noncommittal about. Like, I'm trying to think of why this was done on a meta level before anything else, and immediately I hit a brick wall. Did they somehow think viewers wouldn't understand who was TheBee at any given time without a little extra hint? Was it some insanely overcomplicated way to remind Kagami of all that was now riding on him/letting Kagayama brag to Yaguruma? And, hey, actually, about Yaguruma! Forget about the creative motivations, because now I'm just going to ask if Yaguruma ever had one of these too. Does it go away when you stop being TheBee? Or, wait, for that matter, does every Zecter do this, or is TheBee just quirky that way? Does Tendou have one? Is the reason Daisuke is so disinterested in being a Rider because he values aesthetics and is sick of his chest randomly glowing with the blinding force of the sun at inopportune moments, completely ruining his style?

It's all so utterly weird, and yet what's even weirder to me is that the thought I kept having watching this one (you know, before Kageyama opened his shirt at least) was how glad I felt the writing was moving away from Inoue and back into the safe, capable hands of Shouji Yonemura. The hands of Yonemura. I'm generally a fan of Inoue, even! But for whatever reason, even though I liked the last two episodes, this one, start to finish, just felt so much meatier in terms of the story it was telling, and I enjoyed it a lot more as a result.

It definitely helps that, unlike Die, I will totally watch this show for Yaguruma. I have no idea why (maybe I just like his debut that much), but I have an almost embarrassing level of attachment to this dude, to the point I legitimately root for him to get his s*** together here. I'm not sure if that's even the reaction the show is hoping for, but at any rate, that means I've always had it out for Kageyama since the first time I watched this one. That kid doesn't remember his roots, man! Sure, Yaguruma had one really bad day, and clearly also some mental issues that he could probably use professional help with, but the first thing happens to everyone, and the second thing applies to at least everyone in this show. If Yaguruma had the luck of a main protagonist, he'd get a chance to overcome his faults with the support of the people around him and emerge a better person, but instead it's like everybody is just laughing at him this whole episode! Do you really want to see what Yaguruma looks like with an even bigger chip on his shoulder?

I feel like this post is getting more hard to tell where I'm serious than I intended, so getting back on track, I really did enjoy this one. As you can hopefully pull out from that impassioned rant about Yaguruma, I thought it had a lot more complex, interesting emotions going on than the previous story, even in just the little bits that don't immediately amount to much. Moments like Hiyori dropping a plate on the floor and it breaking causing stressful flashbacks to her being trapped under collapsing rubble, like, yes. I'm all over that. I don't know if there's a lot of real depth here; I feel like a lot of it is in what you're willing to read into it, but I found myself super absorbed the whole time.

...Even if I can't totally figure out the Shadow situation either. I'm pretty sure it was never dissolved, because dialogue from Yaguruma's debut makes it clear it was around before TheBee, and if the entire continued existence of this group was seriously predicated entirely on whether or not a random part-timer with no leadership experience would command them, I mean... I think that says a lot more about ZECT than it does about Kagami? Even when he was the leader, you could tell he had no clue how to manage the squad in combat. The guy's Harmony is pretty far from Perfect, after all.

The Zect Mizer also sure does exist this episode, and the sheer trouble the show had finding a reasonable excuse for Kabuto to shill it – and basically deciding no reason at all will have to do – reminds me of Die pointing out how little action Kabuto's knife gets when I brought it up a few episodes back, and that I actually completely adore how little Kabuto relies on weapons? It's a huge part of what makes this instance of marketing that much more blatant. Kabuto has one of the most instantly distinctive fighting styles of any Rider ever, and in a move that would've been shocking even back when it aired, it just doesn't leave much room for toys. Tendou's minimalist and precise approach to combat is all about reading the enemy and countering perfectly, and when he can do that, he only needs the knife as a sort of finishing move to use on mooks to keep the Rider Kick as more of a main event deal. Which also means his Rider Kick is treated with a ton of weight, which I of course also adore. Even looking beyond the obvious Clock Up stuff, there's a lot I find to love about this show's action. Although Tendou using Clock Up to save exactly one bottle of falling olive oil is certainly a great sequence.

Oh, and for the question, I'm going with Option C, "ZECT is apathetic." I've said before that every single character in this show is eccentric, so I'm pretty sure it's neither that ZECT can't or doesn't want to spend the money; it's just that the higher-ups are genuinely incapable of even registering the concept that anyone would ever not want to work this way, let alone agreeing with it. They think dark, empty rooms are cooler anyway, and probably borrowed their advice on employee benefits from BOARD.