[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

As I've gotten older, I've stopped worrying about how other people respond to art. It's all personal and subjective, and it doesn't affect my ability to enjoy art if someone believes something in opposition to my own views. It's actually sort of neat? Everyone gets to decide what art means to them, even if it's something objectively wrong. The alternative is being a gatekeeper, policing people's opinions, and... naaaaaah.

I have to assure you that I'm not a fan of gatekeeping and policing opinions either, and had personal experience with that too, but the opposite end ain't pretty either, which is why rules are put in places like Tokunation. But well I just hate bad behavior being given free passes. That's indirect offending and lowkey as bad as breaking those rules. And talking up of it as only "art" for fiction, some people, whether kids or adults, overestimate their immunity against being influenced by the shows they watch. They can keep saying that its just fiction, and they know what's reality and what's fiction, so I won't be influenced by those shows, but if they keep watching more and more of those shows, their resistance may slowly erode, and eventually they will gradually start to agree that, for example, "doing bad things for the greater good" has some merits. Worse, they might even get to the point where they think "doing bad things for the greater good" is the morally right thing to do. This behavior should be disproved too like those gatekeepers; and parental guidance are recommended when kids watch TV shows: kids need to be told that oftentimes, what happens in the plot of a TV show does not reflect reality, while problematic faves can be owned by anyone (including me), they shouldn't act in real life like how characters in those TV shows do, or rationalize those.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I think it's just Jiiya being a very permissive guardian? (I know he's a servant, but he's basically Tsurugi's granddad. He even gets called out the same way Tendou quotes his grandmother!) Jiiya definitely coddles Tsurugi, which is obviously not doing great for Tsurugi's humility.

It's not doing great for Tsurugi's humility, but my point refers more to the others that are victimized by Tsurugi, which will had even worse experience, and just asked to forgive Tsurugi without valid reason. Tsurugi can easily get away with a lot by this, just like many people only due to having powerful position. Ironically "how to be a good emperor" lecture aside, this behavior can potentially shape a dictator.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I don't know that I'd put Sitting In A Van Handing Out Judgment as anywhere near the same level as A Series Of Robberies That Trap A Worm? Misaki contributing to a plot needs to be more than just being in a shot.

It is! Or was! That was a story about them all just hanging around, waiting to see if they could catch a Worm in the act. Tendou was the one actively investigating things, which was some of the most fun parts of that story.

Like I said before, ZECT members are mostly professional ones (and some can take that to a disturbing degree like Yaguruma and Kageyama with Perfect Harmony), so most of their scenes are them doing ZECT job. A good part of it can be antagonistic though, like them hunting Kabuto user, so Misaki, Higashi, Mishima, etc. spend their times hunting Tendou, while Kagami (the one that can ruin their job) is the one that had more conflict about Kabuto being Tendou and asked for informations from him instead, while later Misaki also follows suit. Or trying to recruit other Rider users like Daisuke to ZECT (both Misaki and Kagami did). And just because those are maybe less memorable than Phantom Thief Shadow, doesn't negate what they're doing, like trying to investigate which Worm between 2 Yukis in ep. 3, Shadow hunt and figuring out the traitor (which exposes the Worm too) in ep. 12-14, etc.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 21

It addresses one of my biggest problems in the episode, and something that’s been a minor distraction for most of the series. Namely, what in the hell do the Worms want? They’ll murder some people, impersonate others, they seem to understand that ZECT is their enemy…

Well yeah, every bad guy since Kuuga had a motive of some kind behind their attacks. Grongis were playing Gegeru. The Unknown were targetting people with Agito Seed which had potential to overthrow. The Orphnochs were trying to create more of their kind and had to kill humans in order to do so. The Worms? Well, so far they replace humans. They also somehow take a page from the Grongi and sometimes target only specific types of people? Otherwise I can't talk more about this because this is spoilerific.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The other big part of the story this time is A New Zecter, which… I mean, we just did A New Zecter story, and that’s only five episodes after the last A New Zecter story.

Kagami, apart from wanting to beat Worms, if his boasts about killing Worms by himself is any indication, he knows that he's a bad luck magnet, he knows that he's a wreck, he knows that he's a buffoon, his motive is that he also wants to be special, he wants to be cool and badass, by that he wants to be a Rider to contribute more and be cool. He got to experience it a bit as TheBee. By that he'd jump in a chance to become a Rider with Gatack Zecter being there.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Because we already did a story about Kagami becoming a ZECT Rider, and he quit because they immediately ordered him to kill Kabuto. The same thing would happen again, wouldn’t it? Haven’t we closed the door on Kagami becoming a ZECT Rider?

The episode finds a little cover for it, mainly through Kagami’s attitude. While the script never has anyone outright say You Had This Job Before And You Quit (you’d think Misaki would bring it up, especially if she’s trying to talk Kagami out of it), Kagami’s demeanor is a lot more solemn than when he was TheBee, and it’s clear that he will do whatever it takes to save Makoto. I’m guessing he’s already done the math that this will put him in conflict with Tendou, and he’s okay with it.

Closed the door on Kagami becoming ZECT Rider? Are you sure? Of course you won't do this because this will be spoiler (although this part of the plot isn't a plot twist like Banno being revealed surprisingly as actual villain), but if you ask someone who are Kabuto's Riders; primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. Probably this episode also reinforces about how Kagami is the morally upstanding one, closer to typical main Riders, with how caring and devoted he was to saving Makoto, who he just met and a stranger in a factory. But this reinforces Tendou and Misaki's opinion about Kagami where he's hotheaded, naive, and can be an idiot who doesn't think things through. While this is Kagami's weakness, I want people to stay balanced if evaluating characters, like not only addressing Kagami's weakness but overlooking egoistic fighters like Tsurugi, team infighting for ego reasons also can be disastrious!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Speaking of Tendou, it’s a very nice little plotline he’s in with Hiyori, Tsurugi, and Jiiya.

So Tendou has also met his other match, in Jiiya, for culinary skills. But of course, Jiiya's skill is only in culinary, while for perfect one like Tendou, his skill in any field is as high as culinay. It seems that Tendou have a soft spot towards those that can cook well, which apart from Hiyori, which was the one person he treats as well as Juka, he's also doing the same to Jiiya, which will be more prevalent in the next episode. Kabuto seems to be the one series where the restaurant's food and menu is played up more, as food is seemingly one of the stepping stones for several issues; like Hiyori figuring out Tendou being a killer or not, or Gon recovering her memories.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

A QUESTION

It’s Christmas Day as I’m typing this, and I hope it is/was a good one for you. This isn’t in any way a Christmas episode of Kabuto (I mean, it’s almost Tsurugi’s birthday in this one, and the world will be celebrating his divinity, but that’s maybe a bit of a stretch), but we can always pretend it is. If you could give one physical gift to a character from Kabuto, what would it be and who would you give it to?

It's not a good one, for me. I'd choose Kagami for the character I gave a present, and the gift would likely be a self-defense weapon to help with his bad luck magnet. I don't think other characters except for a few would fully accept gifts if they aren't elite enough for their tastes though.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

I'm not sure I'd say 'grimdark' of Faiz? It's in the general direction of that, but I think I'd more likely use 'dour' or 'moody'. Which is to its credit; it's extremely good at all this, but it's not quite my thing. Though perhaps Fish will be happy to hear that on 555 I've gone from 'dislike' to 'I really respect what it's doing and am very impressed at how well it does it'! That's my christmas present to him, I suppose.

I'm not sure what you mean by "but how's for him if directly compared to other characters of the same type" - I think something was a little lost in translation there - but if you're asking my opinion on the other main riders in the show so far?

Sou sou, sore sore, "dour" and "moody" (though 'grimdark' can be used for these kind of medias by some people). What I mean by "how's for him if directly compared to other characters of the same type" means if compared to other morally ambiguous characters in the franchise (as cmiiw, but typically those that are dour features a good number of grey-zone characters), which yeah, you did here for Yaguruma, Kageama, Tendou (especially that you said you don't like him, but you like Tsurugi, which is basically Tendou 2.0), and Daisuke, but it can be franchise wide, like Zolda you mentioned there.