[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 23

Die was polite enough to somehow focus more on a ramen cart than Hiyori in this one, which leaves me with a much appreciated opening to pick up the slack.

Don't get me wrong, all that stuff is exactly as good as he says it is, but it's nowhere near as impressive to me as how much weight the show is treating Hiyori's feelings with. Like, it's never really been a matter of how her feelings affect Tendou, or how they affect Kagami, or anyone else – it's just a matter of how she feels, and that's awesome. That scene at her parents' grave is a real winner. It's shot gorgeously, for one thing; they picked a very nice location, and seemingly waited for the exact right amount of cinematic wind to be blowing before rolling the camera. It's got a sort of classic cinema vibe that's pretty aggressive about how much it wants to provoke an emotional response in the viewer, but I can't hate that about it when it's working so well.

It's a fantastic look into Hiyori's psyche, giving her a chance to explicitly lay out her thoughts in a way her personality simply doesn't allow her to do around other characters. A monologue that captures a very specific emotion I really liked the emphasis on, which is how much Hiyori loathes herself for not being able to trust her friends more readily. It's made very clear that she's more upset about that than she is the mistrust itself, and I thought that whole idea – that she's trying to be a better person than she is, and is angry at herself for not being able to push past those limits – was super in-line with everything that makes me love her character so much in the first place.

It's a pretty nice way to expand on episode 14, where Hiyori originally tried to brush all this off after coming to the conclusion that the Tendou she knows deserves better than her constant suspicion. That was pretty noble of her, too, to bottle up all that unresolved trauma largely out of concern for someone she'd realized she cares about. And it's precisely because it was such a noble thing to do that she feels selfish for letting that get to her all over again, even extending to Kagami this time. She's operating under the assumption she shouldn't be allowed all this doubt. That it's entitled of her to make her own problems anybody else's, even as Kagami and Tendou are making their need for secrecy Hiyori's problem.

I'm not sure I have any real concluding point here, but I don't know, I just thought it was a very considered and logical bit of characterization for a very private character. It's a great scene that makes a good episode that much better than it would be otherwise. Maybe my overall point is just how much I like Hiyori? Not like that's news or anything by now, but still.

There are other neat things in the episode, if that even matters. I loved how Gatack's two scenes early in the episode emphasize his larger than life status with some classic heroic entrances (the one on top of the crane could only be more Showa if he was standing on some rocks in a quarry), reflecting Kagami's state of mind really well. I feel like it might be done to deliberately fake the audience out by getting them to revel in Kagami's whole superhero fantasy come true right before asking them to consider how much less fun this all is for Hiyori. I mean, that might be giving the episode too much credit, and I've definitely just got Hiyori on the brain, but considering it's only those two scenes that are like that, and they're both placed before she asks Kagami about the belt, I do think there's a chance that was the intent.

Gatack's fight scene at the end, by contrast, is a lot more standard for this show in its execution, and gets the audience to revel in the superhero fantasy the normal way for modern Kamen Rider – throwing lots of toys in there. It's the first time we see him on his bike, which is cool (bike action is surprisingly rare in this show), AND the first time he uses his iconic hedge trimmers to crush a Worm so hard it explodes. Hard to go wrong with some good old fashioned Rider Cutting, but it's nowhere near as characterful as when he's using the swords separately; I love how aggressively Kagami slices up his enemies with those things. There's a sort of grace to the movements still, but it makes for a massive contrast with Kabuto, a character whose body language is all about the slow and subtle approach. To the point I'm almost tempted to try and write an entire paragraph dissecting how great a job Takaiwa does at portraying the simple act of Kabuto crushing a pebble in his hand here. But that's only tangentially related to Hiyori, so why bother, right?