[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 25

While I would never want to suggest that a Kabuto story shouldn't always be about Hiyori all the time every episode, I've also got to be true to myself here and say I had sort of an opposite experience to what Die had with this one.

About a quarter of the way in, after the initial exciting escape from Shibuya happens and the story completely shifts gears, I was already clocking exactly the problems Die mentioned, and was ready to be upset about it, but as the rest of the episode played out, it all ended up bothering me way less than I anticipated. Certainly, there's a bit too much going on, and that lack of strong focus means this is never going to be some top tier episode of Kabuto, but pretty much all the individual elements worked for me.

Crucially, that included the token scene the episode gives to Hiyori and Tendou, which isn't exactly dripping with substance, but did a thing with each character I quite liked.

On Hiyori's end, I have to say that I legitimately think it's a great idea to have her put all that effort into confronting her problems only to come out of the experience empty-handed. It's something that easily deserves more space for exploration than it got here, which gets back to the problem at hand, but what time is made for it, with her walking away from the restaurant and everything, it's fitting for Hiyori, and what makes me love her character – that concept of having your hope for a huge breakthrough crushed by the realization that there aren't always easy answers just waiting out there.

For Tendou, I mean, I'm going to give the guy enough credit that he would never be willfully condescending to Hiyori (she's maybe the only person he wouldn't), and they highlight that a bit with an extremely rare glimpse of genuine emotional distress on his face after having it rubbed in his face that he's part of Hiyori's problem. It takes the uncharacteristically heated tone he took with Kagami last episode about going to Shibuya, and reframes that desperation to be about more than his usual need to have people do what he says. For once, it seems like Tendou himself is being tied up and frustrated by his own omniscient knowledge of how things need to be. There's a clear implication that, emotionally, he'd rather tell Hiyori everything, but can't bring himself to because of his own "rational" view of the situation. It's a bit of depth from Tendou – a little moment of uncertainty – that adds much appreciated balance to an episode that leans so heavily on his more cartoonish nature.

Of course, a lot of this is reading into things on my part, but I don't know, the show has earned enough of my faith with how it handles Hiyori that I can believe it's less distracted right now than it seems to be.

Even if it is though, it'd be hard to deny how fun those distractions are, which is another thing that ultimately made it hard to hate this episode. Tendou deciding to get serious about looking into ZECT and being face to face with Kagami's dad by the end of the next day is perfect, as is Kabuto stopping a bank robbery like he's the Flash or something. That emphasis on Tendou's fierce independent drive also made it hilarious to me how much of an unambitious corporate stooge Kageyama keeps being, clearly realizing unflinching loyalty to the organization is the only reason they keep him around despite his increasingly unremarkable track record. And you know, on top of all of that, there's even an exciting new villain to generate some intrigue for the next chapter of the show. So yeah, sure enough, I think I'm getting less angry about this episode the more I type. Not a bad one by any stretch of the imagination.