[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 25

Our heroes opened a weird door in the ruins of Shibuya, looking for answers about Hiyori’s past, and what’s inside is… basically nothing helpful for Hiyori, but way more questions for Tendou and Kagami. It becomes a story that’s less about providing information to help with healing, and more about getting across to the superheroes that they are pawns in a massive conspiracy.

Well, this is what I brought up previously to question, about where this part count as the keeping someone away from the truth trope? Hiyori isn't a combatant and going in Area X would be a complete suicide. And well, what do you expect between someone like those 2? They're incredibly stubborn, even Kagami, I wouldn't think that they would quickly learn their lessons (and Tendou would see himself as the right anyway, after protecting Hiyori from the Worms, especially with his ego that he thought that she's in the wrong and he directly saved her from danger, and his main concern is only about how the other's lives are saved, regardless of how he arrived forever or being a dick at his heroic arrival). Also, in ep. 19, you complimented about Juka always being in a delight, and Tendou's treatment of Hiyori is the closest he gave compared to Juka's... probably think about that part of ep. 19 too about "not worry her pretty little head"? Their motive, likely especially Tendou's, is keeping up Hiyori's mood as much as possible as he can, like what you complimented about Juka, and only giving the info after clear, full info is get (It's probably, like what I sometimes self-inflict, like with my high standards regarding exam marks, I'd only check those marks after every exam in every subject is done, wouldn't check them during the exam period as if I got lower than my expectations, that'd potentially demotivate me during the other subject exams and rub salt into the wound).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

And that real story… honestly, it’s not bad. There’s an exciting sense of the boys being tired of having ZECT out there, manipulating them from the shadows. (Literally! And also with Shadow!) Now that they know that ZECT’s been working on the Masked Rider program from as far back as the Showa era, and the boys clearly do not truck with Showa, it’s evident that ZECT has greater plans than just protecting Tokyo.

And again for this part, where below you refer to this as "cooler story" this is wholly about ZECT, would this be a strictly plot part which is to you isn't your cup of tea, and sometimes for phase 1, plots can be a detriment to character stuff instead? Or that this one's done in the usual Tendou way (of taking a job field temporarily) which you did appreciate before? Also, this probably shows ZECT isn't merely having greater plans than protecting Tokyo, but also, actually being fishy (demeanor of Goro-chan a.k.a Mishima and one of its members like Kageyama, or the complaints about HQ orders from Misaki and Kagami which Tadokoro dismissed as absolute).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

That alone would be enough to set up a more direct conflict with ZECT’s leadership, but the show drops a weird-ass bombshell by putting Kagami’s identity as Gatack’s operator in the Masked Rider #1 journal from 1971. (And, yes, I got the reference, no need to call it out. I laughed at it immediately.) It’s something that could be easily (“easily”) explained away by having Kagami’s dad create a prophecy he could eventually have his son fulfill, but that’s still pretty crazy. Almost as crazy as the raging, chained-up lunatic that’s locked behind a door in the basement of a vault. That’s someone who is going to be a problem!

(Throwing this out there: it’s the original Tendou, not the Worm that’s been Tendou for the last seven years.)

Well, I'm also throwing another one out there: Kabuto's centerpiece of superpower is Clock-Up, where you move as fast as light. And if the speed goes further than that, you'll be able to.. travel over time.. right?

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The rest of the episode has a lot of things happening, mostly fun to watch (Tendou quickly climbing the ranks of the police makes me wonder why he needed ZECT’s help to work in one hospital for one day), but, man, not into this pivot away from Hiyori’s story! I honestly wanted the second half of this post to be a little room to praise the tension of the Misaki/Kagami raid on ZECT HQ, or all of Tendou’s charm offensive (his smile is so fake!), or Tsurugi’s brief appearance so he can Win At Diving, or how nice it is to see Daisuke return to grumpily save TheWorst, but no. I don’t really want to do any of that, because the show followed up a story where Tendou and Kagami put Hiyori’s needs ahead of their own, by having them both toss her to the side when a cooler story came along. She specifically tells Tendou that she is still hurting, that nothing got better, and he’s just like Sometimes There Are Mysteries. I don’t think the show wants me to be as mad at Tendou as I am right now! (Kagami is not winning any prizes, but he also isn’t hiding things that’d probably make Hiyori feel better.) Moving the story off of Hiyori without giving Hiyori any reason to feel better… it sucks! I don’t love it as a story choice!

The part where Tendou climbs the rank in the police, probably that's one of the parts where it showed how Tendou got applied to a job field he wants to use, as this is Kamen Rider, just helping cops to solve crime with combat skills. I guess the cops here are more accepting of that compared to the very beginning of Kuuga regarding Yusuke. And this part also shows how monstrously strong Kamen Riders are compared to normal humans, and that the stats of their punches/kicks being measured in tons aren't only for show. Also honestly, anytime a Rider makes a physical contact with humans that'll terrify me, with how destructive the Riders are compared to them. I guess with Tendou's charm offensive, he's not lacking in social skills... he just puts it on when it's necessary like conversing with officials, while being condescending otherwise if there's no benefit putting it on.

Diving is a sport field, so Tsurugi's motivation on that correlates to the other parts like soccer, fencing, etc. There's an appearence of the first executive leader Worm in Rena Mamiya, a Worm that won't be a MOTW. Daisuke's actor Kazuki Kato focuses on his musician career, so he'd have rarer appearence, but he's not a one-shot character. Worm's disguise shows its deadly capabilities again here where WorMisaki visits Bistro La Salle to ask one of the people who knew Tendou family. With Misaki being trusted comrade of Kagami's, Kagami is nothing to blame here for unwittingly sent Juka to her doom, it'd be hard to deceive her here (and her evil grin was done outsight of Kagami's view).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

A QUESTION

And now I gotta live with being mad at this show for a couple days, because I’m changing up the scheduling for New Year’s. The 31st is going to be a special piece, something I’m already 20% done with. The 1st is going to be Episode 26, the 2nd is going to be the movie, and with the 3rd we’re back to normal scheduling with Episode 27.

But none of that’s a question! With New Year’s nearly here, it’s time to make some resolutions. Do you have a tokusatsu resolution for 2021? Something toku-related you’d like to accomplish? My next few years are pretty well charted out, Rider-wise, but there’s something I’ve got in mind for Decade that I really hope I’m able to make happen. What about you?

My tokusatsu resolution, as already said before, is to collect "better wiki substitute" about each Rider series and collectively share them to people. And also interchangably with that, to not only finish what I watch for toku series, but also gain deeper understanding regarding those.