[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

There are so many small things that I love in this episode: evil chef's determined but awkward shuffle walk, the ridiculousness of everything involving Jiiya's brother, whatever the hell the actor playing Tadokoro's brother was doing (I hesitate to call it "acting" when it felt more like some form of avant garde performance art). The big thing that really struck me, though, was the episode's plot - not the details, but more the format.

I want to talk about Skyrider for a second - the 1979 reboot of Kamen Rider that ended up becoming a sequel instead. There's an episode of Skyrider that features the villain of the week being a "dojo killer" - a martial artist who travels to different schools to challenge their master and take away the dojo's title when he wins. It's a classic martial arts film trope - Skyrider wasn't the last time it would show up in a Rider show, either. And that's what this episode is, it's a martial arts movie. Everything about it follows the path of a classic kung fu film: lost ancient weapons, the rival who defeats the hero's mentor, the restaurant conquering, the wise old hermit master, etc. The entire arc is an homage to these kinds of stories, just with cooking and wacky underground Iron Chef arenas. It's so weird in concept but so beautiful in execution.

I didn't know that! Very cool!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

On the Tsurugi front, I'm a bit split. I love that Kagami is thinking about the situation and trying to understand it instead of acting. It's another sign that he really is the show's heart. I'm less into the obsession with Misaki. I remembered that this was part of Tsurugi's character arc, but I forgot that it starts completely out of the blue with only WorMisaki as anything that might hint to this storyline having a beginning. It picks up so intensely here, though, that it just feels almost completely random.

It's been building over the last few stories (the WorMisaki shows up in the 25/26, Tsurugi hits on Misaki in 27/28 and gets rebuffed, and he asks her out in this one), but it's got a much weirder urgency to it here. Some of it is because of Tsurugi's, uh, single-mindedness when it comes to getting what he wants (and I assume what he wants this time is to stand at the top of workplace harassment), but the larger reason is to create a situation that requires Kagami's intervention.

(To be clear: Misaki can totally handle this herself! It's just, if Kagami's willing to throw himself on that grenade, why not let him?)

Getting Kagami to tell Tsurugi to back off gets Tsurugi to talk about his Very Big Feelings regarding protecting Misaki, which gets Kagami seeing more of himself in Tsurugi. It's maybe rushed in the sense of how thirsty Tsurugi is, but this has never been a character defined by half-measures.