[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 41



Ah, the endgame.

I'll be honest, it's not my favorite part of a Kamen Rider series? I can't remember if I've said that before. The beginning of a series is great, getting to know everything about the characters and the world. The middle's a lot of fun, as things get both deeper and looser. The end, though... there's a process to it that I don't love?

It's mostly down to how smoothly a show shifts gears, into its final stage. There's this crush of plot, sometimes, where things are just More Tense without it feeling like anything really escalated? It's just... heavier, all of a sudden. It's like someone flipped a switch, and everyone's in danger and time's running out and motivations are revealed and and and. It's an almost necessary part of landing a 40-odd episode story, but it doesn't mean I need to look forward to that descent.

So, yeah, I was mostly just okay with this episode. There's some big parts I liked (Kagami's Very Big Feeling of betrayal) and some small parts I liked (Tsurugi as SwordHopper seems like a fun lark), but overall I just found the whole thing a little tedious.

I still have no idea what the deal is with the conflict between the Worms, the Natives, and humanity, despite several expository scenes. (Boy, the director did not feel like rescuing those scenes at all.) For as much nuance as previous stories have tried to give through characters like Hiyori, Reina, and Tsurugi, everything here just boils down to Good Monsters and Bad Monsters and Humans Who Are Forced To Work With The Good Monsters I Guess. There's no sense of plan yet for the Worms (I guess they're replacing everyone in the world? For some reason? To just keep working jobs or something?), and the conflict with ZECT went from this Cold War of minor aggressions into full-blown warfare, and it all feels so abrupt. It feels plot-driven, not character-driven, which is one of the reasons I feel so ambivalent about this episode. Stuff happens to and around the characters, and it doesn't really feel like they've got much agency in this one?

And, like, that's not automatically disqualifying, despite my personal preference for something that draws from the characters and relationships. This episode gets some juice from Kagami finding out that both his dad, the returning Kagami Outrageous, and Tadokoro, his work dad, have been lying to him for years. Kagami has always drawn his confidence from his ability to follow his heart, to do what he thinks is right, so it is devastating to him to find out that Everything Has Proceeded According To His Dad's Design, and that Tadokoro has let him be in the dark for so long. It makes Kagami feel like a pawn, and that's a thing he can't abide by.

My favorite exchange in the episode is a really quick Tendou/Kagami one, and I think it gets to the heart of how those two see the world differently. Tendou sees the world as a series of manipulations that can be turned to his advantage. Everyone wants something, which he can leverage to get what he wants. People keeping secrets isn't breaking the rules, it's how the game is played. Finding out that Kagami has been manipulated gets him saying Yes And, not reacting with commiseration or anger. (It helps that Tendou was also hiding some of this from Kagami!) Now that Kagami knows the truth, Tendou thinks he should accept it and find a way to use it to his advantage. The mission is still the mission.

For Kagami, why you do something means as much as what you do. Success isn't just about achieving, it's about finding a reason to achieve. To learn that everything he's done, every choice he's made, has been orchestrated by ZECT to get him to this point... it's like nothing he's done has mattered. He's achieved nothing. Worse, the people he looked up to, respected, they're the ones who took it all away from him. He's got all this power, but any use of it feels fraudulent. The Rider who was defined by his Very Big Feelings, now he only feels betrayed.

It's a fun idea, seeing how a dispirited and disillusioned Kagami processes his betrayal, but a lot of the execution is him sort of acting like a baby? I'm not saying he's wrong to feel upset at someone like Tadokoro, or especially at Outrageous, but what's presented is him basically throwing tantrums, and it wears a little thin. It's like, I was on Kagami's side! And then by his final scene, I said out loud, "Quit being such a baby.” I don't usually talk to these episodes! But that performance really brought it out of me!

So, yeah, between a ratcheted-up series plot that sort of comes out of nowhere, a Kagami plot that has a good idea that it buries in some off-putting storytelling, and fights that act like Clock Up never existed (WHY DOESN'T KAGAMI USE IT IN HIS FIRST FIGHT), it's not an episode whose main plot was that great for me. Not terrible, but not that exciting.

But then we have Tsurugi's plot, and that one is a roller coaster. It starts with a Tsurugi/Misaki plot that dials back what I loved about 40 into what I grudgingly tolerated from 39. Kagami immediately tells Tsurugi that Misaki was never actually his girlfriend, they were tricking him, and Tsurugi views that betrayal as a test of character from his best friend and crush. It's sort of adorable, how quickly he forgives two people that were lying to his face. Unfortunately, that clears the path for Tsurugi to start pursuing Misaki again, a thing I was very much not looking forward to. It's a creepy couple scenes that get nipped in the bud (thankfully) as Misaki outright tells Tsurugi that they are never going to happen. It's a level of bluntness that I really appreciated, even if I wish the show had done it from the jump.

What follows is a concept that is so good, so the kind of thing I'd joke about because I'd want it too much to ever think it could be real, that I can scarcely believe it really happened. Tsurugi, the man who now stands at the top of depression, is adopted by the Hoppers, two men who stand at the bottom of happiness. Everything about that is... like, forget all of this ZECT/Worm/Native whatever nonsense. Pointless. Irrelevant. This is my endgame. KickPunchSwordHopper is my grand finale. I cannot give two shits about Worm Widower kicking Hyper Kabuto out of his Hyper Cast Off, because literally the only thing I can anticipate from this episode is What Happens Next With The Hoppers. That's it. Only plotline that matters now!

A QUESTION

Tadokoro's big reveal here was both surprising, and something I sort of didn't care about. I have some vague questions I'm not sure if the show plans on answering (Is Tadokoro's entire family Natives? Did he kill the real Tadokoro at some point and take his place?), but it didn't really make me reconsider Tadokoro as a character or anything. It did make me wonder if I'd missed a ton of clues along the way, so I'm curious if y'all were as surprised as I was when you watched this episode. When did you figure out Tadokoro was a Native?