[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 17 - “THAT GUY IS HERE! AND IN THE PAST!”

There’re really two things going on in this episode, and they didn’t really connect for me yet. (I assume I’ll feel differently by the conclusion.) There’s this bonkers story about the Imagin thinking they’re about to get fired for incredibly vague, possibly Hana-invented reasons (it’s pretty much a game of Telephone where Ryotato says Things Should Change and Hana goes Ryotaro Demands An Imagin Battle Royale), and then there’s this bleaker story about lives deferred, and about the seductive poison of nostalgia.

Hana's looking for any excuses to get rid of the Imagin, though for this one, the reason is plausible so far, Ryotaro getting too tired for likely being possessed by 4 imagins at once. Well, as super powered as Hana is, the Owner has the highest authority in the DenLiner, though the Owner also has attempted to kick out an Imagin like Kintaros.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Ryotaro… not the easiest title character to love, if I’m being honest? He’s sweet, and funny, but he’s so shrinking and quiet that it’s hard to really root for him. Or, I don’t know, I find myself way more excited about seeing an Imagin possess him than I am him whispering his way through a scene. He’s constantly getting overshadowed by bigger personalities, and now we’ve reached the point of him almost dying because he can’t get the four Imagins he’s entangled with to stop running him ragged. He’s pushed around a lot, and it’s hard to really get what’s driving him.

So, an episode that starts to peel back his layers is enormously welcome. To see him less as a perennial punching bag and more as someone who has made difficult, unhappy choices to protect the people he loves, to see a side of Ryotaro that is willing to say I Deserve Better Than This, yes. Very ready for that story. We’re only scratching the surface of that here, but it feels like the show is setting up Ryotaro to be at least a smidgen more assertive.

Ryotaro's main draw from what I read is about his comically bad luck moments. Though yeah, for him being shrinking, quiet, and pushed around, I've talked with someone who does dislike him due to that (and they're those who like other saintly main Riders like Yusuke). Takeru Satoh's main draw as an actor is about how he can portray Ryotaro and all of his Imagin possession differently, but I wouldn't want for people to view "bigger personality" as having more negative traits (Ryotaro vs Imagin possession claim here). And as I said before in the episode review, I think Ryotaro's evolution is overlooked, that he now takes the charge of the Imagin hunting, like him going to investigate or him being the (only) one who scans the Rider Card into the contract holder. And of course Ryotaro will develop later regarding Rider stuff, but I wouldn't want for the development to be about him becoming more negative person (because I want to let it be known that development isn't only about that) or being assertive meaning becoming more selfish or something (I deserve better than this signs that). Ryotaro being presented with difficult choice do make for an interesting dilemma. And for the school part, he still wasn't the best man there, as someone who dropped out from the school. It's unknown for the reasons at this episode but I wonder if this is about another bad luck or self-inflicted, as I know about another loser character who has bad luck, and constantly getting abysmal marks on school.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

And I think the Imagin feel it, too, since they are pretty sure someone’s going to get kicked off the DenLiner for Ryotaro’s sake, and they’re pretty pretty sure it’s going to be Momotaros.

Kintaros screwing up again with his strength, making coffee with brute force and end up ruining the tools with his strength, and Urataros claiming to be the most useful in Ryotaro's daily life as he can amass harem for Ryotaro. Momotaros has something lacking compared to other Imagins, like intelligence to Urataros, and moral to Kintaros.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

THE BAGGAGE CAR

-Sawada’s… I mean, she’s a great way into Ryotaro’s story, to have someone who’s even worse at hiding their pain than he is, but I found her a little too on the nose. Like, she says "nostalgia" a lot, and she’s doing nothing but reminiscing about her high school days. She is a little one-note. She plays that note well, though, so it’s not a failure or anything. She just feels more like a plot device than a character right now.

Well, dunno about her character quality or something here, but probably Sawada is another one who can converse normally with Ryotaro, without . I don't want everyone to be made of having petty squabbles for "more conflict" (yeah, fighting against Naomi's view of living beings), or be turned jerk (albeit Sawada being based on nostalgia filter can result in likely jerk traits to bring up about nostalgia stuff) just to have those conflicts (and Kintaros mostly doesn't respond aggressively to the others, good thing yeah, but the other 3 would inveitably pick fights and includes Kintaros)