[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 19 - "THAT MAN, ZERONOSTART”



So, Zeronos.

I was really curious what Yuuto (never know which name a show is going to land on for a character, and this time it's not his family name) was going to be like, how/if he'd be different from what the actor did as Kyosuke on Hibiki. I didn't get a sense of him as having huge range on Hibiki (a little wooden), but it'd have been a year since then. Maybe he was capable of way more than he was given? Maybe Kyosuke wasn't quite in his wheelhouse? Maybe he's got some crazy range?

(Slightly off-topic, but my first exposure to Peter Capaldi as an actor was as Sid's dad on Skins, where he played a meek father; and in Torchwood: Children of Earth, where he played a meek government official. That's just what I thought of as Peter Capaldi Parts, so I was pretty surprised when I saw him in In The Loop, reprising his acclaimed turn as a vulgar, mean-spirited government official; and on Doctor Who, where he played a quick-witted, closed-off hero. That was eye-opening!)

But, no, not really for Yuuto. He's basically What If Kyosuke From Hibiki Became Sasword From Kabuto. It's all of Kyosuke's weird friend-negging from Hibiki, where it's clear that he wants to make a connection but he's dead-set on being a full-time asshole. And it's also all of the Tsurugi/Jiiya stuff from Kabuto, where there's an attempt by a guardian to protect and improve their charge, but with so many insane touches (Deneb candy!) (!!!!!!!!!!!) (?) (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) that it's unclear if either one of them is capable of surviving this partnership.

The character of Yuuto in the moment, in the scene, it's pretty much just Kyosuke. He's immediately standoffish and insulting to Ryotaro, and he even shows up later specifically to piss him off! He's just a weird, pushy jerk from start to finish, with almost no attempt to create a sympathetic character outside of hints that he's doing all this because he's lonely and too weird to be nice.

So, yeah, loved it.

I was really into Kyosuke on Hibiki (if memory serves) (could be wrong!), so him showing up to do the same shtick on Den-O with Jiiya But An Imagination Monster From The End Of Time in tow, hell yes. That is a mash-up that is Hall of Fame caliber. It's a fun addition to Den-O because, for a human, he's a more present character than we've seen before, no pun intended. Yuuto's someone who is instantly irritating, adding friction to every Ryotaro scene. He's aggressively secretive, and smirking in his opaqueness. He clearly wants to make friends, but seems to consider Emotionally Dominating Them as the key to success. Yuuto's forceful, and that makes him fun to see in a scene with Ryotaro (quiet), Hana (skeptical), and Airi (consistently pleasant). He's... he's all sharp edges, and that's a new development for a show that's mostly been about wacky fun and sitcom disagreements.

If there's a part I dislike to Yuuto, it's how wrapped up his story is in Airi and Sakurai. The show clearly is going someplace with the three of them, where there's some time-loop weirdness to how that relationship plays out, but it's a story that feels destined to be portioned out at a rate I'll be unhappy with. Having not loved the Airi revelations from last time, the weird mix of Yuuto taunting Ryotaro with traumatizing Airi (?) and Ryotaro's shouting at Airi to keep her from discovering Yuuto's identity... not into that part! I'm okay with Yuuto having secrets at this point, but I'm not thrilled with scenes that are just the show being evasive to fill time. It's stuff that could be resolved with a conversation, and I don't love that conversation being avoided for dumb reasons.

(I will always respect Build as a show for taking a big Banjou development and having Sento just blurt it out. The longer you drag out a plot artificially, the more I'm convinced it's not a smart plot!)

But Yuuto's debut episode, I was a fan. I love his weird master/servant relationship with Deneb. I enjoyed him trying to look stoic and then immediately laughing at Ryotaro when the coast was clear. He's just a weird jerk who is desperate to make friends while being terrible at making friends, and I'm looking forward to his inevitable comeuppance -slash- rehabilitation. Either or, I'm not choosy.



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-This episode was pretty much wall-to-wall Yuuto, but there was a little bit of time for other things. Namely, this story's monster! Not much to him, but I love that in an episode that let the Yuuto parts sprawl comedically, the Jellyfish Imagin was in some huge rush to finish his contract. Great counterpoint to how unhurried the rest of the story was, narratively.

-Amongst his whole Being An Uninterrupted Prick agenda, there were some intriguing looks at how Den-O and Zeronos's missions might differ. Or, maybe it's more how Ryotaro and Yuuto's missions differ? Yuuto tries to make it clear that it's sometimes more important to protect time than it is to protect individual people, which is an outlook that Ryotaro fundamentally doesn't share. Ryotaro's doing all of this as Den-O to make a positive change in individual lives. The idea of only focusing on the broader goal of protecting time itself, that's almost abhorrent to Ryotaro. It makes for an interesting dynamic to explore, where both Riders are being heroic in parallel ways. Like train tracks! Metaphor!