[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 36 - "NO POSSESSION, NO SECESSION, TRAIN SLASH!"




First off, thank you as always for indulging my nonsense. Thank you for helping me pretend that the 36th episode of the Weird Train Kids Superhero Program, aka ToQger, was actually the 36th episode of Kamen Rider Den-O. There's little in this world I love more than committing to a ridiculous bit, so thank you for giving me a day to do that by playing along.

Second off, extra-special thanks to AkibaSilver for giving me the idea to do this. It was a year ago, when I was writing up Ryuki, where they said Hey You Should've Written Up A Dragon Knight Episode For April Fool's, and I was devastated that I didn't think to do that. Since then, I knew I'd need to do something for 2021, and April 1st was when I'd be watching Den-O, and I remembered the Weird Train Kids from that Gaim crossover, and here we are. Once they put the idea in my head, I couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

On that note, this episode of Den-O.

Like a lot of Den-O episodes that I find sort of uneven, there's a middle section to this one that I'm astonished by. As Ryotaro grapples with the existential nightmare that defines Yuuto's existence, he's never seemed more uncertain. Like his inability to handle his failure with Piano Man, he can't abide by Yuuto's decision to keep fighting as Zeronos, nor Sakurai's decision to set this all in motion. The idea that not only can he not save Sakurai's memory, but that Yuuto's every action makes that loss more permanent... it's too much for Ryotaro to bear.

There's a lot of weight put on Ryotaro in this one, emotionally, and the first half really drives it home. There's no victory for Ryotaro to fight for, nothing to defend. When Airi casually mentions selling the telescope in Milk Dipper, Ryotaro's aghast. He's at his most fractured, straining against causality to get Airi to remember Sakurai, to fight for his memory. But there's nothing left in Airi to do that. Ryotaro is grasping at sand that already slipped through his fingers.

The confidence in the show to do that, to not give the hero a way to fight back, it is exceptionally brave. It forces Ryotaro to stop looking for a way to save the day. Instead, it asks him to believe in the ability of others to save themselves.

Ryotaro... he definitely has a hard time practicing what he preaches. Yuuto's smart to throw Sakurai's words back at Ryotaro, to point out the hypocrisy of Ryotaro being willing to fight impossible odds because he can't stand by and do nothing, while forbidding Yuuto from making that same choice. Ryotaro has a difficult time letting go of his savior complex enough to trust that Yuuto knows what he's doing and why he's doing it. But Ryotaro can't save the day by himself. It's going to take other people, and he has to let them help in the ways they feel is right.

That leads into the Liner Form finale, and, I don't know. I never felt like the Ryotaro Needs To Get Stronger story needed a literal conclusion. It's way more interesting if it's a metaphor for Ryotaro needing to stop burdening himself and let everyone else help him shoulder the weight. For me, that story reaches its climax with Ryotaro handing Yuuto the Zeronos cards. Having a whole finish where Ryotaro gets a Den-O form and defeats the monster with a cool new roleplay weapon, the Speak-n-Slash, whatever. It's a superhero show, and that's the superhero finish.

It just struck me as both tonally incongruent (it's this big colorful rah-rah finish to an episode that kicks off with a disillusioned Ryotaro cursing the unfairness of the cosmos) and also weirdly diminishes Yuuto's argument that he's crucial to averting disaster (since Ryotaro gets an awesome new power-up that seals the victory). Across these two episodes, it's like the first five minutes and last five minutes are a story about Ryotaro needing to be a better fighter, while everything in the middle is a story about Ryotaro trusting in other people to take care of themselves. Those two themes... I don't think they work great in one story? There's some overlap, stuff about guilt and responsibility and faith and accepting help, but at the end of the day they feel like they're working at cross purposes.

It's a weird Den-O episode for me, in that I felt like Ryotaro's disillusionment and Yuuto's need to explain himself, that shit worked great. That was some top-shelf writing and acting. The fun elements of Den-O felt like a distraction this time, to the degree that I wanted to tell the show to, like, read the room. Usually I'm the other way around, where the dark costs of being a Rider feel like a waste of some really fun adventuring. Maybe those ToQger empty calories from earlier today had me appreciating more robust storytelling? Maybe!



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-JUST TELL YOUR STUPID "NEW TRAIN LINE" STORY ALREADY! GOD.

-Was not super thrilled that the reason why Den-O needed to use Liner Form instead of any of his normal forms was just Time Reasons, and here's a fun toy and new costume. I usually like the costumes and power-ups to feel narratively motivated, and this wasn't that to me. Felt not very necessary. It's just one more part of the series-arc that comes across as thinly established and uncompelling.

-Nothing in this series is ever as scary as Ryotaro getting upset with Airi, so I'm glad the show pulls that lever sparingly. There's a level of realness to it, that relationship, that makes the heightened melodrama of a Kamen Rider freak-out seem cruel. Still, unbelievably effective at communicating Ryotaro's fracturing mental state.