[DreadBringer]

Commented on this part late due to being unable to access Tokunation server before. Btw how about the part where characters are acted differently from Shouko's? (I mean if they aren't energetic genki type).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I mean, she's not rude to Urataros. He's specifically trying to flirt with her (because: Urataros) and she's not interested. The joke isn't that she's mean to him; the joke is that she doesn't seem to notice his flirting because she's already crushing on Yuuto/Deneb and Ura can't handle being rejected.

Uhh read again that's actually what I was saying that she didn't rude to Urataros, to my relief? I've witnessed the opposite happened in Faiz where Yuka rebuffs Keitaro rudely in favor of Kaido. Well, though Faiz as a whole is written by Inoue, can't really call that an OOC/derailing or such (i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶i̶n̶g̶.̶.̶ ̶Y̶u̶j̶i̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶l̶?̶) but when that happened to other people's work...

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 43 - “SOMETHING MISSING”

The main problem with doing any time travel story, especially one that takes a year to tell, is that you really need to clarify what’s happening.

I mean yeah, that's the morton's fork of time travel story, especially regarding you to plotting. As you said, they need to clarify what's happening, but exposition is a no to you. And this is the general consensus of Den-O having superb cast that you can care, but the plot isn't that good. Well, the thing about Yuuto is people forgetting him when he henshins, but it doesn't apply to Ryotaro. Singularity Point is quite simple that it means humans with the ability to exist independently of time itself, and be unaffected by changes in their own past, and thus Ryotaro doesn't forget about Yuuto. And well, you explained to me about this before, regarding of how Taros Imagins don't have physical form to have them partake and fight in real world, that's also the trait Singularity Points possess. I know you aren't enthusiasted but still won't talk more about this.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Basically, Kai shows up to remind Ryotaro that he’s fighting to keep the Imagin’s future from existing. Except, his closest friends are four imagination monsters from that future. If Ryotaro defeats Kai, then Momo and all the rest will disappear.

I mean Kai sees those like Ryuutaros as traitor, and previously he also has antagonized and mentally tortured him. I wonder why would you complain about Kai jeopardizing the Taros Imagins, when Kai has been doing this since his first appearence to Ryuutaros.

There are so many problems with the way this story is told after that.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Second, the conundrum Ryotaro has (use the Imagin to destroy their own future or save their future by dooming humanity) is unbelievably cliched and not terribly compelling. Are we expecting Ryotaro to ride a magical time train with his good friends while all of humanity is obliterated by an army of imagination monsters? Is that supposed to be a realistic decision he has to make? I don’t want to make a Kobayashi Maru joke here, because it’s not just something that crops up in her stories. It’s baked into the formula of Kamen Rider. Kamen Rider is, for fifty years now, about using evil to fight for good. That usually necessitates a story where the hero deals with the possibility that defeating evil will leave him with nothing to fight with. It’s to this show’s credit that it’s not power that Ryotaro will lose but friendship, but this is still a disappointingly standard plot point (that it is tough to ever make work) with two startlingly unequal scenarios for the hero to choose from.

I don't know about this complaint, that despite you insisting you "don't truck with Showa", this complaint sounds similar about how Kamen Rider formula should stay as it is, like those who stan Showa and takes it to the extremes. The phase 1 before has more of shows who experimented with certain things, like Ryuki containing evil Riders, Faiz containing good/neutral monsters, Blade with dummy long arcs or balanced Rider cast, Hibiki with slice-of-life approach, Kabuto (this one's playing it safe though) with morally ambiguous (and perfect) main Rider and idealistic secondary Rider, etc. Though well yeah, for the part of using evil to fight for good, those are mostly true for those stories, the Advent Deck being created by Shiro, the Rider Gears created by Smart Brain, the Undead Cards created by BOARD which is led by Tennoji, the Zecters created by ZECT, though I was confused about your complaint about Kuuga being walking natural disaster from the Rising Mighty nuke kick.

And how do you expect Ryotaro to ride a magical time train with his friends? Ryotaro still wants to fight, not letting humanity be doomed, still on the topic of Ryotaro being stronger., that the continuation is Ryotaro trying to handle things alone without risking the lives of the Taros Imagins. This is also similar to how Ryotaro responds to Yuuto fighting as Zeronos, in contrast to Kintaros (where you talked about it being Ryotaro's personality taken to the extremes), Ryotaro is really against sacrifice. He flips out of the possibility of the Taros Imagins just throwing their life without a second thought going down fighting. I think that the impossible decision dliemma is interesting here, figuring out what can Ryotaro do to give both of the choices good outcome, however...

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Third, in typical Impossible Decision fashion, the hero opts to make no choice, and so we get a long-ass fight scene of Ryotaro getting beaten up. He won’t fight with the powers of the Imagin, but he can’t survive without them. It’s a non-solution that’s especially bizarre because it’s not like Ryotaro stopped fighting, he just stopped fighting with his friends. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s a decision that’s impossible to understand (he’s more or less opting for suicide?!) and leads to literally everyone on the show yelling at him to explain himself. It’s meant to be frustrating, but it is such prolonged frustration that I wanted to turn the episode off.

... yeah the execution doesn't sit well with me either here, I mean Ryotaro already got Liner Form now, and that's not the Imagins taking part in the fight, other than the sword can be rotated to communicate with certain Imagins. I guess the show is trying to reinforce that friendship, but this is the part of the plotting that suddenly forgets what has been set up before, like was Liner Form a joke to him?

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Finally, after Ryotaro gets beaten up because he won’t fight with the Imagin and he won’t come up with a way to win without them, we get the big emotional standoff at the end between Momo and Ryotaro.

Heh. Well, Ryotaro was being standoffish here yeah, and was glad that Ryotaro turning standoffish isn't a good way, I mean, for you who is thrilled on character conflicts, and has accepted characters suddenly turned into jerks before for the sake of it. Leave the character infighting to those who had the personality to incite that, like Ryuutaros, don't turn morally white characters like Ryotaro into that just for the sake of conflict. Or the fact that tough-love decision isn't necessarily the best choice for anyone to make, despite the popular belief.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

-Even Kai is lame in this one! His whole standoff with Ryotaro is shot in a really mediocre fashion (check how shaky the camera move is as Kai enters the frame), and his taunts are just generic Sneering Villain bullshit. There’s no spark to his role in this story. Everything but that one Yuuto/Deneb scene let me down!

Well, I guess you're getting about the people's complaint about Kai here (not saying they're right of course), that the complaint is about this, but instead is applied to each Kai's appearence instead of only at this point.