[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 45 - "RELIVING A BLANK DAY”




Oh, Kamen Rider Den-O. What am I going to do with you?

This episode seems like the start of the final story. It's chockablock with Time Nonsense, as Ryotaro is discovering that his memories of Sakurai's disappearance (and Airi's resulting amnesia) are incomplete. There's a third stopwatch, a more-stubborn-than-usual Yuuto, and a disappearing Airi and Sakurai. It's almost wall-to-wall scenes of Ryotaro trying to puzzle out what really happened to Sakurai, and being greeted by ever more baffling evidence.

I mostly resented this episode.

There's a nugget of a thing I like about Den-O that was in this episode. Ryotaro's insistence on uncovering the truth that's being hidden from him, the memories he's lost, it's grounded in the show's belief that memories aren't good or bad, they're what you make of them. Tragic memories can give you strength in the present. Happy memories can haunt you. It's up to you to give your memories value and purpose. Yuuto's obstinate refusal to engage with Ryotaro's concerns, on the grounds that what he'd learn would sadden him, can't possibly work to dissuade Ryotaro. Ryotaro isn't looking for comfort or solace in these memories, he's looking for understanding. Even if he learns something horrible, he'll still be learning something, and there's value in the learning. That's a nice moral from the writer behind Ryuki, a show about the value of curiosity.

That's pretty much all I liked about this episode, and it's something that happens in one scene that I thought about for maybe two minutes.

Everything else is... I mean, god, I'm going to sound like a broken record if I list everything that bothered me, and I want to write it even less than you want to read it. I'd rather just have this be a short post than vent my anger at a show that treats Plot and Entertainment as two competing resources, at least from my own experience. It's just mysteries answered with questions confronted with skeptical looks accompanied by unconvincing denials topped off with murkiness. I didn't understand anything that happened in the last several minutes of the show, and I mostly didn't care about anything preceding it. The plot is infuriatingly opaque, and I'm so far past the point of hoping it'll get better. At this point, I'm just trying to get through it.



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-If this shorter post and adversarial treatment of one of the most beloved parts of the Kamen Rider franchise hasn't made you sick of me for one night, you can head over to DreamSword's Let's Play for Memory of Heroez, where I was given the opportunity to sit in for a session. It was a very fun experience, and DS is a gracious host. Check it out!

-It is almost adorable how badly Yuuto does at talking Ryotaro out of investigating Sakurai's disappearance. I took a minute to accurately transcribe their standoff in Kamen Rider Plaza, in case you've forgotten the scene:

YUUTO: Don't go back in time to that date, Ryotaro!
RYOTARO: Why? What aren't you telling me?
YUUTO: Don't!
RYOTARO: What are you hiding from me, Yuuto?
YUUTO: DON'T!
RYOTARO: ...okay, I'm just going to go.
YUUTO: DON'T
RYOTARO: *loads ticket into Rider Pass*
YUUTO: DON'T
RYOTARO: *leaves on DenLiner*
YUUTO: *to literally no one* DON'T

It's a cunning strategy, keenly applied, but somehow Ryotaro circumvents it. Ryotaro's intelligence and insight would give Tendou a run for his money!

-I wonder if Sword Form's kinship with Santa is because Momotaros is also a red wish-granting imaginary hero?