[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by AkibaSilver

We all know the real reason that Die's this happy is that the show's back to using the original Climax Jump. For some reason.

So, I'm skipping over the credits as I usually do, to avoid all of the spoilers and Climax Jump (Terrible Ver.), and I come out of the skip a few seconds early. I hear Climax Jump (Classic Ver., The Good One That Everyone Loves), and I skip back even further to enjoy the song again... before noticing that all of the spoiler-y stuff is completely still in the opening. It's actually worse, now, them having the good song playing over stuff I don't want to see. Now I'm giving something good up! Like Airi! That's why they changed the opening for this episode! It's thematic torture!

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

The thing that gets me the most about this episode is that it’s the main time we get to see the realAiri. I love Airi and how she’s always just a little out of touch with everything going on around her, but part of that is that the version of her we’ve been seeing has basically been lobotomized via time travel shenanigans. This is an Airi who’s complete and fully aware of what’s happening and it is heartbreaking to get this small glimpse of her in her last fully lucid moments. For me, probably the standout moment of the whole episode is when the Imagin shows up in the past to attack Airi and she’s not scared or surprised; she knew exactly what was going on and was prepared for it.

Yeah, the Airi scene, for all its dreamlike atmosphere, it's like Airi's finally waking up? She's cognizant of the risks she's taking, and she's able to finally have an honest discussion with Ryotaro and Yuuto. They get to feel equal in their story, finally, and it's so sad to know it's being ripped away. That Airi actor takes it to a whole new level in that scene.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

Sakurai and Airi planned to temporarily erase the good future the Imagin want to replace with their own, then have Ryotaro restore it later. But in the aforementioned Zero Form two-parter, Yuto gets killed before he gets involved in any of this and doesn’t get restored because “Ryotaro didn’t know him at that age”. So what happens to all the other people important to this future (as Bill and Ted Face the Music points out, two people alone can’t change the future) that Ryotaro didn’t know yet? Or never met at all? Thus, it stands to reason that the future they believe in no longer exists.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

All that said, I still think that the Junction Point stuff is borderline gibberish and even knowing that “Nogami Airi is the key” doesn’t really explain how any of this is supposed to work.

I don't have any clue what's going on beyond This Is Making Airi Sad And Hopeful, which was thankfully all I needed to connect with this storyline. The specifics are maybe more nebulous than they were before? I don't AT ALL understand why Airi's at the lake or why Sakurai became (a terrible) Zeronos, or Junction Points, or nearly any of it. At this point I'm just nodding my head at anything the show tries to explain, to move on to something emotional and dramatic. If Androzani had said that Sakurai and Airi's original plan was to replace the Imagin future with a future where every Friday, Dunkin Donuts customers could get a free Coffee Coolatta with the purchase of a dozen donuts, while supplies last, some restrictions apply, I'd be like, Yeah That Was My Read On It Too.