[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

I'll have to cheer myself up by pointing out 9/10 were directed by Ishida even though Die was too busy gushing about Inoue's writing to give me the usual easy segue.

Can we talk about the direction of this story for a second? Because it's incredibly good.

All of the shots in the Kurenai workshop are shot to enforce the connections of characters. It's a tiny place, and characters are frequently on opposite sides of a table, but Ishida keeps angling the camera to catch Oomura beaming at Wataru, or Otoya contemplating Oomura's fate.

(My absolute favorite acting move in an episode of A+ Otoya acting was the switch that gets flipped once he decides to spare Oomura. He's already going to do it; he can't leave this sensitive soul to get devoured by Zanki. But he goes from Art Is A Soothing Influence to completely theatrical as he's getting up out of his chair. By the time he's standing up, he's throwing his arms around and painting himself as a saintly hero. Otoya will only let himself be so authentic!)

It's a weird couple episodes, because besides some great scenes (all of the workshop stuff, the Mal d'Amour comedy stuff from the beginning of 10), I don't think I was really paying attention to the directing. A lot of that is, like, the directing didn't need to fix anything; it just needed to communicate what the story was saying. The writing was terrific, the acting was exceptional (no small thanks to the director, though), there was a cool new Rider... yeah, this one didn't need to show off a lot to make for a good couple episodes.