[DreadBringer]

Kamen Rider W(atch)

Nazca Arc

Episode 5-6: The Girl... A

A stands for Anomalocaris (Dopant) and Asuka (Kusuhara)

Written by: Riku Sanjo, Directed by: Naosuke Kurosawa

/Papa Is a Kamen Rider

A councilwoman named Miyabi Kusuhara announces the approval of Second Fuuto Tower, but also uses up her kid Asuka to get the appeal from the crowd, albeit she seems to genuinely follow her mother's cause by hyped up for the real tower. Nevertheless Shotaro, who (along with Akiko) is hired as bodyguard, still criticizes the move as shady. He's at odds with Makura again, but they're soon assaulted by bullets, which had Shotaro and Phillip henshin into W, and apparently Asuka sees Kamen Rider as her dad, while holding a doll... resembling Kamen Rider Knight. Phillip suspect the shots coming from a Dopant attack, but the Dopant is unseen, thus W can't fight back, focusing on defense with CycloneMetal. However W managed to catch a sample of one of the bullets. It's shown that the reason Miyabi hires Shotaro and Akiko is that, politicians have to deal with hatred and people's distrust, but she still has to perform to restore people's faith, but Shotaro agrees due to his goal of preventing anyone cry, which is seen in Asuka's fading smile. Shotaro asks for Akiko to hand the bullet sample to Phillip, to her dismay that the chief is being ordered (along with another slipper attack before and spinning it... like a revolver), which when she does, out of nowhere, an utterly wacky gag happens as Phillip got his butt stuck in a trashcan after falling over from W's henshin. Phillip is completely dedicated to his research though that he doesn't mind although Akiko does, with the trashcan completely sticking to Phillip's butt.

Miyabi calls out Shotaro for abandoning his job, which was him turning into W in secret. Shotaro insists for Jinno to take his place, but gag happens with Jinno making up his own excuse by holding a funeral for Makura (who only got shot in leg). Miyabi warns both as she's going to negotiate the land rights next, with Asuka drawing W which she thinks is her dad, assuring the others that he'll save them again. Later as they got assaulted by the Dopant again with the bullets, Shotaro uses the Bat Shot while Makura wants acknowledgement for his help. It's revealed that Ryubee is one of the "haters" for Miyabi's Second Fuuto Tower plan, as it stands against Fuuto's future he envisions. The Bat Shot failed but Phillip explains that the bullet isn't metal, but organism's tooth. Akiko gives Phillip a vinegar to free himself from the trashcan, with Akiko being revealed to be able to perform some acrobatics in a bridge position (not exactly a piece of cake to do from personal experience).

On their way to negotiate, Shotaro discusses Asuka's relation with the "dad" Kamen Rider, trying his best despite claiming to be not good with kids, but like with Akiko before, was being unable to go through the truth by claiming that he's friends with W (technically a truth as Phillip is his partner), due to already establishing himself as familiar with Kamen Rider. The land is owned by Genzo Takamura, who is playing RC car racing. He refuses to give up his private land to Miyabi, and moreover, he calls out Miyabi's for her manipulating her kid for her own ends, which is the exact reason of the hate for her, her words are transparent and she whitewashes those. This is a case of an asshole making a good point, kids aren't supposed to be a trophy to show off to other people, just typical dirty move from politicians to use their family to further their goals, her words also resemble the hollow "for the future" claims politicans can have. I'd think to enforce this more they should display Asuka in discomfort though, she seems ok that she shares the same dream too. Meanwhile Sonozaki family plans to get rid of 6th development team to assign the 7th, with Wakana warning Saeko that their father objects to Second Fuuto Tower. Kirihiko visits Takamura which is revealed to be partners.

Phillip informs Shotaro that the Kusuhara dad, Daisaburo, was assassinated. Discussing this further with Miyabi, her manipulations are further uncovered with her feeding lies to Asuka that she'll visit her dad again when she helps her work at council. Miyabi cares more of Daisaburo's dream compared to her daughter. It'd be obviously hard to take that a parent has died, especially when someone's still a kid, now this one's really distressing (and coming from the previous series I watched before..), the kid may be alright for now, but in the long term, secrets won't be kept forever especially that Asuka still has long time to live, she'd know that her dad died either way, Shotaro points out too that nothing good comes from lying. As Phillip pieces the clues together, despite her mostly overbearing way, Akiko managed to help by pointing out that the shooter isn't present in the pictures which means he's somewhere else, where Phillip deems her as genius, leading Phillip to figure out that he shoots underwater, and the Dopant is Anomalocaris type. Phillip warns Shotaro to make sure Miyabi stays away from water, and they henshin into W, using CycloneTrigger to shoot the lobster-like Dopant, finishing him off with CycloneJoker's Joker Extreme, but the beaten Dopant isn't Takamura, but his friend instead.

/The Price of Lying

W catches a glimpse of the real Anomalocaris Dopant in the water. I like that there's a twist of how the scene is iirc usually played for next, as Miyabi and Akira got caught and entangled in a stretching limb, but it's from W LunaJoker, not from threats, while the limb also shields them from the Dopant's attack. Asuka points out that Kamen Rider, her "dad" will come to save them as always like what happened there, while Shotaro thinks he should reveal the truth before it gets worse. Well yeah, another truth is also, Kamen Riders aren't omnipotent, he can't be anywhere and protect everyone, there are several near misses Miyabi and Akira had. Shotaro insists Miyabi to stop bringing Asuka along. Miyabi argues that Asuka also understands, but Shotaro points out that she can't even understand the lies of her father's actual fate, and that she abuses her parent privilege... the parent being the one that takes advantage of a child's innocence. AFAIK kids are sometimes told to stay away from strangers because of the fear of taking advantage of their innocence, but here, it's the parent doing it themselves to the child. Nevertheless Miyabi keeps her schedule. She has said that being hated is a part of politician, but while many hate can be irrational, sometimes there can be legitimate reason for the hate like that y'know where even Shotaro calls her out.. and they should instead work on improving themselves based on the feedback, not brushing it off.

Shotaro visits Asuka again, who draws W in different color, wondering in excitement again about the different color W can have. After explaining W's power within its halves, also.. half-heartedly, he learns the reason that she thinks Kamen Rider is her dad is the knight doll, that Miyabi lies to her that her dad is now masked due to scar on his face, and acts as the protector of the city, which only turns into convincing one for W's arrival. True though that while keeping hard truth is bad, hard truth also cannot be quickly delivered without regard. Shotaro backs off again from telling the truth due to the lie keeping her together, which got him mocked as halfboiled again by Phillip, in their talk that Takamura's friend use experimental model, and dealer would never sell prototypes to customer, which means they suspect that Takamura is related to Gaia Memory distribution, something that police investigation can't reach due to its limitation. Which is shown in the scene cutting into the place of Gaia Memory production with Takamura in charge, but he asks for cooperation with Kirihito, to deal with W, and confirms that Takamura is the real Anomalocaris Dopant. Akiko breaks up the bickering between Watcherman and Santa-chan over the latter's "present" in eating ramen.. the time when Akiko's shrieking is the sensible one compared to others here. Watcherman reports that there's mechanical underground sound in Takamura's property, which earns approval from Akiko and Phillip suspects that there's special facility there, and explains the true reason that Sonozaki Family is against Second Fuuto Tower, it'll disrupt their facility there. Phillip also learns about how Daisaburo says goodbye to Asuka.

Shotaro fails again to reveal the truth to Asuka, but she's kidnapped by Takamura as Anomalocaris Dopant shortly after. Shotaro places a tracker in Asuka, but is driven off the tall building's edge. Shotaro saves himself with a grappling hook however, and henshin into W with Phillip, but is pitted against Kirihiko as Nazca Dopant. While fighting Nazca with HeatMetal (so little fire except at Maximum Drive..), Phillip notices that Kirihiko wears Memory Driver, and W puts Nazca down with a pointblank HeatTrigger shot, knocking Phillip out as Akiko calls Shotaro for that. Another difficulty of the Rider being 2-in-1. A reused gag happens that, Akiko wakes up Phillip using vinegar like before, allowing them to henshin into W again in the nick of time as Anomalocaris tries to get rid of those that wants to take his property which is Kusuhara family. Miyabi tries to protect Asuka and insists him to target only her. Yeah this shows Miyabi genuinely loved her daughter, but she's showing it the wrong way. With W using CycloneTrigger, Anomalocaris puts Asuka in hostage situation, but W gets through it with the debut of LunaTrigger, which can control the direction of beams fired by it, making sure it only hits Anomalocaris, really good use of the ability in that situation and I'd say the best form debut so far. Its shots are slower than other Trigger forms. Anomalocaris assumes big form while W calls out HardBoiler and RevolGarry, finishing the fight with Trigger Full Burst, which IMO seems to have little difference (it's charged yeah) to standard LunaTrigger shots. For Takamura's failure, Saeko blows up the Dopant base. However the ending of the 2 parter isn't all bright that the Second Fuuto Tower is still postphoned indefinitely with Miyabi quitting the council, and W maintains the lie too by giving Asuka goodbye the same like her actual dad did, as Phillip learned, especially that W isn't actually her dad, and would leave them for good as a stranger, though Miyabi convinces Asuka to let go of W that her father has to protect whole city instead of only her, with Shotaro only being able to be optimistic that she'll tell the truth someday, while Phillip is distracted again, fascinated with vinegar and is doing research on it.