[Kamen Rider Die]

Because INOUE DEMANDED IT probably, we are off to the World of Missing Ace! The-- the Blade movie! Remember? There were those fun Faiz cameos? Yuuji and Murakami brawled during an interview? All the new characters talked trash about the stars of Kamen Rider Blade, the series the movie was based on? Look, I can't remember much about Missing Ace, either, but maybe we can all get a little clarity with the help of returning co-host and noted Tachibana apologist AkibaSilver!

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KAMEN RIDER DECADE EPISODE 22 - "DIEND IS WANTED”
Team Decade lands in the idyllic paradise of the World of Missing Ace, where the only danger is the inability to find and capture the world's terrifying villain: Diend! As our heroes alternately sell toothbrushes and get carried by locals, Kamen Riders Larc and Lance fight a lonely battle against the monstrous Roaches… and their fellow citizens? What's going on beneath this world's tranquil surface? And what does it have to do with Diend's older brother?

KAMEN RIDER DECADE EPISODE 23 - "END OF DIEND”
Kaitou is desperate to free his brother from the grip of the evil Fourteen - and salvage his own sense of self-worth for helping Fourteen capture his brother in the first place - but he can't do it alone. Luckily, Tsukasa is here to lend Diend a hand, and the two of them (well, basically just Decade) manage to defeat Fourteen and free Junichi... or they would have, if Junichi hadn't been working for Fourteen of his own volition. Now that Kaitou doesn't have to feel guilty about his brother's fate, he's free to... just keep doing what he was already doing, I guess. It-- it isn't a story with a huge change to it, people.

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KAMEN RIDER DIE: Look at it! Look at the most diabolical world Inoue could ever create! Look at the nightmare he wants to wake from! LOOK AT THE WORLD OF FORCED POLITENESS!

AKIBASILVER: It got about 10 minutes into the script, and I did google to check if it was an Inoue episode

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I don't know that I've ever laughed as hard as I did when I realized that Inoue took this opportunity to tell a story about the Tyranny of Politeness.
This is maybe his Final Form as a writer, which feels apt after the last couple episodes.

AKIBASILVER: I feel honoured to be talking with the world's most hardcore Inoue fan for this, the most Inoue of episodes
I feel like this was him realising he didn't have to relate strongly to any Rider's themes, now the main set of tributes were over, so he could just do what he wanted
And what he wanted was a story about a dystopia were everyone is really nice
Because they've got undead worms in their brains

KAMEN RIDER DIE: He just straight-up did a story in a Lessons-oriented kids show about how it's better to be honest and a jerk, than forced into being nice. AMAZING.

AKIBASILVER: I mean, "jerk with a loving heart" covers 2/3 of our main Riders this time around, so if you're going to dive into their backstories, I see it

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Like, even the final team that defeats Fourteen (because the Joker is the fourteenth card after the thirteen cards in a suit, I guess) isn't a bunch of people that get along, it's specifically four people who do not like or trust each other. The final lesson is that Tsukasa and Kaitou are a more effective team for being able to overcome their dislike of one another, rather than actually being friends!

AKIBASILVER: 14 is the main villain from Missing Ace, so yeah, that's presumably the reason
Well, that may be the final lesson you got, but the lesson I got was "Wow Decade Complete is so cool he can just one-shot the CGI!"

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Along with Armed Hibiki, who... I mean, shouldn't they have used Blade's Final Form, instead?

AKIBASILVER: That's what I thought was going to happen!
Maybe it makes up for Decade not using Hibiki in the last 2-parter

KAMEN RIDER DIE: This whole story goes out of its way to not ever bring up Blade once.

AKIBASILVER: Back in the original Missing Ace, the Aces were very insistent on how Team Blade were better off being left in the past, they were the real heroes now!
Looks like Inoue agreed

KAMEN RIDER DIE: It's so weird -slash- expected that, after the Blade guy skipped the Blade story and the Kabuto guy skipped the Kabuto story, Inoue would do one story where Otoya is the adversary and another story where the entire cast of one of his movies comes back. INOUE FOREVER!

AKIBASILVER: Whoever at Toei was doing the assignment of writers to arcs was either purposefully messing with us, or had a twisted sense of humour

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I like the bizarre theory you're putting forward that assumes people give Inoue assignments.

AKIBASILVER: Oh that's true
Scripts just arrive shoved under the door
Inoue wrote them in a possessed haze

KAMEN RIDER DIE: No one commissioned this story!
He turned in two completed episodes!

AKIBASILVER: "Toshiki, what's this?"
"Oh, I hear you're doing tributes to past Riders. Well, here's my Missing Ace script, enjoy."
"No, Toshiki, only Riders who had a whole series oh he's gone already."

KAMEN RIDER DIE: There's definitely no other explanation for An Entire Story Reuniting The One-Off Actors Of A Blade Film To Tell A Story That Valorizes Being A Prickly Asshole than that Inoue wrote, cast, produced, and edited a complete two-episode arc on Decade and submitted it to Toei.

AKIBASILVER: It's a story only he would tell, that's for sure

KAMEN RIDER DIE: It's also another flashback-heavy story for a secondary character, and that's the part I am less enamored of.



KAMEN RIDER DIE: I mean, man, we just did this with Natsumi! Last episode!

AKIBASILVER: The story very quickly lets you know "This will be our mandatory Kaitou story! Please sit back and enjoy the ride!"
It's one of the sticking points of Decade - by construction, the constant shifting focus onto the past heroes mean our regular cast oftentimes get shafted by comparison
Sometimes, they get integrated nicely, like Yuusuke into the Agito story
Othertimes, not so much, like Yuusuke into every other story
Diend, he's been around for 10 episodes now, and he didn't have much of a deal beyond "Thief with heart of maybe gold, likes treasure"
I forgot he knew Tsukasa's past till this episode teased me with it!
So I get the decision, now the mandatory "What past Rider are we doing this week" is over, to go and take the spotlight to the secondary cast
But that just means we've suddenly got tonnes of backstory coming at us

KAMEN RIDER DIE: But it's got the same fundamental problem as the Natsumi story, where there's a need to evolve a character that doesn't seem to have anything to overcome. We need to solve a dilemma that makes them a better person, while also creating and defining that dilemma inside the story.

AKIBASILVER: "Natsumi had friends? Kaitou had a brother? What's next, Eijiro is secretly a Showa Rider?"
Yeah, there's been no indication of what's driving Kaitou, so when it comes to delve into his history, it all feels very contrived
Unless you were going to make him come from Indiana Jones world

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I mean, I dislike the structure, and I hate the pacing problems of putting two similar stories back-to-back, but at least Inoue is trying to flesh out these characters.

AKIBASILVER: I wonder if this was the plan all along for Kaitou, or if Inoue had free reign

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I can't believe we're on Episode 23 of 31 and I've got no idea what Narutaki's deal is.

AKIBASILVER: He's a friend to all Kamen Riders
It's not even that I don't know, it's that the narrative has no indication it knows either

KAMEN RIDER DIE: He's a Mysterious Fisherman, so he obviously comes from the World of Kamen Rider Aqua.

AKIBASILVER: Now the nine worlds are over... we keep going?
It just feels very limp
We're travelling because, well, that's what we do

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, spending time with Natsumi and Kaitou over these four episodes doesn't feel so much like Finally as it does I Guess.

AKIBASILVER: The revelation of "There are more than 9 worlds" feels like it should have been bigger
Or at least deserve some kind of appearance from Wataru again
Idk, this isn't really this episode's fault, more a structural issue of this region of the show

KAMEN RIDER DIE: There's a vague feeling of being careful what you wish for from these two stories, where the focus on our core cast sort of reaffirms why no one did that before.

AKIBASILVER: For all the focus on Kaitou, he's missing for most of the first episode

KAMEN RIDER DIE: We don't really get his info dump until the second part, I think?

AKIBASILVER: Yeah, the first episode spends a lot of time on setting up the mystery of the world
Was there a need for so many scenes of Tsukasa selling a toothbrush?

KAMEN RIDER DIE: The first part is all about the Missing Aces and the contours of this happy dystopia.
It's all a little derivative of last story's... happy dystopia.

AKIBASILVER: Yeah, given we just had "Superficially happy world where people get hunted by monsters"

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Onodera, flipping out over how this is the perfect world, CLEARLY forgetting the horrible perfect world he just escaped from.

AKIBASILVER: Yuusuke acting like THIS is the right world for them when just last episode he was telling Tsukasa how everything going right means it can't possibly the right world for them
That... that's gotta be intentional, right?

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I mean, if it happens in the next story, yes, and I love that Onodera always thinks that now. (I also don't expect it to ever come up again.)

AKIBASILVER: "Maybe this is the right world!"
"Yuusuke, this is the World of Shin Godzilla."
"Well, maybe I can befriend Godzilla?"

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Beyond the repetitive nature of this story... did it work for you? Diend's tragic backstory and weird tendency to assist monsters in reshaping society but in a good way?

AKIBASILVER: I'm not sure
Diend's tragic backstory feels very separated from who he is now, and being left to infer the gaps of "Oh at some point he ran away to another world and found the Diendriver and got an interest in treasure" detracts a little because it's even more disconnect
I don't dislike it, it's just hard to feel like it's ever going to come up again

KAMEN RIDER DIE: This story tries to have it both ways: Kaitou was searching for treasures so he could free his brother from the grip of Fourteen... and he also just likes getting treasures.
There's a fun Inoue twist in there, where Kaitou might enjoy the role of a villain because he wants people to hate him, as a form of self-flagellation and self-negation.
But it feels like it's, yeah, so divorced from the last ten episodes.

AKIBASILVER: I like the idea of the dystopia concept - and kudos to Decade, cause the multiple worlds concept allows them to do this nice little contained piece when other shows couldn't - but as you say, it's similar to last time, and after the first half, it mostly disappears?
Aside from a little Yuusuke comedy, it doesn't matter that Fourteen is making everyone insufferably selfless in Part 2, it's just Fourteen brainwashing
He may as well be brainwashing them into being [insert your least favourite Rider series here] fans, the details don't matter
You've got an interesting point with Kaitou there, but again, it feels pretty specific to this episode. Past appearance didn't have Kaitou being villainous because he wanted people to dislike him, he was just like Tsukasa in that he didn't care, as long as he got that treasure
Unless you're Hibiki, in which case he may accidentally help you

KAMEN RIDER DIE: This story seems built to do for Diend what the last one did for Decade: sort of clear the decks of his previous limited motivation, and give him something more open-ended for the future. It's just, we never knew what Diend was even after, so it makes this whole story seem kind of unnecessary. The end of this story is Kaitou Is A Free-Spirited Treasure Hunter, which... okay?

AKIBASILVER: Having him work with Tsukasa is almost progress, if they hadn't been intermittently allies and enemies for the last several arcs
Hibiki had them blow up a giant crab together!

KAMEN RIDER DIE: "The thing that you never knew Kaitou cared about? Well, he doesn't care about it anymore!"



AKIBASILVER: I sure am glad Kaitou's satisfied that his brother is a villain of his own free will, and can go be a treasure sniper without that burden hanging over him! Just like how he was at the end of last episode!
I think that's how I'd sum it up - it's not a bad pair of episodes in isolation, but taken as a whole they suffer from needing to rapidly introduce a backstory for Kaitou and resolve it, so its own ideas come off as secondary
Because Kaitou's brother, being a Special Guest Rider, can't stick around to drive his motivations
And it's not the worst backstory! It just doesn't feel like it matches up to Kaitou at all. And he's our secondary protagonist!
Perhaps I'm just spoiled by Neo-Heisei

KAMEN RIDER DIE: On the topic of Kaitou as a secondary protagonist... my favorite moment in this story was near the end, when Tsukasa's taking no small amount of pride in letting Team Decade know that the world they're leaving now has a Kamen Rider to protect it in Kaitou.
1) KAITOU IS LEAVING. That's what he does!
2) THIS WORLD HAD AND HAS TWO KAMEN RIDERS WHO WERE PROTECTING IT AND YOU TEAMED UP WITH THEM, TSUKASA!



AKIBASILVER: Look, Tsukasa is constantly dunking on secondary Riders the entire time
G3-X was doing its best protecting the World of Agito, but because his name is in the title, it only has a Rider to protect it when Tsukasa gave AGillsto a nice pep talk
Same with Kabuto world and fake Kagami
Movie Riders? Even further down the food chain

KAMEN RIDER DIE: And scrub Riders who exist to get murdered as motivation for our Real Heroes? Yeah, maybe they didn't deserve his respect or recollection.
But! Still pretty weird to see a full tribute to a movie I maybe half remember.
Like, all three of the New Generation Riders are back! With the original actors!

AKIBASILVER: Yeah, that's pretty neat!

KAMEN RIDER DIE: The Gold One is still the villain!
There's that CGI monster!

AKIBASILVER: Missing Ace isn't exactly my favourite Rider film, but it's nice to see something less obvious get to be the building blocks for Diend's world

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, the best I can say about that movie is that the suits are pretty great. I like how it's got a clear Leader and The Other Two design to them.

AKIBASILVER: Also, because I'm sure someone will bring it up otherwise, Diend was shown collecting various pieces of movie merch in past episodes - the Orga Driver, the G4 chip - so him being from a world based on a movie was either planned all along, or a cute coincidence

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Huh! I didn't catch that. Very cool!

AKIBASILVER: I wonder if, along with actor availabibility suddenly mattering in the last month's worth of episodes, that's why we got the Missing Ace Riders
There's enough of them to be a team, they look cohesive as a unit, and they haven't shown up yet

KAMEN RIDER DIE: There's also the neat connection of Diend coming from another Powered By Cards world.

AKIBASILVER: True!
Also, 2 female Riders in the space of 3 arcs, we're breaking new grounds

KAMEN RIDER DIE: You'd mentioned to me before that you hoped someone out there would know why Blade of all series got its movie homaged in Decade, and I'd echo that request.

AKIBASILVER: Yeah, I'm still not sure why Missing Ace was picked
Even if you wanted "A trio where the gold leader betrays them", they're not the only choices!
(Hello Kabuto movie suits)

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I have always sort of liked Shin and Haruka's chemistry, so maybe it's just that. They were underutilized movie characters, so here you go.
They got something you can at least build a story around.

AKIBASILVER: I do always like when obscure Riders get to come back
And I know they're not the same characters, but it's close
Like when Goriders brought back a bunch of big name guys, and also Another Agito for the first time in 20 years! That's cool

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I really love that Goriders story. Fun ending, and a bizarre group of characters.
Plus, everyone in it gets to be cool, which is more than I can say for this show's cast:



KAMEN RIDER DIE: Bad couple episodes for Onodera!

AKIBASILVER: He is not having a good time
Gets smiles painted on his soul and he doesn't even do the thumbs up

KAMEN RIDER DIE: He gets sucker-punched by a mook and needs to get rescued! HE IS STILL KUUGA.

AKIBASILVER: I remember a lot of animosity for Yuusuke back when I first joined the boards - by virtue of him not being Godai - and when he keeps getting put in situations like this, I wonder if the writers had the same feelings
Maybe no-one told Inoue he was Kuuga
So he just merrily wrote his pair of episodes in blissful ignorance

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Two Inoue stories in a row that just use him as a comedic whipping boy, so, yeah, Inoue prolly didn't get that note.

AKIBASILVER: Well, we know you and Inoue and Kuuga have a fun history together
It's a shame. With both Tsukasa and Kaitou being more than a little standoffish and jerky, there's room for Yuusuke to be the more straightforward, heart of the gang, but instead he just keeps getting pranked

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Although, if Inoue watched any random Decade episode for research, there's a good chance he wouldn't see Onodera as Kuuga.

AKIBASILVER: Yeah, this isn't just an Inoue thing
I was shocked when he transformed in the Hibiki episodes
Which, you know, probably shouldn't be my reaction to a Kamen Rider transforming

KAMEN RIDER DIE: The one thing I'll say in his favor, and in Inoue's favor, is that Onodera and Natsumi at least get a little side-story in the first part of this arc. They get to have a little goofy adventure! They get to leave the photo studio!

AKIBASILVER: I do like Natsumi's "I'm going to find more about Kaitou"
It's like her recurring thing - she at least tries to learn what the new world is about, even if it's all offscreen and she just has to put up with Kivala the entire time

KAMEN RIDER DIE: There's an intriguing lack of urgency to their plot, maybe befitting the new Endless Journey aspect of the pacing. Tsukasa just goes to work as a toothbrush salesman, Natsumi and Onodera go for a walk... Let's just see what's up, you know?

AKIBASILVER: Just a minor plot thing - it was a weird jump to have them meet Junichi offscreen, only to then meet up with him again at the pool so Tsukasa can be there
Struck me as odd
Yeah, some room to explore "So, now what?" for the gang would have been welcome
But the episode makes clear
This is Diend episode
We will be focusing on Diend now

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I don't think that's how I took the plotting for the Junichi meet-up? Natsumi and Onodera go to the cops, the cops make an appointment for them to see Junichi, and then all of Team Decade goes to meet Junichi.

AKIBASILVER: Do appreciate how they played Treasure Sniper over the end battle though, that was cute, even if Decade did the brute work
You could be right - I might have misinterpreted, or the subs could just be funky
They definitely called Kaitou by his brother's name at some point, so reliability ain't perfect



KAMEN RIDER DIE: I mean, the three of them don't notice a guy swimming in a pool right next to them, so I don't put anything past Team Decade's inefficiency.

AKIBASILVER: Maybe Narutaki was right, maybe Tsukasa really is the destroyer of worlds
He's just very bad at his job

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Great at selling toothbrushes in bulk, though.



KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, that's a pretty different translation.

AKIBASILVER: Slight side track, but it's always interesting the way different groups can subtitle things
I'm sure this is something a Sandwich of Fish will be unpleased to see
Decade toothbrush powerup when?

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I was not aware Fish had issues with translations! I'm learning something new with every one of these chats.
Anything else from this story you wanted to touch on? Like, why were there not as many buses? Is that because buses are impolite?

AKIBASILVER: Bus Drivers are all in for mandatory politeness training
I just thought I'd touch on Missing Ace one last time - the big themes of that movie were moving on from the past, and handing over to the next generation. This episode... is not about those! It's purely here for the aesthetics

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Definitely unclear on why the Missing Ace tribute took place at a rice paddy, when the movie was either Big City or Seaside Resort.

AKIBASILVER: Do you think there's a parallel version of the Blade cast out there somewhere?
I do not like imagining a polite Tachibana

KAMEN RIDER DIE: The implication to me was that they were all murdered/reeducated by Fourteen. Maybe Blade's a garbageman again?

AKIBASILVER: Unless you count "trying to sacrifice yourself before anyone else can do it" as politeness
I honestly didn't think of it
It uses the costumes from the movie, but this isn't a Blade story
This isn't a world where Riders fight to protect people from the Undead

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, I can easily see this being a non-Blade Missing Ace world. They, again, strenuously avoid referencing Blade for these episodes.

AKIBASILVER: It's a world where they fight the forces of Fourteen's Darkroaches, who may or may not have a copyright infringement lawsuit coming from that twisty monolith
I also just have a snarky comment about the Missing Ace gang riding their bikes just as much as Zi-O does in his entire series
Let's add them to the chart

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Narutaki: "This is a world that destroys Riders! Like Kamen Rider Braid! And Kamen Rider Garvin! And Kamen Rider Lingle!"

AKIBASILVER: Don't forget Kamen Rider Chaloss!

KAMEN RIDER DIE: diend is their chaloss
did i just blow your mind

AKIBASILVER: Both Decade and Diend get to be the Joker at different times
They sure do say society a lot in these episodes

KAMEN RIDER DIE: It's an Inoue story! There're only, like, three things he ever wants to talk about!

AKIBASILVER: He's consistent, if nothing else
Love, society, and definitely not explaining where power ups come from

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Yeah, I don't think another writer would let the cathartic ending for his story be The Villain Was Being Villainous From Free-Will So We Can All Relax. God bless that goddamn writer.
What a gift.

AKIBASILVER: What a strange ending
Like, I don't even have anything to say about it
It's just...
It just is!
To say it like how he would, "Inoue is Inoue"

KAMEN RIDER DIE: I'm not even a hundred percent clear on Tsukasa's thing where he says that Junichi can't become Fourteen, because he's seen his brother's spirit or something? What?
It's a real hand-wave of a resolution.

AKIBASILVER: Tsukasa is just happy to let this would-be dictator wander around because "Eh, he didn't kill Kaitou, that's enough for me."

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Refraining from murdering Kaitou has been shown to be enormously difficult for Tsukasa, so he should respect it as a character trait.

AKIBASILVER: It's true
Sure, he injected Yuusuke with brain worms, but really, who wouldn't?

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Or maybe Tsukasa is just anxious to move onto his next adventure, in... the World of Shinkenger?! A Sentai adventure?! WHAT?! I wasn't prepared for this! Next thing you'll tell me is that this series is going to do some Showa episodes! MADNESS. Until then, let's meet some color-coded ninjas as we continue our Journey through Decade!