[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Shirakura sure had his fun roasting the storytelling decisions here in the .5 episode, but Nobuhiro Mouri's crazy vision for Zi-O has an appeal all its own, and hey, it's not like Shimoyama nailed his first script for the show either, right? The two of them basically took turns writing Zi-O in big uninterrupted chunks, so you'll get to see Mouri take another crack at things right away, Die. And then he'll take a few more cracks, while he's at it. It's pretty unusual for a Rider show to have a "guest" writer who gets a huge group of episodes right in a row, and that made this an interesting stretch of Zi-O. Like, Mouri is a guest writer, yes, but he's essentially a guest main writer, considering his first batch of episodes is identical in size to the actual main writer's.

And I did like what he did with Sougo! The whole concept of 9-10 interrogating Sougo's weirdly optimistic view of Supreme Rulers is a great idea, and the ways it eventually lets Sougo clarify what he hopes to become (while also dropping in a quick I Almost Said BECAUSE I SAID SO But I Didn't to make sure you don't forget how easily Sougo could fall to darkness) makes a lot of the first few stories snap into focus. There's some great writing in this episode.

It's just, it's more of a calibration problem than anything. It makes Sougo's decision-making too wacky for the stakes, which is a bit of a recurring problem in people's first stories with him. There's too big of a leap in what Sougo'll consider acceptable, and the show has a tough time letting him slide for it. Future stories should have a better grip on how far to take his zeal for zealotry, just like they did for Shimoyama.