[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I think the Durandal stuff works in this context because Solomon can't even control his two formerly most loyal lieutenants, the folks that were the instruments of his will for a dozen episodes or more. Seeing the heroes collectively overcome his power in the Southern Base, the seat of his former authority, is kind of a great companion piece to the forest beatdown. Dude's losing on boards he forgot he was playing on!

No, definitely, it's serving a good role in the episode for sure. I even consider it a particularly strong character moment for Ryouga? I like to think when he's doing his "do not anger me" bit here, it's directed at himself, and taken that way, him managing to stay his blade at the end says a ton about both how much he cares for Reika, and the pride he takes in being a disciplined warrior and all that. Plus, I think this is literally the only instance of Durendal actually using Kaiji as a sword? So that's a neat bonus.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I can't say it bothered me, no. Kento had already rejoined the team two episodes prior; the suit's just a suit to me.

Yeah, I mean, if I thought it was *that* huge a deal, I would've made a stink about where you were watching the crossover special, but at the same time, I don't think any suit is ever just a suit in one of these shows. Kento's already moved on by this point, yes, but I also think him only actually transforming into Espada again in this particular story acts as nice extra punctuation to some of the narrative beats in there. Kento's always been a guy tortured by his legacy, and I think between entrusting Kurayami to Yuri, defending his father's honor to the guy who took advantage of his righteousness, and properly reclaiming his own Rider identity, it all sorta fits together nicely to cement just how far he's come, you know? It's a tiny bit more of an event than just fighting some Sentai monster with his buddies, charming as that was.

Mind you, this is all coming from someone who was waiting months to see Espada again, rather than weeks, so like, of course I cared more about every little step of Kento integrating himself back into the group.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

One of them is probably the actress who played Yoko, the slightly crazy monster expert on Ultraman Z.

Youko was the pilot; you're thinking of Yuka.