[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 21 - “LAYING DOWN MY LIFE, TO ENTRUST MY HOPES”



*sigh*

I don’t, generally speaking, care about villainous plots in Kamen Rider. They’re rarely a thing I remember fondly, if I even remember them at all. I remember characters, and I care about stories drawn from their decisions. I can lose myself in conflicts that spill out of disagreements between heroes, or impossible dilemmas faced by virtuous weirdos; stuff that feels like the manifestation of a character arc. I mostly don’t give a shit about machinations, or the shadowy organizations that set them in motion.

So here we are, with easily my least-favorite episode of Revice yet. It’s all the thin nonsense of Fenix, with an added level of incomprehensible Weekend.

I almost just want to wave my hand at this episode and go NO MORE OF THAT, THANK YOU, and just post the second screencap for this post. There’s literally one thing I liked in this episode: When Dad Ushijima theatrically introduces Weekend, and Sakura jokingly clarifies that it’s actually a weekday. That’s it, and I almost dislike that joke for its proximity to the most unnecessary collection of Cultists With Gamer Chairs that I’ve ever had the misfortune to think about. There’s literally no point to Weekend in this episode – everyone already knows that Fenix is bad – and they can’t even spend a single scene looking benevolent to recruit Sakura effectively. And, by “effectively”, I mean “in a way that doesn’t make her look like the biggest rube this side of everyone who works at Fenix”. Weekend is just FENIX BAD, but in a way that’s even less trustworthy than Fenix. I don’t know why Sakura doesn’t tell Ikki about them, so we can get another character to tell her that this is a horrible group to throw your lot in with. (I assume Lovekov was cut from this episode because she’d’ve never fallen for this idiocy.) I don’t know why Sakura decides to back them, rather than just stick it out with her own family of superheroes. They made her Driver, but there doesn’t seem to be anything they can offer, and their motives are the same Zero Tolerance lunacy as Fenix is preaching, but from the opposite direction. I hate them, and they make this show monumentally dumber.

Maybe the only point in Weekend’s favor is that they aren’t Fenix, though? Akaishi stops preening like an especially diabolical vulture to spring Olteca (who I assume he recruited to the Deadmans way back when) and crash the Fenix helicarrier, for no tangible benefit. Fenix wasn’t in any danger from being discovered – Hiromi was going to quit, and the Igarashis were suspicious without taking action – and Akaishi was in total control of both the real Giff Stamp and Giff itself. There’s no reason to escalate things? Other than boredom, I guess? It’s, again, just villainous machinations that occur around the heroes, but never really involves them in its progression. It’s a story that they’re reacting to, not a story that’s reacting to them. It’s things blowing up, and villains that want something, but heroes that are just confused and reacting. There’s nothing in there for me to connect with.

And then Hiromi dies.

Well, “dies”: dude gets exploded off of a cliff and no one collects a body, so I assume we’ll be seeing him again before too long. Who knows, maybe a third group of cultists will find his body, and unconvincingly attempt to recruit him to their side! BOY, WOULDN’T THAT BE KEEN.