[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 8 - “LOOKING FOR C - DANCING HERO”

I just… I don’t care about anyone in this story? I feel like the writer was going for a Teenage Miscommunication love story thing with Chizuru and Dango, but I just came out of it feeling like they’re both deranged, and probably shouldn’t see each other ever again. So, they were a dance group, and Chizuru felt like she needed to train separately to make them a better team? And she didn’t tell Dango any of this? She just stopped showing up for practice or talking to him? And he countered by being a violent, possessive creep? Who dealt with his rejection by wishing she was dead? This is who we’re rooting for in this story – these two jerks?

But you said you liked him throwing a rock through the Narumi Detective Agency, which was one of the deranged attitude problem he has. Even Akiko lampshades his attitude problem for him doing whatever he wants, albeit Chizuru isn't blameless either for not explaining. I do experience more commonly for something similar to Chizuru in ghostings though. At least Dango has guilt over this that he realizes that the site actually does kill people, and tries to make it up by making the request to Narumi Detective Agency regarding the site, so he's not all heartless, albeit employing Chandler's Law due to being in doubt. However Phillip still has skewed priorities, only being concerned about Heaven's Tornado and making sure that Dango would perform it later, and tries to reconcile the pair with the Gaia Library. Though yes, I do find it baffling of the miscommunication that escalates worse though it usually happens in KR, it's overdone here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It would help if anyone outside of them could make a case for why they weren’t going to self-destruct in another cloud of toxic codependency, but basically no one else cares. Philip – hilariously, in my favorite recurring gag in the episode – just wants to see Heaven’s Tornado, and could not give less of a shit about the emotional drama between Chizuru and Dango. Shotaro, meanwhile, is hunting down Roachstar, and is entirely outside of the high school attempted homicides and well-intentioned ghostings. Akiko is vaguely rooting for these two crazy kids to work things out, but her attitude is treated as slightly deluded, and not much more than a waved hand towards the obligations of premise. These two kids are awful, and the show’s just like Sure But We’re Moving On.

Apparently the solution Phillip finds to reconcile others is locking them in dark, cramped space, which Akiko claims as a cliche in school stories. It works as they're left with nothing to do, except make amends, but it is indeed baffling for Chizuru to not talk it out regarding just that, including to Dango to ask the reason she hides it, where she doesn't want for him to go easy on her. That'd be a misguided take of being independent or pushing the limits, like Miyabi's dream chasing before. Philip acting like that earns him a slap from Akiko's slipper though. Shotaro also thinks Philip's the real problem that he's hellbent when he wants to learn. And it's questionable logic that he claims Chizuru's leg wasn't hurt that badly just for his optimistic view of his clients. Akiko thinks Philip's changed regarding his expression watching Heaven's Tornado, but he remains the same, losing interest in topics he already learned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It’d maybe not be so bad if it felt like the story of Chizuru and Dango held any lessons for Double, but it really doesn’t. Philip’s story is about finding space to pursue individual passions within a partnership, but that’s not even a little bit what the teenagers are dealing with. Chizuru didn't love swimming, she joined the swim team to feel like less of a burden on Dango. It’s like the show went PARTNERSHIP, and thought it landed some huge point. It didn’t!

The only partnership would be.. Dango with W instead, being one of the few bystanders who take part in the actual fight, as W
implementins some dance-like moves in the fight that confuses Cockroach and getting their Gaia Memories back. The idea to confuse the opponent is a nice idea but the execution still wasn't fully convincing IMO that Cockroach was more acting like sitting duck in some open windows like W and Dango handshaking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

All that, and there’s barely any room for the Fuuto wordbuilding that helped last episode become an enjoyable whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. We get Santa, and that’s about it. (And only two Sonozakis! What a bummer!) It’s fun to see Shotaro use the geography of Fuuto to track down a suspect, but I need more than that.

Cockroach does have some precaution to have no detail in the publishing info of a manga about his own murders, and he relies on the fact that people would think it's actually dark fantasy, or being overconfident that he's invincible as Dopant (there are much others), but the move of publishing manga is still not a smart one for him, it'd just exposing himself to the likes of Shotaro, like revealing where he lives. Ikari is a horrific take of a doujinshi artist, making use of blog and manga for his rotten activities like murder that he views himself as hero for that. But I think it's also an interesting part about this 2 parter.