[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 13 - “Q ON THE RADIO - PRINCESS UNDER FIRE”



A+ episode, pretty much all the way through.

Wakana is my favorite Sonazaki member, and I feel like this episode is a great reason why. This is a story where she’s being targeted by a deranged Dopant stalker (the Gaia Memory is “Violence”? What?) and yet the tension for her isn’t physical danger or a loss of security – it’s that she likes her dumb radio job, and this psychopath is ruining her reputation. The story is adamant that that all the things we saw before are true for Wakana – the brattiness, the hostility, the manipulation, the haughtiness – while asking us to find some sympathy as she risks losing the one escape she has from a supernatural crime family. And it totally works.

Some of that, of course, is because of Wakana’s interactions with Shotaro and Philip. She completely doesn’t remember Shotaro from earlier in the season, which punctures his ego in exactly the right way. He basically immediately falls out of love with her, because he always needs to be seen as A Cool Guy – he even does his internal narration back to her as a pick-up line! (Also funny is that Wakana seems to have already forgotten that Akiko was her wacky maid a couple weeks back, and I think I love that script oversight -slash- genius narrative decision.) But Philip, that’s the interesting part. She respects Philip, and Philip consistently has her back. He never doubts the need to protect her from the Violence Dopant, and he never takes the bait of Shotaro’s badmouthing. Between Shotaro’s uncharacteristic ambivalence to saving a beautiful woman, and Philip’s uncharacteristic insistence on working this case, Wakana’s presence shakes up the W format in really entertaining ways.

And, like… a lot of it is the performances. Everyone’s doing their best work this episode, perfectly nailing exactly what the script requires of them: Wakana turns on a dime in most scenes, switching between Performative Innocence for dopey dudes and Petulant Menace for anyone stupid enough to get in her way; Kirihiko is always colossally out of his depth, while giving off an unearned air of superiority; Saeko is Just Trying To Help, but generally trying to ruin Wakana’s happiness for sport; Shotaro is crestfallen that a woman he didn’t know is different than he imagined, which is a perfect trait for a half-boiled detective; and Philip mixes his usual genius focus with a rare bit of pride in his results, since they seem to make Wakana happy. Everyone in this is great, to a startling degree – like, this is only the 13th episode! They should still be a little rough around the edges!

But no, they’re all great, and even the mystery is a fun little runner for the episode. It’s a mystery where each stage gets the cast involved, rather a problem they have to deduce well after the fact. It’s more Escape Room than Crime Scene, you know? Fun energy.

This one was… man, best episode so far? Really, really great. I could watch Wakana do that little side-mouthed *TT* for another half-hour, easy.

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DIE-A MEMORIES



-Hello, story-right-before-the-winter-movie! Creepy skull-faced urban legend makes a fiery appearance in the first radio show portion of the episode, while the Masquerade Memory makes a quick, laughably-underpowered showing against Clay Doll.

-Pretty sure I remembered the culprit(s) of this one, so I didn’t want to talk too much about the effectiveness of the actual mystery part of the mystery plot. Feels pretty obvious who the main Dopant is in this one, at the very least.

-Huge episode for Philip’s secret past, obviously. Nice to see the show playing fair with the eventual reveal, even if Philip’s need for secrecy seems to flare up in direct proportion to Wakana’s presence in the plot. Double hasn’t connected the dots yet on Wakana being a part of the organization that Philip was rescued from, so there’s kind of no major reason why Philip can’t be seen by Wakana… other than Massive Plot Reasons.