[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 16 - “FLASH OF THE F - TAKE BACK YOUR PARTNER”



Berserk forms! I love them.

At the heart of Kamen Rider is the idea of using darkness to fight for justice, and Berserk Forms are the inescapable consequence of that idea. We can’t truly know what the hero is risking until we see them succumb to their denied rage and/or guilt. (Depends on the Rider!) Beyond that… just, like, so cool. I love the distorted body language and horrifying visuals that go along with a good Berserk Form debut – the scene in this one with the burning Gaia Library? Iconic. A good Berserk Form goes a long way to deepening the stakes and characters of a show.

FangJoker's debut story is… y’know, okay.

I love the suit, first and foremost. FangJoker is a beautiful suit, with a classic monochrome color scheme (white, black, a little purple) getting a few tweaks to the Double suit – all them little scratches and gouges and sharp edges. It’s a beautiful suit, regardless of what I’m going to say next.

Which is that I don’t know that this episode does a ton to really center Philip’s struggle, nor does it bother to do a lot with the similar storyline of Fuyumi risking it all for her partner, Kenji.

Let’s start with the second part first! A lot of time is spent over the last two episodes to eventually parallel Fuyumi’s need to risk her freedom to save Kenji from his hardcore Memory addiction, with basically everything going on with Philip, Shotaro, and the Fang Memory. Philip’s fear of losing control in an attempt to save Shotaro is given a counter in Fuyumi’s blind faith in Kenji’s salvation, and… man, I just don’t think this episode all the way gets there? The point is that it’s irrational that Fuyumi wants to save a dude who is completely around the bend, hopped up on USB drives that are drug metaphors, but it sort of doesn’t layer as cleanly on the Philip/Fang/Shotaro dynamic as it sort of needs to, in order to feel like less of someone saying some random thing to trigger Philip’s own problem-solving skills. Kenji never once in this entire story comes off as someone worth saving, or certainly someone who is conflicted AT ALL about mercilessly gunning down anyone and everyone who even looks at him funny. (Dude sets a death trap for laughs!) I don’t know if the takeaway for Philip should really be You Have To Be There For Your Partner Forever Even If They Start Gleefully Killing People And Also Do Not Want To Stop Doing Metaphors For Drugs. Like, I think it’s okay to cut some people out of your life if they are toxic and/or homicidal, but maybe that’s too nuanced of a story for a show designed to sell toys to Japanese children.

Similarly, we really speedrun our way through the Fang story here, don’t we? Fang is introduced in the film as a cool powerup, nbd, and here it’s retconned (fairly, but still retconned) as a horrible violation of Philip’s self-control and autonomy. After that, we’re only a couple Refusal Of The Call scenes away from Philip risking permanent feral psychosis for a cosplay detective, and then a beautifully shot sequence of Shotaro Being There For Philip, and then no more Berserk Form. It feels… a little thin? I don’t know if this one needed to be a three-parter, or if we needed an earlier Fang appearance to really sell the danger (the movie did not help on this one!), or what, but even the conclusion to the story… I don’t know, it’s all a little quick for me. I’d hope for more than just I’m There For You Partner, since this sort of wasn’t ever really a story where Shotaro and Philip weren’t there for each other? Philip isn’t icing out Shotaro, and Shotaro isn’t refusing to work with Philip. There’s a sweetness to the way they’re both there for each other in the end – Philip, by using Fang to rescue Shotaro; Shotaro, by rescuing Philip from Fang – but it doesn’t really feel connected to their story over the last two episodes. It’s like the show was trying to fill in the blanks for Double’s story by pasting in the Fuyumi/Kenji stuff, but, again: not really similar dynamics!

All of which is to say that this concluding installment didn’t really click for me. I like the Gaia Library scene for both its startling imagery and its reaffirmation of the Double team, but I wish more in the episode either built up to it or connected with it. It’s this neat scene in isolation, but sort of clunky in the larger story of a one-episode Berserk Form narrative.

Still… great suit!

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DIE-A MEMORIES



-As much as it doesn’t help him seem redeemable at all, I like that Kenji decided to create a horrifying death trap to emotionally/physically torture Team Double. He’s a really great one-off villain!

-Completely unclear why Santa and Watcherman show up to the Narumi Detective Agency. I guess they really could be there for a Christmas party, just after New Year’s?