[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 44 - “THE O CYCLE - SHROUD’S CONFESSION”

So, first thing’s first: Shroud just completely abandons her two daughters to a life of USB drug metaphor enmonstering, right? Like, her whole tearful confession to Terui is that Ryuube stole her son, and she was forced to become Shroud in order to wage a multi-year shadow war to destroy her husband, but… she definitely walks out on those two crying little girls, right? Because we see her do it? On camera? Just, walks out the door? And no one involved in listening to this confession bothers to flag that up as being sort of monstrous, and hilariously hypocritical? We all saw that? Okay, cool.

Shroud is only marginally better than Ryubee, "helping" the heroes won't necessarily mean she's good, she just wants to exact revenge, only that her target happens to be a deserving one, it's a case of evil vs evil with what had she done, as she admits that her giving Weather Memory to Isaka is because, as shown later, he wants to take down Terror too; any means if it'd create a hero (anti-hero at first for Terui) or villain (evil vs evil in Isaka against Ryubee). To rely on at least both Isaka or Terui and pit them against each other (motivating Terui by Isaka's murder of his family) regardless of what'd happen to both, it's as if they're put in brutal competitive situation to "improve" each other, trying to one up each other. She also wants to draw strength from Terui's hatred by molding him as Raito's partner and fight as W CycloneAccelXtreme, getting rid of Hidari via Old. Shroud treats everyone as her tools, which explains how she glorifies cold detached traits. For this part, Ryubee can have a real sadistic side to his family, other than using Raito as a tool due to him being Earth itself, he disposed of Fumine with Terror Memory, along with an evil laugh, which is IMO quite deviating from how he usually is, like even if he wants to punish Saeko for rebelling, but it seems to be out of necessity other than outright maliciousness unlike the flashback.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Putting aside the sort of half-assed way this show decides to try and redeem Shroud after a season of machinations (I love how she’s just like I’ll Stop Helping Altogether – you can’t still make cool weapons without shitting all over Shotaro or aiding and abetting serial killers?), this was a pretty fun episode with a terrific moral center. It’s ballsy to land the episode’s dismissal of revenge as just a way of not processing your own anger on TERUI, but that’s pretty much why it works at all. This story needs a guy who’s walked that path to not only reject it once and for all (since he’s got Shroud to thank for Isaka getting the Weather Memory), but also finally understand that you’ll never fill a hole inside yourself with hatred, but you might be able to with love. It’s a very sweet message for Terui to sell.

As for this episode Kumi's turned old just like Miyu, as Yoshie hired Ager to turn Kumi old to take revenge. Yoshie is proud of her actions, reveling in Mitsuko feeling the same misery as she did. While I'd still say Yoshie's the lesser evil as I'd consider the one who started shit as worse rather than someone who retaliated, two wrongs don't make for a right, as this harms an innocent, Kumi, treating the actual victim only as a means to an ignoble end. Terui points out that Yoshie only satisfies her hatred instead of doing anything right, overlooking the fact that both of the daughters are obviously miserable for something none of their fault. It's just Ryoko Yui's thing to play terrible moms (later as Irumi in Geats), albeit in this case, the victim isn't own child but other's.

As the headmaster begs for forgiveness to the moms of doing something out of love to their children, Terui later compares Shroud's situation into the moms, doing all of her wicked shit for Philip's sake. Indeed, Shroud is the combination of both moms, she has Mitsuko's thing for getting rid of people who are obstacles to your end (Shotaro, Miyu) and her obsession to create CycloneAccelXtreme also makes her a stage mom for her son Raito as well, and also Yoshie's thing for taking revenge to someone who wronged them (Ryubee, Mitsuko) and harming innocents in the process (Terui's family + her other victims, Miyu), the 2-parter nicely sets up a parallel for Terui to completely denounce revenge ways, witnessing the destruction it can cause via the petty moms, as well as Shroud herself taking away Terui's family in her quest of revenge.

The moms are referred to as morons because really, revenge by proxy isn't practical either, it'd have a risk of earning even more enemies, like getting other relatives or potentially friends involved to help their respective favored person, escalating the revenge, as people who seek revenge forget that they won't always hold the upper hand, and as Saeko said before, it's wrong for Terui to assume that Isaka's death means it's over, in reality there's no end to vengeance. Yoshie did bring up about human nature to pay back for those who wronged them, but doesn't mean that if something is naturally predisposed to a certain act or state, it must be accepted. It seems that struggle can make some villains more subdued, and Saeko (a name resembling "psycho" in pronounciation) at Foundation X Arc seems to be W's take of it, sort of being willing to "cooperate" with Terui, like for other series, Gentoku cooperating with Sento/Banjou after Hokuto attacks, but doesn't mean that the villains are redeemed or such, just being forced by circumstances.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I like how this one… it’s just about needing one person to stop a cycle of hatred and vengeance, and it sort of doesn’t even matter who. Just be the person that forgives, and let that form a counter-reaction to all the spreading hatred and pain of revenge; collateral kindness. Terui could try and kill Shroud, but who’s that going to make happy? And who might he inadvertently hurt if he does it – Philip, probably? Shroud’s spent years on all of her dumb schemes, and it didn’t get her anything other than isolation and rage. Maybe trying to solve these problems with love is worth a shot.

Kinda underselling it, Terui sets up to prove to Shroud that hatred isn't the only thing needed to defeat the forces of evil, wishing for Shroud to observe their fight, where Accel uses his unique physiology again to block Old's ooze directed at W, giving W a chance to directly strike Old as Xtreme. By this, like Yoshie, Shroud loses some common sense in her pursuit of revenge as well, where Accel simply needs to tank the ooze and let his allies strike the opponent, or focus on getting rid of Shotaro forgetting that he's just more addition for those who'd take down Terror, even was surprised when Terui mentions 3 of the Riders to do the job. Or even if what Shroud wants is getting Raito back, currently he's no longer with Sonozaki family, so there's no restriction of her being together with Raito/Philip without using convoluted schemes.

Fortunately, Shroud isn't irredeemable, as the Riders get through her, successfully proving her wrong, as she now regretted her actions like how Isaka turns out to be such monstrous creature that causes many deaths. Terui accepts her apology, with rather clever words, a comforting one but still not forgetting her atrocity, that she doesn't need to hurt anyone again now (can seem to be giving slap in the wrist to those bitter of villain's actions, but by this she won't do bad stuff to others anymore). Overall I'd view this 2-parter as one of the best in the series, with convincing way of showing the damages of a negative human trait, a crucial plot twist and story advance, a smart parallel between the main and side story, and the conclusive character development.

Though this'd mean CycloneAccelXtreme will never appear, if there'd be those who are disappointed in that. There's Climax Heroes OOO game that featured playable CAX, but is mostly a palette swap for CycloneJokerXtreme (but with Engine Blade in place of Prism Sword), but had the Prism Breaker move replaced by Engine Memory slashes, as well as no finisher (for being bonus character).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

With all the time spent on Shroud’s redemption and Terui’s humanity, there really isn’t a ton else to talk about from this one. The fight scenes continue to be a delight, as Takaiwa incorporates a bunch of Old Guy body language to the usual CycloneJoker repertoire, and the Old Dopant makes for a fun, sleazy foe. This one’s basically all Terui becoming a real part of Team Double by fighting for Shotaro and Philip’s version of heroism, while finally and definitively closing the door on revenge as a way of dealing with pain. (I mean, it helps that he already killed the guy who killed his family, but I don’t want to ruin the moment.) And it’s all the better for its tight focus on a compelling story, and an admirable moral. Perfect two-parter!

Old justifies his actions as making others happy (commonly said by main Rider types), which would also appeal to human's dark nature of wanting to see others miserable, thus he'd have completely no qualms of doing that if it's what his customers ask. At his very best, within his twisted mind, it'd be another picking favorites, only caring about his customers, complying to their request, but others be damned. Or it's just an excuse to profit off others by exploiting said human's dark nature, as he did say that he wants to prolong human vendetta to each other as he escapes, letting them gain their temporary happiness of having the upper hand in their vendetta, but one upped by their opposition who'd also be happy too regaining the upper hand, and so on. Old escapes due to Xtreme Memory beating him. Silly me to forget that, even without being used by W, Xtreme Memory is still a formidable fighter by itself, it fended off Weather in its early appearance.

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Originally Posted by Enchilada645

Shroud is still an amusing character to me, and while her backstory finally being unveiled adds some depth, it definitely just makes her more comical. Just on the obvious pointing out of her abandoning her daughters instead of you know, taking them with her (granted that would've still turned out terribly). Or moreover on how Terui is like "You really didn't want this to happen, you've still got a nice spot in you" when connecting the flowers at the grave and Shroud's spot. Which is more amusing given her more dangerous tricks which involve exploding mountains to make boulders rain down or lighting stuff on fire.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

This two-parter is great, but then you realises that both stage moms admitted to aiding and abetting a criminal in this two-parter. Surely that’s grounds for jail time? (And also, why didn’t the second one to use him just ask Old to revert her daughter to the correct age?)

Feels as if someone didn't do bad things out of malice, the writing is blamed to question why they take this decision rather than the more sensible one. Nah, someone can be bad outside of malicious reasons. Yoshie is meant to be a parallel to Shroud (one half of it, both moms are) to perform revenge by proxy. By this, for not taking the daughters, not that Shroud is a wonderful mom to Philip either, Shroud is also a stage mom, she gaslit Philip (e.g. to remove Shotaro), and uses him as a tool as revenge against Museum, and forcing him to abide in her ways, fighting Ryubee as CycloneAccelXtreme fueled by destructive hatred. Even if Shroud took Philip, she was a terrible parent to him too.

Indeed the moms abetted a known criminal, and Terui did confront them, albeit Terui probably sees no need if they did listen to his criticism and changed, as law is done to make sure others won't repeat their misdeeds. Terui seemed to get through to them as after he calls them out (as someone formerly hellbent on revenge), they just hug their crying children respectively.