[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 45 - “WHAT K DEMANDS – THE DEVIL’S TAIL”

It’s a good penultimate story for a noir mystery superhero series, even if it robs the show of the fun, looser vibes of a traditional Dopant Dilemma. (I mean, this thing kicks off with Team Double Is Hired By Lady Indiana Jones, so it still left a little room to goof around.) There’s a safety in the status quo, and what comes next can only alter it. Maybe it’s okay if Philip never learns the truth about his past, and can just make up something that lets him feel safe? Maybe it’s okay if Shotaro just protects Fuuto around the edges, rather than confront Ryuube and risk everything? Maybe it’s okay if Kyoko doesn’t open the Evil Tail box, and convinces herself that the admired museum curator isn’t a USB drug metaphor kingpin and global supervillain? We’re in a noir mystery, and that means the truth is frequently more dangerous than a lie.

Interesting dilemma here, to get a client, but with a case that'd help their enemy, and it's shown in Akiko refusing it and trying to warn something, but Shotaro would instead accept it. As Akiko questions Shotaro, he accepts due to being a chance to find Ryubee's secrets. Like before, Akiko's significantly more cooperative now compared to the very beginning, to just question his decision instead of throwing her chief position around. Her heart is in the right place, but there's surely still room of improvements, slapping Shotaro with a slipper is unnecessary if she can do that instead. Though Akiko can climb up well, she can't climb down when following after Shotaro and Kyoko.As usual, Akiko's bizzare antics somehow ends up accidentally providing an advantage by using her slippers as dowsing rods as Shotaro finds the Evil Tail by digging in the spot Akiko's slipper points to (and the slipper moves by itself like a compass).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Which is exactly what happens, right down the line. Every answer we’re given puts our cast in greater jeopardy, but they’re not all equal in narrative weight. For one, I don’t love the revelation that Shotaro has been subconsciously avoiding a confrontation with Ryuube because of the Terror Memory’s evil fear powers. While it’s fine if that’s the case, we already had a perfectly good explanation for why Shotaro didn’t launch an assault on the Sonozaki compound: he’d immediately be killed. The various Museum lieutenants in residence were generally enough to make a frontal assault foolish, and the Terror Dopant was exponentially more powerful. Frankly, the thought of attacking Ryuube has never even come up in the show past their first run-in, and that’s because it was obviously a non-starter. To say that Shotaro’s been avoiding that dude because he’s petrified… like, maybe the series could’ve included a single scene of everyone being in favor of fighting Ryuube, and Shotaro being against it? Maybe once?

Emotion manipulation is rather powerful in KR franchise, due to the fighters only being strong when they're in KR form, it's very vulnerable for Shotaro to stand still in middle of battle as he's a normal human outside of Rider form, though at least Philip manages to get him henshin to W. But even when Accel has unique physiology against Terror's ability, Terror shows that he's more than just mental attacks, showing his another ability to turn himself into his advanced form Terror Dragon that is house-sized (enough for Trial's speed), similar to Dopants such as T-Rex or Quetzalcoatlus (which Isaka seeks). For the revelation, it seems to be about how Ryubee is also able to use the Terror power even on human form, making Shotaro tremble, claiming that Shotaro never did anything against the fact that Ryubee's the head of the Museum, due to his body subconsciously avoiding coming near to his estate out of fear. As Terui notes, Terror's power is amplifying someone's fear. About you claiming he'd be immediately be killed to have fear by himself, really there's nothing to fear as shown in next.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

But the revelation that Philip is just the Earth’s memory of Raito… I like that better? Beyond being a wrinkle that doesn’t ask us to square some weird circle, it makes the Sonozaki family’s utilization of Raito into something a bit more sensible. Ryuube didn’t see Raito as anything more than a tool, because Raito was already dead; what came back was a glorified Gaia Memory, so who cares? In retrospect, Wakana’s between-scenes dismissal of Philip makes a sort of sense – if Ryuube told her the truth about Philip, she’d probably also see him as less than human. (It’s a stretch, though. Doesn’t exactly redeem Wakana’s abrupt turn, even if it maybe sketches out a rationalization for it.) Also, man, to drop this thing directly after the movie where Team Double fights a reanimated child that was just like Raito? Brilliant.

When Philip was born, Wakana was 4 and Saeko was 13. Both older sisters have "bad numbers" (death and unlucky numbers) for their age when Raito was born, probably explains Sonozaki in a nutshell. He then gets Mick at age 3, then at age 5 Ryubee discovers the contact to Earth's consciousness, with a research team named "the fountain", and then Raito.... falls inside a hole. Phillip did fear about the truth reason, and that was for a good reason that he's utterly shocked to learn that he may've potentially died young, with unknown means on how he got to grow up now. The book/truth is as scary as he imagined. Wakana again tries to yank Philip away from the heroes, but of course to help Museum's cause (other than abrupt turn, Wakana trying to take Philip away still feels like the extreme version of her plan at ep. 39-40 to run away before her turn).

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

We’re in a story that’s largely about setting up the final pieces for the finale three-parter, as well as tying up whatever loose ends remain for our year-long narrative, but the episode allows most of that exposition and revelation to come alongside a few good fights (Mick! Twice!) and a substantial atmosphere of dread. Nothing’s dispensed in a dry or analytical way; it’s all bombshells, straight through.

Ryubee's motive is revealed now that he's driven by how many species, the ones who he keep at Museum, has been extinct now, and that he feels humanity will face the same fate with their current path, thus he wants to secure humanity's future by uniting them with Earth. Gotta praise that it's interesting that the Museum isn't only a random unrelated job to cover his acts, but it's a driving factor for his motive too. So he's a well-intentioned extremist, as there are many better ways to ensure humanity's survival than uniting them with Earth, or especially unleashing superpowers that can accelerate humanity's extermination, and his root of his motivation is interesting one with the parallel. Still I'd want to see more of his work being related towards achieving his goal like unleashing Gaia Memory to the citizens they've been doing all the time.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

DIE-A MEMORIES

-Kyoko is a fun character, and I’m glad that it’s not the easy gag of Shotaro lusting after the pretty new client. They got friction, and not the possibly-romantic kind. Kyoko just immediately gets on Shotaro’s nerves, as two pulp archetypes are bound to do.

Kyoko's like Bitou before for a client with a slapstick quirk, but with bullwhip rather than finger snap, such as tying up Shotaro and dragging him to the office, and later being the one in charge among the Narumi crew to whip both Shotaro and Akiko to remind them that it's a precious excavation site, and both submit to her. As a curator for a museum, it explains why she'd have country-themed outfit. Kyoko has some physical prowess before where Shotaro compliments her for her climbing skills, so when Wakana tries to capture her as a sneak-thief, she'd try to break free, albeit she ends up knocked down.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

-It honestly never occurred to me, but clearly neither Double nor Accel ever knew that Mick was a cat, not a cat-man. Terui gets so mad when he finds out that he’s had multiple stalemate fights against a housecat, and it’s great.

As even super fast Accel Trial was unable to keep up with the present Smilodon, Philip shows his non-pragmatic intellect again to point out that their mistake is fighting Smilodon as he's a human... and with CycloneMetal, W decides to instead pet Smilodon, with flashbacks of Ryubee doing it, using Metal Shaft in place of a spoon, which worked, thus leaving Smilodon open to CycloneMetal's Maximum Drive with a Stag Beetle, Metal Stag Break, creating a projection of a mandible with a green wind to bind Smilodon, breaking Smilodon's driver and reverting him back to Mick. Philip explains further that Mick's pose is when he got a special food to eat, and assures him that he won't become a Dopant anymore. Still wonder if an animal becoming one would have their Dopant actions in control (thus making Mick an evil animal), at least Smilodon was sentient enough to track down Evil Tail before.