[Kamen Rider Die]

FUUTO P.I. EPISODE 3 - “BEWARE OF T - THE MASKED DEFENDER”



I guess the easiest way to differentiate the continuation of W with the original series to give Shotaro an arc instead of Philip?

Shotaro’s character arc on W… I mean, it was very much the supplementary story to Philip’s amnesia. It’s there in fits and starts, but him becoming a more confident and capable version of himself… it’s not a goal, like Philip’s quest for his missing memories is. Shotaro goes through a few discrete stories of failure and self-discovery, but they aren’t really in service of some underdeveloped aspect of his character, or some crucial piece of information that changes how we view him. They’re just good short stories that test his attributes, and solidify his resolve. They’re not really anything that pushes him permanently (or even longer than past a second episode) out of his comfort zone.

So, yeah, give him a new partner that’s also a love interest! (A million W fanfics suddenly cry out in anger.) Tokime is a character that’s specifically here to show a new side of Shotaro, and that’s a really good idea. Every time Shotaro’s had a potential love interest on W – as Philip points out to Akiko – they did not last very long. Now Tokime’s hanging around past the point where she’d traditionally leave Shotaro’s life for good, and it’s making things refreshingly weird. We get to see the apartment Shotaro apparently owns! (I honestly just assumed he slept in that little alcove off to the side of the office?) Shotaro has to deal with an apprentice-slash-partner-slash-femme fatale! Shotaro I guess sleeps entirely in his suit and hat inside a sleeping bag! This is all very cool and new!

That’s the absolute end of the episode, but it’s just the start of how refreshing and entertaining this wrap-up to our inaugural mystery was. The ability to stretch out a mystery into three parts not only gave us a middle section that was able to take its time with the character beats, but now we get a concluding chapter that’s a 10-minute long fight/chase scene with the Road Dopant – showcasing the visual inventiveness of the animation team – followed by a several minute long denouement where we not only find out the bizarre ways Tokime’s “powers” work (man, come on, a fishing line, get outta here with that) but an entire extra Dopant culprit!

Having Chuuta be a Dopant basically turns this into an advanced version of Kamen Rider W’s normal conclusions, and that’s incredibly fun. It’s not strictly necessary, and the episode would’ve been fine if he’d just been some lovestruck dope that simped off back to the farmland, but this episode delves deeper than that. From the first episode, we thought we were in a story about a man who was in love with something that was more dangerous than he realized, and we actually were – but not how we thought. Chuuta’s addiction to a USB drug metaphor breaks Shotaro’s heart, since that’s the part of Fuuto he’s dedicated himself to eradicating. Chuuta came to Fuuto as a farmboy, and left it a Memory addict. It’s an incredibly sweet moment in the show, to see Shotaro not only break down this guy’s bullshit facade, but also beg him not to let addiction ruin his life any more than it already has. To truly be the start of a new run of Kamen Rider W, you need to have a definitive half-boiled Shotaro moment, and this one was perfect.

I really, really liked how this all wrapped up. The action was high-octane and propulsive (W-G-X, the new version of W-B-X, as the chase music!), the mystery resolution was layered and surprising, and the character work was consistently strong. (I love that Akiko hired Tokime to be Shotaro’s assistant and then forgot to tell him. Akiko! Still my favorite member of Team Double!) While part of me has some slight trepidation about trading out Akiko for Tokime in the role of Partner That Actually Goes Outside With Shotaro, I have hopes the change will create a dynamic that’s as weird and different as this episode ended up. Great conclusion to a solid three-parter!