[Fish Sandwich]

I still don't feel like this story moved all that much forward, but in just about every other way, I think these two episodes were ultimately a strong showing for Kaneko's first (televised) work on Rider.

One of my bigger issues is that even though it's the crux of the plot, it doesn't really come off as any sort of revelation to me that Hanto is actually a pretty caring dude. Despite having the speech patterns of a street punk and a much more aggressive overall demeanor than our puppy dog main Rider this year, I don't think that's ever really been in question? And sure enough, even here, it's less about challenging Hanto's behavior and causing some change in him, and more about just sort of highlighting an aspect that's more or less always been there.

That's one of those things that makes it a less dynamic narrative than I'd like, but...! And this is where this swings back around into praise! ...I think the fact the plot doesn't try to contort itself to make something like that happen shows what a strong grasp Kaneko has on these characters already. The dynamic between Hanto and Shouma here is spot-on, and this back half of the two-parter really snaps into focus by putting its emphasis more on how these two heroes end up working together to bring the latest monster case to a close.

And the monster case is pretty clever! It's a fun little mystery that takes advantage of the idea of a hermit crab villain in a fairly unique way that makes both the process of getting to the fight scene, and the fight itself, much more interesting. Plus, much like the heroes are written to top form, the villain here gets some perfect scumbag dialogue trying to justify his already inherently repulsive scheme to target children's lives, which means it's that much more satisfying to see the heroes win too.

It makes me feel bad about picking on the last episode, because all throughout, I thought this one was honestly kinda on fire, in a way that made up for whatever it lost by not being the next one from Koumura.

Without knowing how much more of this show isn't going to be from Koumura, I can't say for sure, but my current assumption is that "don't move too much forward" was like, the mission Kaneko was given here, and if that is the case, and it's also the case she'll be writing more episodes later, I feel like she can probably be trusted with a story that's allowed to shake things up more than this one did.

Don't get me wrong, I still want the Christmas story to be from Shimo, but clearly Kaneko's at least got dibs on Valentine's Day after this, right?