[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 2 - “DESIRE, ICE CREAM, AND A PRESENT”



That ending! That ending is why I burned through this series the first time around.

Through this episode, we’ve been slowly following Hina’s day, and her growing concern that something’s happened to her brother. She eventually finds out that he’s missing after last episode’s Yummy attack, and desperately messages Shingo’s phone – the phone that Eiji picked up, and is being stressed out by the knowledge that Hina’s suffering. Eiji texts her as Shingo, claiming that he’s undercover, and telling her she won’t hear from him for a while. Problem solved, as Hina’s worries are assuaged and she can live blissfully unaware of the fact that Ankh has possessed her brother’s body, and that body is near death without Ankh’s possession.

And then THE VERY NEXT SCENE is Hina running into Ankh, blowing up the entire deception.

That’s what makes OOO such a perfect series to me, the way it never feels precious with its narrative. Storytelling in OOO is like Cell Medals: The actions of the characters are always creating more to be harvested, so don’t worry about gorging yourself right now. A subplot where one female character lives in blissful-if-infuriating ignorance while The Boys go off and have Kamen Rider adventures might be the sort of thing another show would lean on for a dozen episodes – Gavv; I love Gavv, but I hate how the show uses Sachika – but OOO dispatches it with barely a breath of separation, and in the funniest way possible. It’s nothing but delicious cake, all the way through.

Whole episode’s like that, thankfully. Ankh is both an eager storyteller (there is nothing he likes better than talking about himself) and a captivating one, spending a chunk of this episode explaining the mechanics of the Greeed to Eiji. It’s sparkling dialogue, giving Ankh some fun metaphors to illustrate the difference between a whole bunch similar-sounding Proper Nouns, and the standard impeccable chemistry between a pompous Ankh and a game Eiji.

(I honestly... I just sort of didn’t remember Eiji being this cool? I sort of have in my head a picture of him being sort of dopey, or easily misled, but he’s an outstanding scene partner in this episode. Eiji’s harried, and slightly baffled, but he never feels completely overmatched or dimwitted. It’s just the right amount of buy-in to keep the exposition scenes moving without forgetting how bizarre this is all meant to be. The actor nails that tricky balance, and I can’t believe I forgot that.)

Not a completely perfect episode, though? I completely didn’t care about the Yummy in this; CGI nonsense, boring objective. The finale is cool for showing off the new toys – Gotou is a very menacing child, despite all the gifts – but it doesn’t have much juice to the conflict. The heart of this one’s resolution is all in Eiji asserting his need to protect people over Ankh’s laissez-faire view of monster fattening, which is great, but the Yummy is a generic monster to serve as an obstacle. (Even the human genesis of it is just one of the crooks from last time, comedically repurposed by Uva.) Quickly dispatched, and not terribly clever in its implementation.

But everything else! Everything else was delightful, and I didn’t even really talk about the goofy interlude where Hina gets a job at Cous Coussier. (Another insane boss on this show!) Loved seeing this episode talk about the ways that desire is both a useful tool for human civilization, while also being easily weaponized into something harmful. I like Kamen Rider stories where the heroes and villains are using essentially the same resource, but view it in diametrically-opposed ways. Smart episode, brilliantly paced.