[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Way too many things I remember strongly from this finale to talk about right now. Perhaps chief among them is the phrase かけがえのない不自由, from Yomogi's conversation with Sizumu at the end, which is once again some insanely specific and nuanced word choice, and I think a lot of that gets lost in the subtitles' "irreplaceable bonds", which settles for bluntly getting the broad point across and trusting the rest to the larger context of the whole scene, which, you know, fair, I guess, because it's a tricky couple of words, and also a very good scene that'll probably get a viewer the rest of the way there.

I am for sure a fan of that scene! It's such a great distillation of the conflicting viewpoints of Sizumu and Yomogi, and how each of them is viewing the events of the series in diametrically opposed ways. Sizumu sees the bonds between people as necessary to get you to the point where you can figure yourself out, at which point those people are simply holding you back; they're a booster rocket, and then they're an anchor. But to Yomogi, figuring yourself out is most useful in preparing you to form bonds with other people; the point of self-improvement is to make you more able to connect with others. That scene is both of them being frustrated at the other's inability to see how they're each getting it backwards, which causes them to talk past each other.

And it's all symbolized through these infinite bars, which to Yomogi are This Is How I Reach You, This Is How We Connect, but to Sizumu, they're This Is Why I Can't Reach You, This Is A Prison.

Really good scene!