[Fish Sandwich]

Holy crap, guys, they actually used Siren Striker right! I know this was in the preview but I'm still shocked to see it!

I wasn't any more enamored with last week's episode than usual, but I have to say, this one REALLY won me over. Despite the somewhat underwhelming nature of Noel not being human (the distinction being so minor the episode itself even has Noel admit it's basically just a technicality), the revelations that spring out of that fact are appropriately juicy. I actually suspected the person Noel wanted to bring back was Arsene Lupin himself, but it's still nice to have all this explicitly laid out.

What I actually find to be much more important than any of that, though, is all the drama surrounding Noel here, especially where it concerns the Patrangers, who I think were unarguably the real stars here. They essentially clear Noel's name completely independent of anything he does, and their continued faith in him and his motivations (especially on Keiichirou's part) seems to almost deliberately say more about how heroic they are than it does about him. Stuff like this is a huge part of the reason I actually like Noel. You can certainly argue his character could stand to be taken down a peg or two more, but in my opinion the show has never expected the audience to buy his hype, and, subtle as it is, he's had a clear character arc of learning to truly appreciate how much his teammates are too good for him (rather than the other way around), something emphasized all throughout this two-parter, especially with the very last scene in this episode.

One last thing to note is that they also did a better job with the foreshadowing than I expected. For example, while they cheated a bit by not having the special effect before Noel pulled his gun on the Patrangers last week, they also went out of their way not to show his facial expression when he pulled the trigger.

Just a darn good set of episodes, and the kind of solid story that makes me feel bad for saying episodes of this show not written by Junko Koumura are notably worse, which is definitely not the case here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bionichute

villains don't sell well in japan

You know, this is a piece of wisdom I hear a lot, and I think we all take it for granted sometimes, but exactly what basis does this really have in fact? Can it really be that simple when Bandai is still pumping out Genm merchandise well after Kamen Rider Ex-Aid ended? Or when Ultraman's monsters are almost as iconic as he is?

I don't doubt there's some truth to this, but even with this very show, the cool guy anti-hero Lupinrangers are apparently infinitely more popular with kids than the straight-laced Patrangers.