[Fish Sandwich]

Ryuki 31-32:

After sitting out the madness in the previous couple episodes, Ouja is back, and it turns out he's really terrible at finding Mirror Monsters. Or maybe he's just unlucky. For guys like Shinji, the dang things seem to pop up left and right, but Asakura feels the need to spend several days stalking a little girl who's being targeted just to feed his own Monsters before they get hungry enough to decide it'd be easier to simply eat Asakura. I've always loved the way the contract Monsters in Ryuki were portrayed. The show never tries to make it seem as though they're reliable partners or even so much as proper allies to the Riders. They're mindless beasts who have nothing on their minds except the next meal, and I like that there was a plot fairly late into the show to remind the viewer of that. It's a super cool part of Ryuki's atmosphere, but like the Monster action in general, it wasn't getting a lot of attention for a bit there. It's been a while since they've actually shown one of them consuming those little energy ball things from the defeated Monsters.

Getting back to the plot, the aforementioned little girl develops something of an attachment to Asakura, which doesn't end as tragically as you might expect, but the show also manages to avoid making him seem soft by stressing how completely one-sided the whole affair is. The crux of the drama is that once Shinji gets involved, he has to wrestle with the decision of whether or not he can let Asakura die, even knowing what a scumbag he is. Seeing this girl genuinely happy to see Asakura around, misunderstanding or not, ultimately pushes him to actively stop Knight and Zolda from trying to take the Monsters' energy for their own, a decision that definitely comes more from the heart than the brain. This is great example of one of the things I love about Shinji's character. He's a truly innocent, pure-hearted individual, but the show doesn't treat his idealism as a feasible solution to everyone's problems. It's a variation on the same attitude Kobayashi has writing OOO, where the story isn't presented in a completely black and white way. You're clearly meant to respect Shinji for his dedication to what he believes in, but his unwillingness to compromise on his morals also gets in his own way a lot of the time, and the show doesn't shy away from that.

Den-O 31-32:

This arc finally reveals exactly why Zeronos using his cards is such a big deal, and as you should be expecting from Den-O at this point, it's done beautifully. One thing that's especially nice is that although Deneb hints at it in dialogue, it's not until the very end where we actually see firsthand what's going on, letting the viewer connect the obvious dots instead of spelling it out. The show understands that words aren't needed at that point. It lets the drama of the moment hit a lot harder, as does the fact that it comes at the end of a plot that was already perfectly building up to it.

I think I'll save talking about exactly what Yuuto's deal is for later (and if you don't already know, you should seriously watch Den-O ASAP. Trust me, you don't want to hear it from me rambling first). Suffice it to say these episodes are extremely well constructed, something I'm probably going to be repeating a lot from here on out. I'm keeping this one a bit short because honestly, I'm at a point in Den-O where just like I did with OOO, I'm going to have to think hard about what to focus on talking about with each arc because there's so much to love. So while I figure that out, I'll leave off by mentioning that 31 has my favorite episode title in the whole show. It helps that the pun is in English for once.

OOO 31-32:

Firstly, Uva reappears after a fairly lengthy amount of time out of the spotlight, and it turns out he was running a smart, sustainable scheme to get a steady stream of Cell Medals while flying under the radar. This is an absolutely amazing example of what I mean about OOO's world feeling real. It actually keeps track of all the pieces on the board, so to speak. It could totally get away with ignoring the subject of where he's been. After all, it wasn't his turn to be in the story yet. But it's justified in a way that's clever and makes logical sense. We've seen Uva has the most self-control of the Greed by far, so having him do something like this while the more brash, immature Kazari hogs all the attention is so natural it's... well, clever and logical. Is it ironic that I can't praise OOO without going in circles?

Secondly, Uva promptly leaves the spotlight during the second episode, with his latest Yummy having been destroyed, making the two parts of this arc feel a little more standalone in a way that doesn't happen often.

And thirdly, like how TaJaDor's debut focused on Ankh, PuToTyra's is focused squarely on Eiji, and I think it succeeds spectacularly on that front. It takes all the information we've been drip-fed over the course of the show, adds some more on, and uses all that to show how tragic his character is under that positive attitude. Everything in the episode supports that perfectly, from playing off of established character dynamics like Date and Hina's respective concern for him, or the Victim of the Week who tries to do something good only to find he's made things worse. It's the kind of episode that makes me so glad I finally got around to rewatching OOO in full. I really do have a habit of taking this show for granted. I knew it was good, but I'm consistently being blown away by just how much depth was actually packed into the story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

Are they part of this rewatch?

I wasn't planning to commit to them, but since I'm flattered you asked, most likely.

The main idea was just to rewatch the shows themselves, but Den-O obviously threw a wrench into that to begin with, and it's going to throw another one in there, because there's 6 more dang movies after the show that I definitely want to watch again anyway. I was planning to loop back around to all the OOO stuff during that, as well as the 13 Riders special and what not. Basically keep the gimmick going.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreshToku

Oh yeah, how could I forget OOO's tragic friendship with Oda Nobunaga played out to ballet music.

I won't lie though, I was genuinely planning to skip Movie War Core simply because I cared that little about it. But this has been super fun so far and part of the idea here is to refresh my memory on this stuff, so I'm kind of looking forward to it at this point. Maybe it was secretly a masterpiece the whole time! Almost certainly not, but I'll at least give it another chance to disappoint me!