[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 17 - 18



There's a little bit of the show trying to have it both ways with this story. It wants to do a Horrors Of War story, with guilt, and fear, and sacrifice, but it also wants to poke fun at those tropes. It's intermittently successful, but this is still one of the weaker outings for Kamen Rider Build.

There's a lot to cover this time, since (way more than the last two) this is the story that really feels like it's kicking off the next stage of Build. Hokuto's invaded Touto, sending their most fearsome weapon: three idiots and the world's laziest Kamen Rider. Yep, it's the introduction of Kamen Rider Grease and the Hokuto Three Crows! If there's stuff that works in this story, it's largely down to their introduction and piss-taking attitudes. It's tough to do a serious, melodramatic scene with these four characters. Grease is the sleepiest badass I've ever seen, and the Crows are just dopey-ass henchmen. I mean, I shouldn't say "just". The Crows have some good comedic chemistry, but it's predominantly of the "wacky" variety, something I was pretty much hoping Build could entirely avoid. It was not to be! They're portrayed as a threat, but it's hard to see them as more than chatty Smashes, not worth spending too much time on or with. Grease, though, that dude's awesome. He gets some super funny gags in, he's got a clear moral code, and he's more than a match for Sento and Banjou. If Stalk is going to have to take a step back for a bit, and Rogue has his hands full, Grease is a nicely charismatic villain (I mean, "villain", there's no way this dude doesn't eventually join the team, he's too cool) to keep things feeling dangerous.

Take away Grease and the Crows, though, and I think there's a couple of misfires in this episode.

It's interesting, I guess, that the show wants to do a thing with how Sento and Misora both feel responsible for the destruction in Touto. The execution, I don't know if worked out at all. Sento's guilt over Takumi's actions, like, I feel like we just covered this last episode? I know there's a war on now, but we literally just covered this, and resolved it. It's weird to do that story, and then immediately do that story again. I'm not saying there can't be nuance, a reexamination of culpability with regards to higher stakes, but, like, can we wait a few weeks? Go to that well too often, it's going to run dry.

The Misora misfire is smaller, maybe, but more troubling. After some nicely understated emotional storytelling last story, in this one we get Wracking Sobs and WHY, WHY DID THIS HAPPEN, Pounding On The Sidewalk, the whole gamut of bad melodrama. Sure, it's because she maybe (almost definitely) armed a monsterized insurgency, and yeah, the Crows immediately crack wise about it, but the show still did a full To The Cheap Seats bit of bad writing and bad acting. Crack wise if you think it'll help, but also maybe just write it better in the first place? If shit like that keeps happening, you can't paper over it with jokes forever.

That said, there's a bunch of great jokes in this. The Crows intro, Grease's nearly breaking his hand and getting lost, Sento's genre savvy (he knows that the secondary Rider can't ever be more powerful than the main Rider!!!), Grease's Miitan fandom, it's not like the show stopped being Build. Still funny. It did, however, stop being also W, and started being also Gaim.

I got a huge Gaim vibe off of this one, and maybe, retroactively, for the season? Like Gaim, there really hasn't been much in the way of Monsters Of The Week. The few Smashes that are people, those are the early parts of an episode or a way to get at larger arc stuff. And it's been 95% larger arc stuff since, like, episode 5. Gaim had the same thing, where the villains all have personalities, goals, quirks. It's not just some random stranger with a problem to solve who becomes a monster for two episodes. Build's been similar to Gaim's early stages, and now it's a full-on city-occupying war between rival Kamen Riders who want an all-powerful McGuffin, soooooo... Yeah, bit of a Gaim vibe!

Anyway, this two-parter, not my favorite. The action was solid, I'm ambivalent about the Sclash suits (Grease yes, Cross-Z no), I love how Military Adam Driver could not care less about how Sento motivates himself to fight in the war (Rogue is not your goddamn therapist!), and the various arc machinations are very, very appealing. There's just some nuts-and-bolts emotional storytelling that feels off-base. Hopefully just a hiccup, because this series is still doing a lot right.