[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODES 20 - 21



I definitely feel at sea on the overall plot of this season. There's so many weird variables, from the Unknown to the superpowered folks to Spooky Man and Not-Shouichi to however Mana's dad and uncle figure in... it's a whole lot of ideas without a ton of clarity. I get that the Unknown are killing people with superpowers, but beyond that, I can't find much purchase. I am adrift.

Luckily, it seems like the meat of a two-parter is shifting away from Random Monster Attack towards People Are Complicated, which is a change I am 1000% in favor of.

This one's mostly about Aki, insane with power and slaughtering the cops who shot up Gills. (She's very excited to be killing people, all smiles. It's not work if you love what you do, I guess!) Aki's a tricky character, in that I never really got a sense of what she was about. She wants Agito to protect her, but we never learn how she knew to go to Shouichi. She wants to make a new life with Ryou, despite meeting him the day before while she was running a con trying to convince Shouichi she was his girlfriend. Then she gets powers, kills cops, draws the attention of the Unknown, and instigates what looks to be a truly epic three-way battle between our Riders. (Knowing this show, though, it'll wrap up in about five seconds due to a contrivance. This show don't love long fights these days!) She never felt like a character I understood, she felt like a series of plot complications. She knows way more than she lets on, but leaves things maddeningly cryptic. She also has zero chemistry with Ryou, rendering their tragic, doomed love story more inferred than witnessed. I'm not going to miss her, is I guess what I'm getting at.

But, you know, I still think the storytelling was more interesting than a monster attack would've been. While I never got a handle on Aki's character overall, I could understand her motivations in this story. Revenge, fear, hope, freedom, these are all human emotions that are great fuel for action-adventure television. Aki's not an unknowable creature, she's a woman that can be bargained with, threatened, appealed to... I mean, she can actually talk to our heroes, which is a massive step up from the Unknown. She's a far more intriguing antagonist to me than another rubber-masked nameless monster who grunts and screams. There was tension in some of the turns of this one, wondering what she'd do and how the heroes would react. It may sound like faint praise, but I'll take a human story about a character I don't totally get over a straightforward A Monster Shows Up Until Agito Kills It story every single time.

Agito as a series is in a weird phase. There's so much left frustratingly mysterious about what the hell is going on with all of the players, and we're nearly halfway done with this series. That's not fun for me. But the monster-of-the-week plots are becoming more nuanced, and less repetitive, which is a welcome development. I guess I'm cautiously optimistic about what comes next, but there are definitely a few things for this show to fix.

That said, the one thing they do not have to fix are Houjou and Nijou. Every scene with them kills, and this story pairs them up for some action, some humor, and some insightful conversations about the innate goodness of humanity. I loved, loved that Houjou views humanity as inherently good because he views himself as inherently good. That is such a weird, unexpected inversion of what you'd expect from a judgmental narcissist. That is, god, that is brilliant writing. I think it totally works, though. Houjou sees himself as a caring, empathetic man, hindered by weak fools and clumsy oafs. He upholds virtues like honesty and justice, despite being a manipulative coward, and he does it because he believes humans are worth saving and protecting. I wish every character on this show was as complex and surprising as Houjou. He's the star of this show. He validates Masked Rider Agito as a concept.