[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

At least a flashback would be able to get to the point! This episode's just so flabby and drawn-out. It's a lot of stalling until the final minute. I can't imagine a different way of telling this story would be as ineffective, dramatically.

I think the point is not just merely exploring a character story, but also what're they doing, what will they take to achieve, etc. Maybe you feel it's drawn-out, but I think the story purposely wants to show their effort to search for their memories and realize what’s really important to them. With also Shinji returning the favor to Ren from last episode.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I don't know that I'd count "my friend has a traumatic head injury and problems with his memory, I'll let the dude who's known him for three months take the lead on this, I have my brother's disappearance to (finally?) investigate" as showing how Yui cares about Ren, but, okay, sure. It's just, it feels yet again like Yui's being sidelined into a less-important part of the story, the kind with zero action. She just watches Shinji run after Ren, like she's been shackled to the tea shop, and then a few minutes later she just leaves anyway.

How searching for the truth of Shiro a less-important part of the story? Why did Ren got head injury in the first place? Why are people disappearing due to monsters? Why there are fighting among Riders (which gave Ren head injury)? etc.? Shiro is behind all of this. While Shinji tried to fix Ren's current condition, Yui tried to prevent this kind of moment or even worse escalating ones from happening again, as the aim for investigating him was to try to find a way to stop the war, so Ren and Shinji won't have to fight each other or another Rider (he got head injury due to fighting another Rider in the first place), going directly to the person who were behind all.

Besides how will she catch up to those 2. They were riding their bike and Ren already left (and with him forgetting her I doubt he'll let her ride on him), and Shinji's bike is only 1 seater.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

But that's the problem with this episode. It's all This Will Be Important Later, and that makes for a boring Right Now. It's a whole episode for gathering ingredients, but you can't eat the cake until next week. Bad story construction!

This is probably the cons of mystery-type story Ryuki is also a motif for, you have to see the people searching for the truth which later they will find.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

This, it's just, Sometimes A Monster Pops Out. Okay? I guess that's a choice? Like, if there was some way the monsters hunted, or the type of prey they chose, or something. This, it feels like a bizarre escalation, that what few rules it seemed like existed have vanished. If the monsters can, at one time, kill somewhere between one and infinity people, I almost stop caring if the heroes can defeat them. It's too nebulous to care about, too fictional to invest in.

The way the monsters hunted are like I said before, instead of directly making an appearence to attack they attack in stealth mode where they appear from any reflective surface and pull them to the Mirror World (also notice that Riders here must enter the Mirror World to fight, including to other Riders), but they can be mitigated when you cover the reflective surface as with newspapers. The type of prey is just indiscriminate, but if they fail to get that particular person they'll keep chasing after them. The previous monsters eating only 1 person may only happen because there were only 1 person in that place. This case is probably when a Mirror Monster appears in a crowded place and left unchecked (no one's present to fight off the monster). Slowly all the people got eaten. I think you should remember that Volcancer also ate many humans before (aka everyone knows about Sudo's villainy).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Credit where credit's due, yes, that is a cool part of the episode. It's a great point, when a Rider can outwit an enemy to gain an advantage. I just wish the monster meant more to me when Ryuki blew it up.

The monsters would need to exist to feed their Contract Monsters. Like said there the monster of the week stuff never fully goes away, and more on the background the more Riders are introduced, but still needed.