[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER RYUKI EPISODE 44



So, Sano and Toujou.

I was three paragraphs into talking about this episode, and I just deleted it all. My head's a mess of thoughts about this one, about the arc of Sano and the ongoing journey of Toujou, about the importance of telling this story, about how it's necessary to explain the difference between want and need when it comes to character motivation, about what friendship means to characters that aren't happy with themselves, about how goals are meaningless if you don't understand why you're pursuing them, about the tragedy of having something to protect in a story that makes that a weakness.

There's a lot in this episode, and I really loved it, but it's almost too much to talk about. So this, this one's going to maybe be more feverish and scattered than usual.

Ha ha, wrote another one and a half paragraphs, deleted 'em. Man! Why is it so hard to talk about this episode?

The main thing in it that I liked is how it's exploring the idea of motivations, of want vs need. There's a hollowness to Sano and Toujou's characters, as they're driven more by what they want (wealth, respect, love) than what they need. They'll do horrible things to get what they want, but there's this sense that they're not sure having it will help. Toujou especially. His confession to Sano, that he thinks being a hero will make people love him, it's heartbreaking. It's the saddest thing I've probably seen on this show. But it's not the sort of all-consuming drive that Ren has to save Eri, or Kitaoka has to save Kitaoka. It's not the sort of pressure he'll need to survive these battles. It's this hope that maybe this goal will validate his suffering, will be the thing that allows him to feel loved. It's a sadness straining to give itself context. He keeps trying to activate that level of commitment, to transform want into need, but it's all play-acting. It's going through the motions. He can't find happiness because he sees happiness as an external thing, something to be captured or obtained. It's tragic, his character.

Aaaaaand that's a whole paragraph on Sano that got deleted.

Jesus. This episode!

I don't know. Really gotta think on this one. It's doing something inside my brain. It's like it destroyed the concept of vocabulary, like all I can do is just point at it and go HOW DID THEY MAKE ME SO SAD ABOUT THESE TWO VILLAINS.

I don't even know how to talk about Sano in this. I've been writing and deleting dumb things for an hour, probably. I'll have a way in, I'll think, and then it'll just be nonsense. Dumb stuff about how he gains something to protect when it's most dangerous to have it. I think there's something there, about how the show makes a character's strength the same as his weakness, but I don't know how to talk about it for Sano. I don't know how to talk about this episode at all, it feels like. I don't think I've ever had an episode I enjoyed this much, or found as much quality in, while being absolutely stripped of the ability to articulate it. It's not even writer's block or anything, because I've got no problem writing this self-pitying garbage, but good god is the Sano part of this episode, the major part of this episode… it's like it evaporates as soon as I go near it.

So, Toujou again.

His friendship with Sano in this was great, how neither of them seems to feel friendship on an emotional level. For Sano, it's transactional. Friends are something you can buy, either directly with money or indirectly with kindness. Except, y'know, it's not really kindness, it's a down-payment on a favor. Toujou's worse, with friendship just being another word for something he can destroy to feel heroic. Both of them, it's sociopathic, a human life as a way to make themselves feel better. There's a hollowness in them, a lack of clarity to their motivations and a desperate need to feel worthwhile, and their warped connection to each other is a horrorshow that's indistinguishable from friendship to them.

Well, that's only the start of a paragraph that got deleted, so, you know, progress.

I don't know. I don't know. I love this episode, but I hate talking about it. I think it broke my brain. I think it's making me hate thinking about and talking about Kamen Rider. I'm throwing this one to you guys. I have to stop trying to talk about this episode. I have to get out of my head. I'm definitely freaking out.

You guys talk about it, maybe I'll be able to construct something in response, or after a while, or I don't know maybe never maybe this is the last post about Ryuki I don't know I don't know I don't know.