[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Yuka's acting is maybe down to the directors not giving her the best advice or something? I feel like she's halfway onto something, but it tends to mush together into this sort of bland emptiness, which is broadly appropriate for the character, but really not on the same level as most of the other main cast, who give standout performances constantly. Just look at Kusaka. That guy is fun.

Yeah, I think asking a young actor to play Inner Turmoil is a pretty big ask, and it's to the other actors' credit that they're able to find something in Kusaka's obfuscation, or Takumi's self-loathing, or or or. With Yuka, she's definitely going for a malleable, reflective personality, begging to be defined by other people, and that makes it tough to see the why of it. I think it ended up coming across in this episode, but I really had to think about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deepsea

Part of me wants to start faiz so I can read along with this thread, the other part knows I'd be cringing and wincing a lot from the miscommunication, and no one having any info, and that same part also knows that I can't speak Japanese, so I'd get real confused by the mis-translations.

The mistranslations... I don't know, I don't think I've hit anything so far that was a dealbreaker. There've been some weird phrasings, and one or two I Think I See What They're Trying To Say moments, but I don't feel like I'm enjoying the show less because of them. Even the stuff Fish has been pointing out, the mistranslations don't ruin the episode, even if they ruin a scene. (And, honestly, even the "wrong" versions of some of these lines create some fun interpretations!)

As for the miscommunication... I can't speak for anything that happens later, but in fifteen episodes the most I've seen of miscommunications is some minor details in the Yuka/Keitaro scenes, and that shit is highly debatable.

But, there's a thing in this episode I thought people might get upset about, and it didn't bother me at all.

Takumi sees that Yuka's an Orphnoch, and very quickly realizes that she's Keitaro's new/old girlfriend. He tells Keitaro to break up with her. Not asks, tells. He doesn't give a reason beyond that he has a bad feeling about her. He doesn't tell Keitaro that she's an Orphnoch, or that she murdered a half-dozen people. He just curtly tells Keitaro to leave his girlfriend while all of Team Faiz tells him he's horrible.

I can see people saying Hey Why Not Share That Information. I can see that lack of communication feeling like a strain on credulity. But, man, it felt like exactly what Takumi would do, and exactly how he'd very stupidly try and solve someone's problem. He'd think he was sparing Keitaro's feelings by not telling him the truth about Yuka, and he'd also just assume that Keitaro would do whatever he says. Of course he'd make things worse.

And that's why it doesn't bother me. Miscommunication, I think of that as people not sharing information for bad reasons. The CW-style We Have To Keep This A Secret Even Though Every Year We Keep A Secret And It Blows Up In Our Face. That's shitty storytelling. What this show has is terrible people who don't have fully developed communication strategies. They are weird, flawed people, and friendships are going to be tough for them. They may be guarded, or wary, and that's going to lead them to portion out things someone else would spill out.

But I get that it's a fine line. Takumi's tactic is exactly the shit that Ren and Shinji would pull on Yui in Ryuki, and I hated it. Here, I feel like it works because no one's pretending that Takumi is doing the right thing. He's trying to protect his friend's feelings, but he's very bad at it. That lack of endorsement works for me, keeps it as a character choice rather than a story choice, if that makes sense.

I hope that explanation makes sense! Short version, I'm not seeing the rampant miscommunications that other people have referenced!