[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Yeah, you're starting to get into what makes Faiz such a special show. Or at least, it's really coming to the forefront in these episodes after so long of already following Yuuji, Yuka, and Kaidou around. See, the fact that Faiz went out of its way to try undermining like... the absolute most essential premise of a Kamen Rider show is why I love that the monsters are literally gray.

And Takumi, yeah, it is entirely based in his character for him to be handling this situation the way he is. He's got... he's got a lot going through his head right now, and with the kind of person he is to begin with, you know, of course he doesn't know how to talk about this.

Oh, and what you do know, this episode pulls that trick where the insert song cuts out, in this case right after Takumi remembers he maybe doesn't want to "heroically" murder people? Really effective way to emphasize how wrong everything is right now. Faiz just gives up, and so does the music.

I think my favorite choice this episode makes is to surface Takumi's conflict during a fight with an Orphnoch that basically has just been attacking people all episode. It's easy to see the complexity of a character like Yuka, or Yuuji. It's easy to get the audience on Takumi's side if it's protecting a cast member we're invested in. But this dude? Merderman or whatever? It's all projection on Takumi's part. There's nothing we've seen that says that this dude deserves to be spared.

But, like, that's what makes the story work for me. If Yuka can be worthy of protecting, why not Merderman? Instead of working from All Monsters Must Die, and making exceptions, why not work it from the other direction? Why not ask why any monster deserves to die?

The show took the most basic monster and had Takumi unable to ignore the possibility that it didn't deserve to be killed. Huge choice, and I love it.