[Magnugiga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER 555 EPISODE 30
But, shit, maybe folks feel differently! I can see this being a thing that, to some, smacks of writerly contrivance. Kusaka has to scheme a bit to tear them apart, and schemes can make viewers feel manipulated.

Honestly, this was my gut reaction toward this development. I had a hard time in particular wrapping my head around how easily Yuuji swallowed Kusaka's bullshit, and I think it's because there's been so much time since the thing with his cousin and gf (way back in Ep 2!). Ever since then he's always portrayed as this sensible, level-headed, guy whose good traits stand out even more among the dysfunctional bunch, it's easy to forget how traumatized he must be and how it'd make sense that it only took a slight nudge from Kusaka (who is such an Obvious Bad Dude only to the viewers, not necessarily to other characters) to unleash all the insecurity and paranoia.

In retrospect, it's indeed in-character for all three parties involved. Once you can buy that, it's engaging material; at that point, I was certainly more invested in discovering whether Yuuji and Takumi would eventually make up and beat the shit out of Kusaka together, than anything else in the plot!

Also, I always find it fascinating when Yuuji and Kusaka shares a scene b/c of the diametrically opposite way the show is framing them, a sort of subversion to their supposed role. Yuuji is the first 'monster'we ever see, the guy who went on a murder spree on civilians, but the show absolutely want us to like him by doing everything to make him seem the most sympathetic person in the cast. Kusaka is the secondary Rider who's supposed to get along and kick ass together with the MC once they eventually overcome their differences, and his motivation on the most general sense is heroic: he wanted to extinguish all the Orphnochs, the threat to humanity, and protect the girl he loves! Isn't that a good goal? But no, they took painstaking efforts to highlight his toxicity and how much of a bad apple he is. I used to be bothered by how Kusaka's actor frequently overplay some of his scenes to the point of unintentional hilarity, but it makes sense if you consider that the show really want us to unambiguously dislike the guy while hammering home the whole role subversion thing. That scene of their first meeting together, that 'water scene' when Kusaka being such a hilarious asshole to the wounded Yuuji? That's the show in a nutshell.

In a way, it's a bit of a shame that the Ryusei plot is such a flop, since I can see how it can contribute to Kusaka's (and Mari ofc) characterization. Instead, they wasted all the time on a bunch of cannon fodders (even Saya was nothing more than a Plot Device; her story landed so badly to me).