[Sh Ranger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

--2--

And betrayals are at the heart of this story. Takumi thinks he’s been betrayed by Yuuji, Yuuji thinks he’s been betrayed by Takumi, and Kusaka is betraying them both.

But that all comes later. First, it’s the show rewarding you for caring about Yuuji and Takumi.

There’s the requisite I Don’t Even Know Who You Are stomp-off by Yuuji in the beginning, where he thinks his friend is a Smart Brain assassin. And Takumi handles that rejection as well as you’d think, namely by making that face and irritating his friends. (He still tries to play the Stop Having Feelings For Someone But I Can’t Tell You Why Card! Still! He never ever learns!)

That’s expected, but the pivot the show makes after that is extraordinary. You’ve got two men who have found out they don’t really know their friend at all. So they go to a friend of the friend to find out what the deal is.

The whole middle section is great, where the two Teams pair off for some character definition. Mari tells Yuuji that, uh, Takumi does not have grand plans for the power of Faiz, he’s 100% not a plans guy, have you spent more than one minute with him ever. Yuka tells Takumi that, hey, Yuuji would never harm a human (again?), he’s a total sweetheart, you could do a lot worse. (That last part is implied.) Meanwhile, Kaido and Keitaro dye their hair in a hilarious attempt to reclaim their self-worth after being destroyed by love. The last one doesn’t really go anywhere, but it’s sincerely delightful. Those two actors are a comedic treasure.

Takumi and Kiba finding out they were secretly arch enemies all along is totally a major development for their steadily growing dynamic and makes them question everything they thought they knew about each other. Takumi telling Mari to give up on him without explaining worked just as badly as it did with Keitarou but I guess he remembered what Kusaka warned him about the consequence of telling Mari about her father. Of course, keeping people in the dark works in Kusaka's favor and allows him to manipulate them easier.

It was good to see Takumi and Kiba trying to find out more about each other from Yuka and Mari. Takumi knows that Yuka is a good Orphenoch so he'll believe her if she says Kiba is good. Kiba has trust in Mari and wants to see the good in people in general so he'll believe her if she says Takumi is good. And sure enough, none of their descriptions match up with what Takumi and Kiba previously thought of violent rampaging Horse and cold mercenary Faiz. They weren't fighting each other as arch enemies, they were fighting fabrications of evils that didn't exist due to a series of justified misunderstandings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

--4--

I mean, that’s drama, right? Something good happens to make it more powerful when something bad happens, and vice versa. But, god, it hurts so bad.

Kusaka sees a future with Takumi and Yuuji working together, and he hates it. He’d be marginalized, made redundant. They’d be saving people, protecting some Orphnochs, fighting Smart Brain, being heroic in front of Mari… it’s his nightmare. And after Sawada brings up the mysterious events of the Ryusei Reunion, tossing out a Failure insult for good measure, Kusaka is feeling boxed in.

So he schemes. He tears Yuuji and Takumi apart, framing each of them in turn for betraying the other.

It’s honestly a pretty great plan! He knows that while they want to see the best in each other, those old resentments haven’t just disappeared. They’ve fought enough times that it doesn’t take a complicated lie to turn them against each other. (Although, when Kusaka calls Takumi “a silver-tongued liar” to Yuuji? And Yuuji’s like Wow Really? Again, have you spent even one minute with Takumi my dude.) There’s plenty of blame to lay at the feet of Kusaka, but I don’t think Takumi and Yuuji are blameless here. They both very easily believe the worst about the other.

Takumi’s flaw is that he’s always waiting to be villainized, so he’s not surprised if people hate him. If Kusaka says that Yuuji really hates him and has a grudge, that sounds correct to Takumi.

For Yuuji, his trigger is feeling betrayed by people he trusts. His cousin. His fiancee. Letting someone get close and then having that used against him, it’s one of the few things that enrages Yuuji. (He loses it at Kaido after he learns the truth about Takumi.) He’d thought he’d misjudged Takumi, been angry for nothing, but that knee-jerk is what Kusaka manipulates. Yuuji falls back on his original anger, forgetting his forgiveness.

And, man, maybe that’s why it hurts so bad? Their culpability? It’s not just Kusaka tricking them, it’s him exploiting their insecurities, encouraging their worst behavior. They make the decision to see the worst in one another, and that’s heartbreaking.

Peak Kusaka! The taller you build the tower, the more disappointed you are when someone comes along to destroy it. He considers Takumi and Kiba his rivals and he needs them to hate and fight each other so he can keep Mari for himself. Without that hatred, he wouldn't be able to manipulate them anymore so he needed to make them hate each other again.

This is why Kusaka's so infamous, how destructive he is, the way he so easily and nonchalantly ruins relationships in pursuit of his love. Before, it was just Faiz vs Horse. Takumi and Kiba didn't hate each other at all. They were starting to become good friends. But now it's even worse. Kusaka has fabricated more imaginary evils and misdoings on both sides of the conflict to give these people who should be friends another reason to fight while behind the scenes, he just laughs at their hurt feelings and reaps the rewards of their destruction for himself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Same goes for the "spicy food" thing, they can enjoy spicy ones more, but I don't exactly approve if they call non-spicy foods as bad or uneatable (to themselves yeah, but can't speak on the same behalf for others), or especially call those who doesn't like spicy ones (actually... that's me) are bad to not enjoy what they think are good/better.

Yeah, I agree. I don't have any preference for spicy or mild dishes. I think they're both great in their own right! It's good to have a variety of different flavors to enjoy. I think this show has the perfect balance of comedy (mild) and drama (spicy) and to remove either of those flavors would be to destroy half of what makes the show so unique.