[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Takumi made a fatal error in trusting Sawada to take care of Mari. Between feeling betrayed by Kiba and seeing the consequence of his misguided judgement with Sawada, a complete stranger to him, he's starting to lose his faith in the humanity of Orphenochs. He also blames himself, due to his lack of self-confidence, for letting them deceive him. It's partially his fault, this time wasn't caused by inaction, he consciously made a decision and it was wrong. However, his guilt is excessive which is typical of his personality. He can't see past his mistake and he's determined to atone for it.

He's convinced that Orphenochs will eventually turn bad and should be destroyed, starting with Kiba, who conveniently wants to beat him up for attacking Mari, as Kusaka misled him to believe. You can see that as much as Takumi judges himself, he refuses to be judged by who he considers some heartless Orphenoch. He immediately turns hostile towards Kiba. These events have shaped him in to become a more indiscriminate killer of Orphenochs like Kusaka and it's not a good place for him right now.

I think I might interpret it a little differently.

Takumi's guilt is maybe pretty justified? He made a few bad decisions, and his friend got hospitalized because of it. Sawada was a bad dude, with plenty of evidence to support that view. Takumi wanted him to be not a bad dude, because that'd mean Yuuji wasn't a bad dude. So Takumi went in wanting to be swayed, and that got a friend seriously hurt.

So when Yuuji shows up blaming him, I think there's a part that wants to punish Yuuji because he couldn't punish Sawada. But I think there's a part of Takumi that wants to be punished. He messed up, and he needs to pay for that. If that means he gets beat up by someone he hates, all the better for his penance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magnugiga

Oh okay, I see it now. About Mari in particular, I honestly felt at this point she's a shell of the super interesting, fun, girl we saw in the first few episodes. The whole Ryusei plot should've revolved around her and build up her character, and yet it felt like she's only there to provide sad/anguished reaction faces (sometimes not even that!). As I said, Faiz is still pretty good at making sure every major character gets plenty of screen time... so we saw a lot of her, but not enough about her. And it feels like she's increasingly fallen to the trappings typical to character of her ilk, namely she's primarily there to serve as the male characters' development and point of conflict.

I'd agree with you for the most part about how the Ryusei School stuff fails Mari. I think that the few before this really worked, though, the end of the Delta Reveal arc. Those ones, they really put the spotlight on how Mari was dealing with all of it. Here, it's back to being about some other character. Not a great choice?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Man, what is it about Faiz where all these actors in it either had notable roles prior, or went on to have major roles after? I'm not imagining this, right? This kind of trivia is there for most shows, but it seems like Faiz has a neat casting choice like this every few episodes.

During my rewatch, I remember feeling like the acting in Faiz was a slight cut above its contemporaries, but between all the experienced talent and rising stars, I guess there was a good reason for that.

Yeah. I know this is going to sound obvious, but I haven't seen anyone terrible get invited back to another Rider show. (You'd think it'd only be good people coming back, but that is not always true!) But, universally, the folks who show back up are all great. Terrific casting direction for this franchise.

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Man, I know you don't truck with Showa, but I'm still legitimately sad that this was the "Shin" your brain went to in a thread about Kamen Rider.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

Given his start, I'm surprised his brain didn't go to a certain someone else...

Fish's post was at the end of Page 58, and I'm like, "Oh, shit, Shin Kuroto Dan, shoulda gone with that one." And then on the next page.