[Fish Sandwich]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

balsa wood plane

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Great writing!

Sometimes, this thread is just the best.

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Yuuji finally getting Takumi into his be---

The best.

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Adding in the But Maybe He Murdered stuff… it’s gilding the lily. It’s unnecessary.

I have a much more positive outlook on this subplot. The way I see it, there's two conflicting things the Takkun, Orphenoch! plotline needed to work.

A. There can't be any legitimate reason to be scared of Takumi, because that would inevitably justify his self-loathing, and undermine the entire point of the story being told.

B. There has to be a bigger thing to drive a wedge between Takumi and his friends, or else the plot risks either losing the heightened, melodramatic tension that characterizes the series, or, even worse, making the characters look completely heartless in an attempt to get the tone there anyway.

Now, the solution Inoue arrived at was naturally to give the characters a legitimate reason to be scared of Takumi, but make it a lie. There's no denying how heavy-handed this is, and if you're arguing from the perspective there was no need for any of this to begin with, fair enough. Inoue seems to enjoy writing himself into and out of corners so much his business card probably reads "Writer/Escape Artist". It's not a great habit, and there probably was a way to avoid getting into this scenario.

I still feel there's some worthwhile material in it though. It becomes less about how the audience perceives the information (I'd be shocked to find a child watching who wasn't just waiting for Takkun to be Faiz again), and more about how the characters themselves react. Showing Takumi being this willing to believe he murdered people, especially, is exploring his character in an interesting way, I think. The whole incident, it serves to flare up tensions that don't magically go away when the matter is resolved. Again, going back to Takumi, he still hasn't accepted himself even by the end of this episode, because this entire experience has driven him that much deeper into his belief he's destined to end up hurting people.

Is it forced and shaky? Definitely at least a little! But the worst possible thing happening at the worst possible time is Faiz's kind of storytelling, and I think at least much worked about this plotline as it didn't. I agree on the whole the Ryuusei School stuff is by far the least interesting material in the series, but good things come out of it sometimes, and this is one of them, in my opinion.

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Mari’s part in the fight was weird, with her continuously trying to activate the Faiz Gear despite it never ever working for her. At first, I’m like, Why is she still trying? But then I remembered that, as a Ryusei School alumnus (“Go Meteors!”), she will keep getting shocked by the belt forever and never stop trying to use it. Like everyone who went to that school, she doesn’t understand that pain is how we learn not to do things. It’s like Orphan Daddy always said, “You can’t spell ‘Ryusei School’ without ‘OUCH’!”

No, bad Die! Don't you dare go dissing Mari for this! Moments like these are why she's my favorite Rider heroine ever. The fact that she specifically tries using the Faiz Gear twice here knowing it won't work even before the first attempt is pure, reckless, irrational heroism, and I love it. How active she is. Yeah, there's no way that was going to end well, but there's also no way that'd stop her from trying.