[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

I think the more you see the helmet from angles other than dead-on (i.e. whenever you can see the other horn on the back), the less your brain will register it that way, but yeah, obviously there's nothing wrong with just not being into the aesthetics.

Yeah two things I just innately don't give a shit about are bugs and trains, so any season that wants to build a bug motif more prominently into its helmet is going to lose points with me.

Yet, weirdly, I like Den-O's costume? I don't know. Maybe I don't have any rules, and I'm just working backwards from Ugh No Thanks? Maybe our perception of time is inherently flawed, and effects no longer have causes? Maybe every question is its own answer? MAYBE, FISH?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

This is a fair point. There definitely is still an excess of exposition, even if I find the delivery method a little more interesting than usual. I think this episode is ultimately mostly focused on Kenzaki, though, and it does a pretty solid job of that. I joke about the memes, but that whole sequence of him getting kicked out of his house alone works wonders at grounding Kenzaki's character, and setting him up as someone who's a lot more approachable than your average Rider lead. It's like a strong message being sent that Takkun is not going to be the standard going forward, and I dig that.

I guess it's like you said. It's tough to say. There are lots of things that would improve the episode by being put in, but not as many that would obviously improve it by being taken out, and the last thing Blade's premiere needed was even more stuff happening.

I guess it's just, if I'm going to try and distill the feeling I'm not getting out of the ending, it's that I don't know enough about how Kenzaki interacts with all of the other BOARD people. I loved the Kotaro stuff, but the whole climax of the episode hinges on Tachibana's betrayal and the massacre (?) at BOARD. Instead of having an episode where I got to know Kenzaki in the context of being a BOARD employee, and what that part of his identity meant to him, I watched an episode where Kenzaki was hanging out with Kotaro, and Hajime was spooked, and Amane doesn't respect her uncle. Neat scenes, but, man, paid the price for those at the end of the episode.