[Fish Sandwich]

Okay, so, Blade is one of those shows I watched so early on when I was getting into Kamen Rider that I don't always remember a lot about the actual experience of watching it that clearly. I literally can't even tell you for sure every show I had seen prior, and which ones I had left. It gets blurry that way. But I do very vividly remember the exact moment I really fell in love with it.

Tachibana's been taking baths in a big tub green seaweed water for a good chunk of episodes. It's a weird, kind of goofy, and extremely memorable visual burned in my mind to the point that to this day, it's one of the first things I picture when I think of Blade. Garren is completely off the rails, and his own weakness, his real weakness, has cost him just about everything he cares about except his fake solution. His dark pact with Isaka for more power is all that's left to him. And then Tachibana does this, and in an instant, goes from being an amusingly crazy madman to being the coolest character on the show in my eyes.





It's only about six minutes in, and it's not the climax of episode, but it's most certainly the climax of Tachibana's initial arc. Defeating Isaka isn't the resolution for Tachibana. It's defeating himself. And the show chose such a perfectly visceral, physical way to show him conquering his addiction and starting to overcome his flaws. It's exactly the sort of heightened drama you want out of a Rider show. The sheer sense of catharsis in this scene has stuck with me ever since I first saw it.

For probably the first time, I was more than only passively invested in Blade's story. There's an endearing emotional vulnerability to Tachibana's romance with Sayoko, but on the whole, it's admittedly on the threshold of being painfully generic. It's far from the best realized plot thread in the world, and yet, when it comes to this point, I feel like I'm right there with Tachibana. And it's not really because I want to see him get revenge, even. Isaka was a really fun starter villain between his laid-back master planner personality and fashion sense that just screams "I liked The Matrix way too much." I'm not rooting for him being taken down anywhere near as much as I'm rooting for Tachibana finally picking himself up. That's what makes the fight scenes here so engaging, and when Isaka is eventually defeated at the end, it comes with this great sense of relief.

What really cemented this episode as a masterpiece to me is that there's no cliffhanger whatsoever, which is rarely Blade's style. There's not a new bad guy watching from the wings, or some shocking event right at the end to get you tuning back in next week. It's confident enough to end just on that note of Garren sealing the monster and watching the waves. It's a clean break as both Tachibana, and the show itself, put recent events behind to move into a new chapter, and just like Tachibana, it was clear the show was getting its act together. And what's really crazy is that all of this would only end up being one of my favorite episodes by the end.