[ShyGuy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Then he faces Trenchcoat on the beach, for a Feelings Fight, and it’s the best fight of Garren’s Rider career. He has an answer for all of Trenchcoat’s moves. He gets in close with punches. He takes his opponent’s sword. He shoots down projectiles. He hits him with both halves of a Burning Divide. And then, in the baller move to end all baller moves, he doesn’t fling a card to seal Trenchcoat. He slowly walks over to his defeated foe, and just drops the card on his chest.

Epic. Epic.

This fight is probably my single favorite fight in the entirely of the show. I loved it for all the reasons you mentioned, especially the ending where he just drops the card on Isaka. Tachibana went through such a wild arc leading up to this point, and while it had its ups and downs, the payoff of this fight made it all so worth it. One of the most satisfying climaxes to an arc across any Kamen Rider season I've seen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

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.

I also agree strongly with all this, the scene of Tachibana destroying the tank is a great moment and such a strong declaration from him as a character that he's finally, truly overcome his fears. Fantastic stuff. This episode overall is definitely one of my favorites in the show as well, and it was at this point that I was totally sold on Blade. I liked it from the start, but this episode was the one that fully solidified it for me and that I can still remember vividly even years after first watching it.