[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 18

This time on Kamen Rider Blade: Mutsuki is losing his mind! Kiryuu is scheming for power! And Tachibana is making the best goddamn faces!




Just the best faces.

The spotlight swings away from Mutsuki a bit, with a little bit of time for Hajime and a bunch for Kiryuu. It's a more diverse episode, with a few plots getting furthered amid some solid thematic ties.

The big theme for this story is the weight of power. Kenzaki has seen the cost of a Rider's power, and would rather spare Mutsuki from that. Tachibana broke under the weight of Garren's power, and he doesn't know if he needs to be stronger, or just let someone else carry it. Mutsuki thinks power comes without a price, and realizes too late that he's opened the door to something dangerous. And Kiryuu...

We spend a few scenes with Kiryuu, and we see what power means to him. Unlike Tachibana, Kiryuu is a man of ambition. He doesn't view a Rider's power as some solemn obligation, he views it as a tool he's destined to wield. His goal is to destroy evil, and he deserves the power it would take to accomplish that goal. His determination, his will, should bestow that power upon him.

It's maybe no surprise that Leangle would find that mindset appealing. Leangle is all about the unapologetic application of power. (I love that the belt says OPEN UP. It's a demand, an instruction to let the will of Leangle inhabit the user.) Leangle and Kiryuu, it's two warriors who've been held back by others, handicapped by misfortune, unable to fulfill their purpose. Together, there's maybe no stopping them.

Except for Tachibana, maybe?

Tachibana, as always, goes through a lot. He's still feeling a bit lost, uncertain if he should have ever been Garren. He's helping out Team Blade from a sense of loneliness, not any great heroism. He's feeling so worthless that of course Kiryuu, the man who should've been Garren, would show up to tell him to his face that he's a coward and a failure. That Kiryuu has a drive that Tachibana could never understand, and that he covets the power that Tachibana is too scared to wield. Kiryuu is the ego that Tachibana lacks.

The thing is, though, Tachibana is the humility that Kiryuu lacks, and that's an additional problem for Tachibana. Kiryuu is going to keep killing, and there's nothing Tachibana can currently do about it. He's too weak to do anything more than make That Face at Kiryuu, to be stunned and shocked and totally helpless in the face of Kiryuu's iron will. He feels responsible for Kiryuu's insanity and crimes, but he can't bring himself to oppose him.

Meanwhile, Mutsuki slowly falls apart as he sees that Leangle's power doesn't have any limits, and it also doesn't have any humanity.

It's a swift decline for Mutsuki, as the belt won't let him go. There's some outstanding lighting in this episode, from the flashes over Mutsuki's early Leangle breakdown, to Kiryuu's tragic first Henshin, but the stunner this episode is when the Leangle belt returns to Mutsuki's room. The lighting switches up from an overhead series of lights to a desk lamp that gets brighter as the rest of the room gets darker. It's extraordinarily creepy, and it feeds into the way Mutsuki views the belt as his only light, the way out of his darkness.

Kenzaki spends most of this episode trying to save Mutsuki, to reach out to him, but Mutsuki is too wrapped up in his power to reach back. It's nice to see Kenzaki in the role of stern authority figure, to see him try some Tough Love. It's not as exciting as goofy Kenzaki or kind Kenzaki, but it's okay for a change of pace. It's nice to see he's got it in him, y'know?

Hajime's back this episode, and there's really only one thing about him that I want to talk about. I honest-to-god don't know if it's Inoue making a joke or not, but there's a scene where Amane makes a cup of tea, a new recipe, and asks Hajime to try it. She says it'll warm him right down to his heart. He takes a sip, and then wonders what the warmth in his heart means. What it means. It's such a bizarrely introspective thought to have when drinking tea that I couldn't believe it. It is a corny-ass piece of writing, and I'd totally believe you if you said it was Inoue pranking the audience. I would also believe you if you said it was a corny-ass piece of writing from a dude who was worried that this episode of vengeful ghosts and humiliated teenagers somehow wasn't melodramatic enough. I'm not certain how Hajime fit into this story, and that scene sure as shit didn't make it any clearer.

I liked this episode, though. Not much in the way of funny bits (intentionally funny bits, anyway), but it's neat to see how both Kenzaki and Tachibana have to deal with two people who envy their power. Mutsuki doesn't know what he's getting himself into, and that frustrates Kenzaki. Kiryuu's lust for power would make a remorseless killer exponentially more dangerous, and that worries Tachibana. They're both, Kenzaki and Tachibana, outmatched by the weirdly unstoppable combination of teleporting magic belts, unhappy teenagers, and a reminder that Tachibana's sins as a BOARD employee are apparently limitless. It's going to be tough for any number of Riders to overcome that!



Next time on Kamen Rider Blade: Kiryuu demands Tachibana fight as Garren! Mutsuki asks nicely for the Leangle belt! We'll see which gets the better result!