[Fish Sandwich]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Can you believe there was a time when I disliked Inoue?

Way back in the Kuuga days, he wrote some of my least-favorite episodes in a series that… I was not the correct audience for, let’s say. I hated those episodes so much that, when I found out he’d be (more or less) solely responsible for Agito, 555, and Kiva, I was dreading it. I thought it was going to be so infuriating to watch that trying to express those feelings on these boards was going to get me banned. I’m pretty sure I referred to him as my nemesis?

To be fair, I think I actively prodded you into that line of thinking. Actually, you know what, let me just give everyone a quick recap of Die's complex relationship with Inoue. I mean, while we're on the subject anyway, right?

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Originally Posted by Kurona

Welcome to Toshiki Inoue!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

oh god no

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Maybe he gets better? Maybe I'll forget these episodes happened and not feel this visceral rage during those other shows? Who can say!

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

It's going to be interesting seeing how you react to Agito right after Kuuga, because this guy seems to be on the fast track to becoming your arch-nemesis.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

Well that's not fair; he's my arch-nemesis!!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

This guy seems frustrating enough to generate multiple nemeses. I am willing to share!

It's like he's building a square table, but he puts three legs on one side and one leg on the other side. It's got the right number of legs, and it doesn't immediately collapse, but it could be so much more stable my dude it is not that hard to build a table.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I can't speak to his later stuff, but, uh, I do recall his Kuuga episodes being somewhat less than excellent. I was actually dreading Agito, a little, since I found his Kuuga stuff to be infuriating. Pleasantly surprised by how fun Agito has been! I'll try and give his later stuff (folks do not seem thrilled with Faiz!) a fair shake.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Like, I get what folks don't like about Inoue on Ryuki. Everything's turned up to 11: the humor, the drama, the everything. (He's the man who gave us DOUBLE SURGERIES a year earlier, so it's not like this is unexpected.) And, yeah, that can lead to him not, uh, finding nuance where another (better?) writer might.

But, man, there're points you really need to play it to the cheap seats, and when that happens, Inoue's your guy. He plays it to the goddamn parking lot.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I wanted to start this off by talking about how Faiz is a hard series to love. Like its protagonist, it’s prickly, sullen. It has to be cajoled into doing the most basic Kamen Rider shit, and even then it never lets you forget how much it doesn’t care about that shit. Over time, you get used to it, and it opens up more, and it leads to some really emotionally-exposed storytelling. All that taciturn ambivalence is revealed as a mask over a beating heart, and it ends happily, earnestly. You gotta meet it on its terms, but you’ll be rewarded if you do.

Except, man, I don’t know if that was my experience? At all?

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Apparently you and Inoue turned out to be a Best Match

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Yeah, Inoue, right? I remember not liking his Kuuga's pretty much at all, and folks were like Oh No You Got Way More Inoue To Go, and I made a joke about him being my nemesis. Then Agito's actually really good? And his Ryuki fill-ins were mind-blowingly funny (Yui knocking over a bookcase, Kitaoka's silent Henshin)? And now Faiz? I'm not sure "nemesis" is appropriate, you know? Feels like a different connection he and I have.

Missing Ace is a good movie. I've never considered it a great one, or one of my favorites though, so it was really cool to see you getting so much out of the story here. I don't have much to add other than the regularly scheduled reminder that this Kamen Rider thing you liked visually was directed by Ishida, and, although I can't squeeze a whole post out of it, just know that Leangle gets an unending amount of s*** from the meme crowd for using that Float card at the end when Blade and Garren are soaring into the sky on their majestic sets of golden bird wings.