[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 32

This time on Kamen Rider Blade: Kenzaki rescues Hajime from King! Hajime's secret/secrets is/are revealed! And Tachibana throws in his lot with another untrustworthy dude and risks tearing apart Team Blade because: Tachibana!



It's a solid episode of Blade, with a ton of reveals, but... I wasn't really feeling it?

I mean, I really liked the Hajime and Kenzaki stuff. It's so specific to the two of them that it transcends the usual You Should Be My Enemy But You're Really My Friend tropes. There's that moment when Kenzaki tells Hajime that he had a crush on a girl in the first grade, there's a secret, now tell me one of yours. And Hajime laughs it off, because it is ridiculous, but he softens when he finds out that the secret Kenzaki wants to know is, basically, did Hajime hurt someone to look human.

And, he didn't. It's not that kind of show. Hajime's story is about the steady erosion of the Joker into a man, and maybe even a hero. He's seen these laudable aspects of humanity, and he's trying to understand them. Kenzaki sees that, sees how he's so much more than a monster, and wants to protect that. It's the joke of Kenzaki, that he's an uncomplicated man, made into a strength. There's so much going on with Hajime, Chalice, Joker, whatever. But to Kenzaki, he's just Hajime. That's it. Uncomplicated.

We see the benefit of Kenzaki's outlook again, earlier, in a small scene with Kotaro. Tachibana has learned horrifying details about Hajime, and forbids Kenzaki from rescuing him from King. Kenzaki's frustrated, and doesn't know what he should do. So Kotaro makes it plain for him: a friend is being held captive by a monster. What do you think you should do? And Kenzaki's out the door, ready to save his friend.

It's not flashy stuff, and it doesn't have a ton of nuance to it, but it's still pleasant storytelling. In a show filled with murky, complicated Riders, it's nice that Kenzaki can be earnest, straightforward.

Especially compared to Tachibana, because... ugh.

It's not that he's doing anything out of character or anything. He doesn't trust the Undead, at all. They've killed his girlfriend, possessed his student, and generally been a colossal pain in his ass. Finding out that Hajime is also referred to as a "savage murder machine”, that's going to have him looking for any way possible to keep everyone safe.

It's just, Hirose's dad? That's who the guy controlling U.N.D.E.A.D. is? And he shows up in Tachibana's hovel, doesn't explain why he's faked his death, doesn't want his daughter to know he's alive, is totally consumed with trying to wrest immortality from monsters from eternity as though that were in no way problematic, and just wants to give Tachibana the login to read all of Karasuma's secret documents.

And Tachibana is all in on it. Just laps it the hell up. Reads the info, decides Hajime has to die, declares that there's no other way as though he didn't only come to this conclusion in the last half-hour... it's just a bummer of a plot.

Again, hard to say Tachibana isn't acting like Tachibana here. Him getting suckered in by some suit and fighting Blade because of it, that's like his main solution to every problem. (Hirose cracks a joke when she sees Tachibana and Kenzaki cleaning up the window U.N.D.E.A.D. broke that Blade and Garren must've had a fight!)

It's just, man, he buys it so easily this time that I'm like My Dude. This guy has earned none of your trust, and now you are dedicated to what he helped you learn. It's one more time that Tachibana is making the worst decision possible, and, I don't know. It might be one too many? I get that he thinks he's doing this to save Kenzaki the heartache of doing it himself. I get that we're talking about the end of the world. But it's just one more dude in this story who's like Hajime Must Die, and it stopped working for me.

Like, maybe, maybe this part of the episode could've worked for me if it had been the first time Tachibana broke from the group. But, god, this is like the seventh terrible decision he's made that's put him at odds with the rest of the group, and... change the record already, man.

Did not love the Tachibana stuff, but really liked the Hajime/Kenzaki stuff. Not an overall winner of an episode for me, but not a total failure.



Next time on Kamen Rider Blade: Garren fights to destroy Hajime! Blade fights to save Hajime! And Amane gets yelled at by Hajime because sometimes Daddy has had a long day and he just needs a little bit of Quiet Time and he didn't mean to be loud and he's sorry!