[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreshToku

Let's not kid ourselves, women in this franchise have pretty consistently only ever served that role you just described. It's just that sometimes it's even more egregious than others...

And the fact that it's both of the new women is what made it stick out to me.

Actually, I'm maybe a little frustrated at finding it frustrating? It's really difficult for me to articulate exactly why this situation bothers me. It's two new characters that are thematically integrated into the narrative in compelling ways! That is basically a home run for a writer! And, like, Umi is, in almost every way that matters, exactly the same as Tachibana's old frenemy Kiryu. They're both people who show up as dark reflections of a Rider, someone who went a different way from the hero. And I don't remember giving Kiryu any shit for being a dude who comes in and only comments on the hero!

I don't know. There's a thing about Umi and Twomi that... is it just the dearth of well-rounded female characters? I don't know. I don't know why I keep thinking about this!

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreshToku

This is a complete aside but thinking back, I don't like just how often the episodes in Blade end in cliffhangers?! That's mainly because when I want to go back and catch some of the highlights I remember, I gotta go switch between two episodes. This very mild inconvenience that the show has no reason to account for is unacceptable!! zero out of spade ten.

At least we've mostly moved away from the Faiz convention of using the previous episode's final minutes as the pre-credit sequence of the next episode. Now it's the previous episode's final minutes and maybe twenty seconds of new footage. Progress!