[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER BLADE EPISODE 48

It doesn’t help that some of the pacing is weird. Like, the episode starts with the Darkroaches already overrunning Tokyo. It's been a week since the end of the last episode, no one’s seen Hajime, and Team Blade is barely making a dent in the monsters that are swarming the city. We get right into the action, with Blade taking down a dozen Darkroaches before collapsing, exhausted from what must’ve been a week of non-stop combat. They don’t need to tell us, because the performance and staging have conveyed it quickly and accurately. Really great storytelling.

Probably the part where no one's seen Hajime was made up as a mystery, why something new, Darkroaches are coming and swarming the city. Turns out at the end, it's from Joker winning the Battle Fight, and his way of ending the world is shown as Joker swarming Darkroaches. So the end the world from Joker's part is actually progressive, and it probably lowers the stakes (other than emotional attachment Kenzaki has with Hajime), because the "end the world" process can still be halted, though not by keep attacking Darkroaches as they're seemingly endless, but by dealing with Joker. The effort is about finding the source of the Darkroaches, which turns out to be Hajime.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Until the next goddamn scene, where they flashback to tell us, out loud, everything that was already made clear in the previous scene.

So because of the stakes being higher here, you want for Kenzaki not to give blind optimism and to acknowledge the current situation (but still making an effort to stop this, ofc)? Probably it'd be a sight to see if Kenzaki failed to save some people here due to being overwhelmed by the Darkroaches' numbers (like previous series giving monster bodycounts), and how he reacts to it.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The rest of the episode does the work of getting Kenzaki ready to confront Hajime. He tries to finish Hajime off at the midpoint, but can’t do it.

And I don't think if the attack connects, Kenzaki would be able to do so anyway. It's only a base form Blade, and Joker was matched with Blade King form before.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

This was a decent episode, pacing issues aside. (The pacing issues are pretty huge, though! That flashback scene winds everything down to zero!) Kenzaki has been hoping that somehow, some way, he wouldn’t have to fight Hajime, and this episode systematically funnels him into that inevitable conflict. It’s not great as far as plot or character (there really isn’t much in this one I loved, outside of a tiny Nozomi choice by in the early part of the episode), but it’s a solidly plot-driven penultimate episode. It did the work to clear the stage for the finale. I’m excited to see what choices the show makes for its ending!

The cast probably made a mistake in this episode, not realizing their plan previously, like Mutsuki unsealing Shima, or for worse one, Tachibana unsealing Human Undead (but he still went to seal Kanai anyway), as seen here, via Battle Fight mechanic, it's too late, that after the Battle Fight is over, you can't unseal other Undeads anymore (nerf to Leangle too!), and with it being Joker, the worst outcome occurs (something that even Kanai didn't want to happen). And Nozomi, be mindful of the situation right now... something much more important has to be dealt with.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I think Tachibana sees any outcome where the Joker survives as being too dangerous. His strategy of unsealing the Human Undead and sealing the Joker also ends Battle Fight, which has to be seen as a greater good (by Tachibana!) than just letting it go on indefinitely and hoping nothing else bad happens.

Yeah, my point was comparing Tachibana's plan, to Mutsuki's plan, which will give better outcome, due to nothing at loss, just unseal Shima, Joker won't win and Hajime remains.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Killing somebody is a permanent solution to what could be a temporary problem. Better to believe in rehabilitation, no matter how unlikely, than to assume that people can't change.

Also, man, Amane isn't that bad! She has a whole bunch of people in the cast that care about her! She's just a little bit of a brat!

Unfortunately as I've said, the mindset of believing in rehabilitation is seen as naive, not only by some in-universe characters but also the audience (that shit on ideal heroes like Kenzaki giving a chance to someone like Joker as stupid). And for Amane that's more of my point ("even one" is a minimum, it can be more like hers and Hajime's), her mom obviously cares for her as her daughter (probably in wrong way to not reprimand her), and the cast would have standard decency to take care of a child. Though still, from home, to school, to future jobs, bratty behavior tends to escalate as a child grows older and manifests itself in different ways (approaching actual bad territory), Missing Ace is a bit of an escalation, becoming an actual delinquent.