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Quote:

Originally Posted by FreshToku

Also, my thoughts about Akira's arc in real time as I was watching were kinda entirely cynical! I really didn't like even the possibility of her breaking away from the Oni path being brought up, because I spending all my time feeling dread at how that was how it was going to end. Or possibly with her dying, if Shuki was meant to be a very-on-the-nose foreshadowing. I think it was when I was around episode 38, I got so impatient and antsy about it that I just looked up online what happens later in the show ahead of time so I could get either my relief or disappointment out of the way. (I also did this when I wanted to know ahead of time when did Wizard's all-dragon form shows up and spoiled to myself like five episodes in advance that it would Phoenix's last appearance on the show and he'd get kicked to the sun. Hey, you think he's still up there?)

Not that you can't write a compelling story with all that, but it didn't sit right with me how the new staff looked at the one and only female character who is physically involved in the fighting, and decided what they wanted to write is to question whether she should even be there and raise the possibility of her quitting altogether. Yeah, maybe that's a really uncharitable reading on my part, but I was getting reminded of Poppy and Nico. Sure, there might 'story' justifications for these characters to get side-lined in all the action compared to the guys, but it's still not a good look!

Yeah, this is the crux of why I really hate this arc of the show. I get that Kamen Rider is a boy's franchise/toyline, but at this point it's record with giving women anything approaching equal footing is abysmal. We're at three female Riders with a mortality rate of 100% and the main premise of the last one is to tell Akira that this job isn't for her, either. I'm not going to discredit Inoue by saying that he was being intentionally sexist here, but it's a really bad look and it's part of a negative trend that the show wouldn't break out of until Wizard.