[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Huh! I never brought this up because I just assumed it was going to be expounded upon later. If it's not... yeah, no idea what the point is.

I'd agree that it's maybe something the show felt like it needed to clear up any confusion about which Rider was which, since TheBee has been three different people in just a half-dozen episodes. This episode was also the second time there's been a voiceover explaining Clock Up, so it feels like someone in production wanted to make things crystal clear.

It doesn't if I'm not forgetting something, anyway. I have the same memory issues with this show that Switchblade does, but I feel like the glowing bug logos having plot significance is something I'd recall at least a little?

The Clock Up narration, on the other hand, doesn't bother me at all, because I think it might be a sort of tribute to old-school Showa toku where that kind of exposition was fairly common? This was an anniversary series, after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

Shoot, someone that agrees with me!

I know from experience how much of a surprising feeling that can be!

Yeah, I've just always found Yaguruma's characterization in these early episodes fascinating. The show loads him with all these extremely unflattering character defects, and yet never shows him as being anything less than entirely genuine about his desire to be a strong and dependable leader for the sake of the group, despite his ego playing a part in that.

He's not really characterized quite like a straight hero, but is definitely not a villain, and that's a sort of character you I don't see too often in stories that otherwise neatly file people into groups that way. If you really step back and look at it, I feel like a lot of his status as an antagonist in his debut is owed entirely to the show's choice of perspective. In a lot of other narratives, the hard-working team player would be the one the audience is meant to cheer on against the emotionally detached man seemingly relying on endless good fortune, right? Yaguruma losing his cool because of Tendou looks bad up until you consider that it's Tendou. I think the show is smart about how it plays this, because it never totally feels like it's outright condemning either side, which is presumably why even Tendou himself feels bad enough to encourage Yaguruma a bit after everything goes to crap for him.