[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

A billion things to talk about from this episode.

Hey I'm really feeling how true this is right now so I'm just gonna rattle off a few more random things about this episode if that's cool:

- The thought occurs to me that this two-parter is actually the first ever time Inoue got to use Yaguruma, and that's kind of shocking to me when he seems like exactly the sort of unstable, obsessive character he'd be eager to write. It's maybe appropriate, then, that the first thing he does when given the chance is put the Hoppers in a subplot where they're basically written like children, with Kageyama getting upset with Yaguruma for having a crush on a girl. That definitely feels very Inoue to me. Like, you can replace the spiels about darkness with Kageyama saying Rena has cooties, and the plot plays out exactly the same. It's no wonder they get handily outmatched by Gon with a fire extinguisher...

- I've mentioned the trouble Kabuto has sticking in my brain before, and, to be clear, I didn't remember this two-parter in the slightest either. In fact, I didn't even remember Rena herself at all. I mean, once she showed up, it was sort of like "oh... yeah, that one", but this is not a character I've thought a lot about in the past few years, you know?

- Which is why it's all the more remarkable to me how utterly spectacular these episodes were, in retrospect. You see, Rena lived and died by the grace of the overarching plot. She was a character defined by function more than personality or individual goals – introduced to give a mouthpiece to the Worms, building the world by creating an easy way to give a sense of them as an actively scheming group intertwined with ZECT, and she's only leaving the show because her role has become unnecessary. They didn't need to make anywhere near the event out of this they did (she could've easily been bumped off in a big Plot episode that didn't center specifically around her, for example), and that makes me all the more grateful they found this latent storytelling potential and proceeded to deliver on it to this level. These are likely two of the show's best episodes, and they didn't even "need" to exist. The more I think about these ones, the more impressed I become.

- Also, I happened to read about something that seemed worth bringing up in her character's final episode – Rena's actor Hitomi Miwa apparently fractured her leg at some point, and despite having trouble walking normally, was still filming for Kabuto, with the help of painkillers. That's some dedication right there!