[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 47

So here's some more of that Native Nonsense I can actually remember about the show's last stretch. After 46 managed to get some visceral emotion out of me, the epic final trilogy for Kabuto begins with... some weird plot about necklaces that detect Worms? I mean, when Die says this one feels like it could've happened forty episodes ago, that really makes it click for me why I remember not even remotely getting into this one originally.

What I also remember from this one is finding Kagami's regressive behavior supremely frustrating only a couple episodes after dramatically declaring to super tough purple guy that he could never understand the bond between him and Tendou. Like, it legitimately soured my overall opinion on Kagami in the long term a bit. I remembered this very incorrectly! It was kind of a shock to come back to this episode and find that, as Die pointed out, Kagami is very specifically one of the few characters who gets a chance to act like he's had a year of development, only to get totally stonewalled by Tendou, who seems to think it's still January 2006, and not 2007. I guess his New Year's resolution was to go back to his roots as an uncommunicative jerk, for some reason.

That being said, I, uh, do still understand how I came to the conclusion I did. It's the same thing Kagami immediately figures out; Tendou is obviously doing everything he's doing for a good reason. Kagami gets frustrated when Tendou won't say what that reason is. As a viewer, though, not only am I conditioned to accept this kind of behavior from him, I've also been given a reason. When Juka expresses interest in grabbing one of the aforementioned necklaces ZECT is giving away, he spells it out as succinctly as possible – there's nothing more expensive than a free gift. It's as plain as can be that something sketchy is going on with the Natives right now, and as such, even when Tendou is deflecting bullets into Renge, I have a hard time being anything but on the guy's side. I mean, unless we're seriously assuming Kageyama got that fever just from living outside in the cold.

I should probably mention that I kinda loved this episode on a rewatch, by the way? Ordinarily I'd lead with the contrarian bit, but this is also a time where I have the personal history angle to cover, too. I went with that first because it's important to understand where my expectations were at, which might explain why I'm much more pleasantly surprised than Die was.

The narrative issues are still there, but, especially with Kagami vindicating himself, I got super into it and had a lot of fun. Sure, a lot of it is regressive, but it's also regressing to things I greatly enjoyed from the first part of the series? I mean, I have been *so* utterly starved for Hiyori's mumbling naysaying and cool Clock Up fights lately, I found it hard to ask for anything more. And with Ishida directing this and the final two episodes, it's all the better! I thought there was a noticeable sense of atmosphere, of course, with (what felt like) way less background music than normal, which added a sense of weight and apprehension that lent the plot stakes the writing wasn't pulling off as well.

Plenty of smaller, neat touches, too, like an untransformed Tendou dodging ZECTroopers, making the Clock Up whooshing sounds as he does so. I guess maybe that foreshadows his ability to blatantly cheat in his fight with Dark Kabuto by using Hyper Clock Up before even pulling out the Hyper Zecter? Cheating or not, I thought that was a great scene. It's kind of funny to me how Dark Kabuto is such a subversion of the usual evil counterpart trope, being less equal, yet opposite, and more a broken reflection – a sham that could never compete with the real deal.

Make no mistake, though, this isn't a great episode. As a launching pad for a grand conclusion, it's rather inauspicious, and that's an unavoidable hurdle. But even so, it's not particularly dire or anything outside of that. Just... oddly mellow for one of the series' final outings.