[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 48



Oh, man, is this thing getting worse? Feels like it's getting worse!

The biggest bummer for me is how little of what's going on in these episodes feels thematically tied into what the rest of the season has been about. Discussions of xenophobia, of an inability for previous generations to safeguard a future for their children, of allowing organizations to dictate terms to a populace instead of the other way around... I mean, fun ideas, but none of that was really in the last 47 episodes of Kabuto. This show decided to go all-in on a militarized organization of nebulous authority that has mostly been a joke the last half of the series, and it's probably a critical error.

There's plenty of other problems, on a micro/individual level, but the big one is just how disconnected this finale is feeling from the show that preceded it. I made a joke, back on 45, that the producers got handed five extra episodes after 44 and had to come up with more ideas on the spot. That... that might really be what happened, because nearly everything after 44 has been downhill, character-wise. The cast had reached a cathartic end, and then... just kept going? Despite their emotional issues being resolved? So they just forget most of them so another story could be told?

Like, the big fight at the center of this episode is between Gatack and Kabuto, and it just feels so forced, so false, so phony. 44 has this pivotal moment of connection between the two Riders, and here we are in 48 with Tendou throwing away all of Kagami's trust for no compelling reason (now he decides to mention that the necklaces are turning people into Natives?!), leaving Kagami with a burning need to kill Tendou for... reasons? I think Kagami suddenly feels like Worms should be allowed to live? After one speech from Negishi? It's not like the show hasn't had stories where Kagami wanted to protect the odd Worm, but here he's sentencing Tendou to death (pretty much the series theme at this point) for killing Worms, despite Kagami killing dozens of Worms over the length of the show? Hundreds?

It's just such a weird scene, and it still feels unbelievably regressive. This doesn't feel like the Kagami and Tendou who banded together to save Hiyori, or the Kagami and Tendou that kept one another from going too far in the pursuit of justice. This feels like the Tendou who looks down his nose at this other guy's Very Big Feelings, and the Kagami who doesn't trust Tendou's loner tendencies and lack of transparency. It's this series deciding to have a huge Gatack/Kabuto fight in the penultimate episode, and then scrambling to find a way to justify it. I guess it helps if Kagami gets scammed and Tendou takes forever to explain what's really going on!

So, yeah, a huge part of this episode doesn't work for me. I didn't really hate the Kagami solo stuff, since the core of this show is Kagami's Very Big Feelings. I like him trying to help people in a larger way, in a societal way. It's when the show so quickly pushes him into a fight to the death with Tendou, and it literally could've been avoided if Tendou had thought to explain himself (or even articulate his concerns, if he wasn't certain) one single scene earlier, that's when I feel like the show isn't trying hard enough.

Which, yeah, sloppy plotting up and down the show. It's a lot of quick ends and turns that a better show would've checked in on regularly, or possibly steadily addressed over the course of the show. Hey, remember those pills Goro stopped taking 30 episodes ago? Well, he's throwing them away here and becoming a Super Native! (Or are the pills making him a Super Native? I'm unclear! Or uninterested! Or both!) Or, hey, that Negishi guy who has been in two scenes before this episode? He's the series mastermind and a genocidal lunatic! Or, y'know that berserk switch we saw Kabuto deal with literally one time in one episode and then basically no one ever brought up again? It's going to be a huge part of the finale, I guess! Or, what about ZECT being a militarized organization of nebulous authority, who worked in the shadows and could barely pay their employees or keep the lights on? Now they basically run Japan! Oh, and KickHopper murders PunchHopper! And Kagami's dad dies!

It's insane, what this show is trying to do over its final three episodes. I feel like they're trying to do Kabuto Season 2 over 47 to 49. Everything feels rushed and unconvincing, the show is squandering great characters and long-term arcs, and it doesn't even find room for a Tendou/Hiyori scene in the entire episode. (Cute Juka/Hiyori one, though.) If you told me this episode was written a year prior, before the characters had evolved and the show came into itself, it would explain everything. I'm not sure I've ever had a Rider/Rider fight that I believed in less than this one, or an episode with this many name character deaths that I found so ludicrously unmotivated.

Shockingly poor episode, and I'm not feeling great about tomorrow's finale!

A QUESTION

Multiple choice time! Genuinely can't believe that Tendou, the guy who executed Tsurugi a week ago, is letting the guy who assaulted Hiyori just, like, go live his life. Is Tendou letting Another Tendou go because:

a) Tendou firmly/suddenly believes in forgiveness against psychotic Worms as long as they promise not to do it again, despite Another Tendou immediately shouting that he can't forgive Hiyori and fleeing into the night

b) Tendou is pathologically incapable of looking at his own face and not immediately forgiving it

c) Nothing matters anymore, no one on this show is written like they existed before this episode, continuity is a dirty word, welcome to the darkness