[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 48

Ooh, look, Tendou said the thing! Glad I told everyone about the tagline back at the start of the thread. Yes, the show sure is coming full circle now!

...Maybe a little too full circle?

Yeah, I mean, I wish I could argue about the (not ~particularly~ high) quality of this final arc so far, I really do. It's the episode where Kagami and Tendou fight to the death over differing perspectives! This is the most thematically appropriate possible time for my opinions to run contrary to Die's!

There are some minor points I could address, if I'm feeling extremely desperate. Pointing out that I'm pretty sure Kagami's dad isn't among the casualties list of this episode. Or maybe, like... noting how Dark Kabuto is actually talking about not being able to forgive the Natives, and the Hiyori thing is a mistranslation? Wait, talking about mistranslations? Great, now I'm back where I was 40+ episodes ago!

I did enjoy a lot of this episode, despite how sloppy it is. There are some gems buried in the dirt here, but the lack of cohesion prevents it from reaching any great heights.

Take the Kabuto/Gatack fight, for example. It needs to be emphasized what a huge deal that is, conceptually. Gatack is a very, very special secondary Rider. To this day, he holds the record for latest introduction, nearly halfway through the show, and, rather shockingly, him and Tendou haven't butted heads in any significant capacity since. In an early Heisei show! Sure, that statement comes with the caveat that they basically did that plot when Kagami was TheBee for a week back in the early show (again, full circle), but it's notable all the same. Their relationship had built by that point into something unbreakable, and no matter the tension between them, it never escalated into serious combat.

Clearly they were saving that for a big occasion, but I think they hit a wall figuring out how to break down that trust this late in the game. To the point they probably should've realized we didn't need to see them fight at all. Tendou has to be pointlessly silent for it to happen, and while I appreciate Kagami's shock horror at Kabuto killing Natives, and think his general gullibility is reasonably in-character, it's fundamentally not the most compelling axis for the drama to turn around. There's so much stuff I legitimately love about the duel, itself, too! Kabuto outright refusing to use the Hyper Zecter as a show of respect, especially, was by far the most true the episode was to the relationship between these characters. I just wish it hadn't felt so forced getting here.

I'm going to let Hiyori spending the entire episode literally in the kitchen off the hook, under the assumption that her lack of proper involvement is still the result of unavoidable real world problems. I don't know if that IS the case, but I'll give the show every chance I can. Ishida's gloomy direction continues to impress, once again letting many of the scenes just soak in the ambient sounds of the environments, letting the performances carry the emotion, and of course, by this point, all the actors are giving it everything they've got.

If I weren't so confused by the abrupt resolution to the Hoppers' plotline, I might even find Yaguruma and Kageyama's final scene together touching! Immediately getting negative again, I know, but I remember being genuinely confused what even happened the first time I saw it, so I want to bring it up. Kageyama being all upset about turning into a Native, and Yaguruma's subsequent mercy(?) killing happens so fast it barely even registers. I've barely even had time to get used to them deciding to seek the light, and suddenly one of them is dead. It's a bizarre end point for two bizarre characters, is maybe the most positive way I can put it.

I... I swear I started writing this thinking I'd have more nice things to say? I doubt I need to explain that this isn't generally the way I like to talk about Kamen Rider. It probably sounds like I had some frustrating experience with this one the same way I'm sure Die did, but please refer back to the part where I said I enjoyed much of it. The problem is, now that I'm sitting down and trying to quantify why, all that's popping into my head are minute details and small moments. Quite a lot of them, I'll have you know! ...But if I try to string all that together, it's only going to come out disjointed, rapidly switching from point to point with little rhyme or reason. Essentially, my attempt to praise the episode would only underscore the problem at its core.

So instead, I'll just agree with Die wholeheartedly that there's not a lot to pull from this one. One good thing is how it definitely feels like considerably more of a darkest hour situation than the first part of the trilogy, and, hey, I guess it's kind of a darkest hour for the thread, too? Is that a defense, or am I only making it sound worse again?