[Switchblade]

So yeah, we're back into "I don't remember any of this" territory with Kabuto's penultimate episode. All I really recalled was the plot to turn humans into Natives and that Kagayama died (although I forgot that Yaguruma killed him). Forgot the big Kabuto v. Gatack throwdown. Forgot that Kagami Sr. died. Forgot that Mishima was a weird Native and not just a regular Native in disguise the whole time. Forgot that Renge's one scene managed to make Juka and Hiyori's look like a spotlight episode in comparison. Etc.

I'm not a big fan of Kabuto's final arc either. It does make more sense than I remembered, but it also feels like a lot of things randomly happening for reasons that don't entirely make sense.

That said, I don't really want to talk about this episode when I can talk about something much better: Kamen Rider Black!

I think it's fairly well established that Hibiki is my favorite Rider series. Black is a very close second. I watched it after I got through the full Heisei era, though, which means I was able to realize that the Natives' plan to use jewelry to replace humanity isn't new: it's stolen from one of Gorgom's failed efforts.

Episode 9 of Kamen Rider Black deals with a plan by the Gorgom priestess Bishum to kill a massive swathe of humanity through the toxic poison of the Wasp Mutant. Her delivery method? Booby-trapped necklaces.

Of course, Kotaro overheard that a few people had been hospitalized with strange symptoms and immediately suspected Gorgom (which isn't that impressive, really, Kotaro suspected Gorgom was behind everything: "My order of regular fries from Arby's included a random curly fry? Gorgom!"). He didn't actively destroy the necklaces, but he did encourage an ill-fated attempt to get people to stop wearing them.

It's a very similar story, just swap fatal poison for Native transformation and 80s kids in track suits for Zectroopers. The parallels really struck me when I first watched the episode and I find it hard to believe that the similarities are a coincidence, especially with how well-known and popular Black is in Japan.