[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by AkibaSilver

Ah, Den-O. The series that basically pulled a Kuuga-2 and set the stage for franchise going forwards. Good times.

I get your comparison, but this feels more like a Ryuki 2, where a ton of things that I consider "Kamen Rider" first show up? Where the lens gets widened? Like, and I'm sure I'll get into this more in the next episode, the idea of a monster being connected to the victim, and that defeating the monster means healing the victim... that is such a Kamen Rider thing to me! That's Ex-Aid, and Wizard, and OOO, and Fourze, and and and. Her evolving the usual monster shenanigans into something that's both thematically relevant on a textual level and also instantly creates a uniqueness to each expression of the routine... KOBAYASHI! So goddamn smart.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

There are varying reasons of not wanting to fight. As the series established him, he's weak. No point of going to fight if you're too weak to do so, it wouldn't lead to good outcome (and there aren't anyone on the monster's way that time to excuse a sacrifice for instance), don't know what's good outcome for fighting thugs either, but of course Ryotaro has no idea at all about the fantasy elements in his world at that time, he would've thought that he must fight off monsters in his human form (and even then, Den-O Plat is a joke form, and Ryotaro has no idea how to use the Rider powers), but he does want to help other people whenever possible (whenever possible, not by meaninglessly charge to battle just to instantly die), and of course, not every problem is about fighting. Ryotaro's reason to not fight (and being told to do so) is not about moral flaw, I mean being "told to fight" can also happen to be done by morally ambiguous characters, trying to "corrupt" the character refusing to do so, like what some other Riders do to Shinji in Kobayashi's previous series Ryuki.

Well, yeah, but like I said, the show is already starting to explore the nuance of all that, the non-binary nature of violence and pacifism. I'm not suggesting folks should always fight, just like the show isn't currently suggesting folks should always not fight.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

What about Chou Den-O Trilogy and Let's Go Kamen Riders?

Chou Den-O is post-Decade, and the Legend Rider movies (like Let's Go) will all get a rewatch thread post-Decade.