[Fish Sandwich]

Guys, please don't go insulting Shibuya and Narita by even suggesting that they're on a comparable level to Miura and Ozaki. I mean, I have a lot of love for a lot of random space filling side characters in Rider (I'll spare Die having to read the name of a ~certain~ perfect example from Kuuga), but even I mostly tolerate the presence of these two goofs in Den-O.

The crux of it is that I just plain don't find they're anywhere near as funny as basically everything else in this extremely comedy-focused Rider show? For whatever reasons, their dynamic feels so much less natural to me than all the other characters (although admittedly, being fake IS their whole thing), and they're so much less interesting to watch because of that. I can broadly see what their presence contributes, especially in this episode pair specifically centered around a scumbag Imagin making trouble for Ryoutarou, but it's hard to say the execution was great.

Arguably that could also be said about this episode as a whole, perhaps as a direct result of that, but while I certainly don't recall this one being a favorite, I do think it highlights just how... leisurely Den-O could be, which is something I think sets it apart from a lot of the crowd. I don't necessarily like a plot spending this much time with deliberately unsympathetic characters squeezing out the ones we like, but I do like that there's space to have it, if that makes any sense? I also feel like it's just kinda hard for any episode following directly after 4 to not come off like a huge step down, which maybe makes me feel that much more generous towards it.

Oh, and for yet more trivia, Urataros' suit actor is Eitoku, who would start going by that stage name midway through this show. He's not a fan-favorite emo Rider this time, but a major recurring role as the designated #2 Taros is still a big step towards playing designated #2 Riders later on. Like, even on Saber right now, he's the blue guy to the main red guy, so arguably not much has changed in all these years.