[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 6 - “A SWINDLER’S DIGNITY”

I still didn’t really care for it, though. Even once Ryotaro gets involved, a lot of the details feel fuzzy, and the attempt at a moral feels incredibly forced. There’s a bunch of stuff, but not much ever feels like it’s escalating consistently, and there end up being a weird amount of unnecessary elements. It's a story that seems to value ambiguity over clarity, and I don't love that trade this early in a series. It’s sloppy, and only a few beats really landed with me.

I think my favorite thing from this whole story is how much it rests on the shoulders of Hana, and how she could basically solve this whole case by herself. There’s that scene where she’s yelling at Daiki, and he’s like I Only Know How To Get Yelled At and she’s like I Only Know How To Yell At People and they’re both like Oh Wait This Isn’t Good. It’s a scene that a worse version of this show would have Ryotaro step into, with him connecting with Daiki while Hana learns from his example. Instead, Ryotaro just smiles as he sees the other two figure out how they’re communicating badly: Hana, with her aggressive need to chastise children who are misbehaving (see also Momotaros and Urataros); and Daiki, with his lies to keep from facing the truth. It’s a very sweet scene, and I loved how it was just two people apologizing for being real bad at responding to people.

It just… it feels like the show is trying to make the story about Daiki being a liar, and I don’t know if that really lands? It’s not like he believed the monster was real until a few minutes before Hana confronted him (so it’s not like he’s been hiding this from everyone all along), and him being a liar isn’t really connected to his failure in the soccer game. It’s like they wanted to do something with Urataros being a liar, but this kid is so tertiary to everything happening in the story that they take one lie (partially told because of Hana being an angry stranger) and try to turn this into A Story About Lying. Which, man, maybe if you squint real hard (the Airimirers help support this read), but not in any way that feels like they’re telling that story well.

Daiki's main thing is probably his fear for monster (and not believing the monster was real is likely him refusing to accept reality out of fear), that he made a deal with a monster, but he made a mistake that he actually dooms others that he regrets making the deal with the monster. Well yeah, for "value ambiguity over clarity", yeah Kobayashi is a show don't tell writer. I still think that Hana's deal to Daiki is significantly less aggressive than how she treats Imagins, don't feel like her being that aggressive, though she's getting there only a bit.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The Urataros story is of a cloth with the unevenness of the Daiki story, where his core trait of lying renders any arc with him one that’s kept at a distance. If I don’t believe anything Urataros says (I don’t! I was laughing very hard at Momo and Naomi in the scene where Ura starts crying!), then what’s in this episode isn’t some Hooker With A Heart Of Gold thing, like Ryotaro assumes, but some duplicitous hedonist existing only to manipulate. Is there more to him? Maybe! I don’t know! As it is, I think he’s funny enough, but I don’t really feel much enthusiasm for seeing him in solo-ish action. I didn’t really care about his story by the end, which doesn’t feel like a successful couple of episodes for this show?

I don’t completely love the ambiguity the show tacks onto Urataros’ intentions (just, let me think this dude has some heroic potential!), but I appreciate that Ryotaro wants to see something in him that might not be there. It’s that whole thing about Ryotaro not wanting to introduce pain into the world, so he’d rather give Urataros a chance than punish him needlessly. And Ryotaro seeing Ura’s lies as a gambit to guilt Daiki… yeah, that’s exactly what I thought Ura was doing, so I see why Ryotaro would make that assumption as well. It was a lazy, obvious lie, and pretty much beneath Urataros. (Hana has been very clear that she sees through him!) I think there’s room in there for Urataros to feel slightly offended that Ryotaro twigged to the altruistic failure, and so Ura needs to double-down on appearing selfish, but I think the ending would’ve been better if Urataros would’ve just shrugged off Ryotaro’s theory instead of flatly denying it. Think they went a little too far in trying to walk back Urataros’ teamwork. Some clever bits in there, though!

Based on Ryotaro's image of Urashima no Taro, Urataros is sea turtle-like in appearance and is armed with Uratarod, a rod with hexagonal blades at each end. In a fight, he usually states the words, "Mind if I reel you in?", a fishing metaphor which refers to his lying nature. Urataros is a cool-headed casanova with a very convincing personality who gets people to believe his constant lies. The only one who fully trusts him is Ryotaro, though Urataros felt a bit offended that the human is "trivializing his lies" and explains he lies simply for the sake of lying (although that itself may be a lie to look cool) to please himself. While Momotaros gets Ryotaro in trouble through reckless methods, Urataros puts Ryotaro in conflicting situations when he goes around wooing multiple women. Urataros puts Ryotaro on good luck technically, but of course, it's futile because it's in the way where Ryotaro can't process his new life.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Hana, though! I really dug how central she was in this, and it’s the one purely positive thing to come from these episodes. She just has zero time for problematic children, a trait that’s simultaneously invigorating (she’s had it with these mother******* Imagin on this mother******* train!), and a huge handicap for a show that’s largely about teaching lessons to children. Seeing her be just terrible with Daiki was, no joke, amazing to watch. It’s rare to see a hero on a Kamen Rider show be shit with kids, so that moment where she could see herself making this kid more withdrawn, and how mad she got at herself… I loved it. It’s the smartest scene in this whole story, by miles.

I also liked that this part views a female (not for antagonistic side) being in the wrong instead, and uses the male as an example to follow on. Points out that gender doesn't inherently set up your moral. For Hana's treatment of Imagin though, you probably make a good point about her being aggressive to childrens, but the true reason for her feud with the Imagins is not merely that, but something spoiler-y. But probably this also should put down the arguments about how you can make good children only by being hard and rough on them, and that others should not hold themselves back to deal with children.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

The Airimirers are only in one short scene, a decision that is both welcome, because they suck, and retroactively infuriating, because they are irrelevant to the story while factoring heavily into the first part. The previous episode wastes so much time on guys that, at best, minorly support a theme about lying being bad but also sometimes okay if you can use it to help people which they don’t do. Just… just some not great plotting in these two episodes, you guys.

Well sure, they're like the Haima of Den-O, which I knew your feud with. The comic relief character that is yeah, suck and retroactively infuriating, irrelevant to the story while factoring heavily into the first part.

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

-Rod Form! I don’t love the red Sword Form chest on the back! The rest of it is neat, though, and I love the finisher. Who can say a bad thing about impaling a monster and then Rider Kicking the impaling tool through it?

Rod Form reminds me of Gatack, that head shape. I'd prefer Rod Form to Sword Form in looks, the one thing that puts me off of Sword Form is the eyes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Same? I've had there be one or two times where I've rolled my eyes at a character before finding out that some people adore them (I want to say the character's name was John? Or Jeeves? He was on Agito, that much I know for sure), and I while I didn't really think that'd be the case with any of the Airimirers, we're early enough in Den-O that I was prepared for folks to tell me I'm crazy.

But, nope! They 100% suck!

Consensus in the fandom! WE FOUND IT ON A DEN-O THREAD!

I too don't have anything to defend those 2, but for "Consensus in the fandom", probably most of the threads have people mostly like-minded to you? And dunno for this being a joke or not, but for you being proud of the consensus in the fandom, you'd prefer for people to not make disagreements here?