[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 17 - "THAT GUY IS HERE! AND IN THE PAST!”




Well, I just wrote a couple paragraphs about Ryutaros' Airi fandom, and now I can't remember what I was going to say about this episode.

There're really two things going on in this episode, and they didn't really connect for me yet. (I assume I'll feel differently by the conclusion.) There's this bonkers story about the Imagin thinking they're about to get fired for incredibly vague, possibly Hana-invented reasons (it's pretty much a game of Telephone where Ryotato says Things Should Change and Hana goes Ryotaro Demands An Imagin Battle Royale), and then there's this bleaker story about lives deferred, and about the seductive poison of nostalgia.

I liked both stories, even if they felt like they were from entirely different episodes. It's not tonal whiplash exactly, but there was definitely a non-zero amount of tonal dissonance as we'd switch from Sawada feeling like she gave up a past she adored for a present she loathes, to Momo and Kin breaking Milk Dipper in an attempt to prove their worth. Those are... those are very different feelings that are being evoked! Tough to do those back to back!

That uneasy bedfellow thing aside, it's a pretty compelling episode. I think it's more effective in its drama than it is in its comedy, though. Sawada's return to Japan lets us learn more about Ryotaro's past, and about how low-level miserable he really is.

Ryotaro... not the easiest title character to love, if I'm being honest? He's sweet, and funny, but he's so shrinking and quiet that it's hard to really root for him. Or, I don't know, I find myself way more excited about seeing an Imagin possess him than I am him whispering his way through a scene. He's constantly getting overshadowed by bigger personalities, and now we've reached the point of him almost dying because he can't get the four Imagins he's entangled with to stop running him ragged. He's pushed around a lot, and it's hard to really get what's driving him.

So, an episode that starts to peel back his layers is enormously welcome. To see him less as a perennial punching bag and more as someone who has made difficult, unhappy choices to protect the people he loves, to see a side of Ryotaro that is willing to say I Deserve Better Than This, yes. Very ready for that story. We're only scratching the surface of that here, but it feels like the show is setting up Ryotaro to be at least a smidgen more assertive.

And I think the Imagin feel it, too, since they are pretty sure someone's going to get kicked off the DenLiner for Ryotaro's sake, and they're pretty pretty sure it's going to be Momotaros.

Which, fun story, even if there's no way it would ever be Momo. (Ryutaros first, then Urataros, then Kintaros, then Momotaros.) The story needs it to look like it's going to be Momo, though, because he has the least amount of chill, and the story's ten times better if it's him freaking out over his job security. For a character that's usually almost no help outside a fight, Momo somehow becomes even less helpful the more he struggles to be helpful. It is like his effort to be of use generates anti-useful particles, sabotaging everything around him. Every minute he tries to spotlight his value is another minute on the highlight reel of why he should be expelled from the train. He is failing at a superhuman level, and it's terrific.

Fun episode for watching the Imagin battle to establish their competence, and for watching young adults regret growing up.



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-Sawada's... I mean, she's a great way into Ryotaro's story, to have someone who's even worse at hiding their pain than he is, but I found her a little too on the nose. Like, she says "nostalgia" a lot, and she's doing nothing but reminiscing about her high school days. She is a little one-note. She plays that note well, though, so it's not a failure or anything. She just feels more like a plot device than a character right now.

-Speaking of plot devices who are not yet characters! Pocketwatchman makes a sort-of-kind-of non-cameo appearance, an episode or so before he's actually cast. It's one of the Rider mysteries that I don't hate, but I am not willing to expend a single ounce of brain-power on theorizing. I feel like they'll tell me something important in an episode or two, and then I'll be interested. Until then, he's here! And he's backlit by the sun! And he may or may not have a mysterious connection to Airi! I don't really care yet!