[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 18 - "THE CLOCKWORK FIANCE"




So, I liked the idea behind the episode, where it ended, but I was not at all into how we got there.

Like, at the end, this is a story about people bravely taking on the burdens of others without telling them, and how colossally stupid that is. It's an episode that shows through Ryotaro and the Imagin that killing yourself to save others from hardship is just creating a situation that's bad for everyone. Ryotaro doing all of this dumb training to be of more use to the Imagin has nearly gotten them to kill themselves, and that in turn would've left Ryotaro at a disadvantage/crippled him with guilt. Everyone's making sacrifices that only make things worse. It's "The Gift of the Imagin", basically.

So, that concept, I do like it. The fight scene in this one is the most memorable part, because it's Momotaros feeling justifiably let down by Ryotaro, and just stopping the fight dead to lay down some scolding on Ryotaro. Momo is, for all of his flaws, a straight-shooter, and he's not happy with all of the secrets Ryotaro is keeping. Having the Airi stuff and the Den-O stuff collide in a thematic lesson from Momotaros is brilliant, and it makes me wish the episode's path to that speech was better.

Because, goddamn, a bunch of fat on this one. Sawada, for one, feels somewhere between a massive red herring and a missed opportunity. Her story is disappointingly simple, with her feeling overburdened and homesick, and then Airi gives her a pep-talk, story's over. The whole point of the scene with Airi ends up not even really being about Sawada (who has recovered astonishingly well after being assaulted by a monster who disappeared into her body), but instead it's just more of a push to get Ryotaro to stop coddling Airi and tell her the truth. Sawada barely feels like she's a part of this story in the second part, which is way more concerned with Airi's tragic backstory.

Which, man, not a huge fan! Two of my least favorite toku tropes are Narratively Convenient Amnesia and We Can't Tell A Woman The Truth For Reasons, so imagine how thrilled I was to hit the midpoint of this one. The directing is selling Airi's tragic backstory for all it's worth, and it sincerely hurts to see Airi so devastated, but I'm just zero percent into this story. This is completely subjective, but the foundation of this thing is just rotten to me. So rotten that it's almost preemptively spoiling the appearance of Zeronos (I recognize the toy from his train pass, plus Hello Kyosuke From Hibiki), because I'm not going to love hearing this dude explain why We Can't Tell Airi The Truth For Reasons. I hope that's not where they're going! I wish with all my might that Kobayashi is smarter/braver/stronger than that! But I got my fears.

So, yeah. Fun ending, with this being a story about folks needing to stop keeping destructive secrets and start letting people in, but the nostalgia theme never really came through for me (it doesn't really feel pertinent to anything other than Airi's memories?) and Sawada didn't really get enough focus. Love that fight scene, pretty disinterested in the rest of this one.



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-I almost can't wrap my brain around this, but the whole thing about the Imagin (no idea what he's supposed to be) that's just totally artistically blocked in 2004, just looking at this blank canvas of a city and stumped about what he's supposed to do to level it, I loved that. It feels like the production team couldn't figure out a reason why the Imagin doesn't just blow up 2004 after escaping from Den-O in the previous episode, and they definitely need him to hold off so that they can do all of their Airi exposition, so the team just seems to have gone Maybe He's Drawing A Blank Too. It's such a weirdly human response, and it totally worked for me. I love the banality of it, how this monster looks at destroying the past like it's confusing instructions for Ikea furniture. I am all about monsters who are not great at their jobs, so this Imagin was a bright spot for me in the first half of this episode.

-Zeronos! Real interested to see what Sakurai's like, and how much my (incredibly recent!) memories of Kyosuke color his introduction. For a show that's all about trying to reconcile the mistakes of the past with hope for the future, having everyone's favorite Hibiki character from everyone's favorite Hibiki era show up... very thematically appropriate! Great meta casting!