[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 31 - "AI NEED YU”




I already knew what my Den-O Series Wrap-Up post was going to be about. I figured it out a couple weeks ago.

It was going to be about how my favorite thing in Den-O wasn't a plot or a character or an arc or a gag. My favorite thing in Den-O was something that was in pretty much every episode. It was that bit in the opening credits, when the music flares up after In Your Hands from the theme song, and it's Hana making goofy faces at the camera. That's it. That was my favorite thing.

There's a lot more I could go into about it, and I was planning to. Stuff about how the simple act of letting the actors mug for the camera was so integral to the warmth the show radiated. That taking time to show how Ryotaro's life was enriched by these two women, Hana and Airi, was a window into how deeply he connects with people. How much there was inside Ryotaro, and how these women could bring it out of him. Or how the characters facing the camera instead of each other was a way of communicating the ease of their relationship, that their support was unwavering.

But, y'know, Hana's gone now. That post is never going to get written.

I was sad watching this episode. I can't pretend I was viewing it objectively, ready to go on another DenLiner adventure with the gang. The whole experience was diminished. Knowing Hana wouldn't be back, or the actor wouldn't be back... this episode would've needed to be exceptional just to make me feel not horrible.

It was definitely not an exceptional episode.

The other part of that opening bit I really loved was Airi's laugh, the semi-out-of-character reaction to something Ryotaro's actor probably said to her. Airi's quirky mindfulness is a well that the show keeps coming back to, because it's refreshing to experience. She's like a home that Ryotaro can always return to, and the last storyline really enforced that idea.

So, yeah, inevitably you need to do storylines where that's disrupted. Or, I don't know, maybe not inevitably? Maybe it's okay to have something that isn't jeopardized or threatened? Maybe Airi's happiness and emotional safety doesn't need to be the crux of a cliffhanger? I don't know. Stories need stakes, conflict builds character, but having Hana gone at the same time that Airi's under attack... it's too much. It's too much for me to handle, honestly. I don't like sad episodes of Den-O a whole lot, and this one was just an all-the-way-through bummer to watch.

A lot of it was my mindset, which wasn't ever going to be great. But having the rest of the story be focused on some slimy banker concocting an incredibly illegal ten million yen loan with Airi's name on it to blackmail her into marrying him, and the climactic threat is that she'll learn the truth that her brother's been hiding from her for months that he definitely should've told her already... I didn't like this.

I'm sure I've said before how much I enjoy hanging out in the world of Den-O, how it feels like spending time with friends. This episode was the opposite of that feeling. This one was like an awkward dinner party that you wish you'd never attended. It's full of things that should be enjoyable, people you normally like; but someone's missing, and folks keep saying the wrong things. It's an episode that needed everyone on their A-game to make me feel like Hana's absence wasn't going to irrevocably change the formula, and what I got was a return of my least-favorite trope and a plot that was equally repellant and unbelievable.

I'm going to miss that girl who played Hana.



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-The idea of a banker just walking in and saying You Owe Us Ten Million Yen is stupid. It's just a stupid idea. It breaks the reality of the Magical Time Train show, if you can believe it. I can sort of vaguely see Airi not rocking the boat, since that's her nature, but just shrugging her shoulders as they repossess Milk Dipper, her parents' shop and her only livelihood, is maybe too far. The bigger problem is the Airimirers, who never think to, like, call the cops? I'm not sure someone can just show up with a contract you never signed and take everything you own? It's just a dumb idea that I was not in a charitable enough mood to overlook.