[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 32 - "THE LAST CARD: ZERO!"




Some really powerful emotional storytelling here, unfortunately focused on a plot that basically never landed for me.

We've spent the last day or so talking about the problems with the Airi/Sakurai/Yuuto plot. Things like Sakurai existing as an idea more than a character. Yuuto's lack of present-day connection to Airi. Airi's complete isolation from the emotional stakes of her own story. (A pretty fatal flaw to me!) Add to that the use of signifiers ahead of specificity (we get shown scenes of affection without finding out what the people involved really felt), and it's a plot that never really made me feel anything towards it. I could recognize that this was an unideal situation, but it didn't really feel like anyone was too broken up about it?

The show definitely tried to make it matter here at the end of the plot, though. (Or, "end" of the plot; I can't imagine we won't see further developments for Airi and Sakurai, at the very least.) Airi, for sure, is bringing so much pathos and heartbreak to her performance, a woman who is starting to understand the shape of the absence inside of her. Yuuto's raising his game as well, with his stoic resolve crumbling under the weight of a loss he's only now beginning to value. The direction, too! The dreamlike constellation pulling Airi out of her captivity. Yuuto breaking down a door and bathing her in light. The painful slowness of Airi starting to see Yuuto for who he really is and needing contact to make it all cohere in her memory. The impossible strength of Yuuto to watch that last card vanish, as the soundscape dissolves to his labored breathing, taking his past and future with it. It's trying so hard to make the stakes of this story work.

It almost manages it, but not quite.

The themes are good. The idea of your memories only having value if they can be used to make a brighter future, that's a strong message. Yuuto opting to give up the reason he's fighting in order to save Den-O and Deneb, that's an awesomely heroic move. Just, in general, it's saying smart, insightful things about letting the past go. It's an episode about acknowledging loss, to better open yourself up to new possibilities.

They just, man, Airi and Yuuto just never got there for me. A lot of it is down to how coy the show played with too many key elements. We're only just now learning that the Zeronos cards are Yuuto's... future? Sakurai's past? Memories of Sakurai? I don't even know exactly what they're supposed to be, and that's a huge drawback for what this episode's trying to accomplish emotionally. Which is pretty much the whole problem with the Airi/Sakurai/Yuuto plot: it takes forever for it to explain the stakes, and even then it's relentlessly vague about the specifics of those stakes. We never get a sense of how Yuuto really feels about this plot, since literally every time Ryotaro brings it up on behalf of the audience, Yuuto tells us to go screw. I can try and project what I think those characters are going through, what they're afraid of, but it's all projection, all inference. Yuuto won't talk about it, and Airi doesn't remember it. I am a sucker for these types of sci-fi bullshit temporal paradox love stories, but this show was giving me so little to hold onto.

I liked this episode more than I thought I would, since everyone involved is bringing a ton to the table. There is so much effort involved in landing this Airi/Sakurai/Yuuto plot. But, for me, it was too little, too late. Entertaining, and occasionally insightful, but not nearly as heartbreaking or haunting as it probably should've been. A for effort, though.



THE BAGGAGE CAR

-One of the few benefits of Less Hana seems to be More Naomi, and I do like that. (I wish it wasn't a zero sum calculation, though!) It's nice to see Mana-chan get to have more screen time. When I'd read that she was a part of this show after I finished Agito, I just assumed they'd give her a meaty part to play. I've liked what she's done so far, a lot, but she's definitely been underutilized. Maybe that'll improve?

-Credit where credit's due, the Airimirers did an off-screen resolution of the ridiculous Fake Loan plotpoint. A dumb plot was taken care of and I didn't have to watch the Airimirers do it? This show is getting me back on its side!

-As someone who's never cared that much about integration Riding into Kamen Rider, the bike duel in this one was... not that awe-inspiring? There's a late bit where Sword Form gingerly stops the Den-Otorcyle (or whatever it's called), hops it into a 90 degree turn, and then lets the Grasshopper Imagin's bike slowly bump into it. Not the most impressive bike stunts I've ever seen on these shows.