[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

For reference, the bikes in this series follow a “first part of rider’s name followed by bird” theme naming.

If you think my pride in coming up with "Den-Otorcycle" will ever let me call that bike by another name... welcome to a Kamen Rider Die Watches thread! It's great to have you join us!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

And personally, I’ve never understood why someone decided to incorporate an amnesia plot regarding the Zeronos Cards, or give them a limited number of uses. Almost no logical reason occurs to me.

Yeah, it's like Fish said, the Zeronos cards are more about the slipperiness of memory, that trap of nostalgia, the weight of connection. How they work? I'm not sure there's any particular science that could be behind it that'd define it better than It Works That Way To Make Yuuto Sad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Oh, I get it now! I thought for a second this might be a whole new disagreement between us, but it's actually just a classic that goes all the way back to Kuuga – early Heisei shows having cryptic storytelling that I gleefully eat up while you desperately beg the series to give you something you can actually unpack.

I really love that you and I can both look at a fog bank, and you'll go It's So Beautiful And Atmospheric and I'll go I Can't See A Goddamn Thing. Just unironically love that. It's what art's all about, you know? Differing perspectives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

But yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from with how this one failed to really resonate with you, even though it definitely got there for me. I told you upfront Zeronos is my favorite secondary Rider, and the tragic nature of his existence that the show is starting to dig into here is a key reason why. There's nothing more Kamen Rider to me than a suffering hero.

I'm hoping my feelings toward this story'll change as it goes on (I like that you said "starting to dig into"!), because what I got so far didn't feel enough like a story about Yuuto and Airi. It felt like a Doomed Romance with a Suffering Boy and a Wounded Girl, not anything with characters who were invested in their own narrative.

(Although, my absolute favorite recurring Yuuto thing is how people keep projecting the wrong emotions onto him? The Deneb story is all about Deneb misunderstanding how much Yuuto cares about him, and this story's climax hinges on Yuuto needing to explain to Ryotaro and Deneb that saving his connection to a woman he hasn't fallen in love with yet, and now never will, isn't worth his friends dying. People keep reading deeper emotions into Yuuto because he's so closed-off, and then they read the wrong emotions into him. I love that.)

The more this story lets Yuuto and Airi, instead of Ryotaro, drive the plot, the more I'm going to be into it. I just don't feel like the show's done that yet?