[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA EPISODE 47 - "BREAK THE CHAIN: OBEY ME!”



This episode is full of plot developments that are either brilliant or stupid, and all but one of them depend on the next episode.

The stupid one is, obviously, Shima's return. It's so ludicrous that I almost wish he had been a Fangire or a ghost, because Taiga Only Pretended To Kill Me For No Apparent Reason And Then Changed Me Back Into A Human Because He Loves Me is dumb. Very dumb. (Also, like, when did Taiga save Shima? Because I just rewatched that death scene, and there's no way. Saga immediately fights Kiva after Shima detonates, then Mio gets killed, then Saga chases Wataru into the woods. This episode shows Saga saving Shima while the flames are still burning from his non-detonation, and... there's no way. There's NO WAY Shima's explanation works.) It's a development that only exists to let Shima participate in the finale (Who cares? I'd rather see Kengo again!), and for someone to argue for Taiga's salvation. It's negligibly successful on the latter point, since maybe one scene later Taiga declares that he's all alone (...you literally just resurrected your surrogate father, but okay) and kills Maya in a rage. It's a ridiculous convoluted scheme that buys Taiga maybe two minutes of audience sympathy at best. Mostly, it's just this baffling distraction in an episode that could use maybe a few less baffling things.

Like, the rest of this episode lives or dies on whatever Wataru's actual plan is, because Becoming An Evil Overlord feels slightly out-of-character for a very sweet boy who just wanted to erase his own existence because his rivalry with Taiga got out of hand and people were getting hurt. Usurping the throne from Taiga and dressing like the father Taiga killed as a baby doesn't feel like much of a de-escalation!

(That said, Wataru and Taiga dressing in each other's dad's clothes is a super thematically and aesthetically appropriate final fight for this show, no matter how sketchy the path to get there is.)

It's one of those turns in a tokusatsu story where it's either one of two things. It's either some double-secret plan, where Wataru is acting all mean to provoke someone into doing something, whereby he can save the day for good; or it's Wataru getting drunk with power and now his friends need to rein him in, the power of friendship, etc. That's how these stories always go.

But we don't find out until next episode, so investing in this one is like listening to half of a joke. It's only when you get to the punchline that you can determine if the setup is worth it. Here, it's a bunch of neat visuals (Bad-Ass Wataru is really something), but I basically don't believe anything he's doing. I don't think Wataru is really going to lead the Fangires, and I don't believe he's abandoning his friends, and I don't believe he's turning his back on his brother.

Or, shit, maybe he's doing all of those things, and I just don't get why, so I'm still just waiting for the next episode. The core inability to understand why Wataru is doing what he's doing keeps me at such a remove from this story. It's mysterious, but there's nothing of substance in the back half of this episode for me to hold onto. It's just shocks that get their power from being inexplicable, rather than clever.

Shima coming back in a dumb way for no tangible story advantage was a real canary in a coalmine for this episode. That development was so nonsensical that I could almost feel the episode falling apart. There're a bunch of little things like that. I don't understand why Nago would ask Wataru to run W.A.K.E.U.P. instead of Megumi, a woman whose family is basically synonymous with the organization. I don't understand why Megumi won't use IXA, but will try to coach a blind Nago through a fight. (Terrible coaching; she doesn't even give them matching shirts!) I don't understand why Shima is welcomed back with open arms, considering his last appearance was as a rampaging monster, and we only have his non-explanation for why that isn't the case anymore.

But, y'know, there's always next episode. Maybe there're explanations for all of these things, and Wataru's plan is genius, and Taiga is more than just a slowly collapsing pile of entitlement, and Nago's blindness will feel like a story worth telling (genuinely can't make a case for this subplot right now), and Kengo will show back up, and and and. This episode is a waveform that hasn't collapsed yet, simultaneously awesome and awful. It's full of things I'm either going to shake my head at or pump my fist in the air for.

Watching this one... it's like I'm just collecting data, you know? I can't really judge any of it (well: Shima) until the next episode. I liked some of the data, though? Bad-ass Wataru is really something!