[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

I'd think that being "spared" from death is not plausible reason to see good traits in someone, this goes for audience who also treat someone as innocent due to sparing someone from death... ignoring how they savagely attacked them at first. Probably yeah, without explanation can make the scene better to show... toughness Fangires have in Shima, though somehow Shima explodes like a monster being detonated without the monster dying, I think something like Ryuki did the fake explosion better to fake Goro's death, when Ryuki shoots Strike Vent, of which Magnugiga secretly escalates the explosion. Besides, Shima is partly at fault to turn Taiga like the way he is now, as without Otoya or King, Shima was the one who raised Taiga for a while, and Taiga points out that Shima's discrimination to Fangires was already long present before this incident where Taiga attacks Shima in a fit of rage, with Shima's cold and outright xenophobic attitude being what caused Taiga to angrily lash out in the first place.

So, two things.

First, even though Shima sees Taiga's actions - turning him into a Fangire, faking his death, and then resurrecting him as a normal human - as proof that Taiga cares about people and can be redeemed, let's also recall that this entire stupid scheme was built to either make Wataru feel like enough of a hypocrite to join Taiga in subjugating humanity, or to goad Wataru into a duel to the death with Taiga, depending on which phase of the scheme we are in. Shima may look at the end result as proof that Taiga is worth saving, but that's only because Shima is a hectoring, goal-oriented asshole. I'm not sure Taiga had good intentions for about 95% of his plan!

Second, while I did just called Shima a hectoring, goal-oriented asshole, the details of Shima's time as Taiga's surrogate dad are pretty vague. We can assume he's as awful a father as he is a boss, but there's way too little evidence to say if Shima's that bad, or if Taiga - someone who is maybe sometimes slightly overstating his hardships - is making himself a victim. It's one of the big problems with this plot: we don't ever see anything Taiga and Shima are referring to? It's all Tell, no Show. Definitely makes finding an emotional core in this part of the series damn near impossible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Don't dismantle system, improve it, which is what Wataru is doing, overthrowing evil monsters who assume roles as King to put himself as the King, so that he can likely establish a rule to make it fair for both humans and Fangires, albeit Taiga isn't 100% evil unlike King and he's on process to redemption. It's what I think makes sense for Wataru's goal as peacemaker between Fangires and humans (remember besides of trying to eliminate himself, he vows to do this too! the rules established by King is also what takes Mio's life!), despite that it seems to not follow what you want for Inoue being against system (King himself is an evil counterpart to Wataru, that's why he dons the outfit and King can look like Wataru), which is Wataru altering the system to his noble needs but I explained above regarding system.

That would be a great story! I'd be real into that! It's... not the story the show is telling at this point? Like, this is a story where Wataru ignores his friends, dresses like the tyrant who nearly killed everyone in his family, and forces his Three Weird Uncles to kneel in submission. We are not at all in a story about Wataru's kindness and nobility.