[TheRaizin]

I never should have called out to you...

Yeah, we never should have met.


An impressive display of Kamihoriuchi! He's really one of Saber's best directors, paired up with Fukuda, the two can really make characters shine! The lighting, the symbolism shots, the near-absence of the jingles to avoid taking away the emotional weight, it's all so good. It seems Kami wrote the lyrics of the insert song, and were very hard on the actors for this episode.

This is the culmination of Ren and Dezats's side plot and My God, it's amazing. Admittedly, the side plot doesn't have much build towards this scene, hoping the Blu-ray special amends that, but the relationship of these two as per the Twitter posts and their small interaction are special that I still found myself loving every bit of this final fight.

Ren mimics Blades' style, a style of of focus and and finesse, something he is clearly not fit for, so he is immediately beaten after. We get one last squeeze of Ren's childish personality as he crawls away in terror from Dezast, he's still a child, he's scared of dying. Really felt for him in that one. This is until he remembers Dezast's words and fights back.

It's an amazing fight, showcasing both Fujita and Togashi's stunts. Honestly, Togashi can wear the Kenzan suit if he really wanted to. I'm REALLY impressed with Togashi here, and I'm looking forward to his future work, whether in Kamen Rider or somewhere else. He'd be a nice fit in Tokusatsu. See, when Ren's not screaming, he's really good. According to the production blog, Togashi didn't want to leave even after he was done filming, he wanted to watch Fujita and learn from him. Fujita taught Togashi some things, I think.

Can't forget Koki Uchiyama's performance of Dezast. According to the production blog, they specifically wanted an anime VA for Dezast and Uchiyama filled the bill, though he was hard to get to the studio obviously. May or may not explain his few appearances. My absolute favorite part of this is when Ren proclaims he's going to defeat him with his entire being and Dezast laughs in response, and it really felt like he was crying too. A megid with no purpose, other than the fight.

The two denying the meeting of each other was great, like it's as if they really meant it but you know they were telling each other the exact opposite. They really are alike.

The end-credits scene of Ren finally eating his ramen with the red ginger, Kyomu and Hayate placed on top of each other on the Bench was very good, too. I love the last symbolism shot of the empty garden. Again, I needed a wider shot of it, but I love the meaning of it. Dezast and Ren are gone from the garden, Ren has symbolically returned. A changed man. Free of obsession over others and instead staying true to himself. A Kamen Rider.

Ren thanked Dezast in their first and last battle, with different emotions from Ren. It's great.

The rest of the episode is some good fun. Ryoga trying his best to thank Mei, lacking the social skills to do it, with Reika being overtly protective of her brother. Seems they lack something of each other and need each other to complete it. Like the little callback to Kento's future visions and them going around to the locations of those. The part with Storious in the correct area of his vision was a bit contrived, but I guess if they put it in the first place, Logos would be diminished a boss villain.

Storious makes a pretty genius use of Charybdis, a kind of way of doing the ritual without actually using it. And now he has the grimoire. It'll be a while before we see him transform with it.