[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It was only ever going to be Fish Sandwich.

First of all, I'd like to say that I was honestly really psyched about being the one who got to help cover these particular episodes of Decade, even if I was apparently the only real option according to Die. There's a lot of sentimental value there what with this being the original Decade two-parter, and the opportunity to really get in on the ground floor of this thread talking about alternate counterparts and big dumb action climaxes and all that is one I'm grateful for having. So grateful, even, that I'm going to keep talking about them for a bit!

- First of all, the episode guide I referenced is right here, just in case anyone is anyone curious.

- Probably worth bringing up that Ishinomori's real name was Shoutarou Onodera.

- Die calling my interpretation of that scene with Newsuke and his bike a "good catch" is maybe giving me way too much credit. I ended up watching episode 2 a whole day before 3, and spent most of that gap kicking that specific scene around in my head not because I had some genius read of it ready to go, but because I was wondering why the heck Tasaki directed it to look so aggressively meaningful.
The camerawork is going out of its way to scream at the viewer about how important the bike's lack of motion is, using these abrupt cuts where it pans over like Newsuke is about to drive off before smashing right back where it was, and if it weren't for that inspired direction giving me pause for thought, I would've let the moment slip right by. Tasaki was being smart so I didn't have to be! (And while I'm on the subject, there's a certain novelty to seeing Tasaki direct something even Kuuga-adjacent in general, since he started working on Rider with Agito.)

- Tsukasa and Natsumi maybe have one of my favorite hero/heroine dynamics in Rider history, by the way? They're constantly giving each other crap in a way that's about as dysfunctional as you'd expect from Heisei Rider, but at the same time you can tell they care about each other quite a bit, complete with him having a pet name for her and her always calling him Tsukasa-kun all affectionately.

- I'm going to take Die up on that offer to gush about the Decade fight music here. It's real good. I know I spent a couple months raving about Kiva's soundtrack like it was untouchable, but truth be told, Rider soundtracks are just kinda really good basically all the time? And in Decade's case, it's the big BGM debut of Shuuhei Naruse and Koutarou Nakagawa, the dynamic duo who would define an entire new era of Rider, with one or both of them doing the music for every show from here to Wizard, and then Drive after that. (Nakagawa will also be handling Revice, too!) As can be gathered from how Toei started leaning on them THAT heavily for a period, they're pretty darn good at what they do, and despite having an identifiable "sound", one of the things that's most commendable about their Rider soundtracks is how they pick and choose styles and genres to create the right tone for each show.
Part of the reason they got both of them for Decade specifically was to represent the sort of duality of the character by having Naruse handle the "Tsukasa" side of the music, resulting in a glorious Latin sound that is indeed 100% Tsukasa; and letting Nakagawa create that big blockbuster movie sound with the "world" side of the music, representing Tsukasa more as a "destroyer" with epic tracks that just make you wanna brandish a trading card and tell someone you're a passing-through Kamen Rider. Both of those tracks I just linked are instantly memorable themes, by the way, as tends to be the case with this team of composers. Truly iconic stuff. Letting these guys do like five more shows was a very good decision!