[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER DECADE EPISODE 20 - "THE DARK RIDERS OF THE NEGATIVE WORLD”



I really like the attempt to not only spotlight Team Decade (well, Tsukasa and Natsumi; sorry, Onodera), as well as a kind of Be Careful What You Wish For storyline, but... an unfortunately dull episode!

There isn't much in the way of homages or tributes this time out. The Dark Riders are just henchmen, without anything in the way of a twist or hook. They're no different than a Narutaki summon. Otoya is back from Kiva, and he's... I'm not sure what they're saying with him. He seems (at this point) to be a representation of Evil Riders: the imposing and regal Dark Kiva armor he wore to his death, a trickster guide on the path to Hell. It's just, no? No, that's not what Otoya is about? There're any number of other Evil Riders that could more directly fill that role (King or Saga, from Kiva alone), and Otoya's use seems to be either for the surprise twist, or just the excitement factor of a beloved/”beloved” character's return. (I mean, yeah, it is great to see Otoya. He immediately tries to charge three strangers for an unrequested performance!) It doesn't feel like it's saying anything with Otoya, though. He was never ever that guy? It feels weird to have him as the adversary for this story.

But, it's a whole story about feeling weird? There's an immediate sense of impending doom, right from the opening scene. Tsukasa feels uneasy about the lackluster finale to his epic journey, and wonders what it was all even for if this was how it ended. Onodera is typically incurious, and willing to take any W he can find, but that lack of curiosity just amplifies how strange this victory even is. Team Decade finished their quest, and their reward is merely returning home.

I like how, even before the Dark Riders show up and the monsters are everywhere, there's this sense that literally the worst reward for Tsukasa is to settle down. The whole shoot is overcast, which is a happy accident, since it makes every normal thing feel extra gloomy. It's like Tsukasa got this world, and he immediately made it frown. All the gifts and rewards and accolades, he doesn't care. He can't be bothered to do more than acknowledge that what Onodera thinks is good fortune is the least Tsukasa deserves. None of it's making him happy. This is what he always said would complete him, and he's more disappointed than ever.

It's a fun look at Tsukasa's evolving worldview. He got a world handed to him, but it's only one world, so he's bored to tears. He got used to the adventure of traveling, and now settling down looks like a prison. There's no danger, or mystery. It's just free meals and gift-wrapped companies. He doesn't like to be this comfortable.

And he also doesn't like having a world that accepts him so readily. He'd always said he wanted to find a world where he fits, and now he's finding out what that really means. In the real world, no one "fits". You alternately make a space for yourself, or you change your shape for others. Everyone's life is some combination of those things. We acclimate, we accommodate, we agitate. Fitting, it's not real. It's a fake world, where Tsukasa just fits. It's an escape from trying to grow.

Which is sort of where Natsumi's story is for this episode, and this is where I got the most bored. Tsukasa's story is intriguing both from a dramatic angle (we've been watching Tsukasa grow over the last 19 episodes), and from a comedic angle (he's so blase about all of his good luck, and it's driving Onodera crazy). With Natsumi, we are getting a ton of new backstory out of basically nowhere. We have not gotten a sense of Natsumi's life before Episode 1 of Decade (I mean, she might as well have the same amnesia or whatever as Tsukasa), and now we get a gigantic info dump about her high school friends, their We Don't Feel Like We Fit In Club (thematic!), and the encroaching danger they pose in the present for Natsumi. It's a ton of slightly charming flashbacks that get substantially less charming as the show keeps coming back to them. It just starts to drag, despite its promising attempt to flesh out Natsumi's pre-Decade life and dig into the fear of growing up and moving on.

Overall, this wasn't a bad episode or anything. After the highs of the Hibiki arc, especially that finale, we were probably due for a story where the production team could catch its breath. Starting off the next phase of the story with something that interrogated Tsukasa's desires and expanded our understanding of Natsumi's motivations is a totally smart move. The execution, though, was a little stretched out. Too many flashbacks, and not enough incident. Hopefully the concluding chapter does these ideas justice.