[Fish Sandwich]

...Oh, and I should probably talk about the actual episodes, too!

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

This one was so much fun to kick around that I honestly felt a little guilty, like it was going to end up being a post that only you and I enjoyed. I hope this arc's deconstruction/celebration/befuddlement was as fun to read as it was to make!

I really enjoyed the banter throughout that post, by the way. I feel like that was exactly the right tone to have for the weird Missing Ace Kaitou Backstory two-parter

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Because INOUE DEMANDED IT probably, we are off to the World of Missing Ace!

One other person who could've demanded it – not only is Inoue back from Missing Ace, but these ones were directed by Ishida! (I feel like this is part of why Junichi's smile is so perfect.)

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KAMEN RIDER DIE: On the topic of Kaitou as a secondary protagonist... my favorite moment in this story was near the end, when Tsukasa's taking no small amount of pride in letting Team Decade know that the world they're leaving now has a Kamen Rider to protect it in Kaitou.

I am fairly certain Tsukasa is meant to be referring to Larc and Lance there.

Anyways, yeah, this is a weird pair of episodes. I kind of dig them, but I'm not sure if I'd call them good or bad or whatever other label. You guys touched pretty nicely on how the plot has to create from scratch the entire arc it wants to resolve with Kaitou, and that highlights a big part of why I keep likening Decade two-parters to movies – I definitely prefer to think of them as standalone things a lot of the time. (Also, the way the recaps at the start of each episode are structured reminds me of movie trailers, with the epic music and everything.) It's why Die can be like "there should've been a more gradual build-up to Tsukasa and Onodera's friendship thing in the Agito story", and I can be like "what are you talking about there was one other story!" It was honestly impressive to me going back to find that Decade did that much work with a character arc, because I associate the show so much more with stories like this.

These episodes generate all this retroactive baggage for Kaitou out of nowhere, and it's so odd, and probably pretty ill-advised, but that's also kind of the charm of Decade to me. I can't help but have some fun with the way these episodes do their whole thing of revealing that Kaitou's got his own pain and regrets buried under the surface, and how in his past, he was once even dedicated to ideals and all this other stuff that, even though I've seen these episodes already, I was not at all thinking about hearing some of the hints about his past in the Hibiki arc. It's a backstory that feels so haphazardly attached that even though I remember it, my brain refuses to connect it with other appearances of the character, even though the whole point of a story like this is to make you look back and think "wow, this guy was secretly dealing with all this the whole time."

...Wait, I think I was trying to defend this one, wasn't I? The point is, I feel like I've gradually been becoming more and more of a Diend fan ever since initially watching Decade, so, while I can rag on the lack of cohesion or whatever, going back to that movie mentality, and treating this as its own thing, I do like the way it paints Kaitou. It's like... it's a type of story I enjoy, it has some fun concepts, solid direction, and even a great Blade meme or two. The material itself is quite interesting.

That being said, I kind of actively loathed what Inoue did with Newsuke here? He used to be a Cool Guy in-training who set off on this adventure with everyone to honor Yashiro's wish for him to protect people's smiles, but now apparently he's just looking for a world where everyone is already smiling to settle down in? It's like Inoue asked for a description of the character, and whoever he was talking to got as far as "Well, he can be rather naïve, and gets into his share of embarassing situations, but—" before Inoue said he got the gist of it, and, man, I mean he might have actually not known this guy was supposed to be Kuuga?

Still, for how much I felt Newsuke's character was totally off the rails in these ones, I got a kick out of Tsukasa's impromptu psychoanalysis of Kaitou throughout the second half, which encapsulates both what Die was saying about how Tsukasa reads people too easily and what I was saying about him not understanding people. That was one of those disagreements we had that I don't actually think was a disagreement.

It's that whole New Game + analogy that I still feel perfectly sums up how Tsukasa helps people out. He's great at knowing what motivates people and where their stories are going, but I feel like he often acts on that in this slightly detached way that suggests to me he genuinely can't really feel that stuff on an empathetic level the way your average Rider protagonist can. Again, as though this is just some quest in a video game to him that he's trying to speed along to its conclusion. Which gets you moments like him telling Kaitou at the end that since he's found The Treasure Of Self-Confidence or whatever in this world, he won't need to steal stuff anymore, only for Kaitou to immediately inform him he's off to go steal more things. I don't know. Tsukasa's most of the way there, but I feel like he stumbles in these weirdly specific areas, and it's a fun thing about his character.

On an unrelated note, before I forget, the theme song switches to the second verse starting with 22 to signify this being the second big chapter of the show, which is a nice bit of detail.