[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER DIE: Look at her! Look at our shiny new Amazon!

You know, she would've been anyway, but Tomoko was my absolute favorite character in Fourze before the show even started simply for being the one named after the Showa Rider who was my absolute favorite before even watching his show. (Which means that Tomoko is like, my double favorite, by the way, so I'm glad to see you taking this chance to get her in the thread, Die!)

Amazon's just a great concept, you know? His design and character are so immediately endearing, there was basically no way I was ever going to be as interested in any of those other guys right out of the gate, when I was first learning about the franchise. I remember reading stuff like that he was friends with a mole monster or how he was initially scared of motorcycles(!), and even without those details, the basic premise of this wild yet gentle guy fighting evil while struggling to fit into the strange civilized world around him was inherently intriguing to me.

I believe I had seen a few episodes of Amazon before going into Decade, which would slot it right alongside Ryuki and Kuuga as the only ones I had watched any of prior, and, yeah, I think this two-parter captures that inherent appeal of Amazon pretty well. Again, it's sort of a hard concept to get wrong? The actor's performance feels like a directing choice that didn't ~quite~ pan out in the end (the original Amazon had WAY more range than this, rest assured), but the character is as lovable as ever, and wrapped around all this, we've got a world that's sort of Yonemura's prototype for what I feel are the most fun crossover movies he's written, plus some continuing development for Tsukasa and Kaitou's impossibly unhealthy relationship (that last scene!), which is fun in its own right.

I guess maybe that's where Decade is at in this last stretch? It's a little crazy to think that these are the penultimate episodes of the series, considering how relatively thin the drama is, but man, when they're still busting out standalone story concepts this enjoyable, it's a lot harder to be upset.