[Kamen Rider Die]

I love how unhappy so many of these characters are.

Not, like, sad, but unhappy. As a base state. (Sorry, I watched some Fourze stuff earlier tonight.) A lot of shows will have characters that are melodramatically sad, or despondent over a recent development. That's drama, and it's fairly typical. What Inoue does, that I find interesting, is conceive of a character -- and a world -- that starts at Unfulfilled. It's not some bizarre alteration to the natural order of things, or some prelude event which altered the trajectory of human behavior. It's just, like, the world sucks, and it's normal to be sort of bummed out while still going about your day.

If there's a secret sauce to this show's addictiveness, I think that's it. It's easy to look to the bonkers set pieces (THAT FINISHING MOVE) or the recurring gags (I want Haruka to beg for help from every new villain, forever) as what's made this show so watchable, but I think that's the less important part. High-energy is easy, honestly? In tokusatsu? It's easy to shout and yell and have your attractive cast flail their arms.

But it only works long-term if you're invested in the characters, and that only happens if they seem real. Real people are sad a lot, man. They exist in a world that's indifferent to their struggle, and the only hope they have is create a little space to be themselves, along with people of similar interests. (Hello, TokuNation.) Letting Haruka be disappointed in her inexplicable fall from grace, or having Kiji rely on the one good thing in his life so he can weather the relentless shitstorm of his working life, that all feels like real people to me.

And it's a show about real people, all the way through. It's about how the world doesn't care about us, so we better care about each other. It's about how easy it is to miss what we have in favor of what we don't. It's about being honest with ourselves, and with each other, so we can find some help to get through our days. To find some weird joy.

It's an Inoue specialty, that mix of omnipresent unhappiness and hidden, almost stolen happiness. The hours of hardship, to make the minutes of delight that much sweeter.

Good episode.