[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER ZI-O EPISODE 36 - ?2019 - FIRST LOVE, FINALLY!?

It mostly did. The death of Yuko is tragic, but it's like, the twist of Yuko not even being Sailor Girl makes the conclusion kind of difficult to parse. The episode wants to have its apple pie, eat it, and also have Yuri from Kiva come back for an unconnected guest appearance. (Which: HOLY SHIT! YURI! Such a perfect button for this episode!) We get to have Sougo lose his innocence a bit, but also have his childhood crush not be a murderer. The point isn't really about Yuko or Yuri or whoever. It's not really about the women, because Sougo doesn't even know them. It's about him loving an idea, and that idea dying? but also that idea never being gone for good?

There's already even foreshadowing before to show that Yuko's the wrong girl, so it's not sudden. Sailor Girl "Yuri" calls Sougo "kawaii no bouya" ("cute boy"), while Yuko calls Sougo "kawaii no ko" ("cute kid"), so that's different shit they go with. And also Sougo later recognized the Sailor Girl with the original nickname. It's also actually a reference to Kiva itself, with how a romance ending in any way but as tragically as possible was unlikely. The reference was an arc where Wataru's first love as a woman who was a queen of sorts but turned out not to be as innocent as we thought. Yuko's ending was about how Ora successfully got her revenge on her, creating another case of villain brutalizing another villain (like White Woz to Time Jackers before). Regarding Sougo's reaction to her death, well, this would be something spoiler to talk about, but what would you think about Sougo's reaction against a Time Jacker that got victimized?

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Yuko's character wasn't the point of Sougo's story, but she was still an amazing one. A character who can justify any action by it being what they felt like at that moment? Boy, that gives you a lot of options as a storyteller. She can leave people to die, save them later, try to kill Sougo, die proclaiming his heroism, and it all plays as one person?s psychology. Nothing she did across this two episode stretch felt out of character or poorly motivated. It?s just, like, that's Yuko. She?s a crazy lady who does whatever makes her happy. That's pretty interesting to watch!

By this, I don't know how this is another attempt to fight back against system in this writing, when Yuko's nothing but unhinged insane entitled queen-complex? It shows that the system was the right one against Yuko, Yuko's just unhinged murderer who is deluded to think that she's innocent and that she's entitled to "right" any of the world's laws, when this time, she's portrayed as even worse than what she's portrayed before, all of the previous episode was a red herring to reveal her being even more depraved, the lawyer tried to do good to her just that they failed instead of setting her up. And by above it shows even more of Yuko's crime to manipulate Sougo into believing that she's his 'first love', that's all the first love in this 2 parter was about. Yuko is willing to pretend to be someone's first love to get his power at her side, the opposite on how Sougo the manipulator is open and honest about how he leads people on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Less interesting was all of the Kamen Rider Ginga stuff, which: hoo boy. Dumbest subplot ever for an Inoue story? Maybe! Ginga falls out of the sky, goes on a rampage, and then gets detonated by Woz, resulting in a new powerup. It?s insultingly stupid, without even the Eff The Fans charm of someone just whipping the Ginga Miridewatch at Woz?z head. Ginga?s motivation is nowhere. Even as an entropy enthusiast, he just sort of wanders around, randomly blowing up causeways. His participation in this story is completely incoherent.

Oh c'mon, Ginga serves as something to Yuko! It shows about the irony in how Yuko has too much of overconfidence in her 'destiny' as a queen to ignore Ginga as small fry while also ignoring her deal to all the Tokiwa freeloaders and Time Jackers. Yuko meets her end by Woz using Ginga's power, due to Yuko ignoring him leading for the team to work together and Woz to obtain it. Ginga is also a bit of an opposite to Yuko about how they both think that their power allow them to take control of the world, but while Ginga is transparent on his intentions, Yuko lies to everyone around her including herself that she was wronged when she's just a murderer who only cares about getting her way. Like Yuko vs Ora, there's an evil vs evil involved in Ginga too with Swartz allying with the heroes with obvious goal to get his hands on Ginga's power, so it's now about Swartz being 'redeemed' or such here.