[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

These things came out recently enough that I've been waiting ever since I watched them to see what Die would have to say, considering his whole deal with Inoue. Like, if anybody could draw out some hidden deeper meaning to the story here, it'd be him, right? But uh, yeah, I guess "straight downward slope, but a fun one" is about as good as I could've realistically hoped for.

Decade Vs at least has the sense that it's leaning more into Tsukasa Is Not Doing Great to sort of create a kind of allegory to what's happening: Tsukasa can't see beyond the high-level multiverse stakes of his character - the character that doesn't get a narrative of his own anymore - to treat individual lives as having much value. So we get this small story of individuals in jeopardy, but Tsukasa doesn't truly get involved until the stakes become multiversal. Like, it's a special that wants to talk about how Tsukasa's spent ten years moving from a guy looking for where he fits in, to a guy that can't relate to regular people anymore.

But this Zi-O Vs thing? Man, I got nothin'. It's all cribbed from the Zi-O series, but faster and dumber. The new characters are one-dimensional gags, the stakes are hard to care about, and the end of the story makes it all seem pointless. If anyone's got a single theory on what this story was about that isn't just pointing out episodes of Zi-O it's referencing, I'd love to hear it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

There's a thing I've said about Inoue's writing a bunch, and it's that I think he always does best with casts he creates himself.

He does a better job with his own casts, sure, but: Blade. Ryuki. Those were good stories! He had some winners as a guest-writer!

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

I was also kind of weirded out by how cheap the Zi-O suit looked. I'm not sure if that was from the stage shows or what, but it was really obvious that it was not the full quality suit from the series.

I wasn't sure if I was imagining this, so thanks for the confirmation. It's definitely a cheaper-looking suit. The metal watchband that drops down from the Driver is sewn in, instead of being a plastic piece on top. And you can see some of the stitching? It doesn't look great up close.