[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by r4bbitdragon

Going to make a belated note that I loved your writing on Desast's final episodes, the visual gallery for 43 was particularly great, I love taking the time to appreciate the direction like that. Red Pickled Ginger <3 (which i did not like at the time but have since gotten Used to.)

Thanks! It was really fun to think about Ren's personal growth... which is why I haven't stopped? Sort of realized today that the show set Ren and Kento up to talk about the pros and cons of looking to stories for guidance, which is a fun topic for a series like Saber.

Kento needed a story to believe in, and eventually he found Touma's. Kento was adrift in his own guilt, and suddenly there was a story that told him everything would be okay. It was a lifeline for him, and it proved that stories could help people find a happiness that eluded them.

With Ren, though, he was trained to see strength as the only metric for success, and Touma's story ended up destroying him. Ren didn't take the story as something to challenge his assumptions or process as allegory, he was stuck in a story where everyone gets more powerful except him. He looked at a story and found himself unable to live up to the characters in it. The only solution for him was to stop caring about the story, since it was hurting him.

Like, they go on this similar journey -- trying to fill a void through a better narrative -- and they experience it in completely opposite ways. Kento's saved by Touma's story, and Ren's almost destroyed. It's a neat way of telling kids that it's okay to learn lessons from Kamen Rider shows, but maybe don't take them too literally.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Maybe you can argue from a symbolic perspective, but from a logical perspective, it just doesn't make any sense in the story. Like, how does Luna become an adult? A kid can't just decide to become an adult, not even a 25+ year-old kid. I think it's especially ridiculous for this to happen in the fifth last episode of the show.

I mean, Luna is literally a symbolic person. She doesn't have a fixed identity or biology. (She... probably doesn't even have a biology?) She looks like a kid to interact with Kid Touma. If that's not where the story is anymore, she can and should change to meet it. Which she can do, as the imaginary manifestation of a fairytale dimension.

Like, I'm not saying the show dotted i's and connected t's, but there's plenty of expository scaffolding to say why Luna could be an adult all of a sudden.

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Originally Posted by Daikaijuman54

Sure, some of them (looks at Reika) still aren't as liked as some of the other cast, but even so, all of the swordsmen gathered gives off the weight of their journeys.

People don't like Reika? Scandalous! I won't hear of it!