[DreamSword]

Episode 12.5: Episode of I-DOLL

I ultimately come out of this one not really liking it all that much.

Feel free to call me a broken record, or anti-romance, or whatever, but I think it really does come down to how I-DOLL is suddenly in love with Jiro.

The crux of it being that, well, ontop of it not making any sense(how did she fall in love if she had no consciousness?),the narrative focus of this bonus episode is kind of all over the place.

Some very interesting concepts are brought up, like when the two halves of I-DOLL are talking about the idea of Self-Sacrifice vs Self-Preservation in the light of helping others, or how Great Ace talks about the debate between Fighting For Others and Fighting With Others.

But all of these ideas sort of go nowhere at best and at worst double back on themselves. Most egregiously the bit about Jiro's' proclamation that I-DOLL isn't just an object to be used, and I-DOLL herself deciding to live on... only for the two to once again turn back into dolls so that Rookie can continue to have his Memories Mode. It all just kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.

That's not to say it was all bad though. Great Ace himself is a pretty solid parody of Showa Era Kamen Riders, and what little time was spent with the rest of the Dogengers Heroes were definite highlights, even if I felt like they were just kinda unfairly bullying poor Yabai Kamen. Like, seriously, don't keep your uber/lyft driver waiting, or at the very least offer them a generous tip. Some good gags came as a result, but it's also still some unneeded cruelty.

I guess if I had to follow up on a comparison I made earlier in the thread, if the majority of Dogengers is SSSS.Gridman, then this episode is SSSS.Dynazenon. Not awful, but not my cup of tea.

Final thoughts post coming tomorrow!