[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE: THE MYSTERY EPISODE 4



The main thing that makes a mystery story for me isn’t the complexity of the plot, or the construction of the cast, or even the fleetness of the storytelling. It’s how fairly the mystery played for the audience; how possible was it to guess the culprit in advance of the detective.

On that front, I thought this episode’s Drawing Room Accusation stuff mostly worked. I got it when Ikki got it: When Suzu says the word "Orphnoch", there’s no way she could’ve heard it yet. Kaido didn’t identify his monster type before he jumped out a window, and Ikki was the first person to see her afterwards. There’s no possible way for her to have just learned he was an Orphnoch, so she must’ve known well in advance and hidden it from everyone else. Plus, there’s almost no one else it could be at this point; Suzu was the only character with enough screentime to make for a villain worth confronting.

Beyond that… hoo boy, it’s all just a mix of previously unrevealed details, stuff the audience learned outside of Ikki’s investigation – meaning Ikki had no idea whatsoever of Suzu’s potential motivation – and wild suppositions that incredibly turned out to be accurate. The biggest offender is the frequent instances of Suzu spilling dirt, which I can’t recall ever being shown onscreen, despite Ikki mentioning it as his first clue something was up. It’s the only clue prior to this episode, but I don’t think it was ever actually shown to the audience? Seems like a big deal!

Still, it mostly doesn’t matter in the details. Suzu was bound to be the culprit, her motivation seemed reasonable to deduce in the previous episode, and the nuts and bolts of how she committed her various crimes is more academic than integral. (Nice to know that half the reason for attacking Hiromi was that he was a sweaty pest! This poor guy! Jesus!) I don’t love how much Ikki just guesses that ice cubes were used to delay the discovery of a crime scene until the perpetrators had an alibi, but whatever.

It’s a fairly good resolution to this mystery, even if it leans more heavily on new information -slash- lucky guesses than I’d prefer. There’s a fun rhythm to the accusation scene trading off Terui’s half of the solution with Ikki’s half, as Suzu unconvincingly tries to deflect their interrogation. (She’s got this facetious But I’m A Helpless Damsel voice that plays great with the smirk that’s breaking through her facade.) Even as I’m grumbling about the minutiae, I still found myself enjoying the resolution to the mystery.

But not the resolution to The Mystery; that’s tomorrow! Will Terui finally Henshin into Accel? Will things get worse for Kaido? And will the resurrected fianc? get an evil repaint of Barid Rex? The answer to all of these questions – which is almost certainly Yes – will be uncovered tomorrow!