[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE: THE MYSTERY EPISODE 5



If nothing else, I really appreciate how much the finale to this Legend Rider (and Legend Supporting Cast) spin-off mini-series felt like a Revice ending.

It’s all about the need to interrogate and confront the things inside yourself that are shameful and/or destructive, to better understand why you felt that way to begin with. As Suzu’s scheme was revealed last episode, it’s time to reveal what her goal is: resurrection for her dead fiance? Power enough to rule/destroy the world? It turns out that the answer is… nothing, really. She just wants to get enough revenge to stop feeling like her future was taken from her by George and Fenix and Kamen Riders and monsters. There’s no resurrecting her dead lover. The stated goal of Destroying The System is laughably open-ended and ill-advised. It’s all just rage, with no direction or goal. Continuing the work was a way to feel connected to the man she lost, but now there’s nothing but grief and anger. There’s nothing but hurting people to make her rage feel purposeful.

And that’s more sad than it is villainous, which Ikki recognizes. This is a woman who needs to let go of the anger and resentment she’s been bottling up, and if she’s gone and turned herself into a composite monstrosity? Well, maybe she can unload her rage on the Kamen Riders that can withstand it. It’s not an ending where Suzu needs to be defeated; it’s an ending where Suzu needs to be rescued from her trauma. The only way to do that is to let it come to the surface, and then let it burn itself out in a safe place. (The lodge's adjacent Natural Hot Quarry, now taking reservations.) Ikki will always want to help someone in trouble more than he’ll want to fight a monster, and this ending recognizes that. It’s the perfect ending for a Revice story.

As for the rest of it? Generally enjoyable, even if I find myself questioning about 80% of Suzu’s backstory in regards to how the lodge stuff lines up with the research scientist stuff. (Why does she have a lodge and a devoted staff? Was she independently wealthy, and just loved doing science? Why did she pivot from science into running a bed and breakfast? If the project her fiance started was still being worked on by her, why was the lab accessible to George and Terui? How did she track down one of maybe three remaining Orphnochs, and not even one that was a Kamen Rider for more than two episodes? Why was she working with a guy who was selling black market monster Stamps, when it looks like all she needed was the Orphnoch DNA? Why were they waiting so long to extract Kaido’s DNA?) As much as I like how the story eventually made Suzu a compelling and sympathetic villain, her backstory makes about zero-to-negative sense.

It’s a good ending, though. Kaido gets a heartbreaking moment of connection and sacrifice before being like I Told You This Wouldn’t Kill Me and slinking off to go have more scumbag-adjacent adventures. (PARADISE REGAINED??? come on of course paradise regained) I laughed incredibly hard when Ikki suggested to Otta and Terui that maybe he could someday meet their Kamen Rider friends, since that is 2/3rds never ever going to happen. I thought we’d maybe get Daiji and Sakura back for the Happy Spa closing scene, but I still had fun with what we got.

And I had fun with this whole thing, despite some choices that I wish the producers hadn’t made. It’s a Neo-W team-up Kamen Rider project that makes room for two classic supporting cast dudes and a thoroughly Revice ending. (Also, a deeply humiliating subplot for Hiromi!) It’s not a great mystery, but it’s a fairly solid piece of Revice storytelling. I’m glad I watched it!