[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I think there's also a point that Daiji's trying to make (and I hope will be a bigger part of the next episode), and that's that Hiromi's role isn't to be a singular hero that sacrifices his life for glory/duty/psychosis, but a leader that everyone looks up to, and desperately needs to steer Fenix. There's a nobility to Hiromi (despite his constantly keeling over in this episode) that elevates Fenix, and the troops on the ground need to know that someone like Hiromi -- a caring, dedicated commander -- is looking out for them. There are lots of different ways to serve a cause!

True, there are lots of different way to serve a cause, but seems that nobody gets it here. And people seem to only want to consider someone good and heroic and elevate them, when they suffer or die via a sacrifice like that, and would rather Hiromi continue like this to continue praising his heroism. Not helping that Hiromi's a popular character whose goodness is acknowledged, while Ikki has selfish accusations from busybody part, Kudo's assumptions, or Vice's behavior, and Daiji is considered too boring to be worth caring about, thus what Daiji says would be dismissed as something doesn't matter or just deterring Hiromi's heroism....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 20 - “TERRIBLE AND TRANSIENT, THE COST OF TRANSFORMING”

There’s a bit I liked about it, though, somewhat despite myself. I’m never a fan of Kamen Rider stories where someone keeps using a fatal device because they’re too damn heroic to do anything less. It’s dumb, and sort of the opposite of what I think is heroic. There’s a huge difference between battling insane odds to protect justice/smiles/video games, and consigning yourself to death because you’re using cursed technology. It is not inherently unheroic to have self-preservation be a part of your decision-making during a fight, especially when you living longer could save more lives. It’s like a naked firefighter rushing into a burning building: I get the impulse, but you are not really doing anyone any good with that level of commitment.

Though like what some people said here, it's also about allowing Hiromi to be purposely detrimental beyond reason, and I'd think it's primarily Hiromi's fault tbh, his recklessness and impulsiveness are his flaws that has been proven to be his shortcomings. Just that in this episode he hasn't learned from that yet, and instead is stubborn beyond reason, albeit of course in a softer way instead of harsh way like some of the secondary Riders against the primary's lessons. I̶n̶ ̶N̶o̶ ̶W̶a̶y̶ ̶H̶o̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶S̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶-̶M̶a̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶e̶d̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶R̶e̶v̶i̶c̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶"̶S̶p̶i̶d̶e̶r̶-̶M̶a̶n̶"̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶e̶d̶.̶

By this Hiromi obviously needs to learn from something too, like how he witnesses Ikki becoming dependable instead of viewing himself as dependable but actually overbearing. Like Daiji said, you can't save anyone when you're dead, I think for heroism you should try to preserve yourself so you're sure you'd be there for others in future, without doing morally questionable shit (like sacrificing the unlucky few) and still ready to throw your life if the situation demands it of course, but likely Hiromi should think up of other good deeds he can do without henshin as Demons for example. Being heroic is about being good part (as heroes mean good guys), not about the suffering part (even though it can enhance in certain circumstances). The suffering alone brought nothing noble in someone. Tojo in Ryuki was a case when someone only has suffering, without doing anything good, and he's still a depraved villain. Albeit him letting himself got hit by Volcano Rex's finisher is quite a smart move from him to preserve himself that I can appreciate. Other than that, seems expected, he's shown to be merciful towards Chigusa's betrayal and would seek best case scenario.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

But Hiromi’s take on it… I like how much he’s acknowledging that he’s making the wrong decision, and how much Ikki is protecting his right to make the wrong decision. It’s an awareness of Hiromi’s eternal desire to die in pointless yet glorious battle, but it’s also saying That’s Our Hiromi. It’s a classic Revice story of embracing the weakness within Hiromi, forgiving it, and then finding some serenity in the aftermath. Asking Hiromi to not put on the demonic vitality-destroying henshin device and not blunder into a battle his 80-year old frame cannot possibly withstand would be asking him to deny his own nature, and that would be a fate worse than death. That’s incredibly stupid, but incredibly sweet. That’s Our Hiromi!

The major reason for that is also about Ikki's development though, hooray for Revice to character focus ahead! Like I said before, one of Ikki's appeal to me is that he can still screw up big time even if he's nice, well-meaning, and didn't do morally questionable stuff (including for well-meaning reason) and for other reason than being a total idiot, like how him being a busybody (which'd mean helping others) drives a wedge between his siblings. Of which even if Ikki isn't morally dubious, he still needs to change in some ways too, which is shown here, not all flaws are offensive traits. I also now understand better for the previous part about Daiji calling Ikki out for not being enough busybody meaning Ikki's development, as it shows Ikki accepting and respecting other's choices, like Hiromi's choice to keep fighting despite his condition. Ikki (with Akemi) would find a different way to protect Hiromi (attacking Demons Driver; attacking other Riders!) despite his workaholic approach rather than being overprotective to just prevent him doing something, and I'd like to see what other ways he comes off with to take care of others without being overbearing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Not much else to talk about beyond that? The astonishing action sequence in the back-half ate up a lot of screentime, and Hiromi’s steady accrual of folks laughing at him took up most of the other half. (George is very okay with telling Hiromi to his face that Fenix was totally unconcerned with when exactly the Demons Driver was going to kill him!) There’s a fun team-up between Team Igarashi and the remnants of the Giffamilia, but it’s mostly just crossing i’s (depowering Olteca) and crossing t’s (recovering the Giff Stamp). We don’t really get any big dramatic scenes that shed new light; Aguilera wants Giff to burst from his cocoon and transform the world into one big family, the usual. The actual Getting Aguilera To Team-Up part is left to the viewer’s imagination, though, and that’s about all that really happens this episode? Hiromi’s tragic Hirominess didn’t leave room for anything else!

The Fenix truth isn't revealed yet, other than it involves George and Akaishi's conversation in flashback, obviously 2 of the most shady members of Fenix, but it seems that Chigusa's sort of the hypocrite type in "reacting to the horrible truth I discovered". She joined a faction that can be as bad as Fenix with mostly little regard (albeit she had limits when Olteca killed her), like they pull horrible shit constantly and more openly, eventually to herself, and she shares Olteca's supremacy view of degrading whole humanity (and forcing them to "evolve" in their image) as well. Other than that, Olteca's backstory seems to paint him as just being depraved from a child, that him being a prodigy leads to him developing a superiority complex over others. Olteca now reminds of me of some of KR's mad scientists before, he has mad scientist personality/worldview but does things via supernatural stuff instead, like he wants to forcibly evolve humanity like Ryoma, and that his backstory of him already shown as being messed up before he got the power to act upon his ideology (by being recruited to Deadman.... with likely Akaishi in disguise) reminds me of Isaka in W.

Regarding George, now it seems that his goal is to create the Ultimate Kamen Rider, but it does further confirms my thoughts of him only value the chaos and violence that can present in KR shows instead of acknowledging why KR can be admirable via the heroism value they (not all) display, even openly mocking Hiromi for his heroism. There's also more of his unpleasant and sleazy attitude here of him showing no regards towards Hiromi being his lab rat (typical mad scientist attitude), where even if Hiromi would make the choice to use Demons, oh wait, George guilt-tripped him into becoming Demons at the first place (blaming him for Kagerou), so he does set up this for Hiromi, so it'd not be Hiromi's reckless fault here. His goal of creating Ultimate Kamen Rider also doesn't seem to be a good/benefical one here, likely just want to test his limits of how much he can create, but it'd depend on what he do next to achieve it for his villain status (or allowing that Ultimate Kamen Rider to spread chaos to show off his "brilliance" of what power he can create). But George isn't only scientifically brilliant, he's street smart and has people skills as well despite usually interacting in odd way (probably him interacting to Ikki at the hospital is also about this), which'd just make him more of a threat, like how Hiromi can fought as Demons for quite long time without anyone surrounding them knowing the true schemes until Hiromi almost died. For his true colors, at the very least Hiromi now knows George was his bully, and now only holds him in contempt.

The scene that I didn't like in this episode was Tamaki and Sakura's conversation, which is just lazy and repetitive to repeat the same dialogue from previous episodes. Actually I'd like for more types of interaction between them y'know (...probably more than Sakura with Aguilera), of which Tamaki had interacted with Sakura before to inflitrate, but he now isn't, while Sakura now has been more accepting of Tamaki too. While Tamaki and Aguilera temporarily worked together with the Igarashi brothers against Aguilera, it's blatantly stated that Aguilera wants to retrieve the Giff stamp. Aguilera hasn't changed, at all, she still has the same goal from the beginning here. And the parallel too of Aguilera and Olteca basically having the same goal to forcibly evolve humanity via Giff. It's another case of evil vs evil like Metsuboujinrai.net vs ZAIA, albeit Olteca has grown to be really more despicable with his petty sadism, evil is not one big happy family. And again, Aguilera would abuse Tamaki here for telling Sakura, she's normally unpleasant except when certain crisis comes (Tamaki losing Yosuke). Tamaki himself too is loyal to Aguilera, which'd mean he's liable to take whatever side she ends up falling on.

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Originally Posted by barnstenchfartface

It's not something you touched on at all, I imagine because it's just mostly dumb and not worth devoting any mindspace to, but a year after this episode's airing I still can't get over how stupid the traitor in this traitor plot is portrayed here. Where Chigusa alleges that Fenix is the Bigger Bad, and so links up with the Deadmans...one would think out of some misguided sense of necessity, but at the same time she's become a true believer for no reason? Like, Fenix being secretly bad doesn't mean the Deadmans are secretly good, they're very open about also being evil. She asks Olteca for his motivation and he just goes "I'm the smartest boy in the world and I deserve to rule the world!!!" and her answer is "omg your so right." It's such fucking nonsense and it makes any attempts to make her getting backstabbed or Hiromi's feelings about it land fail entirely.

Unfortunately it seems that not many people are aware that evil vs evil can happen. And they do will think that those who oppose evil, or the bigger bad, is good, I mean people'd glorify the ones who oppose that bigger bad when others point out that they're evil too. It's also how people like to judge which is good or bad by outcome alone, as an evil party eliminating another evil party will reduce work for the heroes and inadvertently free people from their threat. The winner in an evil vs evil party would be hailed as heroes ._. And about being open about being evil, some people would think being honest in your evil is a virtue...