[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 30 - “SEIYUU! SAY ME! SORTING STUFF OUT FROM YOUR YOUTH!”



Hey, what if the first act of a four act story was stretched to the length of an entire episode? Wouldn’t that be super fun, and not at all monotonous and repetitive? Shockingly, no, it would be an almost indescribably dull installment of Kamen Rider Revice. I’m as surprised as the producers surely must’ve been after watching this episode!

There’s barely anything here to talk about, much less critique. Jiiko, a character from Ikki’s past that we’ve neither met before nor heard mentioned in passing, is incredibly mad at Ikki about a thing that Jiiko won’t talk about, and Ikki doesn’t remember. That’s basically it! That’s the entire episode’s plot! Ikki and Jiiko circle each other several times in the episode, but there’s just a blank space where a thematic or narrative conflict would be. Ikki’s confused, and that’s about the only recognizable emotion in the entire story. There’s no guilt, or shame, or anger, or anything that would be a counterpoint to an old friend calling him a piece of shit to his face, because Ikki's as clueless about the conflict as the viewer is. There’s just confusion, and that’s all we get.

I mean, there’s also the Way Too Gregarious Old Mentor, who is clearly the villain of this story, but that dude exists to be way too gregarious, and that’s it. He provides no context for Jiiko’s seething and inexplicable resentment, probably because this is all part of a plot to destroy Ikki. It’s obvious in a way that I was anticipating either a twist or a reveal, and this episode was just like GUESS WHAT IT’S THE WAY TOO GREGARIOUS OLD MENTOR and we’re into the trailer for the next episode. There’s nothing here; it’s all just setup for the real story.

(There is also the possibility that it's not the Way Too Gregarious Old Mentor, and his malevolent outro is just a funny gag the show will walk back at the start of the next episode, but if that's the case, this episode is maybe worse than if that dude was just the obvious culprit? There's only two characters it could be, and if it's neither, what are we even doing here? What is this story even about?)

Hilariously, "setup for the real story" is a bit of a theme for this episode! The only non-Ikki scenes we get feature Akaishi teasing the next phase of his plan – waiting; Daiji teasing the next phase of his plan – stalking; Sakura teasing the next phase of her plan – thinking about Aguilera; and Aguilera getting a Dark Aguilera costume change. No one really gets a scene of any weight or importance, except for a very brief bit of business where Daiji is correctly chided for trying too hard to be Cosplay Hiromi, instead of being himself. It’s all setup, which would be fine for subplots… if the main plotline for the episode didn’t also feel so much like it was half an idea stretched out to the three times its length.

Just a massively underwhelming episode, right when the show needed to have originality and momentum to kick off the next phase of the story. Ikki’s got nothing to do in this story other than be the target of rage for no established reason, and everyone else is just waiting for their stories to start in the next few episodes. Whole thing probably would play better as a 90-second "Previously On" opener, and that’s a fun feeling to have after a 23-minute episode.