[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE EPISODE 50 - “FAMILY TO THE END, UNTIL THE DAY WE MEET AGAIN”



I don’t know if I’m 100% on board with this ending, but I’m trying to get there.

Production-wise, it’s flawless. The final battle of the show is two best friends – family members – having a goofy brawl through their relationship, in hopes of creating a happier future. It’s not a gritted-teeth Final Showdown, like a lot of shows would go to; it’s play, pure and simple. This is the final fight of Kamen Rider Revice, but it’s also a last bit of fun for Ikki and Vice. How the show visualizes that as laughter and tears and memories and farts and bike rides and almost every suit and all of the cast laughing along with them… I literally can’t think of a better finale right now, and I’m trying. (Well: bench.) It’s joyous in its celebration of everything Ikki and Vice meant to each other, and tearful in its need to say… well, not goodbye. Not really goodbye.

It’s a finale that’s more about closing one chapter and starting another, rather than trying to be anything definitive for anyone in the cast. (There’s even a post-credit cameo by The Star Of The Stars Of The Stars, to let you know that Kamen Rider Revice will be back in front of an audience before too long.) There’s a sense that Vice leaving is letting Ikki spread his wings now as an adult, and it’s okay for him to be on his own. That’s the part I’m having trouble with.

The idea that Vice is holding back Ikki’s development is a weird one, even if it feels like it fits well within the context of the last few episodes. Yukimi and Genta view Vice's sacrifice as proof of Ikki’s emotional growth and maturity – a first step into adulthood – even though Vail didn’t exactly go anywhere over the last couple decades. Daiji and Sakura wonder when their own maturity will render their demons unnecessary, and that feels like the same misguided trap that almost drove Daiji insane. It’s an overall view of Ikki and Vice’s bond as codependent that I just sort of can’t see in the way the show probably wants me to.

Ikki and Vice are family, and it’s not like the show said that Ikki needed to leave his family behind in order to be his best self. (Far from it, as the episode lovingly recreates the smiling family of the opening credits in a brief cleaning scene.) Vice leaving is a tragic consequence, and not one that even needs to stick around. Ikki doesn’t need Vice’s protection from tragedy any longer, but Vice ended up being so much more than that over the course of the show. A happy ending where Vice is gone feels incomplete, and no amount of foreshadowing can make up for that. It’s bittersweet in a way that I’m not entirely sure is intentional, because I’m not super clear on how Ikki becomes a better person without Vice around.

It makes for an emotionally messy conclusion, where characters are saying things that seem right for the scene, and wrong for the series. I was onboard with Vice’s sacrifice and Ikki’s embrace of his buddy’s resolve, but then the comments from the rest of the Igarashis felt tone-deaf and mildly disrespectful. So much hard work is done to honor the Revice partnership, and all it accomplished, which is then slightly squandered by concocting a silver lining for this cloud.

I wish I loved the second half of this episode as much as I loved the first half. I still think there’s some cute and funny stuff in the back section (the show belatedly remembering Hikaru exists!), but I wish the show did a better job of explaining why it’s necessary for Vice to be gone when it’s wrong for Ikki’s other family members to be gone. If the show had landed on Vice being a tragic loss that created a happier future, fine, yes, absolutely; if the show wants to suggest Ikki’s better off not having Vice around, I start to check out.

But overall, I did like this final episode. It’s so on its own wavelength, and I love it for that. It’s an utterly unique celebration of a show so many people disliked, so much so that I laughed a little at the closing appreciation for the audience’s support. (God help any future series that gets this kind of "support"!) But I think it’s a flawed show that created a lot of goodwill with me, and a collection of characters that had so many unexpected moments of brilliance that I’m more than okay with a chunk of this episode giving them delightful sendoffs. It was a good show, and this was a good ending.