[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 20 - “I WON’T STOP - KAMEN RIDER STYLE”



There’s a whole bunch in this episode that was just sort of there for me – Shroud, the main mystery, Saeko and Wakana’s Foreshadowing Lunch – but I still think this one worked, mostly because of how great the Shotaro/Terui chemistry is.

Like, that last scene! It’s so good! It’s hyper-competent Terui being effortlessly cool, but specifically needling Shotaro because it’s fun to do. It all works because Terui clearly (and vocally!) respects Shotaro. He sees the value in Shotaro’s warmth and empathy – from the earlier scene where Shotaro outlines the difference between fighting crime and killing criminals, to the middle section when Shotaro takes a beat to let a scared mother know that he cares what happens to her son. Terui even clarifies that, as long as he’s in Fuuto, he does things Shotaro’s way. This is a guy who clearly sees the value in Shotaro’s methodology and value system.

It’s just, Shotaro is also a total buffoon (that aside when he’s like I Mean I Wouldn’t Say I’m “Half”-Boiled!) and it is totally logical that a legit hard-boiled detective would delight in teasing him constantly about his many obvious and ridiculous shortcomings. Like, the very fact that Shotaro cares if people think he’s cool gives Terui endless ammunition, as Terui is actually cool and doesn’t care. It’s such a fun dynamic.

The rest of this one… man, I don’t know.

I don’t think the main mystery is anything to write home about, beyond a vague thing for Terui to see some specific pain in. (I think the first Terui case absolutely had to be about a family, for whatever that’s worth.) The sleight-of-hand reveal that the son is the culprit and the mom is trying to take the fall… like, it doesn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny. It requires the mom to get into crime scenes before the police do, and plant clues that somehow lead the police to suspect her but not her son, which is sort of the opposite of diverting attention. It’s… this is not a great plot. It’s too convoluted, and requires the mom to be basically clairvoyant about her son. It’s too much.

(The fact that the mom’s plot does work on Terui is maybe more of an indictment of how deranged Terui has become, and less a vote of confidence in the mom’s strategy.)

Beyond that, it’s all setup for future plotlines. Saeko takes Wakana to meet the mysterious and dapper Weather Dopant, while Terui’s backstory includes the first of many semi-inexplicable Shroud appearances. The latter is kind of nothing to me at this point, but the former is a little more troubling. We were in a neat place with Wakana’s newly-discovered need for independence, and now we’ve just got her as Saeko’s protege. There’s really not a lot to connect the two plots, and so it just feels like Wakana and/or the show was like Eh Maybe Later. I don’t love it? It feels like it needed a more conflicted performance, or a scene explaining Wakana’s decision-making. Feels… undercooked.

But, y’know, who even is going to remember these underwhelming subplots when the Shotaro/Terui stuff is so good? Not me!

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DIE-A MEMORIES



-Terui’s dad’s final words… hilarious. It’s a scene that should feel as emotionally scarring as Sokichi’s death in Begins Night (Philip and Shotaro even make the comparison!) but it’s just the dumbest plot-point expositing. He specifically says “the W Gaia Memory”, and I wish anyone at any stage in the production would’ve noticed how this exposition dump is working against the emotions of the scene. That is, unless the emotion they were going for was Incredibly Funny, in which case: bullseye.

-I cannot even imagine what a pre-Weather Dopant Ryu Terui is like. The flashback has him goofing around with his sister, and I just fundamentally don’t believe it. Based on the next 14 years of media, it’s pretty clear that dude came out of the womb hard-boiled. I’m reasonably certain his first words to his parents were DON’T QUESTION ME.