[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 26 - “P’S GAME - AKIKO ON THE RUN”



The way a Kamen Rider story can sometimes configure the two halves of its episodes is really a thing of… I was going to say “beauty”, but instead I'm going to go with “wonder”. Mostly in the sense that I wonder why the producers thought it would be a great idea to do a first part that’s all wacky hijinks and hilariously intrusive sound effects, and then a second part where Akiko has to rescue a doll that’s the physical manifestation of a dead girl’s hopes for her deranged and homicidal father. That– that is a swing! It’s a bit like making the first part of a series finale the HBV special, and it sort of works out just as well.

It’s not a bad episode, honestly. Nor does it make for a bad two-parter. There’s too much fun action to ignore (seems like every other episode needs to contrive a reason for Accel and Double to fight, though), the Sonozaki stuff feels like it’s hit a boiling point, and Akiko’s Narumi-given dedication to safeguarding the dreams of her client is frequently inspiring. The whole thing works, at a base level.

It’s just… sort of dull in places? There’s a lot of a little girl(‘s ghost) unhelpfully shouting LISTEN TO THE DOLLY, which grates pretty quickly. There’s an overall Less Fun tone to this half, which – while clearly intentional – just doesn’t have me as excited as I was to watch a child-sized puppet nearly murder two Kamen Riders. This is somber, as it probably should be, but the lurch of getting to this tone from last episode’s insanity… it just feels like I’m getting less than I was before. More my problem than the show’s, probably, but a problem nonetheless.

Still, I think this ended up being a cute spotlight on Akiko’s resolve and empathy, with a minor spotlight on Terui and Shotaro’s respect for her. (Shotaro is so nonplussed when Terui’s like He Knows You So Well!) I never cared about the dumb subplot of Philip building a new toy that takes up an annoying amount of space in this one, but that’s about the only part that outright misfired for me. The rest of it was well done, but tonally… not “incoherent”, but maybe “inconvenient”?

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DIE-A MEMORIES



-The scene of that kid shouting LISTEN TO THE DOLLY while Akiko tried to talk about anything else felt like it went on for several hours. I also would’ve thrown that goddamn doll to the ground! And worse!

-It’s very funny to me that we hear the Gaia Memory shout WEATHER in this episode, so we know that Isaka (learned his name!) was the one behind the Puppeteer Dopant’s rescue, but in the initial Terui two-parter we suspiciously never hear the ICE AGE Memory sound off. You know, unlike literally every other Memory on the show. The producers are big cheaters in that story, is what I’m getting at.