[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 31 - “THE B BROUGHT BY THE WIND - TO PURSUE THE BEAST”



Ha ha, man, they should’ve saved the Nightmare Memory for this episode, since this whole episode is Shotaro’s worst fear come to life.

And it starts off so great for him! Here’s some gritty old guy (41 isn’t that old, but this dude plays it like he’s 60) that used to know Sokichi, and he needs Shotaro’s help. Dream come true! Shotaro gets to pal around with a real wethered tough guy who knew his mentor, gets to show off his hardboiled detective skills, gets to revel in the manliness of taking a fall for the woman you love, maybe even sock a crumb-bum in the kisser… it’s what Shotaro has been building up to for 30 episodes – this is his final form.

So, of course, everything constantly and thoroughly goes to shit for him.

It’s really great to see, honestly. It’s a crucible for Shotaro, to work with a guy like Bitou who completely doesn’t care for his cosplay detective nonsense. Worse, it’s a guy who doesn’t care for it because he knew the guy that Shotaro’s pretending to be; this isn’t just some dismissal of Shotaro’s demeanor, this is a guy who is outright telling Shotaro that he doesn’t measure up to Sokichi. The dynamic arguably makes Shotaro even more difficult to work with than normal, since now he’s desperate to gain the approval-by-proxy of Sokichi by solving Bitou’s case. Just when Shotaro needs to be at his most collected and effective, he’s making half-boiled observations and blundering into a decade-old noir romance that he can’t seem to treat with the proper gravity.

Oh, and Double is also a total embarrassment this episode.

We are just instantly launching into Shroud’s Terrible Prophecy, and I’m okay with it? I like that, even though we don’t know exactly what’s happening, something is happening. This isn’t weeks of Philip fretting over Shroud’s insinuations while Team Double slowly buckles under unaired recriminations and terrible secrets – we are immediately in a story where Philip and Shotaro cannot act as Double, period. While it means we’re robbed of Double kicking ass this episode, it’s a fair trade-off for Philip’s anguished looks and a completely botched Maximum Drive. (In front of Isaka and everything! They’ll never hear the end of it!) The whole team is in the deepest of shit, and Shotaro might be the cause.

It’s an exquisite episode, even discounting how tense and thrilling Shotaro’s Worst Day is. All of the Sam/Bell/Maru stuff is pitch-perfect noir, with just the right amount of Aimed At Kids to keep it reasonable for a Bear Dopant to pop up at a pier and try to murder a cosplay detective. There’s gravitas to Bitou, intrigue to Bell, and theatrical oafishness to Maru. It makes every scene with any of them into an appealing one, and the more of them get to be onscreen at once, the better.

Such a terrific installment of W. The superhero action was captivating, the central mystery was tonally excellent, and the long-form series stuff was not even a tiny bit annoying to me. Perfect episode!

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DIE-A MEMORIES



-I legitimately thought OOO was debuting in this vision, and that I’d somehow forgotten the TaToBa suit was teased this early. Nope, it’s our first (blurry) look at CycloneJoker Xtreme, a suit that’s one of my favorite Final Forms. It’s not my favorite Double suit (it’s actually maybe my least-favorite Double suit?), but as far as Final Forms go, I think it executes its concept in a legible way, while not going crazy over the top like a lot of Final Forms. We’ll talk more about it soon! For its appearance here, I like that we’re already treating it like some all-powerful future for our heroes. Definitely sells the gravity of the situation, but in a way that teases a less horrible outcome.