[Kamen Rider Die]

SERIES WRAP-UP



Here’s the thesis statement, so you can start getting angry at me in advance: Kamen Rider W isn’t a story, it’s a setting.

This goes back to what I first said about Fuuto’s primacy in the premiere, but became more and more clear to me as the series progressed. A more traditional Kamen Rider story gives us a starting point – Yuusuke becomes Kuuga, Ryotaro joins the Den-Liner, Touma becomes Saber – and then progresses that character through a specific narrative – defeating the Grongi, solving the mystery of the rampaging Imagin, dealing with the various prophecies and whatnot of Calibur etc. – until the story is concluded, and the main character has faced their personal conflicts and flaws in service of illuminating the themes of the series. That’s a year of Kamen Rider: you go on a journey with these characters, in pursuit of a goal.

But that’s not really Kamen Rider W.

Sure, there’s the ostensible defeat of the Museum, but even that isn’t the conclusion of this show. (The real finale is them fighting a guy from a completely different organization, for completely different reasons!) This isn’t even a show that goes on a journey with the two characters that fundamentally changes them; the core dynamic is the same in the first two episodes as it is in the final episode. This show kicks off with Shotaro and Philip being dedicated partners with different strengths, and concludes in exactly the same way. Their relationship is tested throughout W, mostly to exciting effect, but it never fundamentally changes. They are partners from the first episode to the last episode. That’s the show. That’s it.

It’s a show that never really wanted to put the characters in opposition, or irrevocably change them. Revelations about Philip’s backstory only increase his bond with Shotaro, and Shotaro does not exactly have a wealth of layers to peel back. Shotaro never once views Philip as anything other than a valued (if occasionally frustrating) partner, and Philip’s belief in Shotaro’s abilities is the crux of multiple story climaxes. The closest we get to the team breaking up are in tiny ways that the show almost instantly swerves away from: Shotaro’s incompatibility with Philip’s evolution in the Xtreme Memory story feints at CycloneAccel, but the show never even tries out that concept; Philip plans to leave town with Wakana, but the very next scene after his fateful decision is the reveal that Wakana is now completely evil. We get teases and hints that the show is about to change, but then it becomes even more entrenched in its routines and habits.

And yet, that’s exactly what makes Kamen Rider W such a great show for new fans.

It’s not trying to have a complex year-long story with shifting allegiances and uncertain outcomes. It luxuriates in being a show that starts with a case being dropped on our heroes, which they’ll solve in the next 42 minutes. (Even the last two-parter! And they do! They solve it in two episodes!) It wants to hang out with a fun detective superhero team, with little bits of mythology accruing at the edges. Another show might’ve had Philip join the Museum for a few episodes, or had Shotaro feuding with Accel in a more serious way – this one never lets those options become more than a single scene’s hypothetical. The show’s narrative gravity is dedicated to a core where two brothers in a found family protect Fuuto in an action-comedy noir milieu. It’s built to have no beginning and no end. It is forever just your memory of Philip and Shotaro, in their office.

Because of that, it’s probably the easiest Kamen Rider show for fans of American superheroes. This is the unending Middle Act of Superman, and Spider-Man, and Batman – forever fighting battles, but never really concluding their story. Double is tested endlessly, but in ways that only reaffirm what we know about them. They’re fun to hang out with for an adventure, and those adventures will never end. Defeating the Museum was a story for a year, but it was never really the story of Kamen Rider W. They exist to protect Fuuto, which means they never need to reach the end of their story. It’s like Batman protecting Gotham City for over 80 years, but with more fun pop songs.

All of this… it doesn’t make W a bad show, even if it makes it a show where I found less to talk about. W is a vibes show, not a show with complex characters that are constantly surprising you. You could drop into maybe any two-parter on W and find plenty to enjoy. (I’d always laugh to myself at the Previously Ons that just recapped a one-off story that would not even be referenced in the current episode.) The series-arc stuff, outside the final few episodes, mostly felt like the producers treated it as an obligation. The real excitement and enjoyment was always, for me, in the Dopant Dilemmas. To see our heroes crack a case and save the day? That was always a delight.

The greatest strength of Kamen Rider W is also its greatest weakness: it’s a show that never wants to change, because it’s perfect from the start. The chemistry of the actors, the template of the episodes, the overall feeling of the show – it’s all exactly what you want a Kamen Rider show to be. It nails its premise so utterly, so quickly, that it’s like no one could see a reason to deviate from it over the next year. But that lack of risk makes everything feel too comfortable at times; episodes are delightful, instead of thought-provoking or challenging. Shotaro and Philip bicker and come together in Episode 2, and they bicker and come together in Episode 48. It’s fun, and the actors make it nothing less than memorable, but it’s safe in a way that Kamen Rider rarely is. More than any other show, this one felt like it was built to go on forever. The fact that it got an animated sequel over a decade later proves that it can. But the cost of that forever is maybe a lack of promise in the present.