[Kamen Rider Die]

FUUTO P.I. EPISODE 7 - “THE CLOSED K - DYNAMIC DUO, DESERTED”



There was a minute where I thought I was really going to like this episode. We’d just had Shotaro and Philip stranded in the mountains by a bomb cyclone (somehow not the name of the CycloneTrigger Maximum Drive), and the show cuts back to the quartet of Tokime, Terui, Akiko, and Mick. I thought, Wow, Yes. Taking the core duo away from the action for a storyline and seeing how Tokime’s attitude changes in their absence? Or just getting to see what Akiko and Terui are like when defending Fuuto falls entirely to them? That sounds like a really intriguing breath of fresh air.

And then that’s the last we see of those four characters, as the action shifts entirely and permanently to the Eyes Wide Shut version of that TELASA Revice mini-series.

It’s unfair to criticize this episode for merely being a closed circle mystery that tasks Shotaro and Philip with uncovering the identity (and motivation) of a murderous Dopant, all while the series’s big bad lurks in their midst. That’s both a totally on-brand setup for a three-parter, and the sort of thing that W's genre is known for. But it’s also… I don’t know, it’s a little predictable? The setup tries to cover its familiarity with weird details – a million K names, the history of this abandoned town, the main guy’s energetic response to Team Double, how constantly jiggly everything is – but it weirdly just feels drawn out and drowning in exposition. This whole episode is just Shotaro and Philip learning the premise of this story, and there’s also a fight with Alcohol Dopant to a draw. It’s intellectually compelling (like any mystery would be) without creating any real emotional investment. Kanna’s sort of interesting for her Either Victim Or Culprit status (Shotaro likes her, so she’s required to be important to the mystery’s resolution), but the rest of the cast is just a roll call of names, ages, and occupations. You’re gonna need all that in order for the list of possible killers to populate and be slowly eliminated, but it doesn’t make for visceral or charming viewing.

Which is why… man, I wish we’d’ve stuck with the characters left behind in Fuuto. While it wouldn’t be a real Team Double mystery, it’d maybe have been something that felt new and different. The joy of Tokime in the mix is that it creates new storytelling opportunities for her presence, and there’s still so many groupings she hasn’t been a part of. To lose her for a closed circle mystery with an almost needlessly convoluted explanation (the exposition goes on forever) is a disappointment, even if it feels churlish to blame a show for sticking with its main characters and genre instead of an idea I briefly had.

This episode was sort of boring? Not bad, and the weird mansion environment is too singular to be forgettable, but it was maybe a little too long spent laying out the parameters of a fairly standard mystery story. It is incredibly weird to be less into this show when the characters are actively doing their jobs, but that’s just how this one hit me. Less time solving murders! More time with Tokime not understanding how Accel’s powers work! Thanks!