[Kamen Rider Die]

TOKUMEI SENTAI GO-BUSTERS MISSION 37 - “BRIDE IN WHITE, BLIGHT IN BLACK”



So, I’m watching this episode, and I thought I sort of got what they’re doing with the two stories. They’re contrasting Escape’s devotion to her father, Messiah, with Yoko’s crush on her old teacher. (Not old old; much like Hiromu’s old teacher, this guy looks maybe five years older than her.) But then I discount that, because there’s no way they’re going to try and draw a parallel between the devotion a child has to a parent, with the romantic love that a woman might have for a man.

Except, uh, that’s exactly what they land on?

It’s one of my least favorite toku tropes, having a bunch of male characters suddenly try to Protect The Virtue of a younger female character, but I can sort of roll with it as long as the episode makes the joke more on the overprotective dudes than on the young girl. Which this episode manages for most of the run! …Right up until the end of the episode, which seems to draw a direct connection between One True Love and a daughter’s love for her papa. It’s gross? I can sort of see what they’re trying to say – love is infuriating and bottomless and it’s more than just thinking someone’s neat – but a) Yoko already understood that, because she always seem to view her old crush with the proper distance and perspective, and b) it’s incredibly weird to have Yoko conflate Escape’s devotion to Messiah with the romantic love that she has yet to feel in her young life. That’s super duper weird!

I genuinely don’t know why the production team thought it would be cool to conflate the love of a daughter with romantic love just in general. (I feel like this is all a lot cleaner if the Metaroid goes after families instead?) It’s such a strange unforced error, where multiple other possibilities for this episode could feel less gross. And I was so proud of this episode for so long! Yoko is never embarrassed by her old crush, because she sees it for the childish infatuation that it was! We didn’t have to watch her be a cartoonish flirt with a grown man! She’s good! And then the show is like These Two Types Of Love Are Similar In That They’re Both Love, and I wanted to scream at them about apples and oranges! These are two different metaphors and you cannot give them an equivalent value at the end without making me insane!



IT’S TIME FOR Dads!

Speaking of insane! As much as I was grossed out by the end of this episode, I genuinely loved Commander, Ryuji and Usada doing a My Three Dads thing and treating Hasegawa like a predator. I love these three suddenly going OUR LITTLE GIRL at Yoko throughout the episode, mostly because it’s always 100% clear that they’re all being ridiculous. (Hiromu has no time for Ryuji for pretty much the whole episode.) It’s a great gag, even as it sadly makes the end of the episode even creepier.