[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 21 - “A GRASSHOPPER, A FAMILY, AND A HERO”



Gotou’s just a weird little boy, you know?

It’s really fun to take this fast-paced story of stunted careers and directionless anger and adult disappointment and somehow drill it down into a story about Gotou seeing the world the same way a child does. I mean, sure, there’s a family in crisis, and we’re also in a story where Ankh’s inability to deal with his shame at his limitations is a parallel potential problem to Takashi's dad, but the really fun part of this episode is having a little kid parrot Gotou’s worldview back at him, while Gotou tries in vain to articulate a counterpoint to his own weird, childish dreams.

Takeshi has this handed-down sense of righteous justice, and he thinks that Fighting Evil is a cool thing to do. The idea of a grasshopper-themed warrior of justice bounding into frame to punish the wicked… what could possibly be wrong with that? What could be the negative of saving the world?

It’s always neat to see a Kamen Rider show try to balance the visceral thrills and toyetic idolatry of its milieu with a bit of caution for the children in the audience who might be missing the existential battle against violence that Kamen Riders are actually fighting. (I’d say it’s a Kobayashi special, but she didn’t even write this one!) It is incredibly difficult to have your karate bugman cake and eat it too, but it’s such a worthwhile endeavor. The act of teaching children that you can fight for justice without literally fighting for justice, or that the goal of a hero should never be punishment… I like that shows try to do that while also showing off the TajaSpinner or whatever the hell the wrist-shield thing is for Bird Form. I don’t ever want this show to lose its heart for its salesmanship, or vice versa.

But, yeah, Gotou! He’s got to talk this kid down from thinking that the point of a good life is battling injustice with your own two hands in the name of making the world a better place, and he’s just got nothing. You might as well have a story where Ankh needs to tell a kid why eating popsicles is wrong – blank stares and slack jaws, from credits to credits. We’re in that stage of the story, where the problem is presenting itself to the heroes. While characters like OOO and Birth deal with the more immediate threat of Rampaging Righteousness Monster, we’re slowly getting Gotou into a position where he can see how weird and childish his conception of things like Justice and Helping are. He starts off this story confronting a litterbug with only slightly more maturity than the child who kicked a stranger in the leg, which is setting a very clear tone for this thing when contrasted with Eiji’s calming attempt to defuse the situation without ceding ground to inconsideration. Better to stick Takashi with Gotou, since Gotou has to learn the exact same lesson as a little boy.

Because Gotou is that same little boy, and I’m glad this show finally sees it.