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Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Which is, y?know, the Kamen Rider template, especially in this era. They?re almost all two-parters, and Part 1 is usually chock-a-block with cliffhangers. I?m not sure why this one hit me so weirdly. It?s maybe exhaustion with this type of format? You see enough of this scheme and you start to ache for the deviations. It maybe feels more exhausting for how many parts of this episode are tantalizing teases of things we?ll discover later, rather than a complete statement on anything. I want something to talk about, to think about, but everything here feels like the discussion comes tomorrow.

Some of the shows are better at this than others, but it's definitely an issue with this era of Kamen Rider and a big part of why Gaim was such a breath of fresh air when it came out. I think the format worked best with W and Fourze; the former was a detective show and the latter usually centered around relationships between Gentarou and/or the KRC and this week's... I'm blanking on the name of the monsters... Zodiart? OOO is a lot of Eiji and co. just inserting themselves into the story of some complete rando who got misfortunate enough to wander by a Greed and that leads to lower stakes for the show's A-plots, which in turn can make them feel more padded when they have to fill out two episodes.

(I still think Drive had the worst version of the monster-of-the-fortnight plots, with so many first parts ending with Machine Chaser showing up to keep Shinnosuke from resolving the story in a single episode)