[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 38 - “CIRCUMSTANCES, A PARTING, AND A TEARFUL BIRTH”

On the other hand, big fan of all of the Date stuff in this one! The reveal that he’s only ever wanted the money to get life-saving surgery is a motivation that will definitely land for any American adult, where we would gladly fight ancient desire monsters to eliminate medical debt. But even with that less heroic motivation, he still was never really going to sell out Gotou or Eiji to save his own life. It was a scheme, as laid out in a scene that featured – if I remember correctly – seventeen different reversals of fortune. (I was sort of waiting for Maki’s doll to turn the tables next.) Date’s combination of exhaustion and resolve is like the anti-Gotou performance, where I believed everything he said, even when I knew from memory that it was bullshit. Or, thankfully, not bullshit – Date’s “confession” is just him saying he’d like to not die, he’ll do anything to get the money to do it, even fight OOO and Gotou… which is all completely true. It’s just, he’s doing it on orders from Kougami in order to trick Maki, a plan which doesn’t really make a ton of sense at any stage of the process. (Like, what was the best outcome of this plan? That Birth was gonna shoot Maki in the face? If this had just been a plan to get into Maki’s stronghold and run off with the Core Medals, I’d get it, but this is some Yonemura-level Eventually We’ll Stop Pretending subterfuge.) But it’s Date still not lying, even as he’s tricking his friends, and I sort of love that.

Date and Maki's companionship seems rather genuine, with Maki trusting Date enough to pay him 50 million so he gets to join him and feeling Date's the closest to him besides Hitomi, with Date still doubting about Maki's omnicidal desire, thus Date already gets halfway there even if he's not truly on Maki's side. Still, wonder if Eiji or Goto knows about Date's true intentions earlier, and Eiji recommends Tamura for his surgery. While it's understandable for Eiji and Goto to believe in the best for Date, Ankh's skepticism for Date, that he's just a greedy two-faced man who can only wait when he'd betray, sounds sensible, but that'd be a usual cliche for someone wanting money or something personal, that desire is just something bad in anyone, a matter of time when it'd manifest, unlike Eiji who has no possibility to do bad things for having no desire. Though Date's heel turn was a facade, thanks to Kougami, where he still points out at the end to Eiji that he can't make the dream Eiji predicted to come true if he doesn't survive, he did cause some real damage still to punch Goto as Birth, and endanger OOO in an outnumbered fight, but it's limited to only somewhat seriously fighting his allies rather than standard villainy like helping the Yummy spawns, but rather wish if Date's shown to secretly do something that ensures Eiji and Goto's survival behind the villain group's back.