[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

God knows there?s precedent for a monster to recognize that they want to be more than what someone else talked them into?

...Which is definitely the beauty/tragedy of the narrative structure here and all -- that Akane so strongly identifies herself with kaiju, that the kaiju she creates herself are such direct reflections of herself, and that she still can't see/doesn't want to see the real significance of how Anti has changed -- but even putting aside some of the deeper storytelling type reasons why it happens... the Gridknight hype is *unreal*???

I've mentioned a few times how I wasn't that into this show at first (to put it mildly), but now would probably be a great time to note Anti in particular was always an exception to that? The OG Gridman monster he's based on was a favorite of mine in that show, I always love Kenichi Suzumura in basically anything, the idea of a rival monster character with bootleg versions of the hero's powers is always a great time, and the sheer childlike innocence with which he diligently pursues his goal of murdering the protagonist was very charming. He already had so much going for him that I simply couldn't hate, but to see that copycat shtick taken to the logical extreme in this specific way? I mean, come on, dude's basically a Kamen Rider at this point, on top of everything else. Was *insanely* gratifying to see, even with the episode surrounding all this being so (compellingly) dour.