[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

Let’s start things off with the part I cared about the least: The mysterious new Rider who (I think?) goes unnamed for this appearance! It’s not that I don’t care about this comet-shaped hero, but I feel like we’ll get plenty of chances very soon to discuss his asteroid powers or whatever. His fight against Libra is good, but is also the typical Immediately Beats The Guy The Normal Rider Couldn’t secondary introduction, and that trope sort of wears on me a bit. It’s a combination of the Upgrade Form thing, where he’ll never be this powerful ever again, but also just the way it really gilds the lily of how unbelievably cool the new Rider is, by having him easily dispatch the guy who had (a one-handed, but still) Fourze on the ropes earlier in the episode. You make this guy look so cool, he actually becomes kind of uncool to me. Your mileage may vary on our new satellite-themed Rider!

I recall you expressing similar thoughts to this about Birth's debut during your OOO rewatch too, and I'm still really confused by this whole "guilty until proven innocent" approach you seem to be taking to these secondary Rider debuts all of a sudden? Like, I want to go ahead and prove the episode innocent, but I'm struggling to figure out exactly what it is you thought was egregious here?

The emphasis on how the new Rider will "never be this powerful ever again" suggests some kind of preoccupation with power scaling that seems strangely... banal for you, so even though I can be reasonably sure you aren't seriously suggesting the new guy only wins because those dastardly writers bumped up his RPG stat levels arbitrarily, for the record... the new guy doesn't "win" a fight in this one? Libra is clearly just testing a mysterious new foe's strength, and chooses to bail once he's had his fill. It successfully distracts him from dealing with Fourze, but it's hardly some one-sided smackdown.

But I guess the real crux of your complaint is that the way the character is portrayed comes off as shilling the new merchandise in a ham-fisted manner? And again, I'm just not sure what exactly the better alternative you're proposing is? Especially since you already know who this guy is, can you really say it somehow doesn't naturally fit that character and his role in the show for his first impression on a viewer to emphasize that he's clearly a skilled fighter above all else? Is he just not allowed to show up as a cliffhanger tease, and they should've held off until the next episode entirely to have him appear?

Don't get me wrong, I get the instinct to declare Gentarou is just like, Your Guy, and thus reject the show's efforts to make you think some other Rider who doesn't comically flail around with a variety of wacky gadgets could possibly be anywhere near as interesting, but if there are Rider shows out there that are doing a poor job figuring out the right balance or justifications for how they portray a new Rider on their debut... I just don't think this is one of them? New guy here is basically just a glorified decoy to let Fourze have the actual hero moment resolving the actual plot, at the end of the day.