[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

So you'd think that Gentaro feels like an asshole for insisting to beat Kengo, I thought that Gentaro, the supposed nice guy, was being an asshole here for immediately going violent and accusing on Tomoko.

I think the show's just having fun with how into character Gentarou is getting with his investigation, and how he lets his emotions ramp things up to a ridiculous degree. It's funny to see him treat Tomoko like a scheming villain, when she's really just a helpful bystander. Gentarou sometimes gets a little too excited for his own good! Just like me, apparently...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

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?

I don't want to just write off these very fair criticisms of my writing as just "It was late when I wrote that, and I was tired, and I sort of wasn't feeling Meteor's debut, and I didn't really feel like talking about why because I found the rest of the episode way more interesting for a variety of previously-elucidated reasons", so let me try and say more without hopefully making you even more disappointed in me.

I didn't really hate this scene or anything? I found it a little trite, in a Heisei Q2 Debut way, but I don't begrudge the show a cool new Rider, or the merch to go along with it. Meteor isn't my guy for reasons I'll probably get to down the line, but I don't feel like he unnaturally pulls focus or warps the show through some production-mandated chicanery. (He actually gives Gentarou some of my favorite story beats?) What's here doesn't fatally wound an otherwise stellar episode that does literally everything I want Fourze to do; it was just the part of the show I was less into, and I maybe gave it short shrift in ways that did a disservice to the character's fans, but I wasn't trying to be intentionally malicious or dismissive. I thought it was kind of rote, and I tried to explain why, but I clearly just made things worse than if I'd've just skipped mentioning him at all and stuck to the parts that I found more appealing. This scene was a big enough deal to feel awkward to exclude, but I wasn't feeling it at the time. I'm sorry if it's a worrying trend, or if I've let anyone down. Not my intention!