[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE EPISODE 20 - “THE UNIVERSAL MAGNETIC FORCE”



Look, I just like Miu, okay?

It’s churlish to start this post off with a picture of Miu, since it’s an episode about Kengo and Gentarou’s friendship, with crucial contributions by Ryuusei, but I can’t pretend that Miu, Tomoko, and JK getting dressed up in a series of costumes to dig in the frozen, barren wasteland of Amanogawa High’s nearby lake and forest didn’t make me just as happy as this installment’s cathartic resolution to the show’s preeminent bromance, if not more so. (She’s so great in those fatigues!) It’s this show, man – a whole episode that’s centered on the three ostensible male leads, but it somehow found time for an adorably goofy and absolutely integral subplot in which Miu showcases her exemplary leadership skills. I’m not being weird for thinking this sequence was the greatest thing in toku for the year 2012!

Putting that stellar bit of heartwarming comedy aside, there is (unbelievably!) more to talk about. We get the conclusion to Gentarou and Kengo’s most recent permanent rift, and it’s a solid bit of melodrama, even if the extremes of both Gentarou’s abasement and Kengo’s steamed hamminess starts to unravel the intriguing character work. (I like how Shun just LOSES it on Kengo when he does yet another We Don’t Need Gentarou thing as the Dragon Zodiart is attacking. Kengo just wants to keep his friend safe, but he’s ALSO being a big petulant baby and Shun is the one that’s just had it with him in this episode. I love it! I love that one guy’s sick of coddling these two dummies!) While Gen and Kengo spend most of the episode orbiting one another and trying to navigate a way back to their friendship, it’s somehow Ryuusei who becomes the key to getting things back in order.

Which, it’s funny, because Ryuusei is way way way more annoyed at this story than Shun is, and way way way earlier. Miu sticking Ryuusei on the team that needed a deft touch and real empathy was such a hilarious misapplication of Ryuusei’s phony, secretly-snide bullshit that I was expecting another series of eyerolls and muttered judgment. But the show smartly layers Gen and Kengo’s most recent permanent rift over Ryuusei’s falling out with Jirou, and it brings more of the real guy to the surface in this story. (Just in time! I am finding Obsequious Phony Ryuusei to be a less-is-more situation, after just a few episodes.) Ryuusei hears Kengo’s typically grandiose statements about the finality of his friendship with Gen, coupled with the same attitude he had when he flung a girl’s love letter off of a bridge (surely not worth pointing out how that tone is now being used for his platonic friendship, sure, okay, right) and hears the awful things he and Jirou said to each other, right before Jirou was encomatosed by a cosmic collectible, and he can’t sit idly by and maintain his cover while two friends don't realize how precious their bond is through the haze of anger. Ryuusei has to get these two to realize that they’re both being headstrong and possessive and overly protective, but since they’re both doing it, it shows how much they actually care about each other – what looked like opposing force was really just the same force coming into conflict.

That’s nice, letting Ryuusei get to be the one who fixes things. (Besides Miu, obviously.) He’s got a different perspective on friendship, and he gets to add that perspective to the team – grudgingly, but still – to solve a problem. That’s a Kamen Rider Club move, whether he likes i or not. Luckily, I sure did!