[Fish Sandwich]

I'd love to swing right in with a big spiel where I talk about how these episodes have always been big favorites of mine, but they just kinda aren't, unfortunately? I can't even immediately recall any particular new thought I had about them during my rewatch, and what I still recall from watching them when they were new is the whole thing feeling just a bit... off? Like a story I *wanted* to really like, but just couldn't for reasons I've never totally figured out.

It *is* apparently Keiichi Hasegawa's first script for this show, and also Kyouhei Yamaguchi's first gig directing standard TV episodes of Kamen Rider period(?!), which might account for something or another, but I also think the kind of vague vibes stuff I registered is more down to the show consciously trying to make things feel varied, which is also probably where these ones succeed the most.

So maybe Die's onto something that the story itself is just a little hard to get a grip on? I've always loved that visual of the homemade Fourze costume at the end, not only taken at face value, but as the kind of bookend I love where it's a new riff on something we saw earlier in the story to demonstrate how things have changed from the beginning. It's just that, like Die, I don't recall ever getting anything very specific out of that either, which brings this post back around to the start, not having changed at all. I'd be very curious to hear from someone who did connect with these ones a little more deeply!