[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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

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!

I guess the credit for Miu's leadership seems to be about her directing on where to likely find the Magnet Switches, but Tomoko brings out her own idea that finally does find the Magnet Switches. I think that the members' own idea, independent from anyone other than the leader, deserves as much credit, albeit they likely aren't as good as leaders in directing people, which'd be their value, but the team members' agency, even if they potentially outshine the leaders or unthinkable to them, shouldn't be curbed. Nomoto's an actual example of that, who thinks all credit should go to him as the leader and claims that every success in the track field team is due to him, rejecting any different ideas even though it may be better, like Kengo's suggestions to Egawa's even after Kengo joined Nomoto's club (she was the friend Kengo knew before the series, which is why he was nice to her, unlike the girl in ep. 1; even when Kengo was still hostile to Gentaro, he was also nice to Yuki since the start of the series).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

Nomoto and Shun are established as knowing each other, but it was never touched upon again. I guess this episode really answers about what you said before, about how the possessiveness of track day team captain being possessive, or Hayami being kept on, because Gamou is the owner of the school, so those two are what directly serves Gamou's goal and he prevents people investigating the school, albeit even Gamou threatens Hayami a bit for his failures. This is the meaning of the reveal that Sonoda was Scorpio, not about her, but about the school body itself, it's not an outlier in Gamou being the only monster but the school body is the villainous organization as a whole, with Sonoda being one of them. I feel that Gentaro's actually more hostile and jerkish at the end of the episode rather than throughout this two parter, where at the end of episode, he actually provokes Kengo into fighting, but previously, though unknowingly hurting Kengo's feelings, Gentaro always tried to reason with Kengo like trying to make him get along with Ryusei, insisting that it's important to see what Ryusei can do, or trying to make up with Kengo by proving the Magnet Switch works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

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.

So turns out that Ryusei is more helpful than what I thought he would be based on him dismissing Fourze in fighting and friendship including letting Lynx go, and is only faking everything in KRC for his mission. I meant about him actually guiding Fourze as Meteor like him as a technical support to Gentaro before like him telling Fourze what to attack on Dragon Zodiart and buying time with Electric Switch (which for Meteor, it doesn't create a new form, I wonder what'd happen if a Switch about tools is used on him). More similarities of Ryusei and Kengo where Ryusei also had a fallout with Jiro like Kengo does to Gentaro here, and as Ryusei is hellbent on saving Jiro which was a result of their fallout, he has a decency to prevent others going through similar thing as him, thus he's actually being helpful to KRC, guess as Gentaro said, Ryusei showing anger is more honest in him grabbing Kengo's collar. I guess the reason Ryusei finally acknowledges KRC as a good team is due to seeing Kengo not repeating his mistake.