[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I am very sorry if this is infuriating or a huge letdown!

No, it's fine, and I'm sorry I'm inadvertently creating some undue pressure on you by harping on about this. It's just kinda fascinating, because Gauma is a character where the blanks are so obvious and easy to fill in for me that I almost kinda forget a lot of what I'm perceiving is subtext? That is, I do have this little gut reaction deep down that kinda *wants* to be infuriated about this, but then I immediately realize I'm mostly just grateful to see another perspective for how that gives me pause to further consider my own. Which I think is like the whole mission statement of a forum for discussion, so again, please don't beat yourself up about it.

[Kamen Rider Die]

SSSS.DYNAZENON EPISODE 12 - “WHAT WAS I ENTRUSTED WITH?”



It’s fitting, for a show about how we help each other be our best selves by working together and caring about one another, that the final episode is really two halves working in unison to conclude our narrative with the balance of grace and bravado that defined it.

The first half is all thrilling declarations and city-scale pyrotechnics, as our heroes reconcile with our villains and power through to a better tomorrow. It’s the best part of the fight to me, all of those little moments between the Kaiju Eugenicists and the Dynazenon team. Juuga relentlessly exposits his motivations to Gauma, who is no longer willing to accept responsibility for Juuga’s obsessions or resentments, and answers Juuga’s accusations with a rousing uppercut. Mijuna can’t see past her failures into the possibility of change – the ultimate irony for the Kaiju Eugenicists, their continual stasis from 5000 years ago to the modern day – and Koyomi accepts his role in denying her her dream, while also liberating himself from the need to live his life for someone else’s freedom, learning his lesson from Episode 10. And Yume and Yomogi are of one mind, pulling together in the same direction to make sure their friends are supported in the same way those friends supported them. It’s this show’s whole ethos brought to life, where the people around us right now are more important than the mistakes we’ve made, or the ways we’ve been hurt in the past; it’s a hand helping you up, rather than pulling you down.

And then Gauma dies, because he sort of has to. He’s like Dynazenon – a part of the story that was here to heal a group of people, and that’s done now. Gauma wasn’t revived to pilot a robot or defeat kaiju or reunite with a princess, he was revived to get a second chance at making friends. He did that. These people didn’t need him to follow their credo or push others away, like the Kaiju Eugenicists did, they just needed him to let them in, and care about them in return. This was his Episode 10 story, but as the entire series: connecting with a different group of friends.

I like that for Gauma, in the end. I liked that this was a show that took four human characters – Yume, Yomogi, Koyomi, Chise – and blew their tiny, personal stories up into grand Giant Robot adventures, while it took Gauma’s expansive multi-millennial story of epic tragedy and monster apocalypses and turned it into a story about a guy who missed having friends. The inversion of that formula between the poles of this story, that worked for me. I’m good with that.

And I’m especially good with our extended epilogue, that looks at the loss of Gauma as nothing to run from, because that heartbreak just affirms the characters’ ability to appreciate what they have. It’s not about life going on, it’s about letting the good and the bad change us into people that are better prepared to help ourselves in the future, which allows us the strength to help each other. It’s individual pilots combining into something bigger than themselves, which is a metaphor I think we all could use these days. I’m glad this show made it feel so precious and earned.

[Androzani84]

If you’ve seen a white Dynazenon on the net with a different chest plate and helmet and the dinosaur mode feet, this episode is why (namely, Gagula evolves into evil Dynazenon).

And to invoke the rule of three in my overall thoughts on the episode, to quote myself twice over, that episode left me with more questions than answers.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

And to invoke the rule of three in my overall thoughts on the episode, to quote myself twice over, that episode left me with more questions than answers.

If one of the questions was "Why didn't the producers let us see Koyomi biffing 21 different interviews", I am right there with you!

[DreamSword]

I'll try not to rant for too long, as despite my gripes with Dynazenon as a whole, I'm not here to rain on the parade of anyone who loves the show for what it is.

Speaking solely for myself, this episodes left me with alot of mixed feelings back when I first saw it, and I still feel conflicted about it even now. Because even if I hadn't felt this way back during episode 4, this finale very much solidifies that Dynazenon never had my specific tastes in mind.

And the moment that symbolizes it very clearly to me is the part where Juuga begins to exposit more about the KE, and Gauma tells him to shut up. Which to me signified that the minds behind Dynazenon never planned to tell a condensed, coherent story from the getgo. And whether or not that's for the better, well, I won't give any sort of demand on that.

But the big thing is that, while I don't out and out hate the cast, I never really super liked them either, and that was made all the more annoying with the multiple episodes of "Man, are the KE really so bad?"

The answer we'd eventually get is "No, they're fine" if Super Robot Wars is anything to go by. Wherein not only do the KE get to live, you even get to recruit them to the side of heroes wherein they get to pilot their own version of Dynazenon called "Relive." Some might support that decision, but I most certainly do not. Regardless of the fact that the SRW series is known for turning some mecha villains around.

You can see Dynazenon Relive in action here, if you're curious:

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

And the moment that symbolizes it very clearly to me is the part where Juuga begins to exposit more about the KE, and Gauma tells him to shut up. Which to me signified that the minds behind Dynazenon never planned to tell a condensed, coherent story from the getgo. And whether or not that's for the better, well, I won't give any sort of demand on that.

Yeah, I think this is a show where, like... if Gauma is the main character for you, I don't know if a lot of this show works. Gauma goes on a bit of an emotional journey in this series, but it isn't really interested in interrogating the specifics of that journey. Clarifying Gauma's story is like clarifying the Dynazenon robot's story, in that it just doesn't seem to be the story the producers wanted to tell.

Conversely, when viewed through the lens of Yume, Yomogi, Chise, and Koyomi going through the crucible of this series in order to come out the other side as better people, I think a lot of that lack of emphasis on the more fantastical elements of the story is a bit more forgivable. It's a show that's almost laser-focused on Yume and Yomogi in particular, with the exterior concentric circles of Koyomi, Chise, Gauma, and the K.E. becoming more additive to the Yume and Yomogi stories than anything else.

But, yeah, probably not going to be what you want to hear if Gauma was your POV character. I really appreciate you sharing your perspective, though! This was considered and interesting reading!

[Fish Sandwich]

Way too many things I remember strongly from this finale to talk about right now. Perhaps chief among them is the phrase かけがえのない不自由, from Yomogi's conversation with Sizumu at the end, which is once again some insanely specific and nuanced word choice, and I think a lot of that gets lost in the subtitles' "irreplaceable bonds", which settles for bluntly getting the broad point across and trusting the rest to the larger context of the whole scene, which, you know, fair, I guess, because it's a tricky couple of words, and also a very good scene that'll probably get a viewer the rest of the way there.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Way too many things I remember strongly from this finale to talk about right now. Perhaps chief among them is the phrase かけがえのない不自由, from Yomogi's conversation with Sizumu at the end, which is once again some insanely specific and nuanced word choice, and I think a lot of that gets lost in the subtitles' "irreplaceable bonds", which settles for bluntly getting the broad point across and trusting the rest to the larger context of the whole scene, which, you know, fair, I guess, because it's a tricky couple of words, and also a very good scene that'll probably get a viewer the rest of the way there.

I am for sure a fan of that scene! It's such a great distillation of the conflicting viewpoints of Sizumu and Yomogi, and how each of them is viewing the events of the series in diametrically opposed ways. Sizumu sees the bonds between people as necessary to get you to the point where you can figure yourself out, at which point those people are simply holding you back; they're a booster rocket, and then they're an anchor. But to Yomogi, figuring yourself out is most useful in preparing you to form bonds with other people; the point of self-improvement is to make you more able to connect with others. That scene is both of them being frustrated at the other's inability to see how they're each getting it backwards, which causes them to talk past each other.

And it's all symbolized through these infinite bars, which to Yomogi are This Is How I Reach You, This Is How We Connect, but to Sizumu, they're This Is Why I Can't Reach You, This Is A Prison.

Really good scene!