[Enchilada645]

If Zein isn't defeated because of his lack of resource management skills then this series will be a failure. Cause I'm sorry, one use cards and you're pulling out stuff like Hyper Muteki and Xross Saber this early? Nah you're going down lol

Anyway this was a fun one in the lead up to because we only ever saw the back of Yuuto and no one figured it was him because different haircut and also the style of clothing he had.

This one's a fun one but it doesn't have Desast so I'd say it's like either #2 or #3 for me in terms of episodes. Though the most recent one edges it out I feel.

Will say I appreciate Bronze Drive and his manic as hell energy. I was questioning why we needed another Drive repaint but the minute they went for gold jokes I instantly stopped questioning it. They did it purely for the bit and I applaud them for that.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Given it?s implied every protagonist from Hongou through Ace (except maybe Eiji, but the dialogue hints they got OOO?s power from someone) gave their strongest powers away to Zein, that means Gai, the Ark, Foundation X, Asakura, Ren, Desast and Banno were more cautious and properly paranoid than the heroes who?ve laid down their lives to prevent potentially world conquering maniacs

It is horrifying to me to think that all of these Riders willingly contributed their most powerful Forms to this project because they were asked to by Tachibana. TACHIBANA! That man couldn't talk ink into staying on a piece of paper without either trying to kill it or having a nervous breakdown. You'd think Kenzaki at least would be like I Love You Like A Brother But Nah, right? And Fourze! Gentaro should 100% not trust a guy who looks like that!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchilada645

Anyway this was a fun one in the lead up to because we only ever saw the back of Yuuto and no one figured it was him because different haircut and also the style of clothing he had.

Part of me wished that Nico would be like IT'S YUUTO and Tachibana would be like What No It's Kiriya From Hibiki and the fandom would just get real sad and quiet for a while.

Also, c'mon, that is not how late-30s Yuuto should be dressing. A vest? A jacket? Where is his beige trenchcoat? Where is his fisherman's hat.

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER OUTSIDERS EPISODE 4 - “THE TIMELINE GONE AWRY AND ZEIN’S TRUE IDENTITY”



Let’s say you’re writing an action-adventure serial, where two sides are in conflict. On one side, you have an organization that vacillates between malevolent terror and callous indifference, recruiting literally any lunatic they can think of. On the other side, you have a ragtag group of supporting cast sidekicks and reformed anti-heroes. If you planned on doing a twist where the ragtag group is surprisingly the bad guys of the story, I’ve got two writing tips for you:

1) Actually define the stakes and goals of each group in a clear, legible way. The evil organization needs to be stopping a specific, logical outcome from occurring, or trying to achieve a recognizable goal. The ragtag group needs to have a clear threat to face, and a clearly delineated plan to prevent it. We need to know exactly what each side is trying to do – and how they plan to do – for any twist be successful in shocking the audience. You can’t shock me if I never knew what you were talking about in the first place.

2) Do not have Tachibana as the leader of the ragtag group.

So, obviously, pretty big failure on both counts!

We get yet another meandering pseudo-explanation of Zein’s Masterplan this episode, and it continues to be a half-scene shy of actually making sense. I’m assuming this is all some sort of twist on the Ark, where a computer program has decided that humanity needs to be destroyed in order to stop their inevitable evil from spreading, but the way the show tries to lay that out (if that’s even what’s going on here; kinda guessing!) is needlessly obfuscated and confusing. While I want to blame the lack of clarity on a shorter runtime than your average Kamen Rider episode, it’s frustratingly more to do with how poorly this show uses the little amount of space it has. We spend a dumb amount of time with Brain taunting Banno, and Foundation X just sort of shrugging at yet another of their underdeveloped schemes going awry (they literally had no reason to think that Brain would contribute anything, but they brought him back to life anyway, where he instantly defected on them) instead of giving that time to characters like Nico and Horobi trying to figure out exactly what the hell has been going on around them. There’s not a lot of margin for error when you’ve only got about 17 minutes every few months, and this episode is almost wall-to-wall errors.

Like, it’s not even Yuuto? It’s, like, Daybreak Yuuto, from an alternate dystopian future? Then… why? Why even have it be Yuuto, if we’re not really participating in Yuuto’s decade-plus story? And Tachibana is either mind-controlled into turning on everyone in favor of genocide, or just once again betting everything on the dumbest possible horse, and I’m not sure which of those would be funnier to see explored. (The second one, obviously.) I can’t really figure out what these guys hoped to accomplish in the first place, so I’m not sure if this is a betrayal of what they’d said they were working towards, or the culmination of their original plan. Is this what Xross Saber died for?

At least we’ve got Brain, though.

He’s not my favorite guy from Drive (he’s not even my favorite Roidmude: Heart, Chase, then him) but I sort of like how this episode uses him to illustrate the ridiculousness of Zein’s plan/”plan” to destroy all malice from humanity by killing humanity and resetting the timeline. (Very slow shrug with a look of intense skepticism???) If even an inveterate coward and traitor like Brain can eventually find his way to fighting for humanity’s right to exist, there’s no reason to think that the future is hopeless. It’s a cute speech he gives to Zein, but it’s also such a dyed in the wool Kamen Rider concept – he even says that every Kamen Rider should already know it – that I cannot figure out how no one involved in this scheme failed to bring it up before. Like, just the basic Destroying The Malice In People thing… that already sounds like a pretty reckless and weird thing for a heroic group to want to do! How did Horobi and Nico hear that speech coming from Tachibana and go Sign Us Up? None of this works!

It’s not good writing, this episode. It wastes time on pointless humor (Banno! Who cares!), stays about three sentences away from having the stakes of the series make sense, and then makes everyone but Brain look like an idiot. And Brain was never actually that smart that was the joke oh my god this shoooooowwwwww

[Androzani84]

George ends the first “season” by saying what were probably all thinking. Not sure what he expected to happen when he was tasked with building a Rider, programmed it to run primarily on Legend Rider powers and modelled the resulting suit on Daguva.

And despite the initial trailer’s impression, the actual “guy with a new toy” in this is Tachibana, rather than Brain (they even released a different trailer halfway between episodes, with the Drive BGM replaced with Revolution’s instrumental). Despite Garren King being something anyone with the Blade and Garren CSMs has been mocking up, I’m guessing the need to create a new mould for the Garren King Rouser has prevented an actual release.

Anyway, there’s only one episode left, and it’s Takahashi crossing over all three of his shows, so let’s see how you receive that.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Anyway, there?s only one episode left, and it?s Takahashi crossing over all three of his shows, so let?s see how you receive that.

Based on the preceding episodes, probably less well than I would like to!

[Tokumonkey]

Why are you doing this to yourself? Watching this sounds like a very, very specific form of torture.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tokumonkey

Why are you doing this to yourself? Watching this sounds like a very, very specific form of torture.

Fair question, but much like Episode 4 had Brain tell a whole bunch of people who should've already learned this lesson in their respective series: On a long enough timeline, there's always hope that things will improve. I have watched enough uneven tokusatsu over the last few years to know that even the most dire episode can be followed by something sublime, or the dumbest plot twist can be redeemed by a thoughtful re-examination within the narrative. We all have the capability for change, even a show as weird and occasionally repellant as Outsiders!

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER OUTSIDERS EPISODE 5 - “THE GODDESS OF CREATION AND THE THIRD SINGULARITY”



I mean, you start things off with Tsumuri at the Geats Shrine, and you’ve already got me rooting for you.

In typical Outsiders fashion, we eschew the budding story of everyone we’ve been following for the last three episodes to have Ark and There debate the future of AI, while Kuroto and Tsumuri take on Zein. It’s significantly more straight-forward than the rushed-yet-meandering work of the previous few installments, with room for both gravitas and, like, a coherent plot.

I don’t know that it’s any great shakes – Zein is another Ark-esque malfunctioning AI that is keen to eliminate the malice in humanity by eliminating humanity – but at least it’s something to latch onto for this episode. It gives the characters something specific to oppose, and something tangible to try and defeat. There are parameters to what’s happening that enables us to get an actual strategy, rather than yet another Foundation X improv squad blundering through obvious betrayals. Kuroto knows what he’s up against, he knows what he wants, and he knows how he can get it.

Of all the things I wasn’t expecting in Episode 5 of Outsiders, a story that takes Kuroto seriously has got to be near the top of the list. While there’s for sure the now-standard cackling and mugging, there’s a middle section where Kuroto has a stillness to him. He’s been a caricature for so long (SEVEN YEARS!) that it’s easy to forget that he’s a child of trauma and loss, who wants to leave something of value to the world. The idea that he wants to defeat Zein by making rogue AI like Zein into his children… I mean, sure? Sure, that feels like an appropriately bizarre and grandiose plan for a lonely boy that needs to have control over a chaotic world. Making it insanely convoluted – Kuroto needs a hidden power-up to force Zein to use the Zero-Two card so he can steal the power to send to Zero-Three and then get murdered so Tsumuri will cry and Zero-Three can take that tear to grant Kuroto’s wish and bring him back to life so he can create a Singularity that will avert Zein’s plan – is just the icing on the cake.

The Zero-Three of it all... it’s fine? I like the V3-themed costume. The fight against Zein is very cool, showcasing the high-level move sets that both AI can utilize, but now in a nice, well-lit arena. It’s just hard to love this development, when it jettisons 90% of the cast of the last chunk of episodes to bring in two brand-new characters that are crucial to saving the day. (The last episode ended with the Juuga Driver, and George doesn’t even get mentioned in this episode!) It continues to make previous episodes feel retroactively pointless, and that’s not super fun. In isolation, I think this focus on AI and the legacy they want to leave to the world is fun; in conjunction with Ouja and Garren and Thouser (remember that guy?) and the Orphnoch King (holy shit, remember THAT guy?) and everyone else that’s accrued like quickly-forgotten toys in a kid’s bedroom, it feels less fulfilling than it should.

Which… I guess that’s Outsiders, at least until September. It was consistently and thoroughly less than the sum of its parts, and one of the most disappointing TTFC projects since that godforsaken Bravo/Gridon thing. As a fan of basically every single show they pulled from, I’m not gonna say there was nothing in here for me – Tsumuri, Nico, Desast, Ren, I see that Mii-Tan’s getting called back up. I’m not immune to nostalgia! But I wish there had been a story here that utilized those characters in the way those actors – and fans – deserved. What we got is a mess, and rarely a compelling one. I’m sorry if this wasn’t fun to read! I really wanted to come away with some optimism!

[DreamSword]

Fun fact: The Zero-Three Henshin Jingle got shortened in this episode due to time constraints. Here's the full version if you're curious:

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Fun fact: The Zero-Three Henshin Jingle got shortened in this episode due to time constraints. Here's the full version if you're curious:

Super glad I preordered that DX toy now! Thanks!