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Thread
:
Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Kabuto
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01-28-2021, 12:51 AM
#
817
Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
KAMEN RIDER KABUTO - EPISODE 47
So, let me start off with the one thing I really liked from this episode.
Kabuto’s blowing up Worm Detectors, and ZECT has sentenced him to death. (Because this is now permanently a series where people sentence other people to death.) (Last one, I promise.) Kagami has been given the duty to take Tendou out, and he accepts. Misaki, furious, wants to know how Kagami could
possibly
agree to kill Tendou. Kagami says that he’s doing this because he believes that he’s the only one who could resolve this situation
without
killing Tendou. If Kagami goes to him as a friend, he can get Tendou to tell him what he’s up to, what the
real
plan is. Kagami is taking this job because he knows he can defuse the situation.
It’s a very nice touch. It’s not Kagami being conflicted, torn between his friendship and his responsibility. It’s Kagami knowing Tendou well enough to know that there’s some multi-level plot that’s just kicking off, and it’s time to find out what it is. It’s genre-savvy, but it also speaks to their friendship, how they’ve changed and grown over the last four dozen episodes. This isn’t Episode 3 or something, where Tendou acts like a superior asshole and needlessly escalates situations because he doesn’t trust the people around him and plots are mostly just waiting for all of Tendou’s actions to be given the proper context…
…
…
...okay that’s
exactly
what’s happening here.
I guess the tip-off should’ve been the flashback to the meteor strike of 1999, maybe? This is an episode that feels weirdly,
frustratingly
regressive. There’s even a scene where the ZECT In A Van team meets in an empty office! And Tendou poses with his Zecter while backlit by a blazing sun! It’s definitely trying to evoke the early episodes, but I really wish they’d opted to keep those references to a surface level.
Just, man, Tendou is back to being his opaque, obstinate self, and I am
grinding my teeth
in frustration. We’re left with a conclusion to this episode where Tendou either has a long-term plan he’s not letting his friends in on (which is something this show largely grew out of a dozen episodes ago), or he’s just being a mercurial prick that gets Renge shot.
I don’t love either of those choices!
Those are both bad plots to follow through on!
It’s not a fun feeling, to watch an episode like this. There are only two more Kabutos left after this one, and that’s it forever. You want to feel like everything that’s happened has weight, that the journey you’ve been on with these characters has forged them into heroes that are finally equal to the task of saving the world. Instead, I feel like
none
of it has mattered? Literally everything in this story could’ve taken place in the first ten episodes, character-wise. (I mean, we’ve got more powerups, but that isn’t really the sort of progress I’m looking for.) Tendou and Kagami share basically no screentime, and when they do, Tendou’s being a dismissive asshole. The Worms are as disorganized and character-less as ever. There’s a sweet scene of Tendou and Hiyori cooking, but it feels like you could’ve done this one right after the flower show episodes. (Also, Hiyori was briefly hospitalized after being attacked by Another Tendou, and it’s never brought up once. Amazing!)
It…
nothing
in this episode felt like I needed to watch anything after the first two. Like, I could’ve skipped the last
forty-four episodes
, and probably been almost entirely unsurprised by what happened here. (Another Tendou would’ve been a bit of a question mark, but he doesn’t do more than have an admittedly cool fight with Kabuto, and then get snapped up by Goro. There’s no character work done with him.) If anything, I'd've probably liked this episode more, because it'd've felt like I hadn't missed a single story beat.
That feels not great!
Everything in this episode felt like a gigantic reset, and it bummed the hell out of me. I was looking for a sense of all these episodes being worth something to the characters, a journey that’s reaching its conclusion. Instead, it’s a bunch of characters acting like nothing that important happened in the last year, and that sucks.
Hoping things turn out better next time!
A QUESTION
At least Clock Up is back! The Kabuto/Dark Kabuto fight is genuinely great, with an emphasis on tactical combat and predicting your opponent. It’s not visualized super great (it’s both Tendous thinking of what they’re going to do in words instead of in actions), but it’s tense in a way that not every fight gets to be.
How’d you like this fight?
Too short? Just right?
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on
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Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 03-06-2022 at
02:40 AM
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