Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 32: Lost Whereabouts, Queen's Pride
Okay, we're doing singular episode reviews for these two, mostly because this one ran a bit longer than I expected.
We start off picking up at the bizarre plot point introduced at the end of the voice-actor two-parter, with Ikki apparently disappearing from pictures and stuff due to some bizarre cosmic memory loss curse thanks to transforming into a Kamen Rider all the time. It honestly still feels kind of random, it feels kinda iffy for Vice to not tell Ikki any of this, and, again, it feels like a completely different thing between 'amnesia' and 'cosmic retcon'. We also get the appearance of Serious!Buu-san, who tells our heroes that Genta is now hanging out with Weekend while rehabilitating.
Since both Julio and (to a lesser extent) Olteca have had their requisite backstories given to us, we get a bit more expansion to Aguilera's own childhood, where... she apparently plays hide-and-seek with some of her cultist caretakers in a Sea World style aquarium.
And then Aguilera later shows up to confront Sakura. We get some token Julio/Tamaki comedy moments where he's also kinda following Sakura around with the hopes that Aguilera will show up and stalk her. We get an Aguilera-vs-Jeanne fight, and the fight seems to go well for a bit with Sakura using a bazooka to shoot Aguilera... but then Lovekov starts glitching out, and Sakura falls face-first into the nearby river while attempting to do a finisher move. Aguilera leaves at this point.
Meanwhile, in Fenix, apparently the nameless batch of background soldiers have been gathering Vistamps off-screen! Did they... did they beat Deadmen to do that? After the previous episode established how even 'Phase 1' Deadmen are so powerful they're giving Revice trouble? Regardless, though, Akaishi is getting a bunch of new Vistamps, while Daiji, George and Akemi realize that, hey, the gloating lunatic talking about 'disposable' assets and collecting all the Vistamps might be hiding something. Akemi notes that Daiji is being watched by Akaishi, so she's going to do some investigating -- especially since she had uncovered clues about Akaishi talking to an invisible Vail.
In the aftermath, Tamaki and Sakura speculate that Aguilera seems to want Sakura to beat her -- and Tamaki notes that Aguilera might just be seeking a honourable end, since she has nowhere to belong to. Tamaki straight-up says that Aguilera wants to go out "with whatever dignity she has as the Queen of Evil". She wants to literally die with dignity, a surprisingly dark motivation while also making full sense with how obsessed she had been with Gifu for the entire series, and how Gifu callously rejected her last episode. Sakura, meanwhile, asks Ikki to help split Aguilera from her demon, though Ikki does point out that Aguilera doesn't want it herself.
We get a pretty cool sub-plot with Akemi hacking into Akaishi's office, ultimately finding a giant collection of Vistamps that were supposed to be destroyed. Director Akaishi shows up and reveals that under those gloves, he's got a Gifu eyeball on his palm, and has the ability to create portals to Gifu's realm and summon Giffterians. Later on, Daiji asks Akaishi and demands to know where Akemi is, but the Giffterian attack forces Daiji to leave the Fenix base. He gets to blow up two of the 'pure' Giffterians concurrent with the final act, though it's clearly just the B-plot ehre.
Meanwhile, Sakura is informed by Karizaki Sr. that everything is functioning well with the belt, and everything that's wrong with Lovekov comes from Sakura's own inner turmoil and doubts -- a fact speculated by Vice earlier in the episode as well. We get a brief debate between Sakura's Weekend Friend and his dad -- the former is more supportive of Sakura, but Weekend Dad tells Sakura to steel her heart and murder Aguilera. Weekend Dad is a jackass, but he's entertaining, at least, as he gesticulates and talks about how there's no way that Aguilera, who lived her entire life as part of a psycho cult, can return to living as a normal human being. There's actually a point in this two-parter where I genuinely thought that our heroes are actually going to discuss if they're going to respect someone's wishes even if those wishes aren't made in the most conscious mind.
Tamaki, Ikki and Sakura all show up to meet Aguilera, but Aguilera gets absolutely pissed off at Sakura telling Ikki to split Sakura from her demon and have her work at Happy Spa. Some really great angry and frustrated faces on Aguilera's part, and then we get a 2-v-1 fight. Aguilera's voice acting is pretty damn on-point here as she rages and screams about why Sakura doesn't understand her. And as Ikki is about to deliver a Thunder Gale finish on Aguilera, Lovekov hits Sakura and she de-transforms... realizing that her doubts lie around Aguilera. Not about respecting her decision to continue being a demon, but that Sakura needs to be the one to deal with Aguilera. She ends up jumping in the way of Ikki's kick, and then declares that she'll be the one to finish this.
And... and it's a pretty interesting cliffhanger, isn't it? Again, I genuinely actually did expect that they might be going on a route where our heroes actually respect Aguilera's desire to continue being a monster, but maybe a monster that fights on their side? But while it didn't go in the direction that I expected it would, Aguilera's obsession with Sakura and Sakura specifically has been built up well over the course of the series, and I do appreciate that this climax actually makes it a point that, no, the Main Character (tm) isn't going to be the one to deal with Aguilera, but rather it's Sakura -- the protagonist that has been the most involved with Aguilera overall. I still think this two-parter is a bit clunky in spaces, but compared to the previous one, the Aguilera story, the Sakura story and even the Akemi investigation B-plot are all pretty well-realized. Good stuff!
Random Notes:
- I know that there's a concurrently-running Vail mini-series going on, but it is so weird that Kamen Rider Vail hasn't really made an appearance after his first appearance. I genuinely thought that he was set up to be a bit of a recurring antagonist, but no, Vail-the-demon just kind of hangs out with Olteca and later Akaishi as a ghost.
- Sakura's Weekend classmate-plant-friend does have a bunch of roles here, but I really don't remember his name and his role basically is just being the token likable character from Weekend that Sakura interacts with.
- Akemi just has absolute sass when dealing with everyone around her. "All right, so I'll stay put then..."
- I didn't realize until now that Lovekov holds Jeanne's power-up items within her adorable tiny pouch.
- So I guess despite the last couple of episodes making such a big deal about how Daiji and Sakura are allying themselves fully with Fenix and Weekend, they still hang out in Happy Spa for dinner and everything. Okay, sure, that's logical, I guess.
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