Kamen Rider Revice E37 Review: Martyr's Requiem

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 37: Inevitable Fierce Battle! The Decisive Demon Recapturing Mission! 

Okay, an... interesting episode. Apparently between the Kamen Rider Aguilera debut and this episode, we've had a bit of a short timeskip as our Kamen Riders are going around beating up Deadmens? Or, well, Giff Juniors, I guess, since those are really the only things we see. There's a bit of a propaganda stuff with Director Akaishi pretending that he's survived the attack by Gifu, and he's resurrected and healed by the power and grace of the great demon lord... it's a lot more childish than what's believable, but I suppose the essence of the scene works for the younger members of the audience? He's basically making it an excuse to give out propaganda about how, yeah, the Kamen Riders are completely helpless against the powers of Gifu and humanity must not antagonize the demon lord. 

A good chunk of this episode finally pays off all the character work built up for Daiji, who's still employed as part of Fenix and he's arguing with Akaishi about their views on 'protecting huamnity'. Akaishi also essentially holds Daiji hostage, using his ability to release demons and attack civilians to essentially force Daiji to listen to his orders. 

Meanwhile, there's also a subplot of Weekend trying to hack into Fenix's broadcasts and tell humanity that there's hope, although I think people would take them seriously if they're not making ridiculous pretentious poses. Totally in-character for Weekend to do, admittedly. 

The main Ikki plot has him, Weekend, the Karizakis and the other allied riders to figure out a plan to properly beat up Gifu, based on that one clue they got from the monsterified Akemi last episode. Honestly, most of the good-guys scenes are pretty standard, except for the scene where they talk to Daiji in Happy Spa. I do really like, by the way, how this episode shows that the three siblings separating and working on their own to fight Gifu was originally treated with them still being cordial and happy with each other... but Daiji's isolation, his constant 'trauma conga' (to borrow a TVTropes term) and his exposure to so much of Akaishi's bullshit has caused him to become way more than a little pessimistic. 

Daiji's rhetoric is even believable -- he doesn't want to submit to Gifu, but he wants peace to be shattered even less. He doesn't want people to die, and he thinks that Ikki's "might've" and "maybes" are half-assed, risky ways. Again, I've seen a lot of Kamen Rider shows where one of the good riders turn to be evil for half a season or whatever, and there really isn't an adequately explained reason for that. Daiji's pretty good! 

There's a nice little scene of George Karizaki going to Karizaki senior's grave and thinking to himself how things would've been easier if his father was actually dead... before he shows up at Weekend's base and gives Ikki an upgraded Barid Rex Vistamp, solving their problem on how to freeze monster Akemi and bring her back for cellular extraction. 

Jumping ahead a little, George and Karizaki Sr. get a pretty great moment as the two finally confront each other -- I think the timing of this episode coincides with when the Vail web-series has concluded streaming in real life? Karizaki Senior confesses how he let his 'inner demons' get the better of him, leading to his creation of Kamen Rider Vail, and Karizaki Senior shows George his scars. I do really like that George gets angry at his father because all the 'justice' and 'greater good' rhetoric doesn't sit right with him, and he's not the only one with 'scars that won't heal'. 

There's also a very cool scene transition that the episode doesn't really call too much attention to -- we get Ikki, Sakura, Hana, Hikaru and the rest of the Weekend-allied characters being all 'yeah, we're going to do this together' with a fistbump, and then we cut to Daiji alone, facing against an army of Giff Juniors, transforming into his Holy Wing form while the shadows are shrouded around him... pretty great thematic cutaway. (We also cut away from George saying about 'scars' to another shot of Daiji battling alone without any dialogue. 

We get Ikki and Sakura confronting Akaishi, who sics monster-Akemi and the True Giffterian at them. The True Giffterian can regenerate from anything Sakura or Ikki can do to him. Hana and Hikaru meanwhile just spend their screentime in this episode fighting some mooks in the surface -- basically just a showcase of the two new suits, really. Ultimately, Ikki is fighting Akemi with the Barid Rex form, intent on freezing her and bringing her to Weekend. Akemi's body herself is disintegrating... and, well, it's pretty tragic stuff.

But even more tragic is that Daiji's actually being summoned by Akaishi right after he's overwhelmed with battle, and he sees Ikki fighting and seemingly about to kill monsterified Akemi. However, as Daiji is making his way towards his siblings, Ikki and Vice are distracted by the arrival of the Giffterian (who beat Sakura), and the frozen Akemi gets dealt a mortal wound by Akaishi who teleports in. It's a surprisingly brutal death for a supporting character -- especially with how basically all the Rider shows since Neo-Heisei (except maybe Gaim) have been pretty... tame in terms of character death. 

Daiji shows up to see Ikki with his hands on a convulsing Akemi, and fights Ikki off just in time for Akemi to die. The dying Akemi, too, also ends up speaking something ominous that really doesn't explain who her real killer is, instead saying something about righteousness and loneliness. She dies and disintegrates while Daiji looks on, and Ikki, Vice and Sakura just looks on in horror... and Daiji and Ikki are about to fight. Hiromi shows up and interrupts them; end scene. 

What a great cliffhanger, huh? I really do think over the past couple of episodes we've built up Daiji's desperation very well, his growing corruption and manipulation from Akaishi, and the situation actually happens so fast that we don't get the oft-derided Faiz reason of 'my god, just talk to each other' response from the audience. There literally isn't any time to talk and while Daiji's obviously wrong, you can totally see how the events around him essentially pigeonholed him into doing what he did. Pretty good stuff. 

Random Notes:

• It's so weird that the show really thinks that Hikaru is a character that's equivalent to Aguilera. He's been such a non-entity throughout the show that I really can't take the fact that he's one of the secondary group of riders in this show seriously. Hell, I genuinely do care for his dad more than I do him. 
• Considering every single attack in this franchise is named, it's kinda silly that Vice thinks that he still needs to make up a fancy attack name for his attacks.
• Apparently Akaishi released all the demons from the mandatory stamping thing we briefly alluded to in the previous episode? I really do wish that these are given a bit more focus, because I barely realized that the two incidents are connected until I did my rewatch for this review.
• Akemi's monster form is called the "Giffdemons", kind of a silly name.  
• I'm not sure if the Barid Rex form is actually a new, altered form or if it's just the same thing as usual? I kinda want to say it's the same form, but we do get an elaborate transformation for them?