Kamen Rider Revice E40 Review: Cain and Abel

Kamen Rider Revice, Episode 40: Family or the World... Brothers Quarrel of the Soul!

So after last episode's huge cliffhanger of Daiji pulling a gun on Sakura and Ikki, we get him being basically... well, off his rocket. He rants about how Ikki is a threat to humanity, up until Sakura walks up and slaps him in the face. The gun is admittedly a bit too much, but I do enjoy the drama in these psycho-Daiji episodes. Daiji's motivation is just moaning about how "no one gets it, even though I'm in the right", and it's pretty interesting for the simple fact that we've seen Daiji at his best, otherwise he would've been one note.

The power of instant villain teleportation causes Vail to show up and spirit Daiji away, though, and I'm actually genuinely surprised we're stretching this out for a couple episodes longer.

A bit less interesting, admittedly, is Tasuke from Weekend going all 'frank' and demanding that Ikki and Sakura view Daiji as an enemy to eliminate. Pretty standard stuff, and I wouldn't even say that it's a stupid move because, well, for Tasuke, this is war. And he's shown to be one of the more heartless 'for the greater good' character after last episode. Obviously, our main characters aren't particularly happy about it. Sakura and Vice are enraged, and Hikaru, after the events of the previous episode, gets particularly pissed that Tasuke's being all ruthless and forcing his ideals on people. 

A bit more uncomfortable to watch is Akaishi's... bizarre... relationship with Daiji. We later learn that Akaishi's treating Daiji like his brand-new son, but before that revelation his... touchiness with Daiji is more than a bit icky. Akaishi being a bit more sympathetic about loneliness or whatever does make sense in how it basically keeps feeding Daiji's delusion about his righteousness. He's dumb for listening to an obvious lunatic, but I can get that his mind is just kind of twisted enough by all the trauma and whatnot.

Genta and Yukimi stage a little fake-fight basically just to get Ikki out of his funk, and the moral of the story is that... brothers sometimes need to fight things out a bit? Except instead of arguing with words, this involves Kamen Rider powers? I'm not sure I agree with the morals, but this leads to the very excellent sequence of events as Ikki goes off with the sole purpose to confront Daiji, for the two of them to vent their emotions. The rest of the riders twist this into Ikki being a distraction to bait Akaishi into arriving at the Weekend base. Jeanne, Aguilera and Over Demons hold off an army of minions outside of the Weekeend base while Ikki goes off to confront his brother. 

Again, there's another nice little quiet scene between Vice and Ikki as Vice is easily to see through all the bluster and realize that Ikki's hand is trembling. 

And... ultimately, the clash between Ikki and Daiji is pretty standard confrontation in these sorts of shonen-aimed media, but the acting for both Ikki and Daiji is pretty great, and while they mostly just try to repeat their motivations and trying to convince the other, we do get Ikki's stubbornness in refusing to sacrifice either peace or freedom as the one big counterargument against Daiji. 

Akaishi shows up in the Weekend base and transforms in an actually pretty understated cool way into what the Wiki calls is another Giffdemos form. It's spiky! He just absolutely bodies through Jeanne, Aguilera and Over Demons while delivering a badass speech. I do like me some good 'oh man, the villain is overpowered and is beating up the secondary characters' scene.

And while the Ikki/Daiji conflict is some neat stuff, I do really think that Tasuke's surprise confrontation against Akaishi is the strongest scene in this episode. Again, death isn't something that Kamen Rider really does particularly well in recent series. Usually there's the overhanging shadow of magic books or robot backups or digital virus-being backups or ghosts or time wackadoodle or some shit that cheapens the death. But Tasuke, in a mirror to the previous episode, tells Hikaru and the others to pull out in the face of this clearly overwhelming power. Hikaru himself almost goes for a dramatic sacrifice, holding off Akaishi while the girls go evacuate the civilians... but Tasuke just keeps screaming for his adopted son to get back. 

There's a brief bit where Tasuke yells about it being an order, and seems to walk off to leave his 'son' behind to his insubordinate fate, just like how he left his 'wife'... but just as Akaishi is about to deliver the killing blow to an untransformed Hikaru, Tasuke charges in, pushes Hikaru away and takes the blow. He gives some bullshit excuse about how Over Demons is a key fighting force, but it's clear to the audience that he's doing it because he cares. Again, we get to see a surprising amount of blood (for this show's standards), and Akaishi de-transforms to pick up a photograph of Tasuke's original, actual family which was killed by Deadmans. Tasuke dies while talking about how he doesn't give a shit about the past, and focuses on the future, and acknowledges Hikaru as his son... and Akaishi ends up having one of his few scenes where he actually looks introspective and doesn't go into a single-minded rant and just plops into a sitting position next to Tasuke's bloodied corpse. 

Anyway, pretty surprising and well-executed death for Tasuke, and we cut off immediately to Ikki and Daiji clashing at each other. Again, Ikki's big conclusion is that he's not willing to sacrifice either peace or freedom, and, again, the nature of Ikki's opponent -- his brother, which he's also not willing to compromise and sacrifice -- makes Ikki's speech actually bear a bit more weight. Ikki finally decides to do what he couldn't do last episode and Giffard Finish-es Daiji, de-transforming him... but unlike what Ikki expects, Daiji doesn't come home with him. Instead, Akaishi comes, calls Daiji his 'precious family' and teleports away. 

Random Notes:

• We get a great scene of Sakura telling Hana to fuck off and leave her alone, and Hana instead goes all 'busybody' and hugs Sakura, in a cute little inversion of how their relationship was when Sakura was trying to redeem Hana. Lovekov also gets a cute little adorable scene of patting Sakura's head. 
• Oh, Vail also shows up in this episode's climactic confrontation between Ikki and Daiji, just so Vice doesn't interrupt in the brotherly battle. Honestly Vail's kind of a non-entity in this episode beyond being another body in the fight. He clashes with Vice and the two literally disappear off-screen until Vice returns at the end of this episode. 
• "Punish the naysayers. As is the way. Be swift like the winds. And daring as a raging fire. Bewilder the eyes like the shadows. And strike like LIGHTNING!"
• Man, Akaishi could so easily been just another Master Solomon, but he's actually starting to grow on me.