FUUTO PI

Episode 10

This week's episode of FUUTO PI kicks off a new story arc, and it's one that finally brings the focus back on Tokime, though the way it is done could definitely have been paced better: the characters just sort of casually mention to us, then flashback to the fact that Philip was able to decode her broken GaiaMemory, revealing it to be the same attribute as Shotaro's primary one—Joker. It's an incredibly abrupt manner of dispensing this sort of reveal, and had me briefly wondering if I'd missed an episode or something. But this is definitely a case of needing to prepare for this plot in line with FUUTO PI's rigid episode-pacing structure, since while Tokime's Memory and its powers may play into how things go moving forward, for now it's just a background detail to spur her into working on this story's proper case. "Working to help someone else help you forget about your problems" is the philosophy that truly kicks her and Shotaro off, which aligns with the kinds of detective values we expect from Kamen Rider W material.

Once that gets us going, this turns into a pretty strong start for this story. It feels like it's been a while since we got to see Tokime truly acting as the assistant to Shotaro she's supposedly been since that introductory story, so that plus the promise of digging into her past as the end of the previous arc insinuated is promising. Having her wander back into Shadow Fuuto is thus an efficient way of getting her to such a point. And it is funny to see her reaction to the place after all this time being "Why would anyone come here?". In the case of us viewers, the answer would be to enjoy the fun cameos of Dopants from the old live-action show (Beast! Sweets! Triceratops!), but things are decidedly less amusingly entertaining for Tokime, or Rentaro, the subject of this episode's investigation whom we see getting attacked by Brachiosaurus in this one's opening.

As promising as the prospect of Tokime exploring Shadow Fuuto and her own past is, the hostility with which the location reacts to her and propels the rest of this episode hasn't been especially conducive to that sort of development. It is a little frustrating that Tokime's efforts allowing Shotaro, Philip, and Terui access to the area are prompted by her effectively getting dragged off as a damsel in a story supposedly showcasing her. This is just the first episode of this story, of course, and things settle by the end into somewhere that might play into better intrigue and efforts on Tokime's part, so I'm still looking forward to that. But given how dodgy FUUTO PI has been about actually doing anything with Tokime since the beginning, it's still on notice.

Not that I can stay mad at the series for a few dangling structural issues when everything else about this episode seems to be coming on so strong. After the unique murder-mystery angle of the previous arc, it's good to come back to a more standard client-request format for the Narumi Detective Agency crew. The whole premise is laid out in an effective, businesslike manner that frames this story of Shadow Fuuto and Tokime's involvement with it well, while not crowding things out with its own various details too much. There's a light mystery-reveal-payoff already just in this one episode, propelled by the supposition that the intimidating suspect Nikaido is the massive Brachiosaurus Dopant we've glimpsed before, only for him to turn out to be a lower-ranking ambitious beastie known as Reactor instead. It's simple, but it aligns with the machinations of Shadow Fuuto and the true Brachiosaurus revealing himself to Tokime by the end to really sell how this whole situation with the spooky city and the organization behind it is much bigger and badder than our heroes had previously thought. Also the design for Reactor is just a really cool one, and I'm not watching a Kamen Rider show to not enjoy sick kaijin designs.

Even with some of those aforementioned dodgier bits leading up to it, the climax of the characters arriving in Shadow Fuuto feels very efficiently built-up. Without the odd decompression plaguing the beginnings of some of the previous arcs, this one really comes off the most like an actual Kamen Rider episode in pacing and structure, and delivering on the style, the flair we expect from that kind of tremendous toku action is the finishing touch here. We've had some terrific fights in FUUTO PI thus far, but I feel like W and Accel's battle with Reactor is a particularly strong showing. The presentation plays well with the hot elements embodied by the monster and W's HeatMetal form, the animated affect able to show off stuff like the melting of the very Rider suits themselves. That kind of detail mixes with the music and the overall energy of the animation on display to really sell the struggle of all this. Reactor even shows off in the classic way only the baddest Kamen Rider baddies can, by no-selling not just one, but two finishing attacks!

It all results in an extremely strong start, even compensating for a couple questionable choices, for this FUUTO PI storyline. That's promising, given the fact that this will seemingly be the last one for the season. Obviously I don't want to get too ahead of myself, but what can I say, I like to be optimistic about a series that's so near and dear to me, and this anime has generally given me reason to be faithful in its execution. As a viewer, and as a fan, I'm really looking forward to how this is going to turn out.

Rating:

FUUTO PI is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is a freewheeling Fresno-based freelancer with a love for anime and a shelf full of too many Transformers. He can be found spending way too much time on his Twitter, and irregularly updating his blog.