ESSAY #1
Hino Eiji started off as a rich kid with the desire to help the people who needed it. Having traveled around the world with his grandfather for a while, he became quickly resolute in this. What started as a great idea with good intentions quickly came to a bad end due to the influence of money and the dark desire locked in the hearts of the people he gave it to. When you are giving out enough money that was meant to help yet instead was enough to fuel a civil war, the problem just might be all you and your naivety.
While the fault might be on him-- and yes, he does accept full responsibility for this regardless of his families involvement in the clean up and handling of the situation-- he did not come out of this with just a lesson learned. When children are dying around you that once loved and trusted you because of the choice you made that gave them those smiles, something just dies inside of you. This is what happened to Eiji. What once was a boy filled with happiness, satisfaction and no need to desire anything more than being able to reach out and help the people in need, became nothing more than a man with a void that can’t ever be filled.
Amazingly, this emptying of Eiji’s soul was exactly what was needed to make him the perfect choice to be Kamen Rider OOO. Eiji’d take on this, however, is that his status as the perfect candidate for anything is unimportant. The power contained within the OOO belt is important to him because it gives him the ability to help people in a way that can’t be turned against him. The incident that he caused in that war-torn country is what has provoked him to only help the people he can reach. If he starts small and works from there, maybe it wont be repeated. Nothing would ever stop him from wanting to help people, it’s just the scale that has changed.
This brings us to Eiji’s problem. While it would seem that he is healing and moving forward in this life, he is not. What he is actually doing is pushing past his problem to focus on the problems of other people. It is as Shingo said in episode 41, “Everyone brings their problems to him and he silently accepts them”. Honestly it is not very healthy for him to do, but Eiji is very stubborn and headstrong when it comes to something he has decided he needs to do.
Eiji’s meeting with Ankh was not one of chance, but of fate. Eiji not so actively looking for a way to help people, but he was wishing it very hard (effective, I know) . Ankh himself was looking for someone who he could use to collect cell medals for him that serve as food and life to him. To say the least, it worked out very well for the both of them. Eiji could use Ankh, the belt and medals to help people and Ankh could use him to feed himself. In meeting Ankh and not so much agreeing with his terms as going on to do it because it was there... he found meaning for himself! That’s what’s important here! He found meaning by listening and trusting the word of a floating monster arm with a mildly bad temper. What could he say? It was fighting so hard but ended up looking like some poor, defenseless puppy being picked on by a bully. Who could really resist trying to save such a preciously defenceless being?
The point is that OOO was what he was waiting for. With the power it would give him, he would finally be able to help everyone. Eiji wasn’t deluding himself to thinking that the power wasn’t going to betray him ( It did come with Ankh attached, after all), but it gave him away to satisfy himself. With the way the Yummys attacked indiscriminately, It put him back in the mindset of that war-torn country (sort of in a PTSD way). OOO gave him the backing he needed so that he doesn’t have to stand by helplessly while other people suffer. He can finally do everything he can to help and save these people in front of him that need a hand to reach out to them. It’s that fulfilment, that feeling that is the most important to Eiji. The problem with this is in the fact it itself is not a desire. It is simply Eiji making right by past mistakes. That void still existed, empty.
Let’s back up a little though. I did, after all, mention an important relationship of Eiji’s, if not the most important one he has all season. As stated, the meeting with Ankh goes on to be one that is most certainly a roller coaster of emotion. Ankh is the one who gave Eiji the ability to do what he had been desiring to do for a while. It was what Ankh could and was doing for him that he found the most important. It was the reason he pushed himself through the anger and sometimes even hatred so that he could still do the right thing by the people who counted on him.
Yes, his linear focus on helping people did place Ankh in spot where it was taking longer for him to revive, but Eiji wanted it be like that. The very fact that Eiji is so obsessed with helping and saving the lives of others but this does not include Ankh for a very long while says a lot. Eiji even went as far once as to turn down being gifted one of Ankh’s medals because it would help aid his revival and that was the one thing he didn’t want. For s long as the unconscious officer would need it, Eiji wanted Ankh to remain right there. If this meant keeping the living being in a constant state of being disabled and barely receiving enough medals to get by, he was completely fine with doing so. While being rather inhumane, Eiji was fully aware of what he was doing, his resolve never wavering.
As for Ankh himself, he didn’t know what to think of him at first. This very quickly became distaste and animosity. Ankh is the personality type that he greatly dislikes. Self-serving, only worried about his own ends, the needs and concerns of others were nothing to him, Eiji hated all of this. Most of the time he would treat it with ignorance. As long as he could do what he wanted and guide Ankh away from doing anything too terrible, he didn’t have to do much more. There were times where force, suicidal attempts and blatant ignorance of each others well being had to be used in order to provoke action from the other. To say the very least, Eiji detests when he has to resort to these types of solutions against “people” (used *very* loosely in Ankh’s case), but if he must, he must.
Warming up to the Greeed was neither easy or quickly done. A lot of the closeness that developed between them went unnoticed by both parties. Not to be taken the wrong way, Eiji is a man who can’t form or read relationship’s very well. Not noticing or acknowledging there is anything there is just apart of the norm for him. Back on track, Eiji spared no expense. He knew Ankh was a terrible person with terrible morals and his outlook on events and situations were just awful, Still, little by little, he had begun to accept these things about the Bird Greeed. They still didn’t get along and even to this moment most of Eiji’s faith in Ankh is in how incredibly selfish he is to use it against him. Recent developments haven’t really changed this, but that will be for the second essay.
It is trust that is not trust, a partnership that is not even close to a partnership. Using each other to continue to push forward is all that they can do, or at least, this is the way Eiji viewed it. Ankh talks very big and act’s out a lot, but Eiji almost always views himself as the one that is in control, even if he does not say or show this on his own. Ankh is important to him because through him, he can feel satisfied. For the longest time, that was all he wanted from Ankh. There’s more to be said here, but that, as I said, will be continued in Essay #2.
So now let’s get down to Eiji himself. Eiji is rather complicated, as you can see. There are a lot of layers to him and it’s not so easy to peel away whatever layer you want just to get the part of him you desire. Oh no, he is a master of his art.
Lets start this part with a founding fact of OOO and why Eiji’s problem (stated eariler) is so important. Everything is run by desire. The reason humanity and the very world has reached such a grand and prosperous state like so is due to the wants, needs and desires of the people. Desire is what drives a person forward. Desire, emotions and determination is the foundation for progress and human development. Eiji himself lacks the first part of this wonderful equation, but he hasn’t always been without it. It was the “the emptying of his cup”, as Cakeboss stated, that prepared him to be the perfect OOO, but it also opened up the door for some unseen problems too, but I’ll get to that a bit later.
At the heart of it. Eiji just wants to help people. He takes such issue with the way Ankh does things largely because of their relation to one Izumi Hina. This young woman has been with them since the beginning and still holds importance even after the end. The body that Ankh is using belong to her brother (Whom she has a small complex over. Awkward.) and as stated is cause for many disagreements between Ankh and Eiji. You see, Eiji wants Ankh to give up the body and return Hina’s brother to her. Shingo is the only person Hina has and is very important to her. Ankh, in the other hand, wants to keep the body because it’s now his. Neither of them can see or really care about the other’s point-- or at least Eiji thought so. Everyone is important, and so is their happiness. Hina would be able to smile again if Ankh would give her the brother she misses back.
To say that’s it would be a bit cold, wouldn’t it? Eiji and HIna are friends and he values the time that he’s spent with her, but the over all fulfillment of what she wants from him is what he is looking to complete. There is actually a point in the series where this was actually accomplished! Yet once it was done, he had no more plans of seeing her again or continuing to be in her life and was more than fine with that sort of ending. His life as a drifter had more than prepared him for that sort of thing. No, he had no intention of telling anyone that was his plan really. He intended to just take Ankh with him and they would fade into the background together. No consultation to Hina or care about her feelings on the matter, just fade without a word or a care.
That’s actually not the first time we hear of that sort of behaviour either. One of his “friends” from high school also took pride in Eiji helping him selflessly. Why is this so important, you may ask? Sure. Eiji helps a lot of people! It wouldn’t be surprising of someone actually appreciated what he did! I’m pretty sure lots of people are like that, right? Wrong. When Eiji parts ways with a person, he more or less expects it to be a “forever” deal. Like with his friend here, Eiji didn’t remember his name or anything he actually did with this man when it seemed to be so important or that they spent actually a lot of time together. The fact is that when Eiji does help, he puts the person he is helping out of mind as fast as, or faster than, the person he helped putting him out of mind. He doesn’t expect acknowledgement. I could go as far as saying that most of the time it’s troublesome and annoying to him if the person sticks around, but he will always deal with it silently and continue on.
I should also mention that as much time as he spends with Ankh, Hina and the body of this officer he wants to save so badly, he doesn’t ever actually refer to him by name. The times he does remember to is purely for the fact he is awkwardly staring at the man at those points and calling him “Shingo-san” is probably nicer than saying “Officer-san”. . . at least to his face it is.
Now we’ve come to the part of this essay that is not touched on a lot in canon, which means I will have to be explaining why this is so! To start, let’s understand Eiji’s name as we’ve come to know it as.
火野 映司 - Hino Eiji
火 -Hi.
Meaning: Fire.
野 - No
Meaning: Field or plain
映 - Ei
Meaning: reflect, project, cast, shine, glow
司 - Ji
Meaning: govern, administer, rule, manage, direct, preside over
The first thing I should note is that Hino is not his real last name. It’s his mothers maiden name. He took it up so that he wouldn’t be widely recognized. Why would a man do something like that, you wonder? When your Grandfather is the Prime Minster of Japan and your father is also a renown politician, it’s a big deal. Before moving on, let’s draw a little attention to his first name and it’s meaning. The combination of “Reflect” and “Rule” could possibly be a draw between optionally Eiji and the King or Eiji and his family. A “reflection of a ruler” so to speak. The power he uses was the power the King had created for himself. The money and influence he used to help people was from his family. So either way you look at it, the way he operates is under the “reflection” of another.
Growing up in that kind of political situation is also quite the big deal. It is, in fact, where Eiji’s personality was developed! His love of horrid boxers and traveling comes from his Grandfather. It was his philosophy that all you needed was change for tomorrow and a clean pair of underwear and everything would be fine. What a great Prime Minster, right? He took Eiji traveling around the world since he was young, showing him the world and all of it’s wonders. Eiji liked it to much he continued to do it even in his adulthood.
As for his need to help people, that should be self explanatory, but just in case it isn’t, let me give you a scenario.
Imajine you are the youngest of a very powerful family. Your older brother is the one receiving all of the pressure of continuing the family trade, but they want great things out of you too! You’re grandfather is pretty chill though and decides you need to see the world and exactly how small you are compared to it. A lesson like that makes for a fine leader, right? Yet, while traveling, you notice all of the lives, the hands that political power doesn’t. These nice, underprivliaged people taught you their culture, how to smile and enjoy the small things in life, and yet nothing you or your family could ever do would help these people out. Nothing ANYONE would ever do would help these people unless some kind soul came and helped them directly. It’s your families duty (along with what’s been stuffed down your throat all your life) to aid the people, and you’ve realized that your true calling is, in fact, the family trade. Sure, you are the happy-go-lucky black sheep of your family, but you can also help! You can be just as much good as they do, the humanitarian way.
And then it all backfires horribly and blah blah blah, but everyone knows that part. Either way, hopefully that brings Eiji into perspective for all of you and I can only be sorry that the first essay ended up being so long. Yes, you heard me, the first one. There are two more to go.
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