something something Game World something something Bad Coding something something It's A Clue Maybe

So now we come to the special with the group I like to call “Team Dead”. And notably, the red of this group (Baron) is played by someone who famously unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Gokai Red.

And this time, the one writing it is Kento Shimoyama. A guy with little prior Rider experience (his one credit before this was the Wizard movie’s net movies) but he has a lot of experience with Sentai (having done the Super Video for Shinkenger, which is basically Sentai’s answer to HBVs, been a staff writer for Goseiger, Gokaiger and Zyuohger, the secondary writer for Go-Busters and Kyuranger and the main writer for Ninninger). You’ll be seeing a lot more of his style after this thread is over.

Oh hey! Die finally started getting into Super Sentai! :p

I think I'll probably save my actual thoughts on this miniseries for the end, but I do want to pop in here right now to talk about one minor thing that drives me completely insane.

This is the assumption I see a lot of people make, but I'll remind everyone that this is Blade Jack Form's helmet:

https://i.imgur.com/xV25ZbE.png

...complete with different colored tear lines and a front horn that is completely gold, even on the back where the transparent part isn't covering it. This is unlike Blade's helmet in modern appearances, which looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/2mDTAI1.png

...with the normal tears and a horn that's still silver on the back, which combined with how dull the "gold" look on the front can be, suggests that's just Blade's regular helmet, except something about that transparent part caused it to age really poorly in some weirdly particular ways. Because of course, back in the day, it did look silver:

https://i.imgur.com/XZXULlI.png

...but on the other hand, depending on the lighting, the contrast between the face and the jaw could be somewhat pronounced even back then:

https://i.imgur.com/ivuoTMn.png

I've never heard a proper official explanation for what exactly the deal with Blade's mysterious color-changing face is, so while I have my own assumptions, this might actually be the TRUE mystery regarding Kenzaki in this series. :lol

(Also, I'll say ahead of time there are no Ondul memes that come from GoRider to my knowledge. This too could be considred a hint towards the true nature of Blade's role in the plot, I guess.)

Exposure to sunlight has caused the clear plastic to yellow over time. This issue is only limited to Blade and Garren however. You can see it on Garren during his appearance in SHT GP. Or even all the way back during Decade's Net Movies. Leangle might have it too but because his face it's already gold it's not noticeable.

The real mystery is why that and his purple stomach hasn't been fixed yet.

WHAT OTHER CREDIT COULD A WRITER NEED?!

So, on the one hand, I super don't care about the changes a tokusatsu suit goes through on the long road to Legend Rider status. I don't retain a lot of that stuff (you could give Blade a neon green head and I'd probably go Nice To See Blade Again without any additional comment), and I also am not crazy invested in that sort of continuity. As long as everyone is dressed, I basically don't care how they're dressed.

But on the other hand, the fact that it a) makes people angry if you attribute the change incorrectly, and b) makes people frustrated that the change is hard to attribute... that honestly makes me real invested in this weird trivia?

I didn't care until I found out other people cared, and now I mostly care about them caring.

Here the thing I think Blade suit might have been fixed. Because both Shin(remember Shin suit has deterorated so badly they har to use a mannequin for Super Hero Senki) and Blade costumes where clean and usable in this commercial filmed with Revice.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yxAkmY...ature=youtu.be
And in this scan for the Beyond Generation movie it seems they fixed Blade suit and helmet
https://i.ibb.co/T14Hw0S/163974703516114541986.jpg

However when you see the Blade suit running in the trailer

https://i.ibb.co/5M1HtxG/20211219140452331.jpg
Well at least they fixed stomach

Haven't seen this miniseries since it aired, but I remember really loving it. The first episode did a really good job of setting up the mystery and I definitely remember wanting to find out what was really going on.

Good choice of guest stars, too. I'm always happy to see Kenzaki and having Kino back was a big surprise; honestly never thought we'd see him again. Also, even when relatively underused, I am always down for more Minami Tsukui in my tokusatsu. I'm amazed that Sakamoto hasn't worked with her more than he has.

The biggest compliment I can pay Gorider is that it feels like every character was the first and only choice for this special. No one in here feels haphazardly explained, or tangential to the plot. Everyone feels like... like you couldn't do this story without them, which is not at all how most Group Legend Rider projects feel.

ll this talk of Blade's helmet reminds me of how Ex-Aid's hair was noticeably damaged by sunlight throughout the series and was only fixed during the last episode in the final battle against Cronus.

Yeah, this story would have been really different if the ghosts were, say, Kitaoka, Kusaka, and Tsurugi. Not worse, but definitely different.

Also, I kind of want to see that version now.

weird to mention tsurugi, since he only went back to france and didn't die on screen ever

M-Masaka...! It's... glorious!

Huh. Is it the one where it looks partially orange? Damn I actually thought that was part of the suit. :lol

Which is why he'd be in the "something's not quite right here" role that Kenzaki fills.

KAMEN SENTAI GORIDER - MAZE 2: ESCAPE

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../gorider2a.png

This is pretty much what I want every Legend Riders thing to be.

There’s a larger story being told - mysterious masterminds and unexplained resurrections and shocking but inevitable betrayals - but this episode slows itself down to allow for smaller performances and stillness; the weight of the space between fights.

(Although, the fights are so good in this episode! The camerawork is exceptional throughout, finding clever places to frame a group of heroes during massive brawls. There’s a Henshin for Ex-Aid in here that’s one of my favorite Henshins of all time:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/henshin.gif

So fun! So much fun in this episode’s action scenes!)

There’s a lot of respect for the various character arcs to which this series acts as a coda. The fact that Marika, Baron and Another Agito died means something. We’re not in some mode where everyone just keeps going through with their weird obsessions or their personal manias. There’s a slow realization that the purgatory they inhabit is, maybe, just. They all went crazy in pursuit of their goals, and it got them killed. That was the result, and it’s undeniable.

So it’s very sweet to see three flawed Riders gain a bit of perspective in their digital afterlife, and get to watch them walking back their deranged final days to the earliest moments of their motivations: the ends that they assumed would justify the means. Having Marika create a hero rather than be shackled to a lunatic; having Another Agito sacrifice for others rather than sacrificing others; having Baron become a leader by protecting the weak rather than dominating followers… it’s such a great final chapter for all of these characters. It honors the hard road they walked, while providing a strange redemption. It gets what made each of these characters worth revisiting, which is so rare in Legend Rider projects.

Even the Kenzaki/Emu scene hits on what made Blade such a fun show, and it’s not even the real Kenzaki! The speech “Kenzaki” gives to Emu is, honestly, pretty much the type of speech Kenzaki would give, thematically. It’s a speech that’s about how defeat can be learned from, and how the defeated should be allowed the dignity to learn from their mistakes. That’s about 110% a Blade speech?

This was all… god, it was so good. It got at everyone’s story (even Kiriya’s addiction to mysteries and pride in Emu’s hard-fought optimism!) and it continued the Celebrity Ex-Aid thing of arcing everyone from We Should Probably Murder Emu For Reasons to Y’Know Emu’s Okay to I Would Die To Protect Emu. His indefatigable helpfulness even got Kaito to open up for a fraction of a second! That is like playing the Ex-Aid themes on Insane Mode!

And, hey, speaking of games! We get the reveal in this episode that this is all taking place inside a horrifyingly unfair game! I don’t usually care much for these sorts of mysteries, but I liked how things were broken down for the audience in this one. The conclusions Emu comes to are sensible, and he’s the exact right character to pick up on the clues. It’s part of how perfectly paced this episode is, to have just the right amount of exposition to get us to start connecting the dots ourselves, instead of the usual bizarre leaps in logic and obvious plotholes.

I really enjoyed this episode. The characterization was spot-on, the action was gorgeous, and the mystery was compelling without being frustrating. Just a top-shelf Kamen Rider episode.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../gorider2b.png

You are going to love Zi-O then, since that has a lot of the same “writing for the guest stars” mentality (mostly because it has the same writer, but I digress).

And I love the subtle hint as to the mastermind’s identity, in that the Rider who turns out to be evil is the one based on a card GAME, who has become an all-powerful being, akin to a GOD.

And talking of Zi-O, I’ll reveal here that I’ve already decided what my regular feature for the upcoming thread will be. And I can tell you, it’s not something you’d expect (aside from being marginally similar to my secondary gimmick/Fish’s main gimmick from the Kiva thread)

Yeah, I remember watching Gorider and immediately being like WHO WROTE THIS (for once, because I loved it) and discovering it was by the head writer for Zi-O. It's a good sign, I think!

Nice! I can't wait to see what it is next month! (...because I've already forgotten the entirety of the Kiva thread. That was-- that was the cellphone one?)

KAMEN SENTAI GORIDER - MAZE 3: GORIDER FOREVER

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../gorider3a.png

The thing I remember most about this mini-series is how clever the mystery’s resolution felt. It’s multi-phased, and it plays fair; two attributes that most Legend Rider stories do not exactly have in abundance.

There’s Emu’s solution to the mystery at the heart of this supernatural roguelike, where he scrawls codes to himself to circumvent the memory wipe he endures each time the game resets. It’s all based on the Japanese language, so I absolutely didn’t get it until the translators jumped in for Emu’s big reveal, but it’s exactly the sort of thing Emu would try. Kiriya’s the detective of Team Ex-Aid, but Emu knows how to find the weak points in game design.

But using Kenzaki to dismantle Kuroto’s world? Perfect. I loved it even before I watched Blade, if you can believe it. The slow, deliberate pacing of the exposition helps novice Rider fans get the significance of what’s happening, but the dawning realization on Kuroto’s face elicits just the most decadent joy at him figuring out that he accidentally built the trap that is now closing around him. It is so, so good.

(Having now watched Blade, the obvious problem with Kenzaki going into the game world to shut down Kuroto is Wait That Means There’s Only One Undead On Earth Now. Technically correct, but Earth has previously needed a lot more than fifteen minutes to get apocalypsed by Darkroaches, so it’s probably okay for Kenzaki to pitch in real quick and help out Team Ex-Aid. Not great for him to almost sacrifice himself, maybe, but he’s always been a little impetuous.)

(I also love the mental image of the Sealing Stone being like GOD FINALLY, floating up there for twelve years waiting for the last two dudes to finish the fight, only to get a cup of coffee into its apocalypse before Kenzaki calls it off. Again. Let it do its job, you selfish jerk!)

After that reveal, though, it’s all a little messy. It’s a fight at Kamen Rider Quarry. There are a bunch of old monster suits and henchmen to humiliate. There’s the final deployment of the series’ ostensible raison d'?tre: getting five people into Kamen Sentai outfits. (It’s as random and pointless as in the Super Duper Hero Wars movie.) As immaculate as the pacing was in the first two episodes, the back half of the third episode was a slog. The series as a whole peaked with the mystery’s solution, and the heroes’ strategy for ending Kuroto’s Wizard-inspired take on Hades. The gigantic fight afterwards feels poorly motivated and obligatory.

Well, there’s a final moment for the resurrected Riders to tell Emu that he’s a sweet boy whose dedication helped them become better people, and that’s just the best. That’s worth sitting through another Kamen Sentai fight at Kamen Rider Quarry. It feels earned, like the best parts of Episode 2. To have weird psychopaths like Kino and Kaito wonder if they always should’ve been more caring and selfless… how can you not respect Emu more after a moment like that? How can you not look at this random movie tie-in special as one of the best pieces of Ex-Aid media?

I massively enjoyed getting to re-experience this story, now with the added (but not wholly necessary!) benefit of knowing who all the characters are. To see some fantastic actors return, to see them get beautiful codas to their characters’ stories, and to have it all resolve with a declaration that Emu’s ability to make people better than they thought they could be is more important than the power he wields as Ex-Aid… man.

Gorider Forever indeed.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../gorider3b.png

I agree that the actual Goriders is totally both inconsequential and also kinda out of place with the rest of the special in terms of tone and style. But I can't help but love it? After all the delibrate slow pacing and despair and especially what comes after as Emu scream at the top of his lungs as 4 Riders scarficed themselves. I just think goofy random Sentai Power Up feels not necessarily earned(because Emu liteerally pulled it out of his ass) but rewarding

It feels, narratively, like a Final Meal. These four fully-redeemed heroes (well, Kiriya was a good dude beforehand) are about to get forever-killed (well, Kiriya), so let's have this one goofy interlude where Kaito becomes the red Sentai he might've been in a different life/casting, and everyone helps kick a rainbow football bomb into Kuroto. Some fresh air and smiles, then oblivion.

So now that we're done, I can say that Go-Rider is definitely a favorite special of mine. There's just some fun things it does, and getting to see people like Kaito and Minato again was a treat.

Also man, was like Spring the big old "Let's tease Kiriya's fate some more" by having the dude appear in as many spin-offs as possible. I think it was this, his short cameo in Super Duper Hero Taisen, and then there's the Lazer HBV too? Really trying to get the most out of him before his inevitable return.

I think my favorite part (Despite not having watched Blade, I know the context of Blades ending for a multitude of reasons) so seeing the true Kenzaki's reveal here and what he does by only existing is just, beautiful.

That being said I'm reminded of the super weird angelic monstrous armor that Genm Wore in this. Mostly the conversations surrounding it. To the point where people wondered if it caused a lasting back injury due to them switching out suit actors for Genm after this point I believe. I don't think it actually went anywhere and the suit actors done a lot of other things, but yeah.

Yeah, one of the weirder beats of this special is that both Kuroto and Kiriya are going to show back up in one and two months, respectively. Sucks to be Baron, Marika, and Another Agito, I guess!

That suit and Lazer's Level 3 suit are both incredibly awkward. There are a couple points in the climactic battle where you can see opponents pause a little bit so Lazer can haul himself up off the ground. Not my favorite Ex-Aid suits.

Also, as long as I'm getting off-topic, the absolute weirdest part of this mystery story is that four different people have the initials K.K., and it literally never comes up; not as a solution to the mystery, not as a red herring, not even as a joke. I assume it's because it's more of an English translation quirk, but... it's so weird to have so many similarly-named men in one story and not have it amount to anything.

Meanwhile Level 3 is my favorite form for Lazer and Level X just adds to it. I love the pseudo samurai (emu's words)/robot looks its got and the unique silhouette. When we went to japan, I had a choice between it and LVL 0 and I chose the former. Though, I might go back for LVL 0 eventually.

Ha ha, yeah, exact opposite! Lazer Lvl 0 is probably my favorite figure (so glossy and premium), while Lvl 3 is the one I keep procrastinating on.

Yeah, so GoRider is real good. I made a point to go back and watch it over the past few days, and even after like five years, it totally holds up. Remember what I said about those Legend Rider shorts from Ghost being great because they took a completely pointless, extremely tenuous tie-in to the spring movie released on some random platform, and tried to use that to do something with some degree of substance anyway?

GoRider is like a movie-length version of that, meaning it gets to have way more than just "some" degree of substance.

It's a legit really interesting mystery story that somehow takes a completely random assortment of guest stars and manages to build them up into a proper team by the end, to the point where you'd almost forget how odd it is to see these people standing together. And all while staying true to who those characters are, even when they're surly loners who would never join a Sentai in a million years. But GoRider makes it happen! It is going above and beyond the shallow requirements of why it exists (as far as I can tell, 1:Have GoRiders, 2:Remind people Kiriya exists, 3:???) to a degree that's almost comical.

(There was also one detail in particular I loved that I only noticed rewatching it now that I'm more familiar with Japanese, and it's that "Kenzaki's" dialogue is written exactly how Kuroto always talked, back when he was playing the part of the helpful CEO early in Ex-Aid. It's like he's doing the laziest possible impression of Blade, but the viewer might just assume that's how they're choosing to characterize an older Kenzaki or something, so it's only a clear tell in retrospect. Just one more way the script for this miniseries impresses.)

This was right around the time Kazuya Kamihoriuchi started directing all kinds of cool things, between this, the Specter V-Cinema, and then directing episodes of the TV shows proper starting in the back half of Ex-Aid, where he would handle things like the debut for Cronus. He's' become an indispensable part of Toei's pool of directors for these shows, and it's not hard to see why. His involvement tends to massively improve whatever you give him to work with. Meanwhile, Kento Shimoyama wouldn't write for Rider again until Zi-O came along, but once again, it's not hard to see why they'd pick him for that job. But I suppose we can get more into that when we get there.

There's a part of me that gets a little sad at the end of this mini-series, when I realize (years on from its airing) that we're never going to see more of this bizarre team. It's a premise that practically begs for more development: Can Kaito resist the desire to use his power for personal gain? Can Kino learn to respect other heroes' viewpoints and agendas? Can Yoko find some way to better define herself outside of a man's shadow? Can Kiriya learn to trust his teammates, rather than play things close to the vest? Can Kenzaki stop shouting that he Didn't Betray Them?

Boy, I would've liked a follow-up to this story.

Oh, very cool! Thanks for the info! I really enjoyed how much Kenzaki's actor channeled Unhinged Kuroto for a few scenes, so I'm glad to hear the writing was as on-point for the Hinged Kuroto stuff.

Well, at least one member of Team Woman became a Gorider in the end.

Anyway, as promised, I’m announcing my next big feature here, which I call “Ridewatch Playlist”, wherein I show you a video of one or more appropriate Ridewatches, translate the ‘description’ part of the toy, and then assign a song to it.

It will actually debut once you’ve finished up with Build’s movie.

That's awesome! I'm not a role-play merch guy, so it'll be super fun to get to experience those products without needing to own them. Thanks!

Kamen Sentai Gorider is a kids' show. *insert Emu getting gutted*

But boy, was this a good one! After serving as only a simple exclusive form, the Goriders return as a simple exclusive form, but in a more interesting narrative, despite how much they absolutely have no connection to dead Riders.

Now, I had only seen Gaim and Ex-Aid at this point, so I was more familiar with those characters, while I have a bit of knowledge on Blade, Another Agito wasn't anyone I knew too much about, I could still appreciate the way the characters fit into this bizarre situation and how they interact with each other. But overall, none of these characters spoiled anything about their show (well, I was pretty much spoiled with Blade, but that was before I even started Kamen Rider), so I was able to enjoy these characters in this story without any prior knowledge from their respective seasons.

As mentioned by others, it is a little strange that no Sentai characters appeared here, but oddly enough, I don't think they needed to? Since the "Sentai" Team is actually a "Rider" Team, and that never really came into my head the first-time viewing, but now I feel that this was absolutely brilliant, since it's still in line with the Ex-Aid universe, and I don't think it referenced Chou Super Hero Taisen (or at least, I don't remember them doing so), so Sentai characters might have been a little out of place.

Of course, the plot is great, having a good mystery and Emu being a pro-gamer, while being loaded to the brim with Rider action, and Kuroto being diabolical before ultimately getting destroyed by a football, what's not to love about this? I had a great time with this and would honestly love it if they did a whole parody series of the Goriders (maybe not the same people from this special, but it would be fun to see them use the suits for something).

There is a lot of stuff to love in Gorider, I was honestly surprised by how good the whole thing ended up being. The fact that the entire climax hinges on Blade lore was really clever and totally unexpected after years of team-ups that completely disregard so much of the shows' continuity (case in point, there are at least a couple of these movies where the Joker undead is teamed up with a bunch of other monsters).

I also love what complete nonsense the actual Gorider scene is and how everyone just rolls with it and then never talks about it after it's over. It is a textbook big-lipped alligator moment.

It's a real high-wire act for this series, managing to create enough specificity to the characters to make the team-up feel dynamic, while straying away from mouthfuls of exposition that'd both slow down the pace and ruin other shows. Like, the gimmick of this special is All Dead Riders, and the only Rider whose death is explained is Kiriya. We're just told that Baron, Marika, and Another Agito died, and that's it. There's nothing of anyone mourning their demise, cursing the person who did it, or rambling on about unfinished business. It's almost ludicrous that the special works as well as it does if you haven't watched those other shows.

The Gorider cards Emu uses are from the Super Duper Hero War movie, but that's all. (He doesn't even really explain why he has them or why he thinks they'll help?)

Yeah, as a non-Sentai fan, it definitely didn't bother me that this was a Rider-only affair. I'd argue it fits into the title anyway - it's mostly about a group of self-defeating lunatics, plus Kiriya and Kenzaki (for a minute), learning to work as a team of heroes - but I can see how Sentai fans might've been less thrilled.

It is such a cutting indictment of Legend Rider projects that the most laudable and memorable thing about this one is Remembers What Blade's Deal Is. What a pathetically low bar to clear!

It is, but how many of these films have Black and Black RX hanging out together like two separate people?

All but one of the post-Decade ones, because Decade has officially doubled the number of people who are Black and Black RX. I thought that'd make you happy?!

A weird thing to say, but Shimoyama is the only writer who has managed to consistently make me like Kaito. He has a weird grasp on a character I actively dislike to make him work.

It's weird, but kinda fitting since he has both a good grasp on Legend characters and characters in general. His stories might sometimes be a bit patchy, but the core of them is great when it comes to characters.

Really curious how I'll find Ninninger.

I think what made Kaito work for me here was a mix of regret and frustration. He took Modern-Day Warlord as far as he could, and it just ended up getting him killed. In this story, he's got to reinvent himself, or at least figure out how to find fulfillment in a world where he can't win. He first has to acknowledge that, while his motivations might've been good, his decision-making was literally apocalyptic.

Giving Kaito a little room to come to grips with his failure, and then try and find a better path... how can you dislike that, even if you dislike Kaito? It's a smart choice for that character's resurrection.

Originally posted to "Kamen Rider Die rewatches Kamen Rider Build" on September 14th, 2019:

KAMEN RIDER BUILD MOVIE: HEISEI GENERATIONS FINAL

So, I've seen this one before. Back when I was first watching Ex-Aid (I want to say before I watched Another Ending?) I saw that there was a Build/Ex-Aid movie on the Wiki. I'm like, sure, I'll watch that. I saw Build in the True Ending movie and a brief bit in the series, so this should be a good continuation. It, uh, really wasn't. I didn't know virtually anyone in the movie, and, unlike Dr. Pac-Man, Ex-Aid wasn't even the main character. It wasn't a super-fun watch. I mean, bad Kamen Rider is still fun, I didn't regret watching it, but there wasn't a lot in the story I could latch onto. I didn't know or care about any of the Legend Riders. However, as I would almost immediately go back to W and start watching forward on the Heisei Riders, this became a movie I was desperate to revisit. Not because I remembered it as being some franchise highlight, no.

I remembered that this is the one where Ankh comes back.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/build/winter1.png

It's, unfortunately, not a huge part of the story. Most of the movie is a slightly-dumber version of a Build adventure. There's a strange emphasis on Banjou, and why he's a Kamen Rider. I think that's a solid idea in theory (science term!), but the execution is mostly a corny-ass "Always help people" whatever. It's fine. It's totally generic, in that it applies to literally every Rider in the movie, but, sure, okay, Banjou wants to help people now. You could've plugged nearly any secondary Rider from the last nine years in his place, but it's still a serviceable story that largely respects his storyline to date. (It's a bit of a step back, but only a bit.) Sento is pretty much just a dogged investigator, with a story that should feel more personal (this villain has a grudge against Takumi!) but just comes off as some random mad scientist Build has to beat to save the world. There's fun guest appearances by the non-W Riders who didn't show up in last series's winter movie. The Legend Rider fight sequences aren't as good as the last winter movie, though. Honestly, nothing was as good as the last winter movie. Dr-Pac Man was outstanding. This hits the beats, it's all decent, but the story just never elevated it for me. The "what is heroism" runner is so dull.

But, Ankh comes back.

I think OOO is maybe my favorite Kamen Rider show. I feel like I watched it in a day or two. (It was probably a couple weeks.) I couldn't get enough of it. I don't think it's the perfect show, but it's good at everything. It's the rare Kamen Rider show where I don't think it makes any mistakes. (Okay, maybe the theme song? Ska has not aged well!) Other shows may beat it at certain things, but they all have problems. OOO only problem is that I can't watch more of it right now.

So, here's this gift I'm given where, six years after we were promised Ankh would be revived, they actually pay it off. Sure, it's for a minute, and sure, he doesn't stick around, but Ankh comes back. And he immediately tells Eiji he looks like shit! (He sort-of does. He is, uh, definitely six years older.) This was a thing that, when I first saw it, meant nothing to me. Now, it means everything. I don't want to say it made this movie great (it didn't, this is a pretty forgettable movie), but it's hard to take too many shots at epic fan service like this.

It obviously would've been better if that kind of moment, along with the Fourze and Gaim and Ghost stuff, had been part of a better movie. I don't know. It's possible I'm being too hard on it. Build is a really good series, and I sort-of expect better from its related content. The villains on Build, in particular, are so richly realized that Bikaiser feels even more thin. He's a couple of cackling lunatics, trying to destroy the world. Whatever. It's no wonder that, while I remembered that Ankh was in this (he came back!), I remembered virtually nothing else about the plot. It's a movie that's great at being a Legend Rider delivery system, but only okay at being a Build or Ex-Aid story.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/build/winter2.png

~HOO BOY~

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/hgf1.png

Here’s the thing: this isn’t a movie about why Banjou is a Kamen Rider. It’s a movie about why Banjou is Sento’s partner.

It’s almost hilarious how off-the-mark I was a couple years ago. The movie is littered with Partnership iconography and motifs. The main thrust of the plot is reuniting Banjou and Parado with their partners. The huge guest-star, Eiji, longs to be reunited with Ankh. The villains are two men who become more powerful when they combine. The doomsday device is a pair of clasped hands.

And, I mean, what in the hell could be more Build than a story about how two people become better (or, alternately, more powerful) for joining forces? Everything in this story is about how Kamen Riders better the people closest to them. Eiji made a hero out of Ankh. Emu made a hero out of Parado. It’s a story about multiple Best Matches!

Even Banjou’s whole But Why Heroism speech landed better for me now, because… it’s not generic? Or, maybe, it’s purposefully generic? It’s Banjou not getting why the other Riders fight, because he can’t really articulate why he does what he does. But he does know that Sento’s his friend, and that Sento believes in him, so he’s going to fight for that. For their partnership.

(The first thing he does after he declares that he's Kamen Rider Cross-Z is go help Sento! Again, this movie is zero percent subtle about its story! And I still missed it entirely! For two plus years! No one should ever listen to me talk about Kamen Rider!)

Once I figured out that this was a Partnership story - and after I stopped being angry at myself for entirely missing it the first time - everything in this movie popped for me. I got why Bikaiser was the villain. I got why the movie’s structured the way it’s structured, with our main pairings split off for the bulk of the story. I got why it’s two giant hands.

Anyway, yeah, I love this movie now. Took me a minute, but I eventually figured it out. Eiji would be proud!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/hgf2.png

I... really, really liked this movie. Like, absolutely, you are looking at my personal favorite of the big crossover movies to be honest. Like, I think what sold me on this movie was Banjou's journey, and I love your take on it now because yeah that's absolutely right. Also I just love the pathos all the Riders call out towards the end when Sento and Emu call out Bi-Kaiser on what it truly means to be a Kamen Rider.

It's also just nice seeing them remember random minor forms/weapons. Like you have Gentaro pulling out some random stamps, Eiji gets to use Gatakiriba cause we're in a movie, heck I literally gasped when Takeru just straight up used Newton at the start. Real great stuff. Also that bit at the climax where all the Riders say their own catchphrase and try to argue over who gets precedence is hilarious, real great stuff.

Now for the ranking list. I know we're missing 3rd and 4th, and that it might be easy to figure out which is which, but I'll say those to when you get to those movies. Heck this listing will probably change by then because Beyond Generations will have been out on home video and it's shaping up to be a real good one from previews.

1st: Generations Final
2nd: Megamax
5th: Generations
6th: Full Throttle
7th: 2010
8th: Sengoku
9th: Ultimatum
10th: Core
11th: Genesis

Anyway I feel like this was the start of Toei being slightly more cruel. Because while there was a gap, there's a shorter gap between this and Memory of Heroez than Megamax and this in terms of like, the Ankh teasing. Because you've got this in late 2017, Memory of Heroez came out in 2020 and now... because I don't trust Toei, you've got the OOO 10th Movie which I'm scared might end in a similar fashion?

It's interesting, because those scenes aren't the Dr Pac-Man-style All Forms showcase; it's just a few weird suits? I mean, yeah, Kachidoki and Kiwami and Mugen and Tajador and Cosmic States... but also Grateful? And Giant Foot? And Gatakiriba? And Newton?! Ridiculous.

It's fun, though. It makes these projects feel a little more personal, like someone in the stunt team was like Finally, NEWTON.

I feel like you gotta end the OOO movie with bringing Ankh back for good. You gotta. They could pull the rug out from under us again, but eventually Eiji's outstretched hand has to pull Ankh back. If not now, then when?

(Also, I can almost guarantee that if the 10th Anniversary film doesn't definitively reunite Eiji and Ankh, they'll not-reunite them in a way where I'll go That Was The Right Ending.)

I thought the plot of this movie was kind of meh for some of the same reasons you mentioned. But hearing your re-evaluation after thinking about it in the context of Sento/Ryuuga and what the magic of friendship and love means to other Riders, it makes me feel like it deserves a rewatch, something I'll get the chance to do whenever I inevitably rewatch Build. I thought it was awesome just to get Gentarou back!

Anyway, there's only one stop left on your itinerary for this thread. How do you feel about that?

Anything Goes is timeless.
Nothing says peak Kamen Rider crossover like a bunch of Riders sitting on their bikes (Because Kamen Riders Ride Bikes) and spouting their catchphrases at the same time, including OOO who they come up with a catchphrase for him to use that's not "Ah, Seiyaaaaaah...."