Who was that Zero-something guy anyway? I don't remember him at all.

"There was a Zeronos movie, a DiEnd movie, and the other one."

What was the other one, Switchblade?

"... you know, that's a really good question."

The Accel movie is overall fine as an action flick, but outside of that I really didn't jive with it.

First off, Akiko regressing back to her Act 1 self really wasn't appreciated, made even more confusing because this is one of the few times I'm actually on her side.

For anyone who might not be in the know, in Japan, being on a first name basis with someone you care about is a sign of great love and respect, so basically Akiko is essentially asking for the bare minimum from, you know, her husband. Meanwhile, with Terui's' insistence on calling her by her title, he's essentially saying "No, our marriage is purely business."

Which, ya know, based if we're talking about Ace Terui, but this movie very much is not, so yeah, he's kinda being an emotionally distant husband who never has to answer for anything.

Speaking of Akiko, that fall towards the end makes no sense. In order for that scene to work, Akiko would either have to be falling incredibly slowly, or Aoi and Terui would need to be moving at supersonic speed. Kinda takes the tension and drama out of the whole scene for me.

And last, I did not much care for how the film's' final message ends up being "If you want redemption you need to find a lover." Not just because of my own disposition, but also because it's very forced, especially in the context of W as a whole. Terui's' whole "I was only able to change because of you, Akiko!" is total nonsense, as Terui's' growth was due to various different factors, and Akiko most certainly wasn't one of them.

Heck, this whole movie gets the backstory wrong. When Commander is taunting Terui about how Terui killed Weather, like, okay yeah, technically Terui did, but not in the context that the flashbacks try to repurpose it as. Which is double confusing because the only people who'd even be watching this film are W fans, so who is the editor even trying to fool? People who barely remember the show? It's nonsense.

This movie's' narrative was very much not for me.

I am very glad I don't remember the context for this comment!

Yeah, as much as my memory was that Akiko always came off more like a little sister than a romantic partner, even for Kamen Rider (although... Specter), there's an element to Terui's ability to be emotionally vulnerable that kind of makes these two perfect for each other. They're both flawed, but in sort of complimentary ways?

I don't know if I'd agree that this is where the film lands its message? The whole Terui exchange about finding someone to believe in you... the first thing Aoi thinks of is her dad. It gets romantically complicated when Terui offers to be the person that believes in her, but that's Aoi misinterpreting the situation -- Terui very clearly is not offering to leave his wife! And in the end, it's Ohno who sort of offers to be the person who makes sure that Aoi stays on the straight and narrow. Aoi 100% thinks she's in a story about a handsome cop who sweeps her off her feet, but that's not what this is all about.

Because it's mostly about the loss of family, and what takes the place of that when you need someone to make you want to be a better person. Terui became a shadow of himself after the death of his family, but he fought to be a better person because of Akiko. But it's not about romantic partnership, because Terui's offering to be that person for Aoi. Regardless of how much the movie is retroactively portraying Akiko as Terui's guiding light (which they definitely are), the movie itself is talking about how the absence of support is detrimental to self-image; the support is as simple as a wife, and as complicated as a legal system that views criminals as inherently tainted.

^ Speaking of Terui/Accel, will you also be tackling the Kamen Rider Chaser V-Cinema movie for this thread considering the character’s appearance in it?

Ha ha, nope! Definitely for the Drive thread in a few years, but I'm not trying to tackle every appearance by Team Double in this particular thread. So, along those lines, we won't be spending April covering everything from the OOO/Fourze movie through Girls Remix.

^ Sorry about that. That really was a stupid question. :o

Nothing to be sorry about! I got a little jokey about it, but I'm just teasing. I appreciate the interest!

On the other hand, given name calling with someone you're not close with is poor etiquette, such as Gentarou calling Kengo like that since they first met. Between spouses, "anata" is quite common, meaning polite "you", but often translated as a pet name like honey or darling, which Terui would never dare use.

Terui's just that bad*ss. Don't ask him questions.

I think it's more general, like, "If you want redemption, you need to find love." For Terui, that's the romantic kind, but that doesn't necessarily apply to Aoi even if she mistakes it for that. Familial and platonic love are also important and Terui would later get new familial love with Haruna.

Everybody's flawed, so it's a good idea to find a partner whose strengths can balance out your flaws and vice versa, or rather, "find someone that you want". That's a pretty apt moral for one of the major themes of Double.

KAMEN RIDER W RETURNS: KAMEN RIDER ETERNAL

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/w/eternala.png

This movie works incredibly hard to make Daido’s story a tragedy. The whole arc of it is a man with dwindling principles – mostly that human beings shouldn’t be subject to experimentation by Foundation X subsidiaries – having what little humanity he’d managed to cling to burned out of him by the relentless and unflinching inhumanity of his opponents, until all that’s left is vengeance at any cost. That’s the story of this film, and the morally ambivalent coda from Shotaro and Philip stresses the duality of Daido. He’s an apocalyptic supervillain that was maybe a break or two away from being an admired superhero. That’s a great idea to use on a guy who’s one of the most famous Heisei movie villains, specifically because it isn’t necessarily undoing what worked in his original appearance. He was once almost good, to some folks, before becoming a movie supervillain.

So why is this film so goddamn boring?

A lot of it is because the arc of Daido isn’t exactly A Good Man Brought Low By Tragic Circumstances. He’s a motivated psychopath, and what little heroism he manages to exhibit in this film is really just a cocktail of resentment, disgust, bloodlust, and egotism that becomes a lifeline for a bunch of psychokinetic test subjects. Daido’s main opponent in the film is a Foundation X researcher, and the liberation of the test subjects starts off as just a way to ruin that guy’s day. Daido doesn’t really care about the Quarks, he just a) resents any lab rat that acquiesces to its fate, and b) SUPER wants to screw up Foundation X’s strategies. Watching Daido go on an emotional journey here is mostly just watching a remorseless killer briefly and unintentionally help out some people with a similar backstory. It’s not… it is not a very compelling 70-odd minutes of narrative.

There’s also the Sakamoto of it all, which… I mean, how tight would this movie have been if the action sequences didn’t last the average length of an HBV? He really goes all out here, and it’s almost always to the detriment of the pacing. Where Accel made sure there was enough meat on the bone to keep the jaw-dropping fight scenes to a supporting level, this one makes whatever story is going on with Mina and the NEVER team into an infrequent digression from wall-to-wall explosions and slow-mo wirework. There’s maybe a single episode worth of story here, stretched out to an almost interminable hour-plus. I’m not blaming Sakamoto for a lack of dialogue or story content, but I’m not sure the solution was to make this into a war movie co-starring a couple costumed superpeople.

This one was a real slog for me. I’m not mad at the decision to try and give Daido a little extra dimensionality – god knows this would’ve been even worse if it was just non-stop the guy from the first third of A To Z – but the attempt at making his story a tragedy required more than what we got here. Maybe a more soulful performance from Daido, or a more intricate plot than the Quarks and Mina, or a villain that had more to offer than Dr. Prospect. (There is nothing to that guy.) There’s 20 minutes of a good movie here. Shame it ran for another 50 minutes.

—

DIE-A MEMORIES

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/w/eternalb.png

-I remembered pretty much nothing of this film. When it kicked off with Double fighting a Dopant, I was genuinely surprised to learn they were in this!

-Speaking of amnesia: I cannot believe they close the loophole of Mina never tracking down Daido by saying she got Narratively Convenient Amnesia, and then it just wore off recently. LAZY! So lazy! I groaned so loud at her quick explanation of forgetfulness!

-Also, it doesn’t really make sense for how she starts this film? She’s like I Wanted Katsumi’s Killer To Know He Was A Good Guy As Well As A Villain, but she starts off by ambushing Team Double and immediately trying to murder them? That… doesn’t make any sense? It’s not like she thinks Daido was a saint; she specifically says that she learned he tried to destroy Fuuto, and Daido went on TV to tell everyone in Fuuto that he was going to be sending them to hell. If Mina learned that Double killed Eternal, she must’ve learned that he went out trying to kill an entire town. The whole point is that Daido wasn’t all the way evil, but he was evil at the end. Why is she instantly trying to kill Double and Akiko?

-Forgot Kazu was in this! So, was it ever even hinted at in the show that Kazu was a psychokinetic zombie? (I honestly don’t remember. I think it wasn’t?) Feels like weird new information for a prequel that also doesn’t add to the later story.

Things I remembered about this movie, having only watched it when it came out:

- It existed (in your face, New Den-O movie!)

- It had a framing device where someone who NEVER helped showed up angry at W.

- That is literally it. Didn't even remember if I liked it or not.

Having watched it again, it looks like it was probably a really fun few days for the stunt team. Lots of running, jumping, fighting, and flipping. Genki Sudo definitely seemed to be having a hell of a time, even if his character is still incredibly problematic from the perspective of a different country and about a decade and a half of time. Minase Yashiro got to get some good smoldering on. Everybody was very shiny all the time.

The plot certainly exists and, like spending an entire episode of Lost to rationalize the fact that one of the actors had a tattoo, it gives us an explanation that we probably didn't need about something that could have been easily glossed over. Overall, I found it to be a decent action movie that was tangentially related the show I just finished watching.

The big thing I'm left with, now that I temporarily remember the movie again, is one question: what the hell kind of prison has a dress code for death row inmates that's an open-front shirt, sports bra, and short shorts?

(Rhetorical question, I know the answer is Sakamoto Prefecture Penitentiary)

I’ve watched this three times, and it’s telling that I remember a fan edit by the editors at TV-Nihon more than the actual piece (notably, they cut out most of the framing device (only retaining one scene of Mina standing against a skyscraper, which incidentally, is the only evidence in this cut that she survived in the end), and some of the extraneous “this is how this element in the summer movie came about” scenes).

And you were right, the cast for this one is a much easier job. Mainly, because they all fall under one category.

Sentai-lert!

First off, our narrator Mina is played by Rin Takahashi, who the previous year had teamed up with two other Riders in her more famous role as Shiraishi Mako/Shinken Pink (there’s also a weirdo online who for some reason thinks she’s the spitting image of Amy Jo Johnson, of Flashpoint fame, but that’s neither here or there)

And for Dr. Prospect’s two henchmen, the male of the two is Sho Tomita, better known as Yukito Sanjo/AbareBlue in Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger, and later appeared in Space Sheriff Sharivan: Next Generation as what is basically “the Arms Dopant if he was actually an undercover cop who got too into character”. Meanwhile, the female of the two is Shroud’s suit actress, Sanae Hitomi.

Finally, Dr. Prospect hismelf is Jyunichi Haruta, who previously appeared in Rider as Undad (as the watch thread for that series dubbed him) in Kamen Rider Blade. But prior to that, he was the Black Ranger in two consecutive 80s Sentai: Dai Sentai Goggle Five as Kanpei Kuroda and Kagaku Sentai Dynaman as Ryu Hoshikawa (the main difference being that the former is a chess player who talks normally, while the latter is a ninja who talks like he’s a Shakespeare character). He was also in the Metal Heroes series as two different arc villains: Mad Gallant in Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion and Bunzo Yazaki in Tokusou Exceedraft.

^ And he also played as Souji/Kyoryu Green’s dad in Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger.

Considering Skull got basically a whole-ass V-Cin in the winter crossover movie, and Accel just got a spotlight spin-off, Eternal's sort of the only remaining Kamen Rider you could even do an ancillary piece of media on for W. Honestly, better this than Kamen Rider W Returns: Uh Let's See What Makura's Up To I Guess.

!!!

And also his robotic successor, U.N.D.A.D.!

Wow, I definitely did not recognize him at all. I guess you could say I need my eyes checked.

And a samurai lion + bus hybrid in a world where it's still old timey Japan (Go-onger summer movie) with companions being Kamen Rider Faiz as a samurai condor + race car hybrid and Deka Pink as a samurai bear + dune buggy hybrid. :lolol

Someone please make a Father's Day card with undad on the cover. :lolol

I'd normally be all for this take, but given that a good chunk of the movie, the climax especially, is wrapped in lines and scenes like this:

https://i.imgur.com/A3VTqSi.png

It really does make it feel to me as though the romance angle is the main focus, with other forms of love as an afterthought. Especially in a movie where Terui claims that Akiko is the reason that he changed.

Like, if while he was talking to her, or even during the drive with Aoi, we got a flashback to times such as when Shotaro told Terui that there were people who care about him, then I'd be willing to give the movie more leeway, and probably see Terui's' talk to Akiko as him wanting to make his wife feel special. But we don't, and instead get alot of Terui's' past recontextualized at best and retconned at worst.

I refuse to rewatch this movie on the grounds that I found it insufferable the first time around.

One thing I will note though is a line from the subs I watched it with(I forget which group), wherein Main Girl claimed "No one knows what he was really like." Which I found to be a laughably bold statement, given that she knew Daido for a grand total of like 24 hours.

I basically put it at 1.10x speed the entire way (minus a few parts). The only other movie I've done that with is Biku: The Movie from GARO. Both were absurdly boring me to the point that I just wanted it to go by faster.

This is probably the worst V-Cinema. Because it does the one thing I hate in this genre, being boring. As much as I disliked Vulcan and Valkyrie's V-Cinema, at least I felt something about it? There was an emotion there compared to Eternal's which is just big fat nothing.

Anyway here are random scraps I noted:

-Kind of a neat spin that we're apparently dealing with folks getting pre-production Gaia Memories at this point. Really shows how far the business has fallen since Museum's end.

-They somehow turned Luna Dopant into an annoying as hell character. Like yeah Luna was quirky before but dude is the worst in this movie.

-Eternal Red Flare is a laughable excuse for a Movie Exclusive form. And yet I think it somehow got an SHF?

-I'm glad we kind of decided to explain Utopia having weird abilities that wasn't his energy draining and face stealing stuff. We knew he was a NEVER from his final episodes, but there were weird psychokinetic stuff that didn't seem to really match Utopia's powerset.

-Speaking of Utopia, is it just me or is the color grading in this movie odd in some aspects? Like, in the show his suit is dull gold to me, in here... the concept of there being gold aspects/armoring to the suit that pop against the dull gold actually happens here? Did they repaint the suit? Is it because movie cameras? Unsure but I definitely noticed a strange difference in how Utopia looks here.

-The Ending Theme: Cod-E ~E no Angō by SOPHIA is easily the best part of the movie. Really good song, Eternal's actor really doesn't miss with the music he sings.

I guess what probably gives this movie points over Movie War Core is that at least I went into it knowing that there would be very little W content.

Fair!

Good point! I forgot about that stuff!

There's about as much W content here as in Movie War Core, actually. Hell, at least this story about Eternal is for them!

Shame to hear you didn't enjoy this as much as I did. The most memorable scene for me was when Daido played that song to calm down the Quarks, then he admitted that it was something he only understood cognitively, rather than anything he could actually feel, due to his NEVER-induced apathy. It's ironic that a man with no reason to live can become an inspirational advocate for others to live, which is the tragedy of Daido's hollow existence. It even adds new meaning to his goal in Gaia Memories of Fate, that a world of mutual suffering would be fairer than one where people like him, his crew and the Quarks suffer prejudice at the hands of Foundation X.

I recall it was the Sweets Dopant.

I believe that Shoutarou and Phillip at the end were mourning the person who Daido used to be, rather than the person he was when he Die-do. While it's true that Daido was totally a villain by the point of Gaia Memories of Fate, I think it's fair that Mina would want him to be remembered for all his deeds, not only the evil ones, as well as remember the evil deeds that done to him. Like, Mina is living proof that the world was a little better for having Daido in it, despite his sins.

Hmm, that's not quite right. Kuroda is actually a shogi player.

Fair enough. Being written by Sanjo, I think his romantic bias shows here, but at least the moral can still be interpreted in other ways that can be beneficial outside of romance. It's easy enough to simplify to just, "you don't need to be alone". That's a good statement even for people without current love interests.

Yeah, Foundation X have their fingers in every pie, so it makes sense that they would be mixing together different powers like that.

I can neither remember nor pronounce the title of that song, but I agree that it's a great song for sure and I think it could be about how Daido was a small beacon of hope in Mina's life.

For sure! That all tracks! (I think I said as much in the main write-up?) My beef is more with how the movie opens with Mina immediately trying to kill Double in a fit of retributive rage, only to later reveal that she wanted Double to know that Daido was more complicated than the villain they were forced to defeat. I'm not sure how trying to murder Double and Akiko accomplishes that?

Frankly, I'm surprised that more people who've met Akiko haven't tried to kill her, given the genre she lives in. I've grown an attachment to her over the years, but she is not good at first impressions.

FUUTO P.I. EPISODE 1 - “BEWARE OF T - THE MAN WHO LOVED A WITCH”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/w/fuuto01a.png

Sequels in new mediums! How best to judge them?

It’s not a new thing for a comics fan. Any number of franchises have found continuations both canonical and non-canonical as a comic book. Generally movies and TV shows that had a rabid audience that was eager to be monetized, but securing the original talent was cost-prohibitive and/or impossible: Buffy, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. It’s fairly commonplace, and I always found it sort of baffling that it was considered such a natural option for storytelling. The assumption from publishers (and seemingly comic creators) was that the characters mattered in ways the original stories and performances didn’t; Luke Skywalker is more important than whatever Mark Hamill imbued him with. Continuing that character’s journey without the score, the special effects, the cinematography, the acting… it always felt so diminished to me that it could only be judged on the merits of its execution in the new medium, and not as inherently valuable due to the nostalgia of the IP. A Star Wars comic isn’t Star Wars, it’s a comic. It succeeds or fails on its viability in that medium, not with any sort of lowered standard of fan desire making up the difference.

So, Fuuto P.I.

First off, I’m not an anime guy. I watched some stuff in my formative days via A.D. Vision videotapes (I’m old!) and bootlegs from conventions. Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo, Escaflowne, some DBZ. I haven’t seriously watched an anime property probably this millennium. I will not be judging this by the standards of the industry as it exists today, but I welcome any actual anime fans to chime in with how this show measures up to the expectations of a modern audience.

For me, I thought this thing worked pretty well?

It’s for sure trying to feel like an episode of Kamen Rider W, with all the accouterments and filigree you’d hope for – the Narumi Agency office, Watcherman, Santa, even Lily’s cafe from the Accel film. It’s as close to a continuation to W as you’d dream of, if you were dreaming of an animated continuation of W. The voices are good, if not 100%. Akiko’s is dead on, Philip’s evokes the character well, the various side characters are in the right range, but Shotaro’s misses some of the weird vulnerability and childishness that I’m used to. It’s a good voice, but it’s a little too generic-sounding for me. But that’s minor! The episode absolutely feels like Fuuto, and that’s half the battle of creating Kamen Rider W in a new medium.

The other thing that helps a lot is taking a similar approach to the live-action version and slowly leading the viewer into the world. We get Shotaro, we get Shotaro and Akiko, then we finally get Shotaro and Philip. (As always, Akiko is the ridiculous glue that holds this premise together!) We even kick things off with an incredibly faithful reenactment of Begins Night, for god’s sake. There’s a real If It Ain’t Broke feeling to this premiere episode, where it somehow feels for all the world like it’s the beginning of a new season Kamen Rider W. We’re still focused on helping weird Fuuto citizens with their problems, we’re still following the adventures of a detective that’s frequently distracted by trying to look cool (now with the ability to obsess over selfies!), we’re still hanging out with Team Double. It’s structured like the show never ended, which was always its selling point.

The meat of this episode… it’s good? It’s good. Tokime is a hilariously designed anime girl to this untrained eye (this show is way more LOOK AT HER BOOBS than I’d care for), but she’s a femme fatale in a noir world, and that’s a solid hook for a Shotaro-led opener. Chuuta’s a fun client, with his slightly horny but still well-meaning need to redeem Tokime. The detecting Shotaro does is all about establishing his connection to the city, which is crucial for caring about his character. The bizarre shadow realm that Tokime’s accessing is a neat Only In Anime visual, and that’s really what I want this show to be: not an animated version of the stuff W did, which is comfortable and no small task, but an animated expansion of W’s aesthetic.

I’m very much looking forward to more of that, if possible. It’s nice to see how easily the makers of this show can make it all feel like Kamen Rider W, but I’m actually more excited to see when and where it really becomes Fuuto P.I. They’re off to a good start so far.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/w/fuuto01b.png

So Futo PI! I'll repeat this later but I really hope we get a Season 2 sometime soon or like someone, anyone (fansubbers/official companies) gets a hold of the rights to give us more than we have translated. There's a lot of cool stuff that I've seen (I won't say a peep) that I want to understand but can't. Here's hoping something happens soon on that front since the Manga is apparently reaching its climax.

Speaking of Manga, this is an anime adaptation of a manga, so of course there are differences and such. To make this experience fresh, I'm also reading the Manga alongside whatever episode I watch for the day. Don't expect me to do it for every single episode (as I'm pretty sure the translated bits are only up to Episode 9) but I will point out some things here and there.

-Most changes are just, them choosing to cut minor pieces of dialogue, mostly extra remarks or certain gags. Certain scenes are different, or toned down, like that shower scene oh my gosh that shower scene in the manga.

-Begins Night? Anime Original, nice touch to give us some Rider action given there's not much in the episode of what this chapter is adapting. I say chapter not chapters because Chapter 1 of Futo PI is 62 pages long so they had a lot of material for this episode.

-There's this really cool and obviously CG room shot of Chuuta making his way up to the detective agency that isn't in the Manga which just focuses on Shotaro and Akiko's conversation.

-Likewise with CG, that cool bike chase in which we get to see the studio show their love of vehicles (I believe they worked on an anime about motor bikes or mopeds before this?) is anime original. Shotaro chases after Tokime and they just end up in the alleyway in the manga.

Other than that I really enjoyed this foray into a more stylized version of Futo, especially since it's helmed by some familiar faces. That being, the cast members who played Shotaro, Philip, Terui, and Akiko in Memory of Heroez reprise their roles here. So there ends up being a familiarity and certainty to their voices since this isn't their first rodeo.

Last thing I'll say is I do enjoy them just deciding to put chibi skit gags at the ends of the episodes. Real fun way to have the VA's and animators mess around a bit.

Yeah, that egg thing in Episode 1 is real cute. I didn't touch on it since it's maybe a minute long, but I am a sucker for Shotaro/Akiko antagonism, and it's such a good sign that the producers of the anime saw the same value.

And thanks for the manga notes!

I'm mostly in the same boat. My knowledge of Japanimation starts with the Sci-Fi Channel's weekly movies and mostly ends with Toonami. I know a bit more about it through cultural osmosis, but it's just not a medium I'm very interested in. Honestly, I can say the same about Western animation; I'm just not really a cartoon guy.

That said, I really like Fuuto PI. It feels like a very natural extension of W, which makes sense because it's based on the comics written by W's head writer, Riku Sanjo. The characters feel maybe a little older but still very true to themselves and there are a lot of nods to recurring and guest characters from the show. It really does feel like a proper continuation, not a spin-off or a reimagining.

Fuuto PI is a very horny cartoon. It's one of the few issues I have with it. Now, for a Japanese cartoon made in the 2020s it's not that bad; the horniness level is maybe a 5 out of 10 by that metric. For Kamen Rider, though, it is a very solid 9. There have definitely been some very charge moments in the series and movies (I remember you, Shin), but Fuuto PI is very blatant and persistent with it in a way that feels out of step with the original show and Kamen Rider as a whole. I don't want to come off as prudish, but the show will often go out of its way to add a jiggle factor and that's not what I'm here for.

I am disappointed that a second season hasn't been announced yet, but I know that Japanimation doesn't necessarily work in an annual cycle. I'm hoping that we'll get more at some point.

I never really got into the comic book; I liked the character stuff but found the action to be hard to follow. I would definitely like to read more of it now, though. It's a real pity that the only translator to show interest was Genm Corp, who has a track record for finishing projects that reminds me of the old "Kuuga Curse" days.

Yeah, it's... I don't want to act like I was scandalized or whatever (I am a grown adult that consumes art other than that meant to sell toys to Japanese children), and I assume this was pitched at an older crowd than W originally was, but it's still a little weird. Even "adult" Kamen Rider content like Amazons never really got sexual with anything, if I recall correctly; it's always just increased violence and bleakness disguised as moral ambiguity. So, yeah, to see multiple characters be all AWOOGA AWOOGA at an anime girl? Kind of worth noting!

That said, totally fitting that Shotaro is the focal point for a lot of this horniness -- he was pretty horny on the live-action show!

Man, what kind of nerd would watch an anime based on a toku show, much less discuss it in depth?

So here we are, at the show that people insisted (and in some cases, despite the whole show having aired) you need to watch Double to understand and screamed “bloody murder” at Toei for not licensing the show out.

But anyway. It’s a fairly good first episode. It tells you that we shouldn’t expect Rider action in every episode and that we are gradually introducing the existing elements from Double into this anime for new viewers. And we also get an audience surrogate for said new viewers.

And yes, I will be continuing this feature here, but with some extra categories added because… anime.

Rider-Lert!

To start with, the VAs for the main 4 from the original show all return from Memory of Heroes, with the main duo being Koki Uchiyama and Yoshimasa Hosoya, who have both voiced monsters within Rider proper, Uchiyama being Desast in Saber and Hosoya being the Butterfly Yummy in OOO. And our mob boss guest part is Katsuyuki Konishi, who is currently the “equipment voice” for Kamen Rider Gotchard, in addition to describing who “Gatchanko’d” the previous week. And now onto other categories new to this show.

PreCure-Lert!
So being an anime, it’s only natural that Toei’s pool shares some mutual swimmers with the “imoto” of the Super Hero Time block’s water. Now let’s discuss them before I stretch this metaphor out to sea.

Both Hosoya and Akiko’s actress Mikako Komatsu (so named after an Olympic swimmer who was everywhere on the news when her mother was pregnant. It was an Olympic year) were regulars in Star Twinkler Pretty Cure, the former as the villain Kappard, the latter as the 4th Cure, Kaguya Madoka/Cure Selene.

And for a retroactive example, Akira Sekine, the VA for our Time Princess (my nickname for Tokime) went on to be the lead character Sora Harewataru/Cure Sky in the filling year’s Hirogaru Sky Pretty Cure.

And now for one that’s exclusive to this episode. It won’t appear again.

Yu-Gi-Oh ZEXAL-Ert!

So this is basically an elephant in the room mention, since the three leads introduced so far were all prominent characters in Yu-Gi-Oh ZEXAL. Uchiyama as Kaito Tenjou/Kite Tendo, Hosoya as IV/Quattro (who spends an entire three-parter duelling, and thus throwing mutual insults with, the aforementioned Kite) and Komatsu as Kotori Suzuki/Tori Meadows. Hosoya also had a minor role in the previous show Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds as one-shot villain Dick Pitt/Grady and had an even greater role in ZEXAL’s successor Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V as Reiji Akaba/Declan Akaba.

While I wouldn't go as far as bloody murder, it's still an absolute missed chance to have some really good synergy. If you want more people to get into Kamen Rider in the US, and managed to hook them via Futo PI somehow you can point and say "Here's the show it was based on and is a sequel to", likewise if someone watches W there can be a show/manga (if they bothered to license the manga) people can point to as well if they want more adventures.

I'd imagine people are mostly (and rightfully) frustrated because it's something that could easily grow the brand but no one is capitalizing on.

As The Only Toku Anime Fan on this site, I'm fine with your personal attacks.

Yeah, this is a very traditional premiere episode in its approaching, aping a lot of what made W's premiere so catchy -- Shotaro and Akiko, with a huge emphasis on the city of Fuuto. It's a solid formula!

It's a little weird? I can't speak to how the series was packaged and promoted in Japan, but it was for sure disappointing that the U.S. release seemed (from someone who was not dialed in to anime) to not really tie Fuuto PI into the larger Kamen Rider brand. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that's largely down to W not being readily available for viewing in North America, so having part of your promotional campaign telling prospective viewers that it's the anime adaptation of a manga sequel to a live-action series that aired in Japan over a decade ago as part of a 50-year franchise -- the majority of which was never legally released in America -- would probably be considered a non-starter for the marketing team. People would likely be turned off? Better to just say Superhero Detective Anime and create as little a barrier for entry as possible.

Is Pretty Cure still a thing? I haven't heard anything about that in years.

Funnily enough it's the most present of the Super Hero Time trio in terms of exposure. It's been getting simulcasts for the past few years and I think this year they just celebrated their 20th anniversary.

It's also a great time to get into it too because Hirogaru Sky is a legit great season that's also very newbie friendly.

FUUTO P.I. EPISODE 2 - “BEWARE OF T - THERE’S THE CULPRIT”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/w/fuuto02a.png

Solid middle third of a three-parter!

That’s the biggest change to this animated continuation of Kamen Rider W – the three-part mystery structure. It allows for this episode to stretch out more, to slowly and incrementally create tension within the core Shotaro/Philip dynamic, and then leverage that to bring Tokime into the fold, rather than a two-part version that’d basically just be the Marina story from W’s opening all over again. As it is, this thing HEAVILY cribs from the opening W two-parter in playing Shotaro’s faith in a beautiful woman against Philip’s analytical detachment, setting up a brief hiatus of the two-in-one detective’s partnership. It all feels a little samey, at least for a couple scenes.

Where this one deviates, in a subtle way, is that part of Shotaro’s belief in Tokime comes from the exact same place as his belief in Philip. Shotaro sees a super-powered amnesiac that’s being vilified, and he sees someone that probably just needs to be shown some kindness. (Also, she can’t stop taking her clothes off around him, which likely doesn’t hurt.) Shotaro feels like Tokime is in the same place that Philip once was, and Shotaro is always willing to ride with a devil like that. But not like that.

But really, this is all about taking our time with the mystery of Tokime, and seeing how Team Double works as a, uh, team. Philip is front and center for this episode, so we get to see this show’s take on staples like the Gaia Library, the W Cave, Revolgarry, and W’s Henshin. They’re all good, if standard, with only the Henshin really flexing the muscles that come along with the blank canvas of animation. It’s a suitably strong place to end this chapter of the opening three-parter, as the clues have been assembled, the Road Dopant is revealed, and the city’s superhero has arrived.

Not sure I’ve got a lot left to say about this one? It’s using the bones of the W premiere in smart ways, but I already watched that premiere, and I already wrote about it. We still haven’t really gotten to the point where this show feels like it’s doing its own thing, not least of which from the revelation that Tokime ALSO has amnesia, and is therefore zero help in articulating the newest threat to Fuuto. That’s some real Philip 101 stuff, and it’s probably my least favorite possible addition to the narrative of this continuation. (It’s such a lazy trope! And it’s in, like, every single Kamen Rider show! There’s more amnesiacs across this franchise than there are female Riders!) But this show continues to get the vibes right, which has always mattered more to this specific iteration of Kamen Rider than any amount of villainous plotting. Shotaro wants to solve the case of Tokime partly because he doesn’t want Chuuta to get the wrong idea about Fuuto, and that’s worth more to me than a dozen more amnesia-stricken characters. Which is probably what I’m going to get!

—

DIE-A MEMORIES

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/w/fuuto02b.png

-I ain’t using this every episode, since I’ve never watched this show before, but I needed a space to say that I 1000% did not remember Akira, the kid from the final W episode, when he showed up here. Partially because he’s apparently spent a couple years growing up into Micchy from Gaim, but partially because it seems like an incredibly weird one-off character to return to. I like it, though, because I like that Shotaro is now the Sokichi to a kid he doesn’t fully understand. This emotionally-cognizant middle schooler with a girlfriend makes Shotaro’s blood boil!

So yeah, considering every case is a full Volume from the Manga (around 8 to 10 chapters), that translates to needing a 3-Part structure for the episodes. Which proves for some interesting logistics in how exactly they chose to adapt the show. It's also why I'm commenting with every episode and not binging two at a time because three at a time and gaps of three is too much for me.

Anyway, not much to say other than this case is a bit more complicated given what surface level peaks we get at the gears turning behind the scenes. I do like that Shotaro turns out to not get burned like with Marina though. He's right in Tokime not being Road despite her having a Gaia Memory. Really the only danger comes from the unsuspected which is our mob boss and his goons.

Speaking of Road though, fun if simplistic design, though you can really see them flexing with making this beast of a Dopant very expressive.

Also Akira! The only real Manga note I have is them deciding to go for a quick gag of Shotaro getting after Akira for his "you should keep sounding cool" remark instead of what originally happened. It was mostly Shotaro starting to ramble about how his cool lines come from Sokichi and he still wonders if he can measure up while Akira reassures him that Shotaro's living up to Sokichi in his own way.

Yeah, he's a lot more expressive than you can get with a rubber suit, even if the design just says Fullmetal Alchemist to me. (I don't know Fullmetal Alchemist, but I've seen that one guy around on stuff.) He's got road markings on his tongue! And flash lights on his shoulders!

So it’s worth mentioning that one advantage of the Fuuto PI sage being in illustrated form means they don’t have to design the Dopants with the intent of making them into a suit for an actor to wear. And Road is a very good intro to that, with his detailed multi-piece transformation (the closest I’ve seen to that in a live action show is a taxi cab mutating into a spiky monster via CGI) and the fact he has a moving mouth and a deployable tongue (an actual suit would have only one of those)

Also, our OP and ED debut. Not much to say about the former, but I remember thinking the latter’s associated dance was slightly creepy (until someone replaced the Eternal/Skull duet with Ocean Man), but don’t remember how much it kind of gives away that Tokime will not only be a major part of the Narumi Detective Agency, but get a pink version of their phones.

And now, for the casting stuff.

Rider-Lert!

Aside from the return of the Smilodon Dopant VA as Mick, Akira’s girlfriend is played by Tomo Jiena Sumi, the Kamen Rider Girl representing Gaim in the group. She’s had two onscreen appearances in the series she represents, in the main show as a dancer from a rival team and in the Gridon vs Bravo special as the villain Masako Suzuka/Kamen Rider Sylphi (one of my fanfics used this by having it revealed that Sylphi is the alternate universe doppelg?nger to the dancer, who upon ending up in the world of Gaim, kills her to assume her identity by disposing of the corpse in the trash). She also did a solo cover of the insert for the Jimba Arms which I used the (sadly, now privated) video for in my Zi-O feature’s entry for Gaim.

Mick somehow changed breed.

I was already vaguely aware of Tokime being a recurring part of Fuuto P.I. from the promotion and merchandising, so her appearance in the credit sequences isn't too surprising.

Also, neat to hear Eternal on the outro! Technically, he should really be performing on a Drive animated continuation, but I'm just happy he's getting work.

One more mystery for the team to solve!