... ooooh, right, Exceed Gills was in this one.

Whoops.

Hey, at least Hiroshi Fujioka's scene in Project G4 was a nice, wholesome passing the torch moment, where he didn't look like he was about to kick the s*** out of Shouichi for not playing enough Sega Saturn, like most of his scenes in Kamen Rider Taisen. :lol

But yeah, Project G4 is absolutely stunning visually.

This is actually going to be a thing right up until Den-O if Die plans on watching the movies based on when they came out. Before movie-exclusive forms became a thing, sneak previews of final forms was the shtick. Mind you, most early Heisei movies don't have a particular place in continuity, so avoiding this won't be much of an issue.

Speaking of final forms, congratulations on avoiding the trap so many (including myself) have fallen into over the years of spending the back third of Agito wondering why Shining Form's debut was so lame because we didn't realize we had to watch the special where it actually debuted. Not counting the movie that came out like a week before, I mean.

Agh. You see, Agito really is the true start of the Heisei era. There's already too many extraneous side-projects to keep track of. :lol

I'm not the only one?!

Having watched that special last night it's now my headcanon that Shouichi changing from Burning to Shining is not the result of him receiving direct sunlight, but Shouichi calming himself by looking at the sky.

Yeah, for me, I'm super specific about viewing order, not so much for Continuity Is King reasons, but, like, I want to create what it might've felt like to be a fan watching these as they came out. When did the movie drop, when did the HBV drop, all of that.

Movie continuities in general are all sort-of not that great? With the way that they're written and shot (I'd assume) before and outside of how the episodes around it are shot, it never really feels like any episodes lead into or out of movies. (The OOO/W movie has completely the wrong dude as Birth at the end!) This one's got its share of screwed-up chronology stuff, like Burning Agito existing while Gills is still falling apart, which puts it on the level of every other Heisei movie for me.

I do like the movies in general, though. They're fun, even if they're occasionally (usually?) more concerned with spectacle than telling a coherent story.

That's kind of what I try to do as well, yeah; though I still tend to leave the movies till the end. Very much recreating the experience of the "too poor to go to the cinema so have to wait till your friend gets the DVD" kid.

I hope you add to the reality of the experience by watching the episode that aired before the movie's release, then reading a recap of the movie on a message board, then watching the next episode in sequence. Just live that broke otaku (broketaku) life.

MASKED RIDER AGITO EPISODE 36

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/agito/agito36a.png

I can't tell if I hated this episode or not.

It's full of Kino stuff, as it probably should be. He's the newest Rider, he's a big ol' question mark, and it's nice to get a better read on him. But, holy shit, did I hate his story in this episode. Ryou falls in love with him, Majima dedicates his life to being more like him, he's a helpful bike mechanic who can also do double surgeries, whenever he's not onscreen all of the characters ask "Where's Kino,"... it's a lot! He's, like, a parody of a hyper-competent badass. All of the cool characters immediately respect him, and he's not just good at what he does, he's so good that men swoon and society trembles at his greatness. (Double surgery! That's not and never will be a thing!) I could not stop laughing at how hard the show was trying to make me think Kino is awesome.

Then he tries to kill Majima, boasting that he's the only Agito the world needs so every other Agito has to die, and that whole hyper-competent setup played as a lot less funny. It's a solid swerve, a surprising reveal, and I'm a lot more into what Kino brings to the story now. Like, I still think it went hilariously too far (maybe he's just a cool guy who's a good surgeon, maybe he doesn't have to break the world's record for surgeries or whatever), but it's nice that there was a deeper reason for it.

So, yeah, Kino's an Agito-killing lunatic, and that's pretty much all we get this episode. I guess that was the other reason I hated most of it? There's basically no time for anyone else. Ozawa and Omuro only get one scene to set up a later Houjou scene that reframes the series problem as maybe not Too Many Unknown but perhaps Too Many Agitos. Topical, what with Kino losing his goddamn mind in the next scene, and I'll never say no to Houjou, but it's a set of scenes that barely get to breathe in this story.The Uncle/Taichii scene is fun, and it's nice that they've let Uncle be really really weird lately. That dude's mind broke back when Mana ran away, and I don't think he's been right since. I love it!

This wasn't a great episode for me, what with all of the Kino Admiration, but I'm glad it was just a one episode swerve. I'm really into Kino being a hyper-competent Nice Guy murderous lunatic, so we'll see if the next one gets me back.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/agito/agito36b.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/agito/agito36c.png

Fun fact about the movie: During the final fight between G3-X and G4, the script called for G4 to die halfway through the fight, with the rest being carried out by an AI in the suit. But then the guy playing Makoto ad-libbed a line that changed the entire context of the scene.

Ha ha, that's great! Robots don't adlib, Makoto!