So I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the Wizard movie, as most people know bar the pretty shitty ending Wizard is one of my all time favourite Rider shows - and Riders - so luckily for me, this movie really captured the casts great chemistry, and the general sense of humour that I loved so much in the show.

I dunno, I just get a lot from a cast that seem to be genuinely having the time of their lives playing their parts. I guess that is part of the reason I just can't hate Decade. Perhaps the character who made it out the best in the film was Nitou. I was never much a fan of him in the actual show - well until the last ten or so episodes when he suddenly stole the spotlight and became EPIC but sadly at Haruto's expense - but luckily pretty much all of what made him great in those last ten episodes were what they built his Magic World counterpart out of.

Magic Land takes a while to warm up the action gears, which is surprising considering how consistently wonderful the action was in the actual show, but around the time Gremlin, Medusa and Phoenix turn up the movie throws us wildly fist pumping from one stunning and epic set piece to another. By the end the movie feels less like it's trying to tell a story and more just trying to outdo its own craziness, and if you're in the right frame of mind for that kind of viewing it's very satisfying.

I will say though that I liked that they focused a lot of their budget into just having fun with Wizard's mythology, it sorta felt like a new episode of Decade in some ways and watching it with that in mind made it really fun for me.

In terms of our new Rider for the movie...his suit...doesn't translate to the screen well. In motion it's just way too busy to be really appreciated, it just looks a bit of a mess honestly, especially in action sequences. That isn't to say the fights with him are bad, he's just a suit that is much better suited to dramatically standing in the shadows.

Sadly the character in the suit most certainly is bad, no scratch that, he's awful. He was basically just a poor man's Fueki, and I mean... couldn't they have created a more original character or at least made a character that actually makes sense?

My only real complaints with the film itself is how short it all is, just as the world and the conflicts are established the movie has to start wrapping itself up leading to some logic leaps that I would call contrived, but that'd be insulting the word. It didn't have a bad ending, but it could have done with more breathing room.

Re watched the finale episode of Kamen Rider W again... And gosh darn it, I will never get enough of Joker truly one of my favorite rider of all time if not, my 1st.

I never really got what people see in Joker. He's literally just half of Double. He's Double without all the things that make Double interesting. Sure, his suit looks nice (if kinda bland) and he's got a good fight scene or two, but Shotaro just isn't as interesting a character or Rider without Phillip backing him up.

I like him for his fighting style and the way he acts alone just as "Joker" arguably, yea being with Philp and becoming W their both better in terms of intelligence and fight. In my eyes when I see Shotaro as Joker, he doesn't hold back at all when he fights which I like, it almost has that showa rider feel to it. It really feels like he's free from his leash for being so attached to Philp that long as W.

https://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m...69wso1_500.gif

This is the part where the show has run out its premise so it just starts making shit up as it goes along. :lol

He's actually everything that makes Double interesting, minus the baggage.

Philip is cool, but Shotaro manning up and going alone without the crutch of super-smarts makes him cool. Shotaro himself is also just far more interesting than Philip ever could be.

And the suit is anything but bland. It's slick as hell. Wheras Skull is sleek and black except for the helmet, Joker is sleek and black all over. The only visible features of the helmet is the V-crest and those big, blazing red eyes.

But the whole point of Double is that 'manning up and going it alone' is not a good way to do things. Shotaro is stronger with Phillip and his friends beside him then he could ever hope to be on his own. Ryu finally starts to heal and be happy again when he stops being a loner and lets the Narumi Detectives into his life. Living the 'hard-boiled' loner life got Sokichi Narumi killed and buried under a building while his apprentice spends ages trying not to admit that to his daughter. The Sonozaki family is so messed up because they're all constantly hiding things from each other and plotting to take power for themselves. The whole damn show is about the fact that being a loner is stupid and you need people in your life.

Saying Shotaro is better on his own is like saying Gentaro would be better without all those friends, or that Haruto would be better if he gave up on hope. It misses the entire point of the character and the show they appear in.

As for the suit, that's a matter of personal taste. I just don't think the Double suit looks as good without the sharp colour contrast of the two halves.

And that's the point of Joker. He's counter-point.

He'll never replace W, but he goes to show that Shotaro isn't useless by himself. He's not supposed to be a main thing, he's like a secondary rider made from the primary one.

I meant Double as in the show, not the Rider.

And that's a fair enough point about Joker showing Shotaro isn't helpless alone. But it's hard to accept him a better version without the 'baggage' of Phillip when both times Joker shows up in Double proper (excluding post series cameos) he fails to get the job done and has Double end up actually beating the enemy he was trying to stop. Both time Shotaro almost dies and is only saved by Phillips intervention.

I kinda got that sense when the episode pissed around for fifteen minutes before Evil Riders showed up, had a huge battle and then the episode ended :lol

It still works either way.

I meant better as in "he's cooler."

Of course Shotaro still needs W to win. That's why Joker is the fallback, not the go-to.

Fair enough. 'Coolness' is an entirely subjective quality, and it's quite clear that my definition does not match yours.

Everything's subjective if you deconstruct it enough. We only have our own perception of the world to rely on.

Kamen Rider Joker is badass as fook, man. I remember surprisingly little about W, maybe because it didn't leave quite the impression on me as it did others - not that the show was bad - but I remember Joker really clearly. I dunno, I dug it a lot.

Really wish Joker was featured a bit more in W. Wish also that there was at least a movie where Joker and Cyclone were temporarily split up and somehow they needed to find a way to get back together.

Decade 21. Wow that has to be one of THE shittiest looking upgrades I've ever seen.

I love how Decade isn't even trying to hide that it's totally making it up as it goes. It isn't all bad though, giving Tsukasa an excuse to be badass and fight bunches of evil Riders is fine with me, even if it makes no fucking sense at all.

Wait until you see the DiEnd version. Yikes.

There is a form worse than Kamen Rider Headbands?

Not by much, but yes. He's in the Den-O Episode Yellow movie.

It's so shit, oh my God. :lol

It's like they actively tried to make the most ludicrous helmet in the history of the human race.

Decade 22.

I'm on the home stretch and honestly...I don't hate the show. I know there are gonna be cries of hypocrisy but hear me out. Decade is flawed, massively flawed. Tsukasa is the worst character in it despite being our protagonist, it makes no damn sense and every creative decision leaves you scratching your head. And yet, the thing is, even though there are shows with much smaller flaws they just aren't as entertaining as Decade is. And at the end of the day, Decade is so entertaining I can largely look past the flaws as I'm having so much damn fun.

Baffling as it may be, the choice to do this anniversary season from scratch is one I actually really like. Most of the shows Decade covers are shows I've either never seen, or never really liked much. So taking this shows, starting them from scratch, giving them all new casts, worlds, mythos and a budget to try and live up to their original ideas, I just think it's great.

Speaking specifically more of the episode, it was a pretty typical Decade episode. Nonsense held together with selotape made of baffling creative decisions that are entertaining enough to work despite themselves.

It was nice to get a chance to discover movie only suits, these Missing Ace Blade Riders look somewhere between Faiz and Blade and they look sweet. It also turns out Larc was played by a MEGA babe.

I'm with you on that. I see most the flaws people point out in hindsight, but I have so much fun watching it that I just don't care. Though I do like Tsukasa, he's my favourite Rider even. I like a guy that's clearly a hero, but still likes to mess with people for fun.

Also, a bit of fun trivia: all three 'Missing Ace' Riders have their actors return for Decade. Larc gets her first name changed, because her Blade version was named Natsumi, while Glaive gets his last name changed to match his new role as Diend's brother. Also the twist about him in Decade is foreshadowed by his role in Missing Ace.

I'm still flabbergasted by the fact that, out of the dozens of actors who'd played Riders during the 2000s and would willingly return to those roles, someone decided that getting the original actors from the Blade movie was a priority.

That is the thing. Although I think possibly the show is too fast, hopping from Rider World to Rider World was such a wild ride I largely didn't notice that the show was a big pile of gibberish until the end of the nine world journey was around the corner. Maybe distracting you from flaws is the wrong way to go about things, but it has to be said for the quality of the show that I didn't notice the flaws as I was enjoying myself.

I think a big reason why I don't like Tsukasa is he is very similar to Haruto but Haruto already captured my heart - he's probably my all time favourite main Rider other than Eiji - that I can't help but miss Haruto every time Tsukasa spouts a bit of wry humour. I will say that I love how he seems to really enjoy his role, and he is a total badass, he's just not my Haruto.

Wow Decade was foreshadowed in other media?

Foreshadowed isnt really the right word to use here. Missing Ace was in 2004. Nobody even knew that Decade would exist one day.

Kamen Rider Black 4, 5, and 6

All Showa Rider shows are episodic like this, I assume? Either way, I liked these. I honestly wasn't too impressed with the Gorgom at first, but I kind of grew to like ow unambiguously cartoony supervillainish they are compared to the Heisei ones? I'm not sure if I'd want them to go back to this, but it's pretty fun here.

Their plot's remind me of old school Power Rangers vllain plots, but instead of constantly sending villaisn to screw with the hero's life, thewy cook up schemes that would seriously fuck up the world. Ridculous schemes, but f they ever succeeded....

I mean, in these episodes they had: We must find out this hero's weakness! Quick, let us experiment on other male humans to find out his weakpoints. And these experiments....will somehow turn our test subject into a wolfman?!

Then there's a world peace conference! Quick, let's turn the village the conference is being held in into an evil cult that will attack those attending the conference, thus ruining world peace forever!!!

And lastly, the business world runs on competition, so let's kidnap the greatest artists we can find and train them to use esp so they can psychically copy down the blueprints of the world's most famous technology companies and then get hired by said companies so that they can sell the rival companies secrets to them, destroying all sense of comeptition between the two. And we'll do it again and again! Until humanity's economy comes crashing down! Anyone who finds out our secret will have their memory erased by our top scientists!

And as for Kotaro, he's pretty awesome. I like how in episode 4, he was injected with that fear toxin by the flea monster, but resisted it because he remembered how the Gorgom killed his father and overcame it through sheer willpower!

Also I like how he has nothing to sense the Gorgom with, so he he has to figure out on his own when they're involved (not that that's difficult honestly) and manages to save people by taking action.

So yeah, I'm liking. The episodic nature isn't' really bothering me like I thought it would. Though I know there'll be a plot somewhere down the line, since I know Shadow Moon's gonna show up at some point.

For the most part, yup. You do get some two parters every now and then though.

Pretty much. Some of the shows have some ongoing story arcs (there's a great one in Black RX, for example, when we first get RoboRider and BioRider), but it's largely evil plot of the week stuff.

I love that episode. It's possibly the single dumbest and most nonsensical evil plot in Kamen Rider history. And I've seen the episode of V3 where Destron wanted to turn people into exploding flying squirrels.

Black's main plot kind of drifts in and out of the show; you'll get an episode where the hunt for Nobuhiko is front and center, then it will disappear again for another 4-5 episodes. It gets more serialized near the end, though, and the last five or six episodes make up a really great little ongoing arc.

Great, now I have to see V3 to see that happen :lol.

It's something that's a little weird after seeing so many Rider shows with ongoing story arcs, but I can get used to it.

Well that sounds amazing. No matter how seriously they took themselves, it seems like Showa shows were never ones to dial back the insanity. Which I like a lot.

It is weird. I watched Black right after W and while watching 555 and it was definitely weird going from shows with a story continued in every episode to a show with an episodic feel. Takes some time to get use to it but once you are, you can really enjoy it even more.

Decade 23. Wow it's like Fourteen stepped outside of a GARO episode. Shame he sucked.

Kaitou focus...yay? DiEnd has been almost as pointless a secondary Rider as Beast was (until those last ten episodes) so I'd rather have gotten an episode focusing on Tsukasa's backstory rather than Kaitou's tale of monster Roaches, Missing Ace Riders and a massive bunch of WHY THE FUCK NOT (not used that in a very long have I?).

I agree with you on DiEnd, but I think his backstory is at least somewhat interesting...as for why there's Missing Ace Riders?

I think you said it best:

I'm pretty sure that Fourteen was in fact a re-use of the final monster from Missing Ace. Fits with the theme of the world.

While I'm not particularly fond of Diend, I like that he's a rival/antagonistic secondary Rider who becomes more or less a good guy without having a big friendship epiphany and immedeatly becoming besties with the rest of the main cast (like Meteor did,for example).

Well, Gaim x Wizard is out raw on Youtube now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3X98CyPU8o

This is my problem though, what you've described is a premise of a great character and we never get any more than that in the actual show. Or at least we haven't so far.

Well Kamen Rider X actually has a long connected storyline towards the end of the series. It's one of the few times in the Showa Era.

Yep. Stronger had one near the end, too, with all the Delza Army generals and their internal power struggles.

Decade 24. Oh man that monster DiEnd looks sweet.

Ironically Decade tributes Shinkenger better than Gokaiger did. From Genta's oddly fat suit actor to Suzuka Morita I forgot about the wonders of Shinkenger. Oh how I missed the utter boredom.

Tsukasa is a really odd character, especially so for a protagonist. His heart is in the right place, and when it comes to his friends especially he really does appear to care a lot but he's such a total buffoon but not really in an endearing way as he's also a bit of a dick.