At least half the reason Kaidou is here is because his actor is one of those guys that inexplicably comes back a lot? He had a large villain role in Shinkenger; if you go back to Ghost you’ll see him as Musashi in the summer movie and a couple episodes; and spoilers but you’ll be seeing him again in another Rider you haven’t seen yet! I’m sure there’s yet another role I’m forgetting too. He’s all over the place

For sure! He popped up as a random victim in that OOO Summer Movie (as a cursed guitarist, naturally), and he was one of the cameo actors in the Blade movie (a security guard, I think). Dude likes to work!

The other half, though, is that Kaido's actor is really great? He's one of those actors in toku that's always making Interesting Choices in his performance: the weird pauses, the little stutters, the anxious body language that communicates a lot about what Kaido's thinking. He's fascinating to watch. If you can't give a major character a ton of screentime, you'd better have an actor that can become a multiplier on that limited time through charisma and talent.

I'm opening my eyes for the epilogue of Faiz. You guys didn't think I'd miss it, right?

BTW, Die has now passed the halfway point on his rewatch list.

I watched this special only a few months after watching and falling in love with Faiz for the first time, so I was surprised to see this stealth epilogue to the show appear out of nowhere to remove the ambiguity of Takumi's state in the finale. It hit pretty hard actually, even though it was heavily implied that Takumi was living on borrowed time, that it was finally confirmed that he really did die at some point in the last decade of the original timeline. I was also younger then, so my philosophy of mortality was more like Kaido's here. Being too focused on the loss rather than the legacy that loss leaves behind for others. But sometime after, I did start to appreciate Takumi's final message, about the value of life being dependent on how that life is used. Something that Ghost would later make me appreciate even more. It's like Takumi's declaration to Kiba after the latter accelerated his decay, that becoming a full Orphenoch isn't the same as living. To live for the sake of it, is a waste. To live for dreams, for friendship, even at the cost of hastening the end, that's what it means to live honestly. So Takumi wanting to preserve his death and the smile he had at that time, yeah, I can understand that now. Cause that was his death and the symbol of how he chose to live in the end.

It makes a lot of sense for Kaido to be the viewer perspective, as the one desperately trying to "save" Takumi from his destiny. I feel like, when Takumi is talking to him here, he's talking to us as well, asserting his intention to return to being dead since he's already lived. Kaido seldom fought and therefore didn't have to suffer any of the decay, but the downside of that is that he had to watch all his friends die around him instead and now that Takumi is back, he doesn't want to lose him a second time. While Takumi learned too late to appreciate his own life, Kaido learned too late to appreciate the people in his life, so Takumi has to use his own experience to help him to move on and continue to live as a human, by following Takumi's and Kiba's example. That's why I think having this epilogue, over a decade after the show ended and focusing on the development of these two specific characters with similar problems was such a clever way to highlight the morals that the show left on, about protecting dreams and finding hope even in the darkest of despair. For Takumi, that hope was the smile as he died and he wants to give some of that hope to Kaido before leaving once more.

It's such cool imagery they brought back from the finale and it's symbolic of Takumi once more resolving to live the only way he can for his final hour. This special really shows how much he has matured, in contrast to his character development kind of getting ignored in KRW. It feels like this is a more Complete (haha, get it?) version of Takumi, who has been through all the tragedies and he's not running away anymore. He knows he's still a flawed person, but he's content with who he's become and he finally found the acceptance he always wanted. I'm proud of Takumi for that and in the end, he really was the protector of dreams.

I'm glad you got the reference to Faiz being Heisei Rider 4! The number 4 is relevant in other ways as well, like the date of the time loop being April 4th. Kamen Rider 4's army consisting of dead Riders and also Sasword who must be back from France. The cycle of death with Gou and Takumi. Since 4 can be pronounced as "shi" which also means death. Nothing to do with Riderman or Kuuga though, who are also numbered 4.

Based on the quality of the content he's written for OOO, Ghost and Zi-O, I'd even go as far as saying his specialty is upstaging the head writers! He really takes the time to get inside the characters' heads and understand the world of a story, like he has a respect for the work and wants to maintain the authenticity while adding his own flair. It's crazy that Toei have only given him the head writer role once!

oh my god

this was supposed to be the short fill-in project

and it's been six weeks

and i'm only half done

Yeah, it's a real Quality Over Quantity message, which is fitting for Takumi. He thought existing was the same as living, and it wasn't. He could keep the time loop going forever, but it'd mean denying who he is and what he needs to feel at peace.

Good point! Well said!

Well hey, most the stuff you've got left will be reposts! So it's not too bad after all

And you've got a few single episode watches too! So I'm sure those'll be short.

Oh, I was just being dramatic. (Mostly.) It's not the worst thing in the world to spend longer than estimated re-acclimating yourself with some of your favorite series.

But, boy, every time I've thought I'd have a short post, it just gets away from me. There is an incredibly high chance I write three or more pages on, like, Kamen Rider Brain. There's short watching, and then there's short writing. They do not necessarily correlate!

I'd happily take a 3 page essay on why Kamen Rider Brain is secretly a deep subtextual message on how needless throaway jokes are no longer allowed to live as such things in the modern age of content. :p

KAMEN RIDER DRIVE: SURPRISE FUTURE

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This one… it didn’t really work for me?

I mean, it’s fine on a technical level. The story’s direct. It’s a Shinnosuke-centered narrative. Chase and Go are in it a little bit, as is most of the supporting cast. Kiriko gets some big moments, which I’m generally a fan of. (I’m a fan of Kiriko, full-stop. MAKE. HER. DRIVE.) The action, especially in the finale, is really well done. I don’t love the Type Special suit, but Super Dead Heat is solid, and Type Next is a great futuristic-villain look. The production isn’t offensive in any way, or anything.

But there’s not really a ton for me to grab onto, at least that I want to grab onto.

Like, there’s some fun thematic stuff they hint at in the beginning that I’d’ve been more into. Shinnosuke brings up Krim’s creation of the Roidmudes, and I thought that could be a fun concept to explore alongside Shinnosuke’s future-son: the idea of parenting, of how to feel when something you created doesn’t turn out how you’d hoped. That’s an idea that I’d get a lot out of.

(There’s a bit of a parenting analogue, with Krim and Shinnosuke’s partnership. Shinnosuke regularly brings up how Krim’s views on justice have shaped his own. I don’t know that it’s an all-the-way-through-the-movie thing, in that it’s never really applied to Shinnosuke’s relationship with Eiji, but there’s at least something there on the present-day side.)

But what’s here isn’t so much to my taste. It’s a mix between a superhero plot I can’t buy into, and a supporting cast plot I find pretty tricky to parse.

Let’s hit the superhero part first! I cannot take Eiji’s claims seriously, from the jump. The idea that Krim is some ticking time bomb… no? No, I will never ever believe that? It’s a huge swing for the movie to start off with, and if I’m honest, it never really recovers from it. The post-reveal part of the movie is better than the pre-reveal, but you are asking the audience to believe that Shinnosuke’s Belt Dad is going to subjugate the future and bring the world to ruin. That is a ludicrous ask when the series is already forty episodes deep. If you want to come in with a plot where Krim is reprogrammed, or there’s an evil copy made, fine. But to come in and say Krim Is A Secret Evil Mastermind Who Has Been Lying To You All Along… man, what the hell. There’s no real twist in learning that Drive’s been lied to, because it’s such an unbelievable claim. The only twist is who’s lying, and why.

Which, uh, some new Roidmude! Okay. He’s just a monster to fight, and that’s… I don’t know, whatever. There’s no real grudge, no reason why he’s using Eiji other than to enact his scheme. He doesn’t have some huge beef with Shinnosuke; he just wants to destroy Drive. It’s all fine, nothing memorable or special.

The biggest flaw with the superhero side of the plot - aside from its ridiculous opening gambit - is that Eiji, the real Eiji, never gets to take part in the story. The villain spends the entire movie using his son’s face, but Shinnosuke never gets to spend a scene with his actual son. Eiji only exists as a weapon from the future, so we’re robbed of any catharsis. We never get to see an actual familial connection (beyond a nod to a ghost hologram?), which feels like the least we’re owed by the end of this story.

But that’s the superhero stuff, which is, again, basically fine. Nothing I loved, but competently handled.

Then there’s the whole plot about the police rallying around an officer accused of excessive force, in which a high-ranking police official is heroically guilted into shielding said officer from investigation, which… WOW. Wow. That is… I mean, maybe it played less terribly in 2015? I don’t know! I don’t think it should, but I don’t know! But, boy, in 2022? I do not have a ton of interest in a story that browbeats a cop out of holding other cops responsible for their actions. Accountability is an okay thing for the police to adhere to! Kiriko’s great, but when she’s like HOW DARE YOU QUESTION SHINNOSUKE’S MOTIVES, YOU SHOULD HAVE HIS BACK, I was cringing in my chair. It’s… this whole plot is a real bad look, man. Probably some stuff in there about being more dedicated to ideals than the appearance of ideals, but, no. Absolutely not, to this entire part of the movie.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../surprise2.png

Also, Kamen Rider Ghost is in this!

It’s been a minute since I watched Ghost, but I’m going to go ahead and say this is basically nothing like how Takeru fights in the show. He doesn’t (if memory serves) come out of portals, or creep around frames, or bob and weave like a skeleton. It looks great here, and I sort of wish it had carried over to the series, but it’s not representative of the show he’d star in. Character’s all weird, too. He sounds real Goth here, which is so hilariously Not Takeru.

Anyway, yeah, this movie mostly wasn’t for me. The whole thing starts off on the wrong foot, and then it never really jumps above Okay for me. One of those movies that’s a decent timewaster – it’s an hour-long tokusatsu story with a bunch of action – but not much more than that to me.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/.../surprise3.png

This is kinda where the movie fails to meet me anywhere above "yeah that was pretty fun" for me as well. There's not even anything like... a trap Eiji places in the Dark Drive suit to hurt the Roidmude to give his dad an opening, or a plan he passes through the portal, or some kind of intention for Shinnosuke to carry on so he's at least there in spirit. For a lot of this movie I was wondering how much of Eiji we actually know about and how much was just the Roidmude playing up the act. Type: Special being a spiritual bond between Shinnosuke and his future son is really good on paper but I didn't really feel like it earned that payoff or that it ever hit for me?

Yeah, kinda just feel the same about this movie as you do! Definitely remember having fun, having a good time; far from the worst thing I've seen or the worst use of my time. But it fails at key moments to go beyond that, so it ends up settling on "yeah, alright movie"