I'm sorry, I just don't believe the Ultimate Kuuga hype. A one off line whose power is never demonstrated is just not a pill I can swallow.
Kuuga showed us the power of Mighty and Amazing Mighty. They took out a city block, which is impressive. But unless there's something to Ultimate that makes it however many million times stronger, it's just tough to really believe. Ultimate never demonstrated any level of power, as it's only use was in a punch out that he barely won.

Yeah but do you just ignore the whole character? There's no way someone like Yusuke was going to destroy the world. His main motive is to protect people, not defeating an enemy. If Yusuke knows how devastating the kick he has in a lesser form, he's gotta not risk it for the strongest form with more catastrophic result for the civilians.

And I do like that Ultimate Kuuga is a "one off line", instead of the other Ultimate forms which has more screentime, which equals more getting their ass kicked by lesser enemies. Ultimate Kuuga's only purpose is to fight the ultimate enemy, and such power has to be hard obtained and only limitedly used (only in final episode), not freely spammed.

It comes with the drastic trade off of seeming less like a powerful form, and more like someone trying to one up each others' OCs.
"Black RX has limitless power under the sun!"
"J has unlimited power from the Earth!"
"Yeah, well...Kuuga can just...Blow up the Earth, so he's best!"

I'm a fan of show, don't tell. Kuuga's Ultimate form is the epitome of the exact opposite. We see it in one anticlimactic punch out that he barely scrapes by in.
Meanwhile, we're told that he can just casually destroy the world. Additionally, it's only fight was against a villain who never displayed their power, either, as it was the only time Daguva participated in the plot.

Kuuga's finale hinged not on how strong the characters were, but how strong everyone else said they were.

Ultimate Kuuga's Ultimate Kick can wipe out the world and N-Daguva-Zeba killed off most of the Grongi tribes.
There's absolutely no evidence of either, but as long as someone said it, it has to be true.

Watching Kuuga via TokuSHOUTsu on PlutoTV.

Oh my god good subs of Kuuga I literally want to cry right now aaaaaahhhhh!

Before:

https://i.imgur.com/6PsHXodl.png
https://i.imgur.com/jbmFhTBl.png
https://i.imgur.com/noehNsQl.png
https://i.imgur.com/m9qyN3Gl.png
https://i.imgur.com/pBdGnbTl.png
https://i.imgur.com/w7ctZ6ul.png
https://i.imgur.com/PPupObWl.png
https://i.imgur.com/nIOxCDal.png

After:

https://i.imgur.com/H1tKJZll.png
https://i.imgur.com/9egBVwul.png
https://i.imgur.com/4Ml03Ool.png
https://i.imgur.com/1FCsXGEl.png
https://i.imgur.com/dyXmFlpl.png
https://i.imgur.com/F7ZlhCwl.png
https://i.imgur.com/tv6KFnBl.png

This is actually one of the crappy MCS conversations where the intent is more or less still there, too, so I mostly chose this one to illustrate just how hugely beneficial simply having the extra clarity and sounding-like-human-beings-talking is. The scenes that were straight up wrong are even better now. I've only skimmed through a few select episodes so far on ShoutFactoryTV, but this is a huge improvement. These subs are as legit as legit subs ought to be.

The Grongi was translated though! I honestly consider that to be an error, so hopefully there's some version of this translation we'll be able to watch without spoiling things early for new viewers?

But then I'd much rather they know too much than too little, so even then, these official subs are looking pretty definitive from what I've seen so far.

Really excited for my future rewatch now. Very glad the official subs are good quality, and I hope that, should they come to DVD, we get the option to turn the Grongi subs off and on.

I don't really see the Grongi being translated as that big a deal.
It's not like it spoils some major revelations. It just explains some of the more obtuse games some Grongi play, since "Become superior, kill humans" was basically the Grongi's MO the entire time, anyway.

I saw 4 episodes of 1971 and 6 episodes of Kuuga, Kuuga's just as great as I remember but the OG is new territory for me, I'm surprised that the most iconic trio of mooks are spiders bats and cobras as Scorpion Man feels like an excellent dynamic to reuse, though I know Garagaranda's popular so I'll have to wait for that

Well, speaking for me personally, that's not entirely the point.

Like, yeah, the spoilers are an aspect, and in terms of "plot" they don't give away too-too much, but here's the thing.

Having them subbed for a first watch totally takes away one of the most interesting and unique aspects of Kuuga; its atmosphere and its air of mystery. I know you personally got nothing out of it, but I certainly did.

Having an enemy force we knew basically nothing about, and that spoke a language we weren't meant to understand not only helped with the more grounded setting, but kept me interested in the Grongi as a whole. It was rather refreshing compared to all the other Toku shows I'd seen up to that point.

So, if possible, I'd like first time viewers to be able to have a similar experience.

And part of the experience in first watching Kuuga was watching it over the span of 50 weeks, letting the mind think about the mystery rather than hard marathoning it over the course of one to two weeks.

I just feel that the idea of telling someone that there's a wrong way to watch the show because it's "Not how it was initially intended" is silly.

Just imagine looking at things this way.
You're a fledgling KR fan. Just started Zero-One, and began watching Kamen Rider (1971) a few weeks back, and now Shout released Kuuga. You select it, and you see 2 options in the menu. Full subbed and Grongi unsubbed. Being new to the franchise, you don't meticulously research every little thing beforehand, so you select Full sub because you'd find it odd to watch a partially subbed show.

Then you hop on Twitter to be told that you're wrong, because on it's initial airing, those lines were left out?
Even though they were translated on the DVD releases in 2001? Meaning that everyone has been fully aware of those lines for 19 years, yet you're expected to watch the show twice for some arbitrary reason?

Kamen Rider fans are becoming so hysteric over this, and it's getting ridiculous.
"You're supposed to watch Kuuga without knowing what the monsters are talking about. It doesn't spoil anything, but we've convinced ourselves that it does to spread a false rumor. Then after you've watched it, then you go back and watch it again, except with the additional translations so you can hear the generic monsters talk about killing humans as if it's some sort of shocking revelation, okay?"

Just when I was starting to warm up on Kuuga, and thinking I was too harsh when I first watched it, this Shout debacle happened. Man, it's like the world refuses to not let Kuuga be seen through negative lenses for me :lol

I have no idea what circles of the internet you've been on to hear all that, but nowhere have I seen anyone declare that there's a "proper, correct" way to view the show. I've certainly seen many fans say that there's a Preferred way to view it, yes, but I haven't seen anyone DEMAND people watch it a particular way. Nor was I trying to.

And forgive me for being blunt here, but if you're trying to insinuate that I was saying there's "only one true way" to see Kuuga, that is not even close to what I was getting at at all, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth, nor the mouth of anyone else.

I respect that you don't like the show, please respect that many of us do, and simply want to spread our love of it. Because to me, it really seems like you're making alot of assumptions on the part of other people.

Then why does it matter?
How does watching the show with the Grongi translated take away anything from the show?

I want people to watch the show. But when fans are putting up disclaimers solely on the basis that a portion of the show is subbed, it can be offputting.
You're making a lot of assumptions about my opinions, when my entire argument is to let fans watch Kuuga without putting a huge asterisk of "But it's better to do it without the Grongi subbed"

After all, if I didn't like Kuuga as much as you seem to think, why would this matter to me at all?

Again, I can't speak for others, but I already explained why, to me, having the option of having the subs on or off would be nice. Even beyond that, having options for things, in general, is good to have. That way, everyone can view the show whatever way they wish, especially if they want to support the official release.

And in terms of disclaimers, all I've seen people say is something along the lines of "Hey guys, if you didn't know, you originally weren't supposed to know what the Grongi were saying, please keep that in mind when viewing."

That is in no way saying "Don't support these subs, they're awful!" etc etc.

Meanwhile your posts around the boards have been along the lines of "OH MY GOD EVERYONE IS ACTING LIKE IT'S THE WORST THING EVER AAA"

As for why it matters to you, boy is that a question, because by all rights it shouldn't, yet you've made it very evident that it does. And I'm not about to make assumptions on your part like what you've done for others.

Can we please stop making this a big argument?

It's really as simple as "as Kuuga was originally made, the Grongi language wasn't translated for Japanese viewers, and therefore it doesn't make a lot of sense for it to be translated for English viewers too". That's it. That's all there is, and it's hardly worth getting in a fuss over.

If I may be frank for a second, even as someone who thinks the Grongi language shouldn't be translated? I'm still bloody excited that Kuuga is finally available on a wide basis to a larger western audience legally. That feels like a bygone dream that would never come true, and it's just awesome. And whether the Grongi language being translated is a misstep, or they have some legitimate reason for thinking it's a good idea? I would still disagree with Shout on this, but we're still getting Kuuga in the West. That's bloody awesome, and to see this be the only discussion about it? I've gotta be honest, I don't like being confrontational about this sort of thing, but it's bloody annoying.

Some of us think the Grongi language being translated is a misstep. Some of us think it's not a big deal. That's it. Y'all have said your piece on it, can we like, move on and not stretch it out over a ton of posts in multiple threads? Can we just, like, I don't know, be able to simultaneously be grateful for something and also respect people with criticisms and different opinions?

I'm sorry if this comes across strongly, but goddamn.

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy one of my favorite Toku shows finally has an official release. All I've been saying is that having the extra option would be nice. I do plan to support the official release too, and definitely advise others to check it out as well.

Heck, Fish pointing out that the sub quality is actually good made me really happy and even more excited to rewatch the show again. I just hope that, should we ever get a DVD release, the DVDs give us the option, because options are nice to have.

If I may continue the topic, as a rewatcher, I'm supposedly getting more value out of Grongi subs, while the Gegeru being a game is revealed a lot sooner than without subs, I don't really see any other major deals, if anything, it helps let personality shine more for the Grongi so that we can distinguish them a lot easier regardless of highly memorable moments. Not to mention newcomers would need to know beforehand that the Grongi are speaking their own fictional language as Yusuke responding to "Kuuga!" for the first time would make you assume he understood what was said and carried off of that, newcomers would think the subs were incomplete and Shout managed to find a good workaround with it as Grongi has a different colour used than Japanese, even when the Grongi change the two. It's also a hard sell to say "Hey you need to watch it again right afterwards so you can understand them without being spoiled".


Also the original TV airing did translate the Grongi if you turned the subtitles on with your remote apparantly

I do plan on rewatching Kuuga, since the subs do fix an issue that some fansubs had of not really arranging sentences in a coherent way.

But that's later, since I'm still on Agito.
Good god, I love Hikawa and Shouichi as a pair. While most series tends to use the main and secondary's downtime for some comic relief, these two are just golden. Shouichi's innocence with Hikawa's high tense, but soft demeanor just work so well to watch them interact. Honestly, even though the plot still makes no sense, just these two goofballs existing is enough for me to want to continue :lol

Fourze 43-44

Okay, I'm over the last big hump in my Fourze rewatch: these last two fucking episodes.

So, I don't think it will surprise anybody who's been reading these to be told that I don't really like Yuuki all that much, especially during the back half of the show where she goes completely off the deep end. This arc, then, has always been a rough watch for me. We have Yuuki, we have Evil Fake Yuuki, we have Zodiarts Yuuki, and we have Yuuki's Insane Parents. That is a lot of insufferable obnoxiousness. Maybe if Yuuki's actress had some concept of what subtlety is, it might have worked, but I kinda doubt it.

I hate to be too down on this arc because there's some great Gentarou stuff in 44 when he finds his old keepsake that turns Yuuki back to "normal." So much of this is just Yuuki dialed up to 11, though, and I mostly just wanted these episodes to hurry up and end already.

Oh, we got the first mention of the Presenters, too. They're not a bad idea, but I think they would have worked better if they'd been seeded sometime before the last five episodes of the show.

Most importantly, though, I realized exactly what my big problem is with the Sagittarius design:

Blade's second OP rocks. A much better tonal fit than the first one, especially in terms of visual, and immediately went up there among my favorite KR OPs (Build, Black, W).

The actual show has some weak moments with rather overdone tropes in this second half, but nothing too bad. They're kinda tying up the ends here and wrapping up on several character arcs in competent fashion, and I sure am glad Mutsuki's finally past his Possessed Jerk/Volatile Adolescent phase. Not a big fan of how the Tiger Undead was eventually used to get him out of this funk though, especially since she's one of the very few side characters in this show with actual presence; but sidelining/utilizing a strong and interesting female character for the benefit of male character development has been a long and proud KR tradition, after all.

Meanwhile, in Hibiki... there's a scene in the episode I just watched, where Akira returned Asumu's handbook and they went for a little walk. They had a pleasant chat for a bit, y'know, showing flash of the good ol' Hibiki vibe before The Switch (I also think these two are really cute together and should've been paired more, but that's neither here or there). Then, ominous swell of music, and a wild New Character appears! New Character uses Talk Idiotic Shit on Asumu and Akira! It's super effective!

Like, this whole scene and everything about New Character was so emblematic of New Hibiki's problems: a jarring tonal shift from everything that's been established before, and an extremely annoying tendency to stir up shit from absolutely nowhere. I knew I said in passing that Hibiki would benefit from a bit of increased tension, but cranking up the melodrama, rom-com, and overused tropes to the nth wasn't exactly what I meant, goddamit I take it back, this is horrible.

Concerning the Tiger Undead, it's not really a Kamen Rider trope as it is a general action series trope. While comics tried to stop doing it as often thanks to WIR, other mediums still used it in full force, especially during the early 2000's.

True that, I didn't mean to imply that it's exclusive to KR. This particular case is actually more subtle compared to the outright fridging I've seen (in other KR shows or other media), but it's become annoying to see these days, whereas back then it may not even register to me because of how normalized it was.

I can already hear Switchblade's response to this post...

It's almost like I know what I'm talking about but everyone ignores me.

The second half of Hibiki is a 'learning experience' and a 'cautionary tale' all at once. You can only understand the (painful) lessons it has to impart by seeing it for yourself.

I'm on episode 21 of Agito. After bouncing around seasons, I finally decided to watch the remaining shows by release order. I finished Kuuga last month.

Agito is ... fine? I don't mind the gradual backstory and lore reveal, I just don't feel Shouichi is as interesting as Godai, or anyone else really. He feels very passive to the plot so far. I'll still finish the show and I'm looking forward to the rest of the episodes.

I like the G3 crew though

While watching Agito, the G3-X crew was definitely my favourite part and remains wonderful to me to this day. Hikawa's midpoint between naivety and straightforwardness is adorable; Omuro is just kind of a fun idiot to be played against; and Ozawa is a complete and utter queen in every aspect. Throw in an antagonist you just adore seeing taken down a notch in Houjou and you've got what I'm willing to say is the best police squad in all of Rider!

I can agree to this. The dick kick is my favorite part in all of Agito.

And speaking of Agito, I just finished it.
Well, aside from Project G4, but I'll get to that when I feel like it.

It's so weird that 2 shows that had such upbeat main characters back to back in Kuuga and Agito would be followed by a show that would do all it can to break it's main character, and a main character that would be utterly broken from the start :lol

Shouichi's smile is just so infectious that it's hard not to love him. Just the fact that he managed to get through to Houjou and Kino is impressive, but what really made him so wonderful was how well he bounced off Hikawa. Those two formed a duo that almost rivaled Eiji and Ankh for me.
The G3 crew as a whole was a wonderful part of the show, too. I do wish Omuro got more to do, though. He was goofy in a nice way, but his presence was nebulous most of the time. Ozawa seemed a bit too overbearing, I gotta say, though. She may be a genius, but sometimes she deserved to be smacked down a peg.

My only real gripe with the show was it's plot. It moved at a pace that made Zyuohger look intense, and it's twists were weak (Why does no one talk about the Akatsuki? Because the monster told them not to? Really?). However, things were kept interesting enough for me to want to keep going, mainly because Shouichi is just so damn lovable.

Fourze 45-46

It feels a little weird to do a split here, since the last four episodes are more or less one long arc. These two episodes are primarily focused on Pisces, though, and I'm already doing the two-episode format so I may as well stick with it.

Okay, so first things first: these episodes end with an ad for the movie and some exclusive Wizard Ganbaride cards. I completely forgot that Ganbaride was a thing. Apparently it's still around, too, albeit under a new name. I'm really amazed that it's managed to last an entire decade.

Secondly, these episodes feel weird. There's something about them that felt a little off, almost like they don't perfectly fit with the rest of the series. It took me most of 45 to figure it out, but I did: the kids aren't wearing their school uniforms. I guess these episodes took place during the Japanese version of summer vacation, because all of the characters are in their civilian clothes. It gives the show this subtly different vibe that makes everything feel just a little bit off.

The plot itself is pretty good. I knew the Hayami fake out was coming this time, but the show still does a good job of making it feel like he really did switch sides. I liked seeing Ran and Haru again, too, although I still think they should have been included more before this point. If I have any issue, it's that these episodes feature a lot of exposition about Gamou's underlying plan and motivations. It's good to know, but it comes out so close to the end of the show that it can't help but feel really rushed. The same goes for all of the Core Switch stuff that's starting up here. That was at least telegraphed a bit earlier, but I don't think it would have hurt the show to start establishing some of this stuff before the last four episodes.

Hold up, is that Ichigou as the police commissioner in Agito Project G4?

Yep. It was the 30th anniversary and they wanted to do something for it, but they weren’t confident enough in nostalgia for the Showa Riders to do a reunion movie ala Gaoranger’s. They did do a video game, but it’s more of a crossover with other Tokusatsu franchises of yesteryear.

https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net...4d&oe=5ED8A0A5
I have reached Blade Episode 29. I knew it would be odd. I did not expect Romeo and Juliet / Prince and the Pauper / Memento crossover levels of odd. Especially coming off the arc that we just had.

Three episodes left with Hibiki. Despite my most recent rant, I actually didn't think it's all bad. I kinda like the new concept of using the same pair of maturing Douji/Hime .... the heightened melodrama and comedy with Zanki and Todoroki occasionally entertained me ... and there's a few decent scenes in-between, such as Asumu being proactive in Makamou battle and helping out Hibiki in realistic and in-character fashion.

The rest has been damn bad, though. Show's pretty much lost all the flair it once had; that gentle intimate vibe, and the sense of teamwork among the Oni and non-transforming cast. Every scene has to be functionally BIG and drives the plot forward now, while Kiriya continues to be The Worst by stealing so much screen time from characters I care about.

They really did Akira dirty, by the way, especially after her genuinely awesome transformation moment. Got me excited for nothing :lol

I tend to enjoy these kind of customary mid-season comedic filler... this one is, uh, an exception, to say the least.

The Shuki arc is probably my least favorite part of the already awful part of Hibiki. The entire premise is just an excuse to enforce the "girls can't be Kamen Riders" ideology that was a recurring theme through the early Heisei era. The only good thing to come out of it was that at least Akira wasn't killed off like Femme or L'Arc.

Technically, that arc did accomplish the remarkable dual objectives of 'killing a female Rider' and 'somehow use that as a justification to kick another great female character to the curb in favor of her much less experienced, intelligent, and competent male counterparts'. I mean, Ibuki flat out said that "it's better to have boys as disciples" and was positively beaming when Akira called it quits. I mean, I can maybe tolerate this whole thing more if they at least make a token effort to get into Akira's headspace and articulate why this whole thing makes sense... but yeah.

Fourze 47-48

Not technically the end of my rewatch - still have a movie and a cameo to go - but the end of the main series, at least.

For all that they feel like a last minute addition of some backstory, I do like the idea behind the Presenters: a highly evolved alien intelligence that reaches out to other lifeforms via gaudy plastic doodads in order to learn more about the universe. It's a neat concept and it's generally execute well, although I wish it had been brought up at least a little earlier.

The show ends with two major emotional story beats. One of them works for me, other one not so much.

I like how Gentarou defeats Gamou. I'm not sure if I did so much at the time, but going back there's nothing more fitting than for Gentarou to defeat the villain by befriending him. The mini graduation ceremony/beatdown was a good scene that worked so well that even the Rider Girls couldn't ruin it with their bland ballad from the prom episode. I really did feel for Gamou at the end, realizing that he was misguided and that he had inadvertently created a much stronger legacy. It was touching and the show didn't try to oversell it. I used to hate a lot on this ending, but I actually liked it a lot more on a repeat viewing.

Now on the topic of overselling, we get to the other emotional aspect: the death of Kengo. Pretty much everything about Kengo's arc has never worked for me. Obviously it's not going to work now, already knowing how it's going to end, but it didn't work on the first watch either. Sota Fukushi can ugly cry with the best of them, but the show went way too hard into overplaying Kengo's departure and it just fell flat for me as a result. And then the death itself, that part never really affected me. Kengo, Fourze's non-human friend and main support partner, died just a year after the death of Ankh, OOO's non-human friend and main support partner. And Ankh's death, in turn, came a year after the death of Philip, W's non-human friend and main support partner. Philip's death hit me really hard; I actively cried at that scene. Ankh's death hit me hard, especially since there was no immediate reversal. By the time we got to Kengo, all the show got out of me was a "seriously, are we really doing this again?" Hell, if you want a blast from the past, I posted this in the discussion thread for episode 5 of Wizard:

So yeah, Kengo's death felt like a rerun at the time and it still feels like one now. I know other people find it way more affecting, but for me it's always just an example of the iron grip that status quo had on early-10s Kamen Rider.

I do like the ending overall, though. It's not the strongest in the franchise's history, but it ends in a way that's very uniquely Fourze (when it's not straight ripping off W).

Oh, and before I forget, there is some very Koichi Sakamoto motorcycle jumping in slow motion in front of explosions in episode 48. I got some very bad Kalish-era Power Rangers flashbacks during that scene.

Up next, we jump ahead a few months to five years in the future.

https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net...bd&oe=5EDC730F
This is the most powerful Rider on the show, change my mind.

Blade 30 continues the weirdness of 29, and is also for some reason where Garren Jack is introduced. People talk about upgrades now feeling meaningless, but this one was just perfunctory.

So given I don't think we have a thread specifically for Stage Shows, and recently there's been a lot more subbing of Rider Final Stages (Including a Stage Show for LupinVSPat alongside the Zangetsu Stage Play). A new group even subbed a Kamen Rider W special event one, which is basically a remixed Movie Wars 2010 that tells you to go watch Movie Wars 2010.

I thought I'd share my brief thoughts on all of the ones I've watched recently. So let's start with.

Zi-O Final Stage: This one is specifically set after Over Quartzer and basically confirms that Over Quartzer is just an alternate timeline deal with a single line towards the end. Lot's of fun on this one, and I always enjoy the clever ways they get around special effects for Henshin's and stuff. Special mention goes to how they handled Another Kuuga here which was cute.

Also probably the best decision they made was turning the villain into a gigantic Showa Boomer who wants to erase the Heisei Era so we're instead in Showa Year 93. Special shout outs to the The Reboot Ichigo, Nigo and V3 alongside Amazon Alpha and Omega showing up. Especially with Alpha yelling out, "Cheer 'Do your best' or I'll kill you!"

Drive Final Stage: Some post show fun stuff, not too much to really say on this aside from us getting the Car Sentai Driveranger. Also it's kind of hilarious given Paradox is the villain but he spends most of his time in a cloaked Roidmude Form, except it's clearly a low budget stage show variant since he shows up near a bunch of the high quality grunt Roidmude suits. So that's kinda hilarious.

Ghost Final Stage: This one is probably my favorite next to Zi-O's, mostly for the set up that's used to involve basically every single Ghost Parka suit. By turning an innocent "Which one of you is the strongest" question into "We're making this a big battle royal wrestling style tournament."

The Onpu Ganma that became a bit of a reoccurring character in the show ended up showing up and partnering with Beethoven. Plus he finally got a name like Cubi. Gyro decides to name him Roman because Romance is involved when thinking of Beethoven. Also the new stageshow exclusive form they had with Shinsengumi Damashii was really cool. I like how loose it looks and the light blue is a nice coloration. Kinda clever how they decided to tie the object that was used to create the eyecon into the katana we see Ryu Tenkuji always use.

Finally the one that got released like not even 2 hours ago...

W Final Stage: Of all the things I expected, I didn't expect an alternate Weather in the form of Isaka Shinkurou (Not Shinkuro, Shinkurou). Who is basically an Isaka from an alternate world who stole a Foundation X Memory named the Fuuto Memory.

Hijinks ensue where Akiko ends up running into him and accidentally gets the memory plugged into her, turning her into Fuuto-Kun. And basically the way they bring back a bunch of old characters who are quite understandably dead, is through that memories power. The Fuuto Memory basically calling upon Isaka's memories to bring back old Dopants and even Eternal of all people.

Special mentions go to Kirihiko who tries his hardest but was sadly stuck as a Maquerade Dopant and thus, terribly weak and easily killed. And also they brought out Skull and he got to fight Eternal and it was pretty cool. Always love to see more Skull.

Overall, Rider Final Stage Shows are fun little desert courses after the series concludes and I'm amazed people are only now starting to sub them because they are just genuinely fun experiences that everyone needs to watch.

Movie War Ultimatum

So here we are at last, the end of Kamen Rider Fourze. Yes, there's the Ex-Aid/Build movie, but that's more of a cameo and it's just Gentarou and JK; this is the last time we'll ever see most of these characters and the last time that Gentarou is the main focus of a story (poor guy doesn't even get his own Zi-O arc; he has to share it with Faiz). As far as grand finales go it's both good and a little disappointing.

I do like seeing where all of the characters end up; we even get to see some of the other supporting characters again like Nao Nagasawa, Sweaty Inga Brink, and Principal Alternative Zero. The big focus on the Inazuman stuff leaves a lot of the KRC feeling sidelined, though. Yuuki barely gets any screen time in the entire film and the others don't fare much better. It's a good epilogue, but for a show that was based so much on the hero and his friends, the latter really don't contribute much.

I skipped the Wizard part (this wasn't a Wizard rewatch, after all), but I did watch the team-up portion. I remember this movie being kind of a letdown when I first watched it and that opinion holds firm. There's some things that work well - I like the redesigned Akumaizers, even if it does suck that another group of classic Toei heroes were reused as villains. The story and action, though, didn't do much for me. It was seeing Wizard in action again; I'd forgotten just how stylish his fight scenes could be (and the regular Haruto parts I watched reminded me why he's still one of my favorite Riders). I wish I could say the same for W, OOO, Accel, and Birth, but I really can't. We did get a small Eiji cameo, but this was the first time that most of these characters showed up as just ghost suits instead of having the actors reprise their roles. I hate it when Toei does this and it really cheapened most of the final sequence. The truck chase was also pretty underwhelming in concept, and I say this as a huge fan of the Mad Max films that obviously inspired it. It was just a bunch of shots of guys punching a truck interspersed with more of Sakamoto's beloved slow motion motorcycle jumps in front of explosions.

Oh, and speaking of Sakamoto...

When I rewatched the Fourze summer movie I said that it was the definitive Koichi Sakamoto film. I stand by that, but this movie is a great example of what happens when he cuts loose and does whatever he wants. There. Are. So. Many. Slow. Motion. Close-ups. Of. Twirling. Skirts. Set. To. Harp. Music. It's incredibly distracting and that's with skipping the entire Poitrine section, which I know had even more of them. Between that and someone deciding that Mikie Hara should be hosed down before most of her scenes this film definitely crossed over into fetish territory. I'm not kink-shaming here, but sometimes you need to reign it in on what is ostensibly a fucking children's movie.

Anyway, it's still a pretty enjoyable film. A big step down from the OOO/Fourze movie, but reasonably enjoyable. From what little I remember, it's also a big step up from the Wizard/Gaim movie that followed it, too.

So that's it, then. Took a lot longer than I'd anticipated, but I made it all the way through Fourze. Does it hold up? Yeah, I'd definitely say it does. It's probably not the best Rider show ever made, but it is incredibly fun, has a great cast of characters, and I really did enjoy the vast majority of it.

Well congratulations, Switchblade, you're now a huge liar! :p

Anyway, I just wanted to say it's been real fun reading your posts about Fourze over the past not-quite-a-year.