Final does end up having some BIG consequences in the main show further down the line and teases some other things that play into another major plot thing, so it does in the end matter a great deal.

"OOO wasn't perfect, it just did literally everything right."

Yeah, okay.You can try and be modest about it, but one day we're all going to have to accept the obvious truth here. :lol

As for Heisei Generations Final, I actually had the True Ending problem with the title, where I expected more of an upgrade from the first than it was. In retrospect, I think it's a fairly strong "sidegrade" that trades some of the bombastic fun of the original for a slightly more in-depth plot and probably better use of the returning Riders (I'm not totally sure on that one, but obviously, you know, Ankh).

I disagree that you could just slap Ryuuga's arc on any secondary Rider and have it work as well. There are similar characters out there for sure (Beast is a good example), but Love & Peace, you're going to find is a major component of Build's themes as it goes along, and I think doing a little compressed version of his development from the show that gets to specifically contrast him against some of the most selfless Riders out there (and I mean, even by the usual standards, guys like Takeru and Eiji really like helping people) was a great idea.

It's simple and a bit trite in its delivery, but I think it's specifically appropriate for Cross-Z, and having a clear throughline and character arc is unfortunately not something we can take for granted in a Rider movie, so I'll give Final some credit for trying.

Also, and this might just be because I haven't seen that movie in longer, but I don't remember a thing about Dr. Pac-Man, and I do about Bikaiser, for what it's worth. He- er, they were really fun, and the evil plan at play was memorable.

I mean, taking parallel worlds and smashing them together is some devious s***. You'd have to be a real jerk to wanna do something like that.

I mean, I don't want to it seem like I think Final is a failure or anything. I found it to be a step down from Dr. Pac-Man, but there's still plenty to enjoy. The Legend Rider stuff is easily the highlight of the film. The OOO stuff, like, I can forgive a lot because of that. The Muteki/Sparkling Double Rider Kick is awesome. I guess I'm just a little more critical of it because the story felt weaker than the Build stuff I'd been watching. But, y'know, it's a movie, not a TV show, it's trying to do different stuff. Like I said, it's great at being a Legend Rider delivery system. That's something I cannot dispute!

One of my favorite suit aesthetics is W, so Build is definitely in my sweet spot. The main Build designs, I just love that shit. Weird combos, the mixing and matching, I enjoy that a lot more than full-suit form changes. I haven't mentioned it (I keep forgetting!) but I LOVE that the Build/Cross-Z henshin comes in on injection kit runners. It's so blatantly "go buy this toy" that, god, it kills me. Hilarious. This franchise is great.

So, yeah, Build is good, Cross-Z hasn't quite done it for me yet, and I really like the militaristic tones to the transteam suits like Rogue and Stalk. I think my favorites are probably the base Build suit, Hawkgatling, and Blood Stalk.

Plus, I mean, Dr. Pac-Man had Hiroshi Tanahashi in it, and Final didn't have a single New Japan Pro-Wrestling superstar. Not one! New grade, F-!

You're right about shoehorned in Legend Riders. That was something I loved about Dr. Pac-Man, how the movie took a few scenes to set up why Drive was there, and had him and Wizard do more than just show up to fight. They were working the case, and then they intersected with Ghost and Ex-Aid. This one, it's just Fourze flying in from off-screen, OOO walking by, Gaim looking into the sky and showing up... it's a bit like there's this enthusiasm from the producers, and they're so excited to get those Legend Riders on the screen, that they can't slow it down a beat or two. But, devil's advocate, I absolutely pumped my fist when I heard RoCkEt ON and Fourze comes blasting through a hole in the wall. It feels so rude to be, like, Do It Better.

So, here's kind-of the problem I have with focussing the movie's emotional thread on Banjou's need to understand what heroism means, and how the Riders demonstrated that to him. When you have a Main Rider on a show, there's nuance and specificity to their portrayal. Emu isn't Takeru isn't Eiji isn't etc. They all push themselves differently, relate to victims differently, prioritize in a fight differently. When you have two Riders, the story starts with their differences, but resolves with their similarities. They may have different attitudes, but they both want to help people, that's the usual Movie War ending. Once you get into three-or-more Rider stories, they all flatten out into one attribute: Kamen Riders fight for justice, no matter what. Gaim fights for the same reasons as OOO, who fights for the same reasons as Ex-Aid, as as as. The constant But Why Heroism that should be creating something for Banjou to react to, to compare himself to, amongst the different Riders just felt to me like he was responding to the idea of a Rider in general, not these men specifically. It's the opposite of the effective work the show did, where Sento's view is something so clearly defined that Banjou can interrogate it, and shape his worldview accordingly.

I guess I didn't find him that dull? He's not, like, Genm, or anything, but I thought the story they'd concocted for him was interesting. And, man, after a few of these movies that just feel like trifles, colorful explosions of disconnected storytelling, I'm not going to feel mad about a movie plot point coming back (several times!) in other places.

Yay!

I love OOO! I do! But it's a show I frequently describe as "not the best at anything, but good at everything." There're shows with better suits, better villains, better theme songs, you name it. (Well, Ankh might be the best character. I don't know.) It's just that OOO never drops the ball, never makes me wonder why they made a particular story choice, never had me lamenting a focus on an actor who couldn't deliver, and it always entertained me. It was always good.

I'd quibble about the plot being better (there is really not a lot to Bikaiser's scheme!), but the Legend Riders definitely get a bigger spotlight in this one. That's actually maybe part of the problem? All of that Legend Rider stuff, while being hugely entertaining and also sort-of necessary for the Banjou storyline, doesn't leave a lot of room for Emu or Sento to make much of an impression. Build and Ex-Aid, the title characters, are not super integral to the progression of the plot. I mean, yeah, Build does most of the investigating, but it makes for fairly dry, exposition-heavy scenes. There's not a lot of meat on those bones.

It's mostly that "secondary Rider has to learn the heroism and sacrifice necessary to be a Kamen Rider" is a storyline that happens basically every season of Kamen Rider. Like, variations on that storyline happened to (off the top of my head) Accel, Birth, Meteor, Beast, Necrom, and Brave. Also, Cross-Z just a few episodes prior. It's fairly stock. I don't mind it, though! It's a necessary part of the standard Kamen Rider story, a way of differentiating the main Rider from the secondary Rider, and a way of reemphasizing the primacy of the main Rider by making his heroism more heroic. Like, not mad at them for trying. And, yeah, it's definitely better that they tried something as a throughline, rather than just throwing Legend Riders up until the credits rolled. I just thought the answer they ended up giving Banjou for how his viewpoint changed was not exactly worth an entire movie's worth of focus. Like, he's fighting to protect the people he cares about? Okay? That seems like an incremental shift in character (it's not like he never cared about anyone) rather than the solution to a crisis of conscience.

Dr. Pac-Man wore an evil Pac-Man mask and had a daughter who wore a lab coat longer than her skirt. What the hell else do you need to know?!

Dr. Pac-Man had a daughter?!

KAMEN RIDER BUILD EPISODES 15 - 16

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/build/build15a.png

Weird two-parter, this one. I mean, it's great. It's so well done. It's just, like, two very different episodes telling one story.

So, obviously, after the game-changing reveal of Hipster Dad as Blood Stalk, the entire status quo of the show has to change. Can't just hang out in the basement doing sciences when the government knows your deal and you know the government's deal. What I was not anticipating was the show just going balls out, with Night Rogue immediately storming the cafe and Sento immediately saying, "Oh yeah, we completely know who you are, Military Adam Driver. Time's up!" That is a show that doesn't feel like they've got to save up big moments, which is great as a viewer. I don't have to deal with weeks of "Oh no, is this the moment that Build slips up and reveals what he knows to Military Adam Driver?" It's just, the audience knows, so it's way better if the characters all know, too. Plus, like, the gloves are off, so the show can just launch into open conflict between characters who have nothing to lose. We get plans, schemes, fights, and a real back-and-forth in the first part, when Rogue gets defeated and his daddy shows up to yell at him. (Is there a more humiliating loss in franchise history? Not one that I've seen!) Just a rousingly entertaining episode, with a propulsive burn when other shows would spend time regrouping. It was so thrilling, that I sort-of couldn't believe they ended the episode with the reveal that Sento is Takumi.

Now, I don't think this was a huge surprise. (I mean, especially after the Heisei Generations Final movie, where Sento straight-up remembers something that happened to Takumi.) Like the Blood Stalk reveal, I don't care so much about the reveal itself. Unlike the Blood Stalk reveal, I don't care about the "why" or the "how". (It's a pretty basic reprogramming of a mutineer, and the specifics of how Stalk did it are, eh, whatever. A little convoluted, but mostly irrelevant. They close the loopholes, though, as far as I could see.) What I care about is what happens next.

Turns out, what happens next is Sento, Banjou and Misora talking through their feelings in a refreshingly direct, adult way. I mean, even the fight between Cross-Z and Build isn't choreographed to be Awesome, it's choreographed to show that Banjou feels things viscerally, and demonstratively, while Sento internalizes, shuts down. Banjou thinks with his fists, and that's how he works through his emotions. Sento just dwells on it until he can't even function. Luckily, Misora's there to balance the two. She can call each of them on their bullshit in a blunt but caring way. She can tell Sento that he isn't Takumi, that he's Sento: a self-aggrandizing brainiac who is also a self-sacrificing hero. (She tells Banjou that he's really stupid, which: fair!) She pulls the team together, which feels like it might be her Act 2 role. I'll miss the sleepy asshole, but this version of Misora is pretty compelling.

(Quick parenthetical shout-out to the way the Build as a series, including the winter movie, really dials back on the melodrama, keeping the emotion in scenes more subdued and close to realistic. Misora's goodbye to Hipster Dad, the way that she doesn't cry until he leaves, it's just a dagger in the heart. It reminded a bit of one of my favorite moments from Heisei Generations Final, which, of course, is about Ankh. When Ankh comes back, you can see in Eiji's eyes that this moment is huge for him. After six long years, after circling the globe, his friend is back. He wants to cry. He wants to reach out to him. But, this is Ankh. You can't do that to Ankh. So Eiji has to pretend it's no big deal, another day at the OOOffice, just saying hi to a coworker who hasn't been around in a while. But in his eyes, it's all there. There's very few Kamen Rider Build anythings so far that are shirt-rending melodramatic outbursts. Just solid acting. Pleasant change of pace!)

After about two-thirds of an episode that's darker than usual and full of exposition (that "Blood Stalk reprograms Takumi and frames Banjou" scene feels like it goes on forever), it all comes together with an absolutely kick-ass (and ass-kicking) finale, featuring the full version of the theme song. It was appropriately epic, solidifying a brilliant start to the second act. This two-parter had a ton of moves in it, emotionally, and it was such a blast. I'm pretty sure I liked this about twice as much as I liked Heisei Generations Final, and I liked Heisei Generations Final. But Build! This show! It's so goddamn good!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/build/build15b.png

p.s. you guys that bears game tonight i mean that last minute holy hell

So right now what I'm gathering is that, uh, yeah; Build really fucking good!

You're exactly right, I have discovered something unique in Kamen Rider fandom! I don't know that I'd call myself a hero, but since you offered, thanks!