Yeah, one of the weirder beats of this special is that both Kuroto and Kiriya are going to show back up in one and two months, respectively. Sucks to be Baron, Marika, and Another Agito, I guess!

That suit and Lazer's Level 3 suit are both incredibly awkward. There are a couple points in the climactic battle where you can see opponents pause a little bit so Lazer can haul himself up off the ground. Not my favorite Ex-Aid suits.

Also, as long as I'm getting off-topic, the absolute weirdest part of this mystery story is that four different people have the initials K.K., and it literally never comes up; not as a solution to the mystery, not as a red herring, not even as a joke. I assume it's because it's more of an English translation quirk, but... it's so weird to have so many similarly-named men in one story and not have it amount to anything.

Meanwhile Level 3 is my favorite form for Lazer and Level X just adds to it. I love the pseudo samurai (emu's words)/robot looks its got and the unique silhouette. When we went to japan, I had a choice between it and LVL 0 and I chose the former. Though, I might go back for LVL 0 eventually.

Ha ha, yeah, exact opposite! Lazer Lvl 0 is probably my favorite figure (so glossy and premium), while Lvl 3 is the one I keep procrastinating on.

Yeah, so GoRider is real good. I made a point to go back and watch it over the past few days, and even after like five years, it totally holds up. Remember what I said about those Legend Rider shorts from Ghost being great because they took a completely pointless, extremely tenuous tie-in to the spring movie released on some random platform, and tried to use that to do something with some degree of substance anyway?

GoRider is like a movie-length version of that, meaning it gets to have way more than just "some" degree of substance.

It's a legit really interesting mystery story that somehow takes a completely random assortment of guest stars and manages to build them up into a proper team by the end, to the point where you'd almost forget how odd it is to see these people standing together. And all while staying true to who those characters are, even when they're surly loners who would never join a Sentai in a million years. But GoRider makes it happen! It is going above and beyond the shallow requirements of why it exists (as far as I can tell, 1:Have GoRiders, 2:Remind people Kiriya exists, 3:???) to a degree that's almost comical.

(There was also one detail in particular I loved that I only noticed rewatching it now that I'm more familiar with Japanese, and it's that "Kenzaki's" dialogue is written exactly how Kuroto always talked, back when he was playing the part of the helpful CEO early in Ex-Aid. It's like he's doing the laziest possible impression of Blade, but the viewer might just assume that's how they're choosing to characterize an older Kenzaki or something, so it's only a clear tell in retrospect. Just one more way the script for this miniseries impresses.)

This was right around the time Kazuya Kamihoriuchi started directing all kinds of cool things, between this, the Specter V-Cinema, and then directing episodes of the TV shows proper starting in the back half of Ex-Aid, where he would handle things like the debut for Cronus. He's' become an indispensable part of Toei's pool of directors for these shows, and it's not hard to see why. His involvement tends to massively improve whatever you give him to work with. Meanwhile, Kento Shimoyama wouldn't write for Rider again until Zi-O came along, but once again, it's not hard to see why they'd pick him for that job. But I suppose we can get more into that when we get there.

There's a part of me that gets a little sad at the end of this mini-series, when I realize (years on from its airing) that we're never going to see more of this bizarre team. It's a premise that practically begs for more development: Can Kaito resist the desire to use his power for personal gain? Can Kino learn to respect other heroes' viewpoints and agendas? Can Yoko find some way to better define herself outside of a man's shadow? Can Kiriya learn to trust his teammates, rather than play things close to the vest? Can Kenzaki stop shouting that he Didn't Betray Them?

Boy, I would've liked a follow-up to this story.

Oh, very cool! Thanks for the info! I really enjoyed how much Kenzaki's actor channeled Unhinged Kuroto for a few scenes, so I'm glad to hear the writing was as on-point for the Hinged Kuroto stuff.

Well, at least one member of Team Woman became a Gorider in the end.

Anyway, as promised, I’m announcing my next big feature here, which I call “Ridewatch Playlist”, wherein I show you a video of one or more appropriate Ridewatches, translate the ‘description’ part of the toy, and then assign a song to it.

It will actually debut once you’ve finished up with Build’s movie.

That's awesome! I'm not a role-play merch guy, so it'll be super fun to get to experience those products without needing to own them. Thanks!

Kamen Sentai Gorider is a kids' show. *insert Emu getting gutted*

But boy, was this a good one! After serving as only a simple exclusive form, the Goriders return as a simple exclusive form, but in a more interesting narrative, despite how much they absolutely have no connection to dead Riders.

Now, I had only seen Gaim and Ex-Aid at this point, so I was more familiar with those characters, while I have a bit of knowledge on Blade, Another Agito wasn't anyone I knew too much about, I could still appreciate the way the characters fit into this bizarre situation and how they interact with each other. But overall, none of these characters spoiled anything about their show (well, I was pretty much spoiled with Blade, but that was before I even started Kamen Rider), so I was able to enjoy these characters in this story without any prior knowledge from their respective seasons.

As mentioned by others, it is a little strange that no Sentai characters appeared here, but oddly enough, I don't think they needed to? Since the "Sentai" Team is actually a "Rider" Team, and that never really came into my head the first-time viewing, but now I feel that this was absolutely brilliant, since it's still in line with the Ex-Aid universe, and I don't think it referenced Chou Super Hero Taisen (or at least, I don't remember them doing so), so Sentai characters might have been a little out of place.

Of course, the plot is great, having a good mystery and Emu being a pro-gamer, while being loaded to the brim with Rider action, and Kuroto being diabolical before ultimately getting destroyed by a football, what's not to love about this? I had a great time with this and would honestly love it if they did a whole parody series of the Goriders (maybe not the same people from this special, but it would be fun to see them use the suits for something).

There is a lot of stuff to love in Gorider, I was honestly surprised by how good the whole thing ended up being. The fact that the entire climax hinges on Blade lore was really clever and totally unexpected after years of team-ups that completely disregard so much of the shows' continuity (case in point, there are at least a couple of these movies where the Joker undead is teamed up with a bunch of other monsters).

I also love what complete nonsense the actual Gorider scene is and how everyone just rolls with it and then never talks about it after it's over. It is a textbook big-lipped alligator moment.

It's a real high-wire act for this series, managing to create enough specificity to the characters to make the team-up feel dynamic, while straying away from mouthfuls of exposition that'd both slow down the pace and ruin other shows. Like, the gimmick of this special is All Dead Riders, and the only Rider whose death is explained is Kiriya. We're just told that Baron, Marika, and Another Agito died, and that's it. There's nothing of anyone mourning their demise, cursing the person who did it, or rambling on about unfinished business. It's almost ludicrous that the special works as well as it does if you haven't watched those other shows.

The Gorider cards Emu uses are from the Super Duper Hero War movie, but that's all. (He doesn't even really explain why he has them or why he thinks they'll help?)

Yeah, as a non-Sentai fan, it definitely didn't bother me that this was a Rider-only affair. I'd argue it fits into the title anyway - it's mostly about a group of self-defeating lunatics, plus Kiriya and Kenzaki (for a minute), learning to work as a team of heroes - but I can see how Sentai fans might've been less thrilled.