Other than dropping Miu off a building, Gemini's mischief montage could be played in pretty much any of the last 10 episodes without seeming out of place for what Yuki has become. Maybe closing the Kyoto Hole made the Tokyo Hole louder to her, hence her increased insanity occurring alongside increased Horoscope frequency. I agree that this is not a Yuki I particularly care about as an individual, only caring due to the fact that Gentarou cares about her as a friend and I generally care about Gentarou and his friends. Sucks that this and the Aquarius arc (which I enjoyed) both talk about how great Yuki is while regularly showing the opposite of that. Well, I think there are much worse heroines out there anyway.

Good development moment for Kengo though, showing he's now attuned enough to his friends that he can identify the imposter before Tomoko can detect the Cosmic Energy imbalance.

I think it's unfair to blame Sengen for bad acting though, as it seems like the fault is mostly with Sanjo's scripts that make Yuki too ridiculous to portray convincingly.

You're going to have to explain who that purple guy is.

Hard to stay mad at Yuki when she supports the best ship.

Yeah, like, Gamou isn't actively malicious, he just has a big ambition for humanity's advancement and considers everybody else expendable in his pursuit of that, which sadly makes friendship a painful concept for him to consider. Otherwise, he's a pretty amicable guy and similar to Gentarou, a man who takes a straight and narrow road towards his dream.

Agreed on both Tomoko and Accel!

I imagine Gamou who hears the voice of space would be aware of whether or not the Dark Nebula exists, so probably.

Alain was never a wasted character though. Even Ghost haters praise his development arc, which Heroic Legend of Alain offered even more of. I think Saionji is a more appropriate comparison for Sonoda, with his anticlimactic early death and only getting focus in a post-show Hyper Battle to explore his relationship with Ryu and Igarashi. The Science Trio don't have any big fans, right? (looks at Fish)

Maybe, but until the show tells me otherwise, my headcanon is that Gamou wanted to kill Sonoda for her failures, but Emoto didn't want some manipulated and warped lady to pay for Gamou's cosmic schemes, so he just blurted out the first made-up thing he could think of -- "I can send her to the, uh... Dark Nebula?" -- and Gamou was so in love with the phrase that he completely bought it. Prove me wrong, TV show!

You know, that's actually a really apt comparison! Right down to the extra focus coming in a format that's usually used for broad comedy and everything! Guess it's kinda hypocritical of me to complain, then, because yeah, I was honestly pretty into all that late-run Saionji material.

It was less me calling Alain a waste and moreso highlighting the extra material some characters get outside the show itself, set during times it would've been nice to see them.

The writer didn't have any direct input in how the character was portrayed. This is an issue with the actress and/or director.

That's Blitzwing from Transformers Animated.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE THE MOVIE: EVERYONE! LET’S FEEL THE UNIVERSE!

originally posted on December 19th, 2021, as part of “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Legend Rider projects (and more!)”

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I love the end of this movie. It’s maybe my favorite non-Tomoko-saying-Amazon thing from Fourze.

It’s hard to say if I like this ending more than the TV series ending. TV show’s got a fantastic ending, one of Kamen Rider’s best. I love the idea of the heroes’ gratitude defeating the villain. I love how it reframes a struggle against the cosmic forces of destruction as a way of becoming better people; High School as crucible, which is how most people (especially the nerds who write/watch tokusatsu) remember it. It’s joyous, which counts for a lot.

But I will be goddamned if I don’t think of this movie’s ending – the formation of the Fusion Switch – more often than I think of the TV show’s ending. It’s so perfect. It’s Gentarou (and the planet) being saved by everything he ever did, every person he ever helped. Every tiny act of kindness, every friend Gentarou ever made, they come together to empower him. He doesn’t have to make some impassioned speech or anything. He needs help, and no one even needs an explanation: they just help him. It’s those shots of the Kamen Rider Club pressing Switches into the hands of old friends, recent rivals, teachers, students… like, the show’s main villain even pitches in to help out Gentarou. It’s a beautiful ending.

The entire movie ends up being in service to that sequence, so I can’t really find it in me to place too much weight on the film’s deficiencies.

Which, it’s got ‘em! Skydain and Groundain are paper-thin villains, robots who hate humanity for no specific reason. Inga Blink (from the hit anime/manga Gantz, apparently) is a bad-ass secret agent who a) probably could’ve just told the Kamen Rider Club what was happening instead of trying to murder them a bunch of times and then weirdly telling them that she can’t murder people; b) exists to give Ryuusei something to do, since he’s basically irrelevant to the whole Gentarou And The Power Of Friendship thing; c) like, Ryuusei doesn’t even really contribute anything to Meteor Fusion States! He just stands there!; and d) pales in comparison to Tomoko, so this potential love triangle just irritates me. Black Knight's an unstoppable weapon until he just gets randomly exploded two-thirds of the way through. Wizard’s debut is pretty stylish, but it both stops the story dead, and feels to some degree out-of-character. The amount of action is maybe too much?

Other than that, though, it’s a pretty stellar (sorry) summer movie for Fourze. It includes the entire team, for starters. Everyone contributes to the action, which isn’t a given! Miu and JK, who are usually relegated to reaction shots, actually get some pretty heavy combat sequences. (Tomoko and Yuuki get a fairly sweet one, as well.) Fittingly for a story about how Fourze’s power comes from all of Gentarou’s friends, every single member of the KRC gets to pitch in.

And, hell, so does every Switch! There’s a fight where it looks like Fourze cycles through all 40 Switches, which is nuts. I expect some form changes in a movie, but to use literally every suit and power-up? Between both of the show’s Riders? In one extended fight scene? Crazy. Completely over-the-top!

Speaking of insane heights, I love how the combat is choreographed in this movie. It’s a ton of wirework, which makes use of the entire frame. Stuff is coming in from top corners, or moving along the upper edge of the frame, which ends up making the whole movie feel extradimensional. The fights feel bigger on every axis: dudes are rocketing into the front of the shot, or gliding from one side to the other, or shooting from top to bottom. It’s a film that somehow feels like gravity doesn’t exist, even before the cast goes into space. Really exciting fight scenes for our two Riders.

Sorry, did I say two?

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Early-bird debut of (Kamen Rider) Wizard! I don’t really remember, and I’ll find out for sure in a few days, but does Wizard’s voice sound super weird here? There’s a distortion to it I don’t remember from the show, and Haruto’s voice sounds higher than I recall. It didn’t sound right, but maybe I’ve just forgotten. Either way, this wasn’t one of my favorite debuts. There’s no real chemistry with Fourze or Meteor. There’s a specific kind of self-assured charm Haruto has, and it doesn’t really come across here. The writing has him as more Dismissive and Ignorant, which… like, I get why Meteor is so pissed at him!

(Also, it will always crack me up that this movie has him refer to himself as Kamen Rider Wizard – a name he vows to go by from that point forward – and then literally no one calls him that for the first 51 episodes of his TV show. His TV show, the one where neither Kamen Rider is called a Kamen Rider within the world of the show. And they belabor the naming here. AMAZING.)

The villains in this one are totally forgettable to me (they coast by on colorful suits and Showa heritage; whatever), but it’s almost irrelevant for how much this movie pays off the journey of the TV show. It’s everyone Gentarou ever helped – even the show’s main goddamn villain – lifting him back up and giving him the strength to protect them. It’s friendship as both mission and reward. It's all sorts of people working together to achieve the impossible. It’s many things combining to make something special.

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—

A VOICE FROM THE COSMOS

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Quick hits, because I largely agree with everything I said four years ago:

– Except for the bit where I’m like Ryuusei Just Stood There; like, whole climax is about how Ryuusei found his true self via friendship! And how sometimes the hardest thing you can do is share the burden with the people who care about you! Which is exactly what Ryuusei does by taking some of Gentarou’s beating from Kyodain! It’s pretty blatant! So, yeah, in retrospect, I think Meteor does contribute to Meteor Fusion States through his nearly last stand with Gentarou.

– That said, I kind of don’t love how Meteor Fusion States just ganks Meteor’s powers and Switch? I don’t remember Ryuusei volunteering his fighting prowess and/or ability to Henshin, you know? My headcanon is that, while everyone at AGHS was powering up the Fusion Switch by thinking “Gentarou…”, every single one of them was also thinking “...is just so much better than that Ryuusei dink.” Therefore, the Fusion Switch is all about making Gentarou more powerful and prominent than Ryuusei. Maybe Ryuusei should’ve made a friend or two outside the KRC at AGHS! (I’d definitely assume that Yukina was pouring all of her animosity for Ryuusei into her Switch.)

– Hey, let’s talk about Meteor Fusion States as a suit! I kind of never do that? I honestly love it, for sure more than Cosmic States. I think the purple is deep and dark enough to feel both regal and stellar; I think the gold of the shoulderpads works way better with the purple and white of Fourze than it did with the blue of Meteor; and the white helmet and boots pop off of the rest of the color scheme. It’s a snazzy suit!

– Speaking of clothes, I thought it was a pretty neat touch that Groundain is a car, so he uses roller skates, and Skydain is a jet, so she dresses like a flight attendant. Clever! Except for how insane it is for a mission commander to be roller skating around a training facility!

– Once again, I got choked up at everyone from AGHS pitching in when Gentarou needed it. It’s one of my favorite things.

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Is this my favorite Kamen Rider movie, non-team-up category? Hard to say, but it's definitely a contender for the title, at the very least. I think that the movie still holds up after repeat viewings (unlike the very PS3-era CGI, but it's a Kamen Rider movie from 2012, what do you expect?).

I think my favorite part is the big training montage during the first half; it really feels like the actors are having as much fun goofing around as their characters are.

A few observations from this rewatch:

- Haruto's voice is definitely off in the Wizard cameo. Comes off as someone in the sound mixing department going way overboard with filters.

- The Sagittarius, Gemini, and Pisces Horoscopes get noticeably more screentime in the big fight than most of the others. This is probably because the filmmakers knew that they would be new to the viewers.

- I forget where I read this, but the reason Skydain keeps falling over is because she's not meant to work on the ground.

- Ground- and Skydain's combined form is easily the silliest thing in this movie and I love how ridiculous it is.

So this movie was my first experience with Fourze proper. I went to it because of Super Hero Taisen Z having Groundyne and Skydyne in supporting roles, and I wanted to see where they originally came from. My opinion… Hot take, but the Taisen did them better. Also, I thought the whole montage of getting the entire school to take and press an Astroswitch went on for a little too long, especially since it was halfway through the final battle and broke that up a little too much for my liking.

And like the W movie, I can do this.

Special Guest Alert

And quite a few at that. I’ll skip over Skydyne being DekaYellow since I’ve covered her back in the W thread, and go with the new characters.

First off, the Foundation X lady who shows up to Gamou’s abortive delivery (I don’t remember if she even has any lines, but if I were writing the script, the scene would end with her saying “you’re fired” to Gamou) is Ryo Narushima, aka Keiko Hayase, better known as Remi Hoshikawa/FiveYellow from Chikyu Sentai Fiveman and Flower Ninja Sakura of the Flowery Kunoichi Gang from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger.

The new teacher who gets a whole scene with Ohsugi that exists to foreshadow Fusion States is played by the latter’s actor’s comedy partner. I’m not sure what his character’s name is, so I can’t share the actor’s name.

Inga Blink’s Miki Haru was previously the lead of Cutie Honey: The Live, while Ken Nishida playing her late dad has had regular roles in everything Toku except Kamen Rider, namely Return of Ultraman, Space Sheriff Gavan and Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger.

And finally, Tsutomu Isobe voicing XVII was previously the voice of Madou Knight Wolzard in Magiranger and after Fourze the voice of Hashiriyan Underboss Grantu Risk in Boonboomger.

After rewatching the Net Movies, it was especially fun to watch the kids go to Sakamoto Space Camp (general astronaut stuff, plus gunplay and stunt work) because the instructors were all the JAE suit actors! Very cool way to get them into the movie as face actors.

Man, how did Inga Blink not show up in Girls Remix?!

I wish I rewatched this one more often than I do, but I think it ends up buried in the shadow of Mega Max whenever I think "movies with Fourze in them". Fourze's summer movie is great because it carries a lot of the same spirit as the excellent Double summer movie, but I think the difference here is that Fourze, from the start, was already something made through the lens of Sakamoto. There's probably a very, very easy argument to be made that Fourze nails the idea of the Rider summer movie as a culmination of the series more than most. It's got like every Sakamoto-ism you can think of, and even though those things are all over his work, it's seriously like *everything* here, just in that one hour, and all that joyous excess and high-octane energy probably wouldn't fit quite as naturally if this were like, Gaim, or Den-O, or what have you.

Even his penchant for getting literally anyone who's ever worked with him to make a guest appearance contributes to that huge crescendo of the Switch flipping montage, which is *such* an all-timer Rider moment. Die gave it its due credit on the simple dramatic level, but I think it should also be appreciated that there's a Peter Pan meta quality to it, where any kids in those actual theaters in actual 2012 who were carrying around an Astro Switch to fidget with are also implicitly being invited to help out Gentarou, because if you care about these characters, then you're Gentarou's friend too. Could not be anything more perfect for the Rider show that consciously set out to bring people joy above all else.