I'll bring up the other rumored changes when they become relevant, but I'm genuinely curious on how OOO would of turned out in a world where the various rewrites the series underwent didn't happen. And more importantly if both versions of OOO were available to experience which one people would prefer

Yeah, tough to say! I'm inclined to say this is the best version, because it's so beloved, but who really knows?

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 26 - “ANKH, THE RING, AND FULLY-LOADED”

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Man, I’m really with Date after this episode! I don’t know who in here I’m supposed to be rooting for besides him: The boxer with CTE that’s okay dying? Or is it Eiji, who is potentially destroying his body by using Combos, and needlessly exacerbates his injuries by fighting when a doctor expressly tells him not to? Which guy that's slowly killing themself is the one I'm supposed to be happy for at the end? Both of them? One of them? No one here is making good decisions!

The Eiji thing is… I don’t know, standard heroic Kamen Rider stuff that also feels short-sighted and frustrating. There’s nothing in here saying that Birth couldn’t take care of this threat himself – Birth is literally built to finish off Yummies – but we still get a heavily-injured Eiji risking his life while, y’know, heavily injured. He’s at a way greater risk than Date would’ve been, and it all feels too foolhardy, too precarious. Like, him showing up to protect Ankh? Good! Him continuing to hang around for the fight after Ankh is safe and Team Birth arrives? Bad! Dumb! Dangerous!

But again, that’s this genre. Heroes fight beyond the promise of safety in order keep the rest of us safe. It just, a) completely didn’t seem necessary, and b) is looped in with the boxer storyline to create something sort of repellant?

I can kind of squint and see what the boxer storyline is talking about. A life lived in safety that denies your desires is more dangerous to your well-being than a risky life lived in pursuit of your desires. Basically, don’t be afraid to chase your dreams. Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s that life is uncertain? (i have a very hard time seeing the positive message in the boxer story!) But, like, this guy has legitimate brain damage. His life is already going to be horrible. Is this show seriously suggesting that him dying in the ring (possibly every single match!) is going to be a better life for him than, uh, not risking his life to pursue his dream of sporting glory? This is horrible! This is a horrible message. Okamura acts at the end like he just needs to do some rehab on his hand and he’ll be good as new, but that was never the real problem. He cannot take any more hits to the head; you cannot rehab CTE. It is not heroic for this guy to risk his life for a sport! Beyond the fact that literally no humane governing body for boxing would allow it (so, probably only 80% of them), think of what it would mean for any of his opponents to fight against a guy this close to death. You think they’re agreeing to kill this guy during a boxing competition, just because he wants a meaningful death?! This is horrible.

So, yeah, sort of tainted the episode for me! No one learns anything, all self-destructive behavior is either rewarded or ignored, and we don’t even find out where the Yummy actually came from. I really disliked this episode!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/ooo/ooo26b.png

Okay, so on the one hand it's not the best moral, but on the other...

yeah, no, it's still pretty bad.

In which Birth gets his final form… kind of not the best idea they could’ve come up with, but I like the fact it’s called “Birth Day form”, for how on brand it is for Kougami.

It's horrible! It's the opposite of nearly every other story about desire they've done, where the point is to keep perspective and not let your desire lead you to ruin!

I actually liked it! I like how cludged together it looks.

Said hand looks like Ankh's left hand. Despite TaJaDor being OOO's strongest Combo (individually, GataKiriBa surpassed even his final forms) and his mid-season upgrade for now, it's apparently the most unsuitable combo for OOO against the bird Yummy, which makes me confused on what's the better tool for OOO to fight him off, like other Combos may not be able to fly and that their physical attacks can be weaker.

If this'd be a red herring, there'd be something that happens for real later. Not only Eiji working with Ankh, Date is also working with an even more depraved character, Maki. Eiji and Goto already notice about how depraved Maki is, and Maki's already working with Kazari, but to Date, Maki seems to be a quirky companion for now. Goto's problem with Ankh continues after being more co-operative with Eiji, reminding him that Ankh is a Greeed.

I think Knight and Ryuki are pretty much equals in combat, especially when they go Survive. Which one wins a fight usually comes down to who wants it the most, so their final battle shows how Ren's resolve had weakened since he realized he's not a killer and Shinji found his resolve when he realized it's the only way to save Yui, before losing it again after realizing the same thing that Ren did.

Ankh is closest to the Cous Coussier gang, so he gives them special treatment.

Kanashimi Break. :(

Hmm, I guess I have the unpopular opinion of agreeing with Okamura then. While I get Date's point about Eiji, who's a little too willing to sacrifice himself for others but not for himself, I don't think it's fair for anybody to try and deny Okamura the chance to have his glorious death in battle. Boxing is his life, so if he can't have that, then what's he supposed to do? It would be like if someone told Date he can't be a doctor anymore, since one of his motivations for taking care of his life is so he can continue to take care of other people's lives. If one of the main morals is about desire in moderation, then I believe giving up your desire is going too far and not heroic at all.

It's not much of a Final Form though, since it's literally just Birth wearing all of his armaments. He looks more like a Megazord.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the strategy on this one? Being able to fly seems like a crucial skill in defeating the Parrot Yummy, as does being able to negate its flame attacks through Tajador's own firepower. It doesn't seem like a handicap? Nor does Shauta's water attack seem like the natural antidote to a flying monster who sort of barely uses fire?

Sure, but the whole point this show usually focuses on is that desire left unchecked -- with no regard for anything but fulfilling that desire -- is a genuine human problem. It's great that Okamura loves boxing, but loving it to death is (pun intended) his desire getting out of hand. Okamura dying eternal on the Boxing Road misses, like, what he might mean to other people, the fact that he could train the next generation, any of his hobbies outside of boxing, the idea that a life lived is worth more than a glorious death... these are all easy things to bring up! It's weird for the show to be like Well Guess I'll Die when the alternative is Okamura, just, like, retiring and living the rest of his life surrounded by friends and the accomplishments of a renowned career doing what he loved?

Officially my favorite Megazord!

Behold the only time Date uses the Cutter Wing as Birth (probably due to never getting around to reading the manual).

And I think a storyline like this would be better with someone who wasn’t a boxer legitimately . Like an artist regaining the use of his dominant hand and taking up art. As the idea of people having passions that are a fundamental part of them and what it mean for them to deny other people this passion in order for themselves to experience it.

It's hard to speak to how the boxer storyline itself played out when I'm operating off of like 6 year old memories (evidently it wouldn't hurt to go rewatch OOO again!), but I recall on my last rewatch really liking the way this story brought stuff about Eiji's character to the forefront that ends up being hugely relevant to the rest of the series.

Like, I don't remember off the top of my head if there was any specific moral lesson this story was or was not teaching properly or improperly, so I can't argue that point right now, but I definitely recall Hina and Date's concern over Eiji's behavior, and I definitely recall that neither of those characters just forgets about that or sweeps it under the rug from here. For Date in particular, I think his unique perspective on Eiji is one of the most neat things about how he completes the show's dynamic, even.

One thing I forgot to mention is that this episode and the next couple were delayed by a week due to the 2011 Earthquake. I?m not sure what effect it had on the overall series progression, but it pays off with episode 28 for reasons I?ll discuss when we get there.

Yeah, I think the whole This Guy Already Has Brain Damage part of it kind of irrevocably taints any suggestion that Okamura should be allowed to pursue his dream at any cost. He's been retired for about twelve minutes, and he's like I WILL DO THIS UNTIL IT KILLS ME. Dude, maybe take a couple night classes! Try streaming! I don't know! You're like, 30 years old! You can have other dreams!

Yeah, the Eiji stuff isn't nearly as big of a deal to me as far as muddled morals or whatever, but I'd've maybe liked it a little better if the episode had foregrounded Date and Gotou's concern over Eiji beyond a vague comedic frustration. The content is there -- Hina smartly asks if being OOO is maybe killing Eiji, leading to both Gotou and Date realizing that neither of them ever asked anyone at Kougami about it -- but I could've used a little pushback from Birth over the Yummy fight at the end.

Thanks!

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 27 - “1000, A MOVIE, AND A MOOK”

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A Kamen Rider movie?! Based on Takeshi Hongo’s origin? And released as multiple TV episodes? There’s no way that’ll work.

I think I prefer this type of anniversary celebration, of 1000 episodes -slash- 40 years, for how it takes a different look at the history of Kamen Rider’s success – namely, for how it’s also a history of Shocker et al’s failure. Where another series might point to the legacy of heroic perseverance that’s delivered the world from ruin across multiple generations, a Shocker mook might instead see it as a constant series of humiliating (and escalating) defeats. Hongo’s creation is the original sin of Kamen Rider villainy, the spark that burned down every single evil organization’s dream of global conquest.

Deciding to talk about how one person or group’s constant success could be another person’s constant failure, that’s fun. Doing it all through a bonkers parody of Showa excess, where the main plotline is that Gotou can’t act? That’s amazing. You cannot get me on an OOO story’s side faster than canonically pointing out that Gotou is incredibly boring to watch, and he’s sort of a drag on the fun. (I honest to god can’t tell the difference between Normal Gotou and Bad Actor Gotou, so when the cast started reacting to him like he was a dull obstacle to art, I was like Oh Man They Got My Letter.) There’s a fun running gag to him getting endlessly demoted in the production, where it not only mirrors the last 26 episodes for him, but it also mirrors Shocker’s declining relevance. Much like Gotou, Shocker’s a joke, and this episode is the punchline.

The Shocker Beast! Zero threat, despite the insane Tiger Squid Yummy design. I like that he’s never treated as anything other than a clown, because that’s Shocker. That’s 40 years of being Rider Kicked into cartoonish incompetence. But, like, he keeps showing up. He keeps trying to murder Kamen Riders, even when they’re just Megumi from Ryuki and a tiny friend, who kick his ass for fun. That dedication to doing the work, no matter the outcome… it’s such a fun rebuttal to Maki’s cutting remarks about failure negating intention.

Whole episode’s just a very fun way to talk about how failure is really just a new opportunity to succeed, even if it’s over a 40-year timeline. Even if it’s just trying to find a way to not be the worst actor on a set that includes Chiyoko hamming it up, Ankh being too in his element as a theatrical tyrant, and Eiji not needing to do more than be in his underwear. (How Kougami didn’t get cast as Hongo, I’ll never know.) I like these retrospectives more when they can illuminate something poignant about the history of the franchise, and Let’s Hear It For The Mooks is a pretty great theme.

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Honestly, the highlight here is Chiyoko trying to help Goutou learn to act so she can live her dreams through him.

Also, the ex-Shocker’s grunt’s name being “In Sendo”, which in western naming order would be “Sendo In”, a play on “Sentoin” (literally “Combatman”). It’s basically the equivalent to a US production having a bad guy minion named “Manfred Hench”.

It's maybe the best use of Chiyoko so far, and something that sort of makes me wish she had more to do in normal episodes.

Yeah, this happens anywhere in KR, for the one goody two shoes/paragon role like most main Riders. I'm also one of those who think heroism shouldn't be about sacrifice or suffering, the primary thing is about helping others, and it's ok to find ways that don't involve said 2 to help. The others who try to stop them (e.g. Hina, Date) seem to be presented as the lesser heroic folks who are negatively influencing the paragon to make them less self-sacrificing. But dunno if the audience, particularly the KR purist types, wouldn't appreciate these types of characters learning to be less self-destructive, that they still accuse them or the KR series of making them "turn their back" on the people who need their help from monsters, despite that how they can't save anyone if they're dead. I rather hate that generally people depict any kind of inaction negatively and unheroic when it can be another way to help like if one ensures they're at their best or if they're thinking of strategies before acting, inaction doesn't always mean doesn't care about others smh.

I don't think that this is anything heroic though, doesn't seem that any desires in OOO are presented as something heroic (Date is heroic for reasons not related to his main desire). Dunno, if this kind of message is rather like, for example, something in Kobayashi's previous work Ryuki, where it's not about how long you live that, determines a life's worth, but about how satisfied you are in living it even if it's short, which is how Kitaoka lets go of his desire to be immortal. Living his life in a way that one wouldn't want, and can't be retrained or changed (may be inevitable for seniors, but Okamura's still far from that age), may lead one into depression for instance.

Can there be any cases when a token evil teammate/ally who'd spend prolonged time with the good guy cast is legitimately not attached at all to them and that their hostility stays throughout their truce, than they really only work together for mutual benefit and not for any form of attachments to each other?

At least, I agree with what Die said, that Okamura might be able to stay in the boxing world, by being a trainer for the next generation for instance (don't think that finding hobbies outside boxing would work though, as Okamura already said he has no direction on where he'd be outside of it). For your example, I guess I think if Date wants to take care of other people's lives, there are other jobs that are about protecting lives I guess, it's not only limited to being a doctor. You do seem to be the few one who'd celebrate deaths, like if it's glorious or such (though not for self-destructive tendencies for main Riders that, I guess, this one, most of the fanbase will celebrate), for this, do you think that one should let a person commit suicide due to being unable to find solutions for their suffering (as far as they know, before others give them a clue) for example?

Maybe!

KAMEN RIDER OOO EPISODE 28 - “1000, KAMEN RIDER, AND A BIRTHDAY”

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HBV story on a TV budget!

It’s insane, this whole thing. Nebulously canonical, despite the presence of Ankh’s subplot. (I love that the entire Medal story amounts to Ankh wondering who has his Core Medals, and Kougami being like Yeah Me Too. That’s it! That’s the new information: That there is no new information!) Everything in here might as well be packed in with a copy of TV-Kun, for how it exists in the larger cultural context of Kamen Rider, rather than the specific world of Kamen Rider OOO.

I’m not mad about it, to be clear. The thousandth episode – and 40th anniversary – kind of deserves something more than just an OOO story with special guests. It’s arguably more appropriate for the OOO story to take a couple weeks off, and just let the vague OOO vibe (and cast) mingle with the ridiculous history of the franchise to create something, if not reverent, than at least celebratory.

Like, the whole episode is a crazy goof, those HBV vibes letting everyone act like a more deranged version of themself while also leaning into the stupidest consequences of any action. It definitely loses its thread around the midway point, forgoing any dramatic tension or emotional connection in favor of Showa satire and relentless buffoonery. There’s maybe a story in here about Mook’s desire, but it doesn’t ever really rise above a loose framework for a bunch of reused suits and a light note about Shocker’s importance to the brand.

(Which, for an episode that is loudly about Shocker, and how only Shocker should beat Kamen Riders, that’s sort of the whole motivation for Mook, he seems to be pretty cool with Worms from Kabuto and Masquerade guys from W taking shots at OOO? I mean, I can sort of write it off as Shocker still beating OOO because Mook is in charge of them, just like every Heisei Shocker story has the Joker Undead as part of the crew, but it needlessly muddies the one actual story this lark has in it. Should’ve stuck to Combatmen!)

I had a good time with this one. It’s Kamen Rider’s birthday, and it’s cool to just shrug off the normal demands of narrative and relax with some hijinks. It’s a party, not a story, and that’s sort of okay in this instance.

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...then the nonsensical crossover story with a bunch of Showa throwbacks is even more perfect.

Still a very fun pair of episodes! Probably wouldn't have worked as well with any other show's cast of characters. I dream of one day also having my own dark chamber to sit in and watch every Kamen Rider show all at once like Kougami.

Remember how I mentioned the show’s episodes after 26 got delayed by a week? Well that meant, by lucky coincidence, that this milestone episode with every Rider Mook (or more specifically, Shocker grunts, Destron grunts, Dogma Fighters, Crisis Empire’s Chaps, Makamou Ninjas, Salis Worms, Leo Imagin and Masquerade Dopants) aired exactly 40 years to the day the original episode of Kamen Rider (1971) aired. Sentai tried doing the same thing deliberately 4 years later, but ironically, the episode got delayed by a week, due to having an episode in February pre-emptied by live coverage of a murder.

And the reason we get so many seemingly random cameos (the fangirl who intrudes on the filming and the fat and skinny female grunts who make a Susan Boyle joke) is that their names (or in the case of the latter two, their comedy act’s name) contain the kanji for “thousand”.

And I mentioned that OOO’s action figure gimmick was the circle on his back, well here we see Birth’s. Namely, his armaments combine into a scorpion when not in use. Which honestly, I quite a clever way to avoid losing them.

It might have taken the franchise another decade, but I think there's a contender for Best In-Season Episode Where The Characters Make A "Kamen Rider" Movie.

Neat! Thanks!

So this'd be a place where the term mook (fodder villains) is actually used in-universe. Guess this is the substitute for the recap episodes for other KR series.

If Goto is wooden then I wonder what'd be the difference between being wooden as in they can't act or being wooden as in it's just their character, like perhaps Maki. They somehow can manage to get the main antagonist of the series to take part normally (even for his initial rejection) in a work about the main cast. Just that Maki's more blunt about Goto and Hina's failure.

Megumi was a good fighter so.... Probably more suitable if Sendo's Yummy are just literal Shocker mooks where, they'd be killed off easily and Sendo is about quantity over quality that he can constantly produce more so they can show up. But it's likely more unexpected if Sendo's Yummy looks like usual MOTW rather than the disposable mooks.

I mean, for me, it's if the performance is compelling. Maki isn't emotive, but there's a lot the actor is doing that's fun to watch, and he's clearly interacting with the energy of other people in the scene. Gotou's actor for sure has a different mandate than Maki's actor, in regards to what the producers want them to be doing as performers, but the Gotou stuff to me is always very perfunctory: saying his line, hitting his mark, making eye contact with his scene partners, getting across which of two emotions his character is feeling in a scene... it's just never a compelling take on what his character is supposed to be going through. It's very Tell instead of Show, on an individual performance level. He just doesn't seem to be as good at his job as the rest of the cast?

Hello all,

I have recently gotten into Kamen Rider, and I've been lurking these threads for the past 6 months or so as I watch various seasons, and I just have to say, Die, thank you for hosting such interesting discussions about so many Kamen Rider shows! It's insanely difficult to find episode-by-episode discussions for earlier seasons, so your threads (along with everyone else posting) have been a great companion piece as I've been getting more and more into the bugmen. It's probably part of why I've been able to watch so much in such a short time (6 seasons in 6 months, Faiz is my favorite so far btw), and it is 100% why I've just made an account to share in finally keeping up with the discussion as I watch OOO for the first time. Keep up the good work!

Anyway, I LOVED this last 2 parter (27 and 28). It was so wild and crazy, I could barely believe what I was seeing at times. W is my 2nd favorite season (though may be 3rd if OOO continues), and part of why is how unpredictable each episode's tone, setting, and characters could be. This felt like a return to that idea!

Now for some random OOO thoughts/comparisons as a somewhat newbie: I think Eiji/Ankh is like the Shinii/Ren dynamic, but much more interesting. So much of Ryuki is Shinji pleading with Ren not to do a thing, Ren does it anyway, and Shinji shrugs his shoulders (and vice versa). It just got very tiresome and repetitive. Here it's a lot more push and pull, especially with Eiji leveraging his ability as OOO, which is much more fun to watch in my opinion! It feels like they really could break apart at any moment, while Ren and Shinji lacked spice in my opinion (they're supposed to be fighting for their lives! Why does everyone just kinda hang out in Ryuki!) Also, another side note, the counting medals screen at the beginning of each episode is SO helpful. I have no idea why they didn't do something similar with the Build bottles. It was so hard to keep track, everything moves so fast in Build!

Okay, rant over, thanks for reading and I will be certain to join the discussion again soon!

Aww, you're incredibly sweet for saying all that! And you have excellent taste in great Kamen Riders who are also sort of terrible friends! Or at least terrible to be friends with!

I can definitely see what you're saying about Eiji/Ankh evoking that Shinji/Renenrgy (there's a real sweet and sour thing going on in each pairing) because that's sort of the stuff that Kobayashi likes to talk about, but I mostly enjoyed the dynamic on Ryuki -- even -slash- especially the ways it might feel repetitive -- because so much of Ryuki was about the hard work of understanding another person. Staying in each other's orbit like that speaks to how Shinji is innately trying to understand Ren's intensity, while Ren can't stop wondering why Shinji can be so generous to everyone he meets. I think both those guys fundamentally don't get the other for large chunks of the series, but they're fascinated by the ways each other doesn't make sense.

I genuinely don't know why they all work at a cafe, though, other than the crushing gravity of that setting in this franchise. Not even Gotou could escape it, and he's a former police officer who became part of a private Medal-powered corporate army! Dude still needed to do time in the Cafe Mines to become a real boy!!!

Ankh really depends on other people like both Eiji and Kougami, so he has to do their biddings, even if they won't always give him what he wanted, like Eiji prioritizing people's lives and killing the Yummy created from his Core, and also Kougami being the one ruling over the Medal Systems so he's the best lead.

Maybe it fits OOO because well, because 1000 has 3 zeroes at the end, fitting OOO's name. And ironically, about what you said of OOO story to take a couple weeks off, during this episode's airing, there were a massive earthquake on March 11, 2011 that spawned a tsunami and led to a Level 7 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, thus all the programming was cancelled that week, including KR, in favor of news coverage, delaying the OOO story a week off.

Goto and Hina coincidentally both use rock to intervene in the fight. Goto being literally hard-headed (as Ankh mocks him) and using it to headbutt the Yummy, and the show actually making use of Hina's super strength in fight. Only for one moment here in comedy setting and Eiji's line of the super strength being useful rather than making full use of said super strength for the rest of the series... Dunno if this stuff would be canon to the actual series, just that I can't see Maki being willing to work normally with the good guy cast.

That definitely worked out in the production team's favor!

So...Date definitely lost his medical license, right? Bro could be making incredible amounts of money as a doctor and instead chooses to don silly costumes and risk his life fighting against ancient monsters :lol

I assume that Date's tendency toward Adventure (he was formerly a Doctors Without Borders guy from his flashback, not, like, House) led to him deciding to forgo extra shifts at a local hospital in favor of becoming a Gashapon-themed mercenary. I don't think Date's decision-making matrix values safety and risk in the same way yours does!

LET’S LOOK! ONLY YOUR 48 RIDERS - EPISODES 1-12

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Net Movies! Is there any more precious resource in all of Heisei? Reiwa’s had its fun with social media as a resource for weird-ass crap – I genuinely enjoy the various Gavv Dance videos – and the TTFC stuff has been agreeably bizarre and non-canonical of late – the Hades Sisters sketches were a highlight for Gotchard’s production – but there’s something special about the firehose of Net Movie material that this era of Kamen Rider turned out, you know? It’s absolutely bonkers, and clearly a creative team having fun with the format. If Episodes 27 and 28 of OOO were an HBV story on a TV budget, these things are an HBV story on a fan film budget. (Kivat’s a non-moving puppet on a very visible stick!!!) These are super fun, and I can’t believe I passed them up the first time I watched OOO.

As much as I love them, however, you are out of your mind if you think I’m watching FORTY-F***ING-EIGHT OF THEM in a row. We’ll be partsing this content out over four nights, in order to both maximize my enjoyment of the material and minimize my exhaustion with the material. Let’s Look at what the first dozen specials taught us!

-How to defeat your girlfriend’s disapproving father with earnestness and a minor amount of surprise physical combat
-How to defeat a picky eater through forcefulness and a lack of clarity regarding germs
-How to defuse tension with a friend by wearing the same underwear at the same time
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by holding a grudge against the production team for 18 goddamn years, and using a public platform to air every minor grievance you can think of as quickly as you can think of them
-How to, uh, use drumsticks instead of chopsticks??? (This one feels like the last sketch the team thought up, and they just wanted to be done.)
-How to see beyond surface impressions and understand that big people do not like being seen as just “big people”, even if literally the only thing J ever does in team-up films is grow big
-How to change your luck through accessorizing with specific colors, with the only visible consequence being that you may become embroiled in Japanese language puns
-How to cheat at cards, which is more Villainous than Heroic, but what do I know, I’m not Kivat
-How to defeat your girlfriend’s disapproving father with flattery and a minor amount of seduction
-How to defeat a picky eater through forced starvation and a lack of table manners, resulting in the picky eater’s questioning of their life goals
-How to defuse tension with a friend by inducing existential despair through the application of Kamen Rider Mitski Subreddit
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by holding a grudge against the production team for 28 goddamn years, and using a public platform to air every minor grievance you can think of as quickly as you can think of them

All this, with only two blatant horoscope errors: An erroneous match suggestion that Punchhopper’s best friend would be anyone other than Kickhopper, and an erroneous match suggestion that Punchopper’s rival would be anyone other Kickhopper. Good set of Net Movies!

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I think I’ll wait until you’re at 48 to comment on these.

On the plus side, it gives me a few days to close the gap in my own rewatch of OOO (though not by much, since I’ll only be closing the gap by three episodes, due to my watch schedule)

Okay!

LET’S LOOK! ONLY YOUR 48 RIDERS - EPISODES 13-24

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I would normally say that these attempts at divination and soothsaying are complete horseshit, but then this series of Net Movies is like You Are Faiz, and now I feel like they’re the most relevant selection of tokusatsu materials of all time. Let’s see what else they can teach us!

-How to enjoy modern technology by preordering the new iPhone 16eee today
-How to cook with love in your heart, or at least fake it enough to impress a narcissist
-How to ruin your own treats
-How to cheat at cards by transmutating your opponents into inanimate objects
-How to defeat your girlfriend’s disapproving father with clinical depression and a minor amount of horrifying threats
-How to defeat a picky eater through deafening music and a lack of awareness as to what drumming has to do with eating food
-How to defuse tension with a friend by realizing that there are even more ineffective and toxic friendships out there besides yours
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by enjoying the hidden gems of the franchise
-How to find the right foods for the season
-How to massively overeat
-How to cheat at cards by changing your fate

It’s not… it isn’t what I’d call helpful, you know? It’s all pretty terrible, not withstanding ZX’s impassioned plea for respect. (He’d get it, eventually!) Also, why in the world is the stock image of Todoroki the one with the drumsticks?!

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LET’S LOOK! ONLY YOUR 48 RIDERS - EPISODES 25-36

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It just keeps going! There’s a real lethargy that sneaks in as you hit the 4th or 5th iteration of a sketch during these Net Movies – the realization that very little is actually changing from version to version, because they needed to film, like, a dozen of the same setups in a single day. It’s not bad, exactly, but it really makes you think that they probably could’ve done 24 of these things and it would’ve been fine. The extra ones just feel like extra ones. (The Shocker Family sketches feel the most exhausted, from a creative standpoint, but the Ankh’s Lucky Color ones do not fare substantially better as they progress.) There can be too much of a good thing, and Four Dozen is definitely into the outer limits of any fan’s enjoyment of Kamen Rider absurdity. But we are not done yet! Let’s Look at what new lessons we got to learn!

-How to defeat your girlfriend’s disapproving father with a forceful embrace of your positive qualities and a minor amount of sprinting away from other people
-How to defeat a picky eater through knife skills and a lack of clarity as to how fine something should be chopped
-How to defuse tension with a friend by admitting it’d be better if one of you wasn’t dead
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by understanding the difference between fan terms and official terms
-How to get crushed by a rock
-How to allow for personal growth in others, while still deeply resenting it
-How to maybe have some tofu instead of constantly eating only ice cream
-How to cheat at cards by endlessly replaying the same moment, which sort of doesn’t seem like it’s going to give you different cards, but maybe you can just use the opportunity to fold instead of betting
-How to be defeated by your girlfriend’s disapproving father with an invitation to dance and a minor amount of assuming you won’t be killed
-How to defeat a picky eater through yelling at food and a lack of clarity as to which foods are actually villainous
-How to defuse tension with a friend by bonding over Scissors’ magnificence
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by refusing to let the franchise grow beyond the attributes that first engaged you, regardless of how the newer attributes might engage a different generation of fans

We’ll get to my favorite setup next time, for the conclusion, but I gotta say that the Shocker Family ones just never feel like they’ve got even a single move on them, let alone a twist to act as a punchline. Crushed by a big rock! That’s it! That’s what you get! No wonder Kamen Rider has been trying to obliterate this secret society for 40 years.

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Yeah, I've always gotten this sense with the smaller-scale ones like Decade or W's. I cannot imagine how repetitive it must be to go through 48 of these things.

I mean, I don't want to make it sound like it's some sort of punishment; these are goofy Kamen Rider shorts, not dental surgery. But, yeah, with only a half-dozen basic premises -- of which around half of each one is the same footage -- you can lose your love for ridiculous tie-in promotions way before you reach the end.

LET’S LOOK! ONLY YOUR 48 RIDERS - EPISODES 37-48+EX

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Jesus Christ, we’re all done! Certainly more of a trial than a reward, but still a worthwhile exploration of OOO’s contribution to the Phase 2 Net Movie canon. After crunching the numbers with my own panel of Kamen Rider mascots – PoppinGummy, Negataros, Captain Ghost, and Sabaki – here’s how I’d rank the various premises of these Net Movies, from Best to I’d Rather Watch That Final Tsurugi Episode Of Kabuto A Billion Times Than Watch Another One Of These:

State of the Union
Bell Peppers
Partner Fight
Marriage Meeting
Lucky Food
Poker Battle
Lucky Color (Ice Cream)
Shocker Family

Honestly, it’s just the first two that reliably delivered throughout. (I could’ve watched a hundred more of the State of the Union sketches. Exactly my sense of humor.) The middle four had a few hits and misses, but were mostly just okay. The final two took FOREVER to get to the new footage, and rarely ever felt like there was even half of a joke inside. If you’re not an insane person like me who feels the need to watch everything, just watch the State of the Union and Bell Pepper ones. For the final time, though, Let’s Look at what we learned!

-How to make bondage safe and fun for the whole family
-How to smuggle some light nutrition into meals
-How to ruin a joke sketch by treating the stick as the unfinished form of ice cream, rather than individual ingredients that are less appetizing in isolation, but I guess the grips in charge of setup wanted to be done for the day and a bunch of sticks are a way faster set of props
-How to cheat at cards by having an additional card beyond the maximum
-How to defeat your girlfriend’s disapproving father with hidden massage skills and a minor amount of lethal strikes
-How to defeat a picky eater through aggrieved insults and a lack of clarity as to what constitutes a Kamen Rider
-How to defuse tension with a friend by recognizing the boundaries of your friendship, especially the physical ones
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by not dwelling so much on the more inflammatory or embarrassing corners of the franchise, and allowing them to merely be quaint diversions from the mean
-How to, uh… man, what? The fan sprays water and then the kid gets doused from above? What the hell?
-How to recover from a terrible sketch by calling back one of the most amazing jokes from Kabuto
-How to berate the staff
-How to cheat at cards by HEY WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE
-How to be a good member of the Kamen Rider fan community by not getting hung up on the details of a show, like when a series says there’s going to be 48 short films and then suddenly there’s a random 49th one about G3

Glad I finally watched these, even if they will do me no good on tomorrow’s rewatch of Den-OOO. Why was Kivat in these, again?

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My main takeaways from this series of shorts.

Hina’s father being General Shadow makes too much sense.

The only way to beat General Shadow, Garren and Chalice at cards is to cheat.

Ankh really should just go out and buy his own Ice pops.

Ichigou wasn’t given his meds either for his speech, or for the next three years.

Disagree! They're payment for services rendered, as negotiated with Eiji! Eiji's the villain here!