I appreciate the casting trivia! And the fun skit!

KAMEN RIDER JUUGA VS KAMEN RIDER ORTECA - EPISODE 1

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/juuga1a.png

Is it seriously “Orteca”?

That feels like an insane question to ask after months of writing about Revice, and in one of the final posts for this thread, but: Seriously, it’s not “Olteca”? All of my subs have said “Olteca”, and I swear that’s what they’ve been calling that guy for episodes and episodes. Except, clear as day on the title screen for this episode, it’s “Kamen Rider Orteca”.

I honestly don’t know what to do with that. I don’t want to say it’s all I could focus on in this episode, but it pretty much was. I’m just gonna call him “Olteca”, to keep my brain from hurting quite so much. Let’s move on!

I haven’t been able to care a lot about the emotional journey of George Karizaki, and thankfully this miniseries doesn’t seem to, either. It’s very much George in his initial mode of Kamen Rider Super Fan – like, an enthusiastic fan of Kamen Riders; also, a fan of Super-1 – rather than anything too tortured or layered. He’s back to trying to make his Daddy proud via mad science, and he’s having a great time with it. It’s not… it’s not a story with any real deep insights into George’s character, so much as it’s a quick run through of his motivations and immediate goals. He wants to make Kamen Riders look cool, and a recently escaped Olteca is standing in his way.

The Olteca side of things is as surface-level as the Juuga side: Olteca’s been sprung from prison, Neo Deadmans, Demons Driver, whatever. It’s Olteca going through the motions, and it’s a shame that after all this time, no one could quite come up with a deeper look into his psychology than Smirking Sociopath. He’s a familiar face to fight Juuga, and that’s about it.

Speaking of familiar faces: Rinna and Otta from Drive!!!

It’s saying something about how flimsy and inessential this story felt that the best, most memorable part is Rinna from Drive talking about her dissolved relationship with the eternally embarrassing Otta. In a wacky episode where nothing feels especially tethered to reality (I love Olteca, an escaped prisoner on his way to commit crimes, just walking past George), Rinna cartoonishly destroying pictures of Otta is both an episode highlight and lowlight. It’s goofy fun, but it has nothing at all to do with George or Olteca, and it eats up time that’s maybe better spent on addressing the title characters.

Or not! I liked the Drive stuff a lot, and I sort of sat through the Revice stuff. Even the shock reveal of Hana/Aguilera being one of the Neo Deadmans is just an Uh Okay moment, rather than anything too mysterious or exciting. It’s a special where I don’t really care about the main characters, and the special doesn’t really seem to care about them either, so let’s just all try and have a pleasant time until the credits roll. I guess I did? Mostly?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/juuga1b.png

Hilariously, I ended up getting the Juuga Driver in the mail the day the sub of this dropped, and I joked that I’d joined the Humans as Kamen Riders project, resulting in several jokes about UKIP and POTUS 45.

But to explain one moment of weirdness, the reason the girl coworker gets a shot of her with Wizard and the Crocodile stamp is because her actress is the Kamen Rider Girl who was associated with Wizard back when the group had that gimmick (the other two current members were associated with OOO and Gaim).

And in terms of other casting trivia, Mr. Takeda is played by the suit actor for Ryugen and Chaser, while George’s male assistant was Zyuohger’s sixth ranger, ZyuohTheWorld.

Skit and general thoughts on the special coming next time.

Wait.

Wait wait wait wait.

Kamen Rider Girls is still a thing?

I didn't quite buy that as an idea back in 201X when it started. How is it still going 10-ish years later?

They haven't recorded much as of late but they seem to still do rider-related events and promos and stuff. For example, I think they still do Kenichi Suzumura and Hiroshi Kamiya's Kamen Radiranger radio show and take turns appearing as co-hosts.

I'm gonna wait for part 2 of this to go into detail about it, but I say this much. This special is great! It finally gives these two characters some depth and likeability I never expected to see! Especially for Olteca, which, hilariously catapults him to my most liked character now xD

I did not care for him during the show, but what they do with him here is just great!

So, yeah, soooooon~

So the Geats x Revice movie is discussed here.

Hana's (adult) actress Yuriko Shiratori retired cuz of a burnout, they're pushing her too hard to make her a big thing like Takeru Sato, but she couldn't take it. And now, Kohana's actress Tamaki Matsumoto also has retired as well. Man, a Den-O talk happens here, so the reason for me to refer to Mei Hanakawa's character as Aguilera.

The Revice portion feels similar to Battle Familia where the focus is saving someone to prove a point, like the pregnant woman in the former, but Koshiro in this one - so Koshiro is more of the MOTW victim, but not a stranger for the cast. Koshiro's demon has carefree and perverse traits, but dunno what's the thematic in his personality relating to Koshiro. And of course, the Ryuki part is only mostly about them being some extra muscles to fight for both Geats and Revice cast... with even less moments of them interacting unlike Revice cast. Ren's hairstyle here is closer to the original than the RT Ryuki one though (should be like this if he'd cosplay Geiz). Perhaps more time can be used for those rather than the Baridero and Izangi fight. Otherwise, Keiwa claims that the Ryuki Riders are way too strong, but it felt like shafted (as per female Rider) when Jeanne feels weaker against Knight compared to others to have her being down (to the point that Na-Go can't rescue her in time to escape elimination) due to Guard Vent alone.

Felt that Ren and Asakura's wish are similar to Geats cast's, but in general form. Ren is "the power to destroy a̶l̶l̶ ̶K̶a̶m̶e̶n̶ ̶R̶i̶d̶e̶r̶s̶ everything" (general version of Michinaga's Kamen Rider exclusive). While Asakura's wish is "fight i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶D̶G̶P̶ until the day I die" (general version of Ace's DGP-related first wish). It also feels smart to pair Ryuga with both Keiwa and Daiji - Keiwa's actor is named Ryuga Sato, and Daiji has dark twisted version of his personality in Kagerou like Shinji's Dark Shinji. Ren turns out to only joined the war to retrieve Shinji back, but I wonder what'd Ren do if he somehow won and get said wish. Geats' lesson is that no wish are pointless though... even if you feel that at first glance - cuz as said above Ace's first wish sounds like Asakura's. And so I now understand why people think Powered Builder Buckle is on higher level like Feverslot, because Seeker is really a huge threat with it in this movie, can building off anything to control the battlefield or preventing the rip from closing, though I'd just deem Powered Builder as another Large Raise Buckle that feels OP in debut like Ninja and Monster, albeit it may be due to seeker's compartibility with that?

The given detail was that Takahashi stated Colus's purpose was to clarify Girori's standing position and the original purpose of the DGP. Here the DR is really about killing off other competitors... I thought regarding original series it's just that the Riders have more freedom to attack each other, but it's still about performing the best on the games. Kaima/Seeker got talked out by Ace to have a desire separate from his corrupt father Eiichi's obligations, but Ikki didn't take part of this as well of Kaima being about an abusive family who puts pressures on him. With the time of the movie's release, Girori is made less hidden that he said "for now" of being their allies, but is still being a concierge. Here Girori is shown to be a fighter to win a katana duel with Colus, so he's not only carried by Glare's power, though that's not enough to beat Geats, Tycoon, and Na-Go ganging up on him. George here is like the commentator among Tsumuri, but he should be like the audience members (I do feel early George vibes from both Ziin and Kekera) who aren't touched upon yet in Geats at this time iirc. No explanation yet on how George became Kamen Rider fan, because this is the helpful self from middle of the series.

Your complaint here happens in main series such as W's ending of Philip returning. It was said that Vice (and likely Vail) are still dormant inside of Ikki, though it was never stated how to bring him back, albeit this one just feels easier. N̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶a̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶e̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶a̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶m̶e̶m̶o̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶e̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶.̶ With Hiromi saying that Ikki's power as Revi would be halved without Vice, it feels like a missed opportunity for a reasonable excuse to downgrade a final form to base form (Geats MagnumBoost) of the current Rider honestly. About Ikki's fighting, it's shown that Ikki can fight on equal footing with Ace in both of their base forms, of which Ace has shown to punch above his weight class multiple times, though in his own series. Are Revice's Riders just stronger than Geats' in general by this, or it's explained by Ikki fighting Azuma (not Buffa, but Daimon) who also has lived for thousands of years before? Ikki also can keep up with Ace using Command Twin Form, using a Propeller and a Large Raise Buckle, unlike Michinaga did in ep. 15.

Felt like a deliberate contrast that, in Revice, Sakura had a family member who is a streamer, but in Geats, Neon is the streamer herself. Both are also tertiary Riders who are also female leads (yeah, it's not Tsumuri for Geats), but Sakura is already a capable fighter who became a Rider relatively later, while Neon is a newcomer who become a Rider right off first episode (earliest female Rider debut) and thus has to learn and grow, and Sakura has an ordinary family, but a harmonic one, with Neon having a wealthy family, but dysfunctional one. Their chase scene is a play of a cop chasing a cat burglar, and though it's something comedic, it's still not a good thing for Neon to cause some mess, albeit not unfixable one (or likely also knowing that Sakura would fix those), to slow Sakura down. Same goes for Sakura's abuse on Genta early on, or for Ryuki, what the cast did on ep. 30 for gags of stealing to sell or causing a mess respectively. Medias can play off comedies as if they didn't do anything wrong as it's just for laughs, though these aren't a recurring trait that happens constantly (other than Sakura's), unlike for example, an anime that push the narrative of someone being good and pure but is a tsundere who frequently abuses certain someone with them being viewed on the right consistently.

Gotcha!

Interesting! I can't say I had the same experience, but I'm glad he worked for you here.

I think it's just that he's a baby? It feels like it's just for comedy, not really a serious exploration of a baby's mental state.

Again, I'll get to it on episode 2 ^^

There is the majority of his character work.

KAMEN RIDER JUUGA VS KAMEN RIDER ORTECA - EPISODE 2

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/juuga2a.png

I guess I just don’t see a real rivalry between Juuga and Orteca, coming out of Revice?

This episode tries very hard to create one, though. God, does it ever. Between the Epic Duel at the climax of the episode, and the Frenemy song that soundtracks it, and the whole We’re Destined To Do This Forever capper, there’s an overabundance of work to make Juuga/Orteca either the next Superman/Luthor, or maybe just Daiji/Kagerou. The end of this episode really only works if you see George and Orteca as reflections of each other, fated to fight against the person who knows them best.

I just… no? No, that all seems like an invention of this two-parter, not something that is the realization of longform storytelling. Like, Orteca vs Over Demons? Sure! Best scene in this episode is Tamaki confronting Orteca at a department store, and sort of laughing at Orteca’s inability to grow or change in any interesting way. Them two having a blow-off to Orteca’s lazy villainy and Tamaki’s eventual heroism? That would be a hilarious and affecting idea for a TTFC. This is… I mean, it’s funny, but it never really got me to feel anything.

It is cute and funny, though, in a minor way. The various Drive references; the reveal that Otta’s secret girlfriend is just a perpetually needy Hiromi; Hana creating the Neo Deadmans just to humiliate Orteca; the series-long recurring gag of Daddy creating utterly preventable problems for everyone but him, and our heroes having to put a positive spin on it anyway. It’s not hysterical, but it’s reasonably fun.

Beyond that, I guess this was a failure of a TTFC special? Neither George nor Orteca became any deeper or more interesting as a result of this story, and the world of Revice didn’t gain anything from it, either. It’s a victory lap for two characters who never won anything from me, and the moments of joy were all gained by supporting cast members and Legend supporting cast members. It’s fun, but more or less in spite of the two title characters, not really because of them.

There’s nothing left for it but the catchphrase:

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/revice/juuga2b.png