whaaaaaaaaat in the hell is happening in this climax deka movie

honestly not sure if i missed something huge between "ryotaro is waving goodbye to his friends after turning in his denpass" and "now they are all cops with desks"

really don't think i did, but, like

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat the hell

Climax Deka is... a movie! It's definitely a movie. I can say that about it

doubtful

about eighty percent sure it's a fever dream conjured up from my memories about den-o and my general anxiety about the state of policing in america

pretty sure i just watched ryuta perform a "comedic" profiling

Yeah, some of the stuff in this has not aged well. "They don't need searches or warrants."

no, it's okay, ryotaro is just apprehending two strangers in a park for acting suspiciously, a.k.a. they would prefer not to be apprehended by the police for being strangers

this thing's going great, you guys

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O & KIVA IN "CLIMAX DEKA": *28 minutes of story*

KAMEN RIDER DIE:
https://media.giphy.com/media/D5q4yyJ8v2bvO/giphy.gif

If you look closely, at the latter half of the movie you can see Hajime/Chalice.

Also, he apparently deputized Ryuta's back-up dancers?

kobayashi: hey so what's kiva gonna be about, i'm writing this crossover movie

inoue: oh, it's about this kid who never met his dad, but he feels as though doing the same thing brings him closer

kobayashi: cool, that's all i needed

inoue: but there's also--

kobayashi: did you miss where i said "cool, that's all i needed"

*six months later*

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/qft.png

So basically the reversal of what usually happens then :lol

i don't want to skip ahead too much, but my scathing review of this one is basically "kobayashi does an inoue film for den-o"

yeah Climax Deka sets the trend of Den-O "crossover" movies to be Den-O movies with the cast of another show in cameo roles.

I also have the feeling that this movie was in production in some form since almost straight after I'm Reborn considering the Den-o forms used in this movie.

Huh I didn’t know climax deka had a plot, I thought it was just “we’re police and we’re hunting negataro, better fight him in the factory set for bit with the new hero”

Well I guess turn about is fair play? I can only imagine Kobayashi and Inoue getting into fist fights over their stories tbh.

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O & KAMEN RIDER KIVA: CLIMAX DEKA

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/dekaa.png

Okay, here's what I liked about this movie:

-Hana was the MVP of this entire ridiculous enterprise. From the intro sequence, where she used a rocket launcher on fleeing monsters, to the finale where she foretold one of Kenny Omega's greatest matches by single-handedly demolishing a group of henchpeople, Hana was fantastic. Seeing that little girl act as the muscle in a group of imagination monsters from the end of time was always a highlight from the Den-O series, and they absolutely found a new level to that gag in this film. Her in that cute but severe uniform! Adorable.

-The production designer clearly had a blast, judging from the insane background details and jokes. There's a point where Urataros is in the bullpen, and he's reading a magazine called Men's Ura with a picture on the cover of him possessing Ryotaro. That gag alone forgives a huge number of this movie's sins, and there're plenty more like it. For a movie that steadfastly refused to take its cop homage seriously, the DenLiner Police were perfectly built to take the piss.

-Negataros says "All of you will merely be the opening performance” as he's about to Henshin, which is a perfect inversion "Right from the start, I'm at a climax!” That is one of the smartest lines in this movie.

-Deneb apologizing to a monster (that he's about to detonate!) for deceiving it in the course of an undercover operation was... DENEB! So great, unfailingly. He doesn't get a ton to do, but that joke and the little epilogue thing where he embarrasses Yuuto are pretty great.

-It was very considerate of them to put Kiva's name in the title.

That's about it? Everything else was... not to my tastes.

If you had told me that Kobayashi was contractually obligated to deliver this film to Toei, and her hope was that she could make it so off-putting and borderline grotesque that she'd never be forced to make another Den-O project again, I would absolutely believe you. Everything about this film feels ill-advised and coerced. I think I liked the Den-O crew less at the end of this pseudo victory lap?

It's seriously hard to put into words why this movie rubbed me the wrong way. It's like... it's like it was easier to list the few things I actually enjoyed, and then gesture at the rest of the movie and go Not That. I didn't like how it used Ryotaro. I didn't like how it used Kiva's cast and themes. I didn't like how it took a poignant and heartfelt Den-O finale and then chucked it in the bin to do a big dumb cop parody. I didn't like how even the tenuous rules of Den-O seemed to be suspended for the sake of breezy comedy. I didn't like the villains, any of them, all of them. I didn't like Suzuki, the character this entire story was about. I just top-to-bottom did not enjoy the story being told.

Suzuki would've been a halfway interesting side character, but he probably should've gotten top billing. It's his story. He's the lead character, by far. He's the only one with anything approaching an arc. If I had never watched any other tokusatsu, and you showed me this movie and asked me to guess which two characters had TV shows, I would've said definitely Suzuki and probably Ryotaro. Suzuki is the one on whose shoulders this entire story rests.

It's just, he's lame? His story is just Wataru's in miniature. He wants to make the memory of his father proud, just like Wataru; and he's so anxious to do it that he's failing at it, just like Wataru. But where Kiva expands that idea out into generational obligation and the negative consequences of looking for approval, this movie's just like He Needs One Win. It doesn't really interrogate the idea so much as take it as a given, treating the nearly-fatal blunders of a man trying to achieve at the level of his dead father as, like, youthful exuberance. It's taking a nuanced and complicated narrative and flattening it into an obvious problem with a simple solution.

And with the entire film given over to that thin version of Kiva, it leaves little to no space for a story about Ryotaro. There's some fan-servicey things (it's nice to see Airi give that lunch to Ryuta, for sure), but there's no reason for more Den-O beyond We Heard You Want More Den-O. The story of Ryotaro and his friends doesn't grow or evolve. Ryotaro isn't invested in this story in any extra way. He wants to help people and prevent Imagins from taking over the world (or whatever the hell Negataros is up to), but if you condensed this thing down to a third the runtime, it'd've been a funny but slight episode in the early 20s of the original episodic run, or maybe the late teens. Nothing special, narratively. Nothing that really broadens Ryotaro's character or really digs into the show's themes. A cute adventure, nothing more.

But it is not a third the runtime, it's over an hour, and there's a shocking amount of nothing to the plot. All of the setup for the cop stuff happens offscreen, as does everything related to Negataros. It's no backstory and no character. Negataros's scheme is vague to the point of self-parody (he recruits people by saying Hey Do You Want To Join An Evil Organization), but he's missing the very specific flavor Kai gave the same schtick. Which, Negataros's shtick is one hundred percent Kai's schtick. The next villain the Den-O crew faces after defeating Kai is just palette-swapped Momo doing Kai's dialogue! It's uninspired.

The whole movie is sort of uninspired. It's just one joke, Den-O But Cops, stretched to the length of a film. I dug it as a series of Wizard Net-Movies, but over an hour of it? Yikes. No thanks! It runs out of steam incredibly fast, which is probably why this sixty-five minute movie has a twenty-minute fight scene at the end. There's just nothing it's trying to say, and then there're no other ways to say it?

This movie... ugh. Not to my tastes.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/kiva/dekab.png

This made me realize, shinnouske would make an actual good father figure to Wateru since they’re both trying to live up to their fathers’ memory. Also Suzuki sounds like a less interesting shinnouske, since he lacks any sort of depth it sounds like.

Suzuki's a less-interesting Shinnosuke because he could credibly say in an interview that his greatest flaw is that he tries too hard. Shinnosuke at least had some fun quirks to humanize him, and some charismatic acting to put his goals into context. Suzuki is just Wataru's daddy issues given form and a necktie.

Also, yes, team Shinnosuke up with any other Rider, every other Rider, more Shinnosuke, thanks.

Shinnouske teams up with every rider with a bad dad and becomes a positive paternal figure for them.

Kiriko trying to make lunches for thirty-eight different self-sacrificing pretty boys, while Shinnosuke and 60% of the Heisei Riders all work on Tridoron in the driveway for an afternoon.

So the good news? The Den-O movies are all uphill from here. This one has absolutely no lasting impact at all: the next film is back in the regular Denliner and nobody ever mentions being police again.

I've always found this film to be really weird in generally bad ways. It doesn't really fit with anything we know about Den-O, a lot of running time is devoted to incorporating a new character that never comes back, and Wataru is clearly written by someone who only saw the first episode of his show. There are some nice moments, but the whole thing is kind of a mess.

I'll give props to the Kintaros vs. Bad Guy fight, that was really fun. The bit at the end where they're all posing and goofing around while the criminals they're trying to stop are just sitting there in confusion was really good, too.

And for trivia, this is not the last time you'll be seeing Suzuki's actor. He'll be back in Decade.

It was! It's another thing I just plain enjoyed, and I forgot to call it out. Specifically, I like the tactical way Negataros used the Form Changes? He keeps switching his Form to counteract what his opponent is doing. Axe Form kicking your ass? Go to Rod Form, get out of range. They switch to Rod Form? Switch to Gun Form. It's a way of using the personality mix of the Den-Liner Imagins against them, where one strategic mind is able to overcome their charming tomfoolery.

Wait, did this movie really come out before the standalone Kiva one?

That aside, I feel pretty much the same, excited as I was at the time for it, and still somewhat nostalgic if not embarrassed of liking the music in this film.

I have zero to contribute here except, yeah, not to my tastes either.

Oh, that was the other thing I was going to mention: really weird opening titles with the mash-up of the classic Den-O opening, Kiva’s opening, and footage from the film itself.

This one was out after Episode 11 of Kiva, and I've got King of the Castle in the Demon World (or KotCitDW, as most fans abbreviate it) coming up after Episode 27, according to its original release date on the wiki.

The music... this was maybe the only Imagin-sung version of Climax Jump that I actually liked? I think it's because it sounds the most like the original version. There's not as much dissonance to it; it mostly sounds like they're trying to sing it pleasantly? So that's a positive!

...and now I'm remembering how much I dislike the opening credits to this movie, the way it was just a mix of Den-O's opening, clips from the film, and maybe three clips from Kiva's opening. Sloppy! Uninspired!

EDIT: Switchblade and I were on a wavelength right there!

Well, in an inversion of what I did for Den-O, I’ll explain what the human guest stars are known for.

The guy playing Suzuki went on to play a regular role in Decade. I won’t say who, since I’m not sure it qualifies as a spoiler (most people don’t think things in the first episode count as spoilers). And as mentioned, his dad is Chalice (which as one person pointed out, combined with Otoya being in the scene, kills the emotional impact the scene might’ve had).

And there’s the fact that everything from Negataros’ transformation onwards is contrived as hell.

And let’s not get into the film just having Negataros having a time train and Castle Doran having the ability to travel through time purely so we can have a battle in the sands of time.

I’ll point out that, as someone who watched the Den-O movies before the show, and not in chronological order, this was my first (and for a time, only) experience with Takeru Sato. Compared to the various leads other Den-O movies went through (they seemed to be drawing names out of a hat), he didn’t do much for me here.

KotCitDW! Hah! I must admit, I'm partly waiting for you to reach this one; I have mixed feelings, but I think about this film a lot when I think of Kiva.

As an actual loser who can look up and see a copy of Double-Action Coffee form on her shelves, I maintain that this is the best musical release to come out of Den-o, but Double-Action Climax Form from this film is a strong contender, even though... you know, ACAB. I jest! I promise I can differentiate between fictional monster cops and real life monster cops. :p

Despite enjoying the Den-o show, I think this was the movie where I really began to like the Imajin in that they began to function more like the monsters at the end of the movie Labyrinth, just popping up and breaking the rules of the end of the story.

This post is a huge Den-o digression, I'm so sorry.

I don't remember much about Climax Deka other than not being thrilled that the people who made it unsurprisingly didn't seem to actually care about the Kiva stuff, I think while I was glad to see a teamup like that in Kamen Rider for once, it just came across a pale imitation of the Sentai previous-show teamups! Imagine how interesting a teamup of Kabuto and Den-O could have been, or a full-length Agito and Ryuki lol

The actual main Kiva movie though I loved and especially the soundtrack, even if it does mean the Lion King comes up when you type in Circle of Life! :lolol

I'm surprised you put this in this thread, honestly! But I mean, I guess if it is going to be here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFWtam2KkAo

Climax Deka sure ain't great! There's basically no getting around how uninspired it feels, and giving the usual glance at the film's page on Wikipedia, I learned three things that kinda explain a lot. One, it was originally conceived as a V-Cinema rather than something theatrical. Two, The whole cop thing is a direct result of Kobayashi struggling to come up with a plot after the end of the show and just casually pitching a random arbitrary concept that Shirakura genuinely approved of. And three, the director, Osamu Kaneda, is on record that the film uses literally ALL the footage they filmed, which is why no director's cut exists like so many Rider films of the time.

So basically, it was never meant to be big in scale, the story wasn't anything anyone was super passionate about, and they struggled to even get the finished product to be the length they were after, all of which does not bode well for Climax Deka's chances of being an exciting, interesting, and well-paced narrative.

I don't actually hate it, for the record! But it is easily the Den-O movie I'm least interested in rewatching. I've seen it twice and neither time did it leave much of an impression. It has its fun moments and an arguably excessive amount of insert themes, and... I mean, I guess Chalice is in it? That's pretty neat, I guess.

Climax Deka sure ain't great! Really hope you weren't counting on me to come in here and give some massive counterargument on that! :p

Honestly, I think my latest review is more likely to get a counter argument from you. http://www.tokunation.com/showthread...283#post801283

Yeah, just another Den-O fan walking in here to say Not A Good Movie! Best I can say for it is that I find it so forgettable I can't recall anything that makes me outright dislike it, so I'm just like I Don't Care. About the only thing I remember is that Kiva and Climax Form teamed up? I guess? Who cares, really.

Will say, uh. When we get to it, I definitely don't remember having many bad feelings about Kiva's actual movie. That one's alright, and I like the main bad guy

You changed your mind?

Having seen the Decade/Double movie a few years ago, I sort of think I know which character you're talking about, but I appreciate you being coy about it in case I'm wrong. You can't see it, but I'm giving you a big Thumbs Up right now.

Yeah, there are a whole bunch of That's Not How Den-O Works stuff in the movie, and that's outside of how much we don't know about Negataros's deal. (He's like all the worst parts of Gaoh and Kai's villainous plots?) I didn't really feel like cataloging them all, because the bigger problems to me were in theme and pacing and plotting and just basic storytelling. Going after the lack of internal consistency to Den-O's superhero mechanics or whatever... that would've a) taken me all night, and b) been like criticizing someone who set their house on fire for also forgetting to turn off a light in the hallway. With everything this movie got wrong on Day 1, it didn't feel productive to complain about the later problems.

Ooof! Hell of an introduction to Ryotaro. I'm sorry! This was not in any way a showcase for his acting talents or that character's charm. He is less useful to the plot than Yuuto and Suzuki, and less fun to watch than Owner and Hana. It ain't his day!

This was the movie where I could feel the baton pass from Ryotaro to the Imagins, narratively. He doesn't feel in charge in this one, really. He's just one more part of the team. Even when Den-O has to defeat a villain in the end, it's not Liner Form that gets used; it's Climax Form, the All-Imagin Form. The amount of screentime the Imagins get put them neck and neck with Ryotaro, and their roles in the final fight put them way ahead of him.

It feels like there's a dual awareness in the making of this film: Ryotaro's story is over (and/or the actor is sick of doing these), but the Imagins can definitely keep going. It's a subtle shift, but you can see it in how minimized Ryotaro is in this story. This is a toe in the water of Den-O Without Ryotaro.

I accidentally posted a Den-O movie in a Kiva thread, so I don't think it's you who needs to apologize.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for! I was all jazzed up to see the first Heisei crossover film, and instead I got a non-canon guest appearance and a silent team-up! Not at all what I was hoping to see, on a lot of levels.

Always a treat to see the Tiniest Rider!

If you could've found something to praise in this misbegotten embarrassment, I'm not sure if I'd've been impressed or furious. Glad we didn't have to find out!

(And thanks for the notes on this thing's production! They explain a lot!)

While I don't think I'm ever going to forget the premise of this film, I can't imagine the plot or character bits are going to lodge in my sieve of a brain. The absolute best parts of this film would qualify as B- episodes of Den-O, and those aren't worth dwelling on.

The perils of going into stuff blind: I did not know that this was as relevant to Kiva's story as the Fourze summer movie was to Wizard's story! Sort of assumed that they'd give Kiva more to do! Definitely regret watching it instead of another episode of Kiva! The next one is called "Unfinished: Daddy Fight", and I assure you I am more excited to watch a Kiva episode called DADDY FIGHT than any other option that exists on this big blue marble that's spinning through space! Much like the construction and execution of Climax Deka, I made a series of cascading errors!

This is is the last Den-O thing I plan on watching until Kiva's done, though, and I'll probably end up crossposting this movie post to the Den-O thread for, like, completion's sake.

It's a deceptive title. Like how the movie with Kamen Rider 3 was promoted as Super Hero War GP when it was basically just Kamen Rider War 2 featuring Ninninjer.

I actually think Climax Deka is a great movie (apparently the only one judging from this thread), so you can expect to hear my thoughts about that when I rewatch it tomorrow!

Does this mean you're still considering my suggestion of watching Chou Den-O & Decade between Decade Episode 15 and 16? Or is that unlikely due to your vague "big plans" for that show?

Looking forward to the alternate view!

Mmmmaybe. There's no reason why it couldn't fit in, with or without conforming to what the Decade thread'll hopefully look like. (Which we'll be talking about around the mid-point of Kiva, probably after the next movie.) I don't see why not? I will try to remember!

It’s been a long time since I saw that one, but as memory serves it’s as much of a Decade movie as this was a Kiva one.

That said, again without spoiling much; the preceding Decade episodes do lead into it... kinda, sort of. I mean it doesn't matter that much but y'know

Just stick to air date order for everything and it'll be fiiiiiine, probably. If something weird happens becauses of that, well then you can state that as a flaw on the production's part : P

Absolutely agree. It's odd because I didn't realise until I re-watched Den-o late last year how much of the Ryotaro era I had forgotten. Like I remembered the beginning, and then after that it was all something-something-Hana-something-something-IMAJIN.

I guess in many ways this was the proving ground for a lot of later decisions with the Toei toku shows, and I don't necessarily think that those were bad decisions, but I do have mixed feelings.

Not, of course, that I can complain, because I keep turning up for these new Den-o movies even when they have very little substance—arguably even less substance than this one.

That works! As long as I can keep my streak of Always Getting Things Right All The Time going indefinitely, as a tribute to Nago, I'm happy.

I've mentioned this before, but my first exposure to anything from Den-O was Momo's appearance in that Ex-Aid/Sentai tournament film. My second exposure to anything Den-O was seeing Cho Den-O get crucified in a park during an OOO movie. The idea that the actual Den-O series was about Ryotaro And Some Monsters, instead of Some Monsters With Ryotaro... it's still a thing I feel like I haven't fully processed. In a lot of ways, Momo is still the main character of the Den-O franchise to me, and I'm guessing that experience is neither unique in the fanbase, nor an unintentional consequence by Toei.

This is basically it, yeah. Not to discuss Den-O on the Kiva thread or anything but a big part of my love for Den-O is not just the series itself (which is fantastic in its own right!), but its continued presence as a franchise, where the imagin more or less get to be very fun engaging characters going on a myriad of adventures -- some character-driven, some crossovers, and some just kinda stupid and fun! In many ways they've become, like... mascots of the Kamen Rider brand, and mascots that are difficult for me not to enjoy.

It's a bit hard to explain, because even saying something like "they're always there which is comforting" isn't exactly accurate to my Rider experience (aside from Den-OOO they weren't really present for my initial journey of W through Build, and then the part of the franchise I've come to love the most ended up being before Den-O even existed), but... I dunno. Just a bunch of fun guys I'm always excited to see!

Wow. I just realized that I don't think there are any modern Rider characters that I was introduced to before seeing their original series. Showa, yeah, but I actually did go through the whole Heisei era in order and never had to deal with weird movie versions of characters giving me anchoring bias.