I feel like re-ray might be one of my favorite Ending themes to a Summer Movie.

I mean, Mitsuru Matsuoka's delivered so many great themes to Rider content, they're always a banger, and he already knocked it out of the park with W's...but there's just something about how atmospheric, catchy, and engrossing Drive's is.

The line I was talking about earlier was this:

https://i.imgur.com/Qz3jwSI.png

That moment shortly after Belt-san is destroyed, where Shinnosuke ends up at the original Drive Pit with the collection of classic cars it turns out are all a gift to him, from one car lover to another. That simple "ii shumi shiteru ze, Belt-san" is such a cool guy way of expressing approval, but the delivery really gets across the complicated mix of emotions Shinnosuke is feeling, simultaneously trying to process a ton of grief while at the same time being touched by this reminder that he really did have the best partner in the world. I don't know if it's something other people think back to a lot, but this is without a doubt one of my favorite moments for Shinnosuke.

Naturally, I'm quite fond of the movie around this scene, too. I really need to rewatch it more often than I do. I guess I wouldn't quite call it one of my absolute favorites, either, but it's got some fantastic thriller-style drama and a lot of really strong high concepts. You seem disappointed with some of the payoffs, which is understandable, but I feel like you're way underestimating the value in the movie going for the obvious lie about Krim. I'm not sure another Rider summer movie was ever promoted in such a hype way? I mean, you've got promos with Krim calmly telling you Kamen Rider Drive is not justice and trailers prominently featuring Shinnosuke taking an axe to his own partner/belt (way before Gou would smash a belt with that thing, too!), and this sick as heck looking Dark Drive guy complete with his own car and I mean IT WAS AWESOME following the buildup to this film.

Surprise Future really lived up to that "Surprise" in the title, because everything about it just seemed completely nuts, and watching that all somehow come together into a normal Drive story, it ended up being the exact opposite of a letdown for me. The movie knows that you know this all has to go back to status quo somehow, and that was part of the fun before it even came out. Again, I wouldn't exactly argue against it not ~quite~ rising to that absolute top tier status, but I think it's definitely underselling the movie to say it's just okay.

X - "Ghost's fighting style from his summer movie cameo would've made his show good."
O - "Ex-Aid's font for the "HIT!" effects in his summer movie cameo would've made his show awful."

Wow, didn't expect to read an SPD reference in this thread. Drive must be great!

They were very cool! Big fan of Kiriko getting to fight some Roidmudes, rather than the standard Kiriko, Get The Civilians To Safety thing. She's too awesome to to be shunted to the background!

I have definitely forgotten most of Drive (fun fact: I was wondering why it was taking Gold Drive so long to appear in this movie, before figuring out that he was the show's villain), but it doesn't affect my take on the movie's story. I just figured Eiji had done something to the Driver when he was wrestling with Shinnosuke in the beginning, so whatever setup was done on the show doesn't move the needle for me.

Oh, sure, he's a solid villain. He's got a real sneering swagger to him. He even does a mocking slow clap when he reveals that he's tricked Shinnosuke, which is deliciously camp. But there's not much substance to his vendetta or anything, which is less than I'd hope for, considering the specific buttons he's pushing.

I'm not sure He Should Be Brought In For Questioning is such a big betrayal? Shinnosuke went on the run, first because Eiji goaded him into it, then because... I guess he just forgot he could try and explain things? The police escalated their attempts to capture Drive because Drive kept running from the police. I don't... I don't think the police should give him the benefit of the doubt, considering the alluded-to casualties from the opening explosion?

Like, yeah, sure, Drive's being framed, but Shinnosuke spends the whole movie avoiding any opportunity to explain himself to his superiors. There's not having people believe you, and then there's not explaining yourself. Shinnosuke is doing the second one!

It's another great track!

Look, my definitive Ryuki moment is one non-Rider character straightening cutlery; I am not going to push back on your Drive choice.

Well, like a lot of things, all of that buildup pre-dates my engagement with the Kamen Rider franchise, so I can't really speak to how it shaped my expectations for the movie. I'm sure it would've helped! But I wasn't here for all that, so I've just got this movie to judge.

Any scene that focuses on the buddy cop friendship between Shinnosuke and Krim is great and this is no exception. There's a lot that shows how close they've become, like how Krim catches Shinnosuke trying to open the letter early at the start and when he does open it, still a day early, Krim's message calls him out for it, like he already knew Shinnosuke would be too impatient to wait for the date to arrive (maybe a side effect of people combining Christmas and his birthday, which annoys him). Krim gifting Shinnosuke his collection of all those very cool cars, which are probably very expensive as well, that really drives the emotional arc of the movie, showing how much Shinnosuke meant to Krim and vice versa, despite how often they argue and all the secrets between them. It makes the payoff when Krim comes back to life even better, since their friendship is in a higher gear.

So you understood that there was some external reason for Krim turning evil and that it wasn't of his own conscience, but you still had a problem buying in to that part of the movie?

When you explain it like that, I guess I can see why you might side with the executives, due to them being denied an explanation for Shinnosuke's evasion. There's an episode of Power Rangers Beast Morphers that has the same kind of problem, but way worse, as it ends with the ridiculously extreme moral that "doubt is bad and you should totally trust your angry boyfriend even if it looks like he's cheating on you". However, in Shinnosuke's defense here, yeah, he was put in a difficult position by "Eiji" and considering the stakes of Paradox plotting to merge with his time-displaced self, the police's questioning might have been detrimental to Shinnosuke's ability to do his job which was pretty urgent. If he wasn't racing against time, I'm sure he would've given them the courtesy of an explanation after finding out the truth about Eiji, so it was mostly problematic circumstances that prevented him from doing that.

Krim's plot in the first half: Wow, I can't believe we've misjudged Krim for so long, and that he's secretly an evil monster who wants to destroy us! Looks like we'll have to kill him for the good of humanity, since there's all this evidence that paints him in a negative light!

Shinnosuke's plot in the second half: How DARE you think that Shinnosuke is secretly an evil monster who wants to destroy us! If you have any love for humanity, you'll ignore any evidence that paints him in a negative light!

Putting these two problems side-by-side maybe clarifies the main issue I have with them: it's a weird double-standard that also negates the impact of one of the main morals. Krim's very quickly executed thanks to a ton of circumstantial evidence (kid from future swears that Krim needs to be executed immediately, and isolates Shinnosuke from anyone who'd talk him out of it), while Shinnosuke actually/accidentally blew up a power plant, but refuses to explain himself.

We're in a story about having faith in your friends - Shinnosuke's main arc in this movie is trying to redeem himself from failing Krim - but the movie conflates that with the police having very reasonable requests re: Explaining Why You Blew Up A Power Plant And Then Ran Away.

It's... it's not really the same thing, these two plots, and it's weird to make them part of the same narrative thread. If the movie wanted to do a thing where some scheming official wanted to use Drive's accident to bring down Shinnosuke, sure, that'd be along the same lines. But Shinnosuke is being asked to ignore unreliable testimony, while the police are asked to end an investigation into wrongdoing, and those are so different in my mind that it makes a bunch of the movie not work great.

DRIVE SAGA: KAMEN RIDER CHASER

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/chaser1.png

Self-improvement is laudable; self-actualization is necessary.

That’s the premise of this Chase Becomes A Real Boy story, and it’s a good one. There’s a messiness to it (it’s a very messy film!), but that’s probably in keeping with how difficult it can be to disentangle who you are with how others see you.

A lot of what Chase goes through in this movie is what every human being goes through: seeing the ways you don’t fit in, don’t measure up, and working to change yourself into something that does fit, does measure up. It’s not some edict from outside, it’s a lack of contentment and a sense of personal dissatisfaction. It’s a pressure Chase places on himself.

So when Angel shows up with a quick fix (delivered via an incredibly suggestive Chase Becomes A Real Man sequence), it’s natural for Chase to view this as solving his essential problem. He’s fixed, he’s happy, everything is great forever.

But self-improvement… it’s not a thing that ever really ends, which means it’s not a fix that can be bestowed. Angel can provide contentment, but it’s a contentment that relies on Chase’s feelings of outside judgment. It’s not really solving Chase’s problem, because Chase still looks to others for validation, still measures himself up against his imagined failings. Self-improvement isn’t the same thing as finding happiness, even if it’s still something to strive for.

Heart’s there to remind us of that. It isn’t wrong to try and become a better person, so long as you’re doing it because it makes you happy to do it. Heart wants his friends to become more themselves, not become someone else. (Well, except for the ones he reprograms into executioners…?) Twisting yourself into someone other people like better might provide a small burst of happiness - it’s nice to be liked! - but it doesn’t change who you are inside. Fixing the things you don’t like about yourself can bring about happiness, but real contentment only comes from accepting yourself as a valid person who deserves to be happy.

It’s nice to see this movie play around with these sorts of themes. Angel’s initial pitch is all quick-fix life-coaching and haphazard pharmacology: Follow these steps, take this medicine, and everything’s great. But it’s not, because there isn’t some one-size-fits-all path to happiness. Chase and Heart and Brain and Medic and Angel all need different things to be at peace. Flattening personal growth and contentment into An Easy Path is bullshit, and it reduces people’s needs into obstacles along a road they shouldn’t be on. Getting better is hard work, and it starts with understanding what Getting Better means to you as an individual. Being able to recognize things that are broken, and things that you think are broken, is the first step to really being happy.

So, yeah, a movie that ends with Chase being okay with himself (as demonstrated in an incredibly bloody monologue on Feelings Beach) and realizing he doesn’t need to be anything more than a Chase who’s okay with himself? Absolutely.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/chaser2.png

And then there’s also this ridiculous team-up between Drive and Mach and Accel! For some reason!

It’s hilarious, which is the likely reason. I laughed a bunch, so mission accomplished. Terui showing up for some weird Office Politics subplot was delightful, and it’s neat to see Shinnosuke have to wrangle a disrespectful Go while trying to solve a case. Having a little story with two Cop Riders is clever, especially when they could not be more dissimilar as men. (I mean, up until the Mach movie, when Shinnosuke will also be a dad.) Just the Very Official Terui having to work with/against a Very Friendly Shinnosuke, it’s a good idea!

The whole thing’s almost bizarrely dropped into this movie, though, in a way that seems like it’s just Legend Rider plus Some Reason For The Main Cast To Not Be Around. Thematically, it’s got nothing to do with Chase’s story. It’s also… I mean, the Accel stuff isn’t really about anything? It’s a cameo gag that somehow blows up into 15 minutes of screentime (or, at least, that’s what it seemed like), and it feels too half-boiled, I guess. It either needed to be a shorter segment, or its own film. It needed a deeper plot, something that says anything about Terui and/or Shinnosuke. There’s some fun writing with the character interactions, but there isn’t a ton that’s interesting about their story. (I also love Go’s incredulous anger at the cheap turn of there being two identical Roidmudes. He’s right, it is confusing!)

But that’s okay, because the Chase part of this movie is more than interesting enough. The Roidmudes as a species were always entertaining, what with their Humanity In Miniature thing going on, and Team Roidmude was the shining example of that. They were monsters that could’ve existed completely separate from the title character’s storyline, and it’s the same way here. It’s not a Kamen Rider story about defeating monsters; it’s a human story about defeating our own self-loathing.

That’s maybe a better story to tell?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/chaser3.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/chaser4.png

Was this the film where all of the main cast, Mr. Belt included, did a collective spit take at Chase? Drive's humor was always hit and (mostly) miss for me, but I loved that gag.

It definitely was this film!

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag1.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag2.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag3.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag4.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag5.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag6.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/gag7.png

(Also, I knew this was going to be the first thing someone else brought up about this movie. It's why these images were ready to go!)

This gag brought to you by Hidenori Ishida!

...And yeah, honestly, 90% of what I remember about this movie from watching it years ago is just that scene, which makes it hard to contribute much insight beyond that. (The other 10% of what I remember is that it was a totally serviceable if inessential Chase story. Well, like 9% that, and then 1% Accel being there.)

I think my opinion of basically... every V-Cin until Build's are "I watched this when I was first getting into Kamen Rider and marathoning W through Ex-Aid; I remember basically nothing about them but my tastes have so completely changed and these stories are generally more complex than their shows to the extent I can't trust what I think of them anymore". And this review is a pretty good example! Because I don't remember taking anything like this away from this movie, but I don't think that's really because of a different take; but because I didn't get much from it or was really paying attention to much of it, and I feel the same way about most other V-Cins! In other words this is a roundabout way of saying "Thank you for this glowing review that makes me realise I should probably go ahead and rewatch a bunch of these"

Probably could've saved myself some time and just posted those screencaps! To quote wrestling commentator Excalibur, "You GOT to give the people what they want!"

Thanks! I'm having the same experience going through these old Phase 2 movies. (I assure you I did not take anything away from this movie originally, other than Hey It's Accel and Wow This Is A Horny Side-Project.) It's definitely been interesting to find new layers to a lot of this stuff, or just see aspects that I wasn't ready for the first time.

I think it's that I've developed a fluency in this genre, you know? It's like learning any language: the early days are all catching keywords and fumbling conjugation; then a slow refinement after tons of practice; then you're conversant, eloquent. The little nuances you used to overlook are suddenly neon-lit and unmistakable. You're bypassing topic sentences and blunt declarations in favor of allegory, in favor of poetry.

It's so nice to revisit work and find that you've grown enough to appreciate it more, don't you think?

Totally!! I feel very similarly. I would never recommend, say, the 01 V-Cinemas or V3 to any new viewer; but as I am now? Kinda love both!

That said I have to place a limit on it, I can't just revisit every single Kamen Rider show I watched early on, y'know? But Fourze was my first so that's basically mandatory. Build as well being one of my favourites. And W is just so fantastic and solid and where I truly fell in love. And hell why wouldn't I want to watch OOO and Ghost a third time? Ex-Aid as well also seems like a fun time--

Kind of like how Ghost and Saber ended up crossing over (and to a somewhat more random extent, Zero-One and Ex-Aid), I guess it's no surprise they had to fit in at least one significant crossover between Drive and W, and Teru made the most sense.

Although while they're still distinct shows there's always been kind of a synchronicity to W and Drive (which, I know, Riku Sanjo but still) what with being Riders that were kind of the most overt in being Superheroes who fight crime and stop monsters instead of the usual drama that comes with being a Kamen Rider. So I feel like they just gel well together.

Yeah, and also:

-Two-part mystery format
-Heavy emphasis on partnership
-Ties????????

While Drive was way more of an ensemble than W (and W went a little harder on the Backstory Mystery stuff), there's a lot of structural and tonal similarities between the two shows. That's the reason why I wish we'd gotten a deeper story with Shinnosuke and Terui. They fit so well together, and then this movie just has them bounce a couple jokes off of each other while Chase's story does all the heavy lifting.

It wasn?t entirely that. The producers wanted to put Shinnosuke in a subplot with a Legend Rider, and Ryouma Takeuchi said Accel because the latter was his favourite. Though he found it daunting, as pretty much every time he calls the other detective ?Fukui? was not in the script.

As for casting trivia, this movie?s original Roidmude (one of three out of 109 to be female. Seriously, what?s up with that?) is played by Mami Yamisaki, who was previously immature comic relief villain Shizuka in GoGo Sentai Boukenger. Quite the glow up.

I think the funniest thing about this movie is they had to release an entirely new Break Gunner due to the fact that Chaser's form in this is incompatible with the original release. The original just did not have enough indention on the front of it for that blade of the Super Rhino Viral Core to go through I guess.

But yeah aside from that I do remember Accel's cameo the most. Probably because it clashes so much with this movie given it has nothing to do with the current plot. It's basically a way to keep Shinnosuke and Gou out of the story until them entering doesn't matter so that Chase can keep his spotlight.

One fun quirk I love which is one of the few major details I can remember. But they have the Fumen stand from W just in the background of the Futo side during the border dispute just to emphasize "Yes, this is Futo"

What is the most gender-balanced Kajin group in Rider? Grongi? Fangire? Dopants?

Or the fact that there are a bunch of windmills right on the border of Fuuto, and they're all spinning. It... does the wind also respect the border? No one in Tokyo refers to it as the Windy City, so is it that the wind immediately dissipates as soon as it crosses that little stream? Or is it that Tokyo is just as windy as Fuuto, but only Fuuto makes it some huge deal; like some suburb claiming to have the Best Peanut Butter Milkshake, even though it's just because no one in the neighboring city would try and rank them?

Very confused at this regional disparity! My brain is not at all in Top Gear!

Given that write up, maybe I should go back and rewatch the Chase VCin. I've definitely seen it before, and hey, Chase is my favourite bit of Drive, but nothing really stuck in my head beyond "Oh look, someone's naked again, this is definitly a V-Cinema." I enjoyed it, but maybe I'll get more out of it now I'm older.

At the very least, you're likely to notice that sometimes a character is naked AND bloody. Nuance!

DRIVE SAGA: KAMEN RIDER BRAIN

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain1.png
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain2.png

Almost fourteen years ago, as a friend and I were opening our comic shop, we were trying to figure out what to do with a blank white wall to the left of our checkout counter. It was too spartan to leave as is, but we couldn’t figure out what to do.

Most shops would make it into a display of “board books”: high-priced vintage comics. That’s not what we were as a store, though. We were reader-focused, so we weren’t going to be carrying those sorts of collectibles. There was the option of displaying the various promo posters we’d be sent by the various publishers, but that just seemed… I don’t know, obvious. We were looking for something unique, something that spoke to our perspective on a comic shop as a place where fans could feel a sense of ownership, a location to discover both books and community.

One of us (I think it was me, but: fourteen years ago) joked that we should just let people draw on the wall. We laughed, a little, and kept brainstorming. But, as we circled ideas that bored us, we came back to that Draw On The Walls joke. Could that actually work? Was there something in there that wasn’t a joke?

Fourteen years later, it’s a defining feature of our store. Tourists take photos, and professionals get excited about a chance to add to it. It was a joke, until it became a great idea.

It’s easy to disregard throwaway jokes as, well, throwaway jokes. Something’s a dumb comment, we laugh, we move on. But true inspiration can come from anywhere, and it’s okay to turn a joke into art. Closing yourself off to possibilities because something’s unserious, or meant sarcastically, is a weird barrier to erect. Half of my favorite business ideas started as a joke. It makes sense for Kamen Rider Brain to start as a joke, and then end up as a story.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain3.png

One of the most delightful features of tokusatsu in general, and Heisei Kamen Rider in particular, is how self-deprecating and self-aware it can be. These are stories about heroic struggles and terrifying adversaries, but it’s still a kids’ show designed to sell toys. It can be serious, but it should also have room for humor. It should be serious, without taking it itself seriously.

Very early in my exploration of Heisei Riders, I learned that there is literally no joke you can make that didn’t already happen. So much of Rider history is ridiculous, if you try and explain it. Everything in it skirts the line of self-parody, if you feel ungenerous in your appraisal.

But so much of that ridiculousness is tempered by earnestness and empathy, which somehow becomes Brain’s story in this special. He’s a comedy-relief coward, but there are things that make him tragic, or even heroic. The idea of an enemy who’d refuse to see the need for his soldiers to have their own lives, that’s anathema to Brain. The Roidmudes struggled for years to prove their right to exist, so he’s not going to stand aside while some faceless creep hollows out hard-working supervillains. His fight isn’t for humanity (ha ha ha ha NO) or even himself; his fight is to ensure that every form of life gets treated the same as humanity. He doesn’t become a hero, per se, but he finds something worth fighting for as a Kamen Rider.

Everything about this special is a joke, from its constant self-referential gags (Dark Ghost pointing out that Brain’s weapon is a repaint; Professor “Crystal Peppler”) to the fake manga ad bumpers. Brain’s fighting style is goofy and irreverent. But the story in here is one of sacrifice and idealism, and it sits comfortably amid the shrieking cowardice and almost non-stop buffoonery.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain4.png

The best thing about the way tokusatsu franchises work is that they’re allowed to end. But that ending creates unmet demand, and so we find ourselves in a constant stream of, well, streaming sequels and V-Cinemas. It’s something that bugged me, once, but I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing anymore.

A lot of it, I think, is in the ways Heisei Rider has evolved to be more of an ensemble. Like, Kamen Rider Drive is a solo-hero story, and it ends in a way where Shinnosuke’s story feels decisively resolved… but what about Kamen Rider Chase? Or Kamen Rider Mach? Or Team Roidmude, that only got stories around the edges? The world of Kamen Rider Drive was always bigger than Drive himself, so why not continue to explore that world?

I’ve said before that I think Team Roidmude is one of the best villain/”villain” groups, due to their personal quests for fulfillment, and how that story doesn’t require Shinnosuke’s participation or resistance. They’re a bunch of weirdos that are trying to figure out how to be happy, you know? The flexibility of that goal creates more follow-up opportunities than for nearly any other monster group. Sometimes fulfillment can take the form of villainy, and sometimes fulfillment can take the form of heroism. It’s a fascinatingly human option, and it’s why Drive could manage so many spin-offs. Toying with those possibilities, the kind of thing the hero-focused TV show could never have time for? I think that’s an okay thing to explore.

These shows have become so vast, with so many intriguing angles, that it’s only natural to want to revisit them, to want to shine the spotlight in different corners.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain5.png

There’s also the kind of contradictory way we measure our time with these shows: both massive, and brief.

We spend an all-encompassing year with these shows. 48 or more weekly episodes, multiple films, HBVs, Net Videos, V-Cinemas, Twitter content… it’s a lot. The average American show measures less than half of that in a year. A prestige American show like Hawkeye aired six episodes. Getting dozens of hours of content in one year… why in the world wouldn’t that be enough?

It’s the “one year” part, I think. American shows air smaller chunks, but they can come back year after year. Movie franchises work the same way. We might only get a couple hours with, say, Steve Rogers in a year, but we’ll get seven years with that character. In comparison, the forced deadline to say goodbye to a show like Kamen Rider Drive is somehow going to seem like it’s all happening too quickly. (I mean, that’s assuming you’re at all invested in the show. If not, the transition to a new show can’t come quickly enough!) We haven’t spent nearly enough actual human time to get sick of these characters, this world.

Even Brain! Never my favorite character on Drive (too campy), he was still intriguing enough to want to see where he might go next. This, thankfully, doesn’t try to reinvent his character or anything, but it allows for some new notes. It’s a little bit more time spent with a character, which is a nice thing to get to do. And it’s nothing that really interferes with his story on Drive, which is crucial.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain6.png

It’s a cute story, at the end of the day. Brain gets to have a little ego boost, and we fans get to see Team Roidmude (and Chase! And Krim, sort of!) again for twenty minutes. Its inessential nature is maybe a mark against it, but I think it’s more of a shield against criticism. It’s the sort of thing you can ignore if you like where Drive left things, or it’s a victory lap for a supporting cast guy if (like me) you can’t get enough of this series.

It’s based on a throwaway joke, sure. But sometimes good art can come from throwaway jokes. Why fight it?

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/brain7.png

Legitimately one of the most clever, poignant, and downright hilarious things Riku Sanjou has ever written, if you ask me. (Well, okay, obviously there's some competition with how much good toku he's written, but still.) I honestly don't know why anyone would expect you NOT to write a ton about the deeper meaning of Kamen Rider Brain, because there's an awful lot to dig into for something this short. I will never forget what an absolute delight this was the first time I watched it. (Is that also the only time I've watched it? Man, I should really go watch Kamen Rider Brain again...)

It's certainly seven to eight hundred times better than the Gridon Vs Bravo fan-club special! If I ever write that one up, expect two paragraphs that amount to But Why Would You Tell This Story.

No, though, Brain's real good.

I think this was the first time that new content came out for a show I’d finished when I was first starting out (both in Rider and on this forum). So this was quite the treat at the time (but with the Gaim CSM promo, aka Gridon vs Bravo, Decade vs Zi-O/Zi-O vs Decade, Kamen Rider Genms: The Presidents and Saber x Ghost, I don’t know if it’s lost it’s luster a bit)

I had no idea who half the bad guys in the fight were, nor what show the sword was being reused from, but I still got a good laugh out of it.

Yeah, I think it works pretty well just on the level of Brain Is Ridiculous, even if you don't get the Sunglasseslasher joke. The concept of Brain Becomes A Kamen Rider is hilarious enough to more than float a twenty-minute fan-club short film.

(Also, I think my first bit of brand-new content for a series I finished was the aforementioned Gridon Vs Bravo. Not as fun as this one!)

Kamen Rider Brain is such a good suit.

Overall I really enjoyed this special, it was funny, and it had some depth to it. It was rather nice and did I mention Kamen Rider Brain is such a good suit?

While I had to grow on Kamen Rider Heart for a while, Brain was instantaneous in me loving it.

Yeah, Heart's Kamen Rider suit is a little much. Brain's is nicely sleek, a welcome change from his massive-shoulders-and-noggin Roidmude form.

Shoulder mantles are cool yo! Espada, and beast agree.

Kamen Rider Brain was never something that needed to exist. But I'm so glad it does. It's hilariously funny, but never betrays Brain's character to be so. At least, any more than the show evolved the Roidmudes between Episodes 1 and 50 (I find them a strange group of villains, tbh). It plays on the Showa tropes, but in a playful way, laughing with them rather than mocking. And it's just really good and fun? A 20 minute spin-off based off a one-line joke on Brain's ego, several years after the show it spawned off from has been moved past, is the kind of thing you roll your eyes at, but in the hands of a good writer, even something that doesn't beg to be made, to answer a hanging question or loose plotpoint (althougb Brain also hints at that! That ending!!!) can tell a good story, some good jokes, and remind us why we fell in love with these characters several years later.

It's such a weird, sad story, when you think about it. The whole Kamen Rider Brain narrative is some dream Brain has of finally being valued. Even the death of his liberator, Professor Crystal Peppler, is only something he mourns because it's the death of someone who thought he could achieve more. Brain's existence is to be a joke, to be belittled. (Even in an incomplete, incorporeal limbo, Medic's like Ugh Brain.) His dream isn't so much to be the hero - Heart doesn't even show up in the dream, which is a dead giveaway - as it is for someone to admit that he has something to offer the world. There's egotism to it, how he gets to show off and be theatrical, but there's this heartbreaking need to be acknowledged that keeps it all from going catastrophically off the rails.

Kamen Rider Drive was such a good series!

Just an fun fact, I stopped watching drive cause the episode preview showed brain getting merc'd by gold drive, so I just kind of stopped to avoid the sads. Brain for all of how ridiculous he is, is kind of tragic. A person who's core trait is jealousy, who has his status always under threat.

The Kamen Rider Brain miniseries is, like the Rider 4 one, one of those things that I saw the first part of and never found the second part because it wasn't handled by my usual subber at the time. I remember liking how goofy and self-aware the first part was, though.

Yeah, he's... it's weird how sympathetic the character ends up being?

If anything, it gets goofier and more self-aware in the finale!

KAMEN RIDER DRIVE EPISODE 48 - FINAL STORY (SPECIAL EDITION): THE CASE OF GHOST

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/drive48a.png

What an outstanding send-off to Kamen Rider Drive.

There’re a million little things I’m going to call out - this episode is so joyous in its celebration of everything that made Drive great - but my absolute favorite part is how they used the themes of Ghost to tie-in with this conclusion to Shinnosuke’s story.

The whole plot to this episode is Shinnosuke trying to wrap up the case that got away from him during his pre-Episode 1 backstory. He’s trying to hunt down the remnants of Neo Shade, the same group that he was hunting down during the Global Freeze; the time when his partner got injured and left the force.

It’s a case Shinnosuke is trying to solve as he’s still dealing with the loss (however brief it might be) of Mister Belt. Just as Shinnosuke’s trying to put the past behind him in a case, he’s struggling not to regress in his personal life. It’s Hayase all over again, with Shinnosuke losing his focus as he finds himself alone.

But Shinnosuke isn’t alone. Gen gives him this short but amazing speech, right before they meet Ghost, about how Shinnosuke isn’t the solo act he was a year ago. He’s got all of his friends to get him through this rough patch, so he should just lean on them. He’s stronger for the connections he made, more powerful for the lessons he learned, so he’s able to face the future.

It’s… that’s all the themes of Kamen Rider Ghost. Shinnosuke overcomes this last hurdle by following the example of the next Kamen Rider series.

I love that? I love that. Any show could have the new hero give their But Why Heroism to the old hero, but it’s a million times better to have the preview for the new show be this, be the themes of the new show spilling over onto the old show.

And, y’know, it still totally works within the boundaries of Kamen Rider Drive. (Like, this isn’t a final episode of Blade where it’s all about raising an adolescent boy.) Teamwork and perseverance and major themes from Drive's show, so it’s not a huge shock that Shinnosuke would be able to trust in his friends and push through his grief. But it feels a bit more spiritual here, a little bit more like Shinnosuke sees how he’s connected to the people around him. I mean: GHOST! That’s a Kamen Rider Ghost thing!

The episode itself - the non-thematic elements - are also top-notch. There’s a bit of a flashback, so we get to see Go and Chase team with Shinnosuke for a fight scene. Krim gets to deliver one last lesson for his old partner. The Ghost debut uses this swinging camera effect in a single take, creating an unsteadiness to the fight that’s unlike any of the Roidmude battles. (They also set the big fight in a factory with a gigantic square chasm, so you get these gorgeous deep background shots of Shinnosuke.) Ghost himself is helpful and generous, a much more on-point intro for the character. (He’s a very sweet boy in this!) The climactic moment of the episode is all about Shinnosuke and his partner having enough faith in each other to pull off a crazy maneuver and still catch the criminal at the site of Hayase’s accident. The longer version of the best-ever opening theme plays over the credits.

It’s a fantastic final episode. I wasn’t sure it was going to be, on rewatch? I didn’t remember it being anything special. Now, having watched Ghost, I think it’s exceptional. It puts a button on Kamen Rider Drive’s story, and that button is The Themes Of Kamen Rider Ghost. What a way to lead out of one show, and lead into another.

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/legend/drive48b.png

I... am now spending half an hour before driving to work on unpleasantly snowy roads by watching this again, because these threads are often a source for new appreciation of episodes or series that I had fewer positive feelings about the first time around. :)

I'm really glad that today seemed like a good day to see what was going on around here after not having lurked for months, by the way, because the love for the Kamen Rider Brain special absolutely made my morning. It was cute AF and thematically resonant with the show and the characters and I also have no idea why it got made but I was very glad it did when I first saw it.

Ha ha, I'm sorry for eating up part of your morning! Please don't be late for work! Or, if you end up being late for work, let me know and I will try and smooth things over with your boss. I've been told that my ability to defuse tensions "probably exists"!

But, to your point, I've had a really similar experience on this project, where stuff I have no recollection of -- and certainly no positive feelings for -- comes out of nowhere to deliver some exemplary storytelling. It's nice when that happens.

Yeah, one of my all-time favorite Build things is an HBV that didn't even need to be good, let alone great, so I'm always hopefully that these little off-shoots can create something special.

I don't have the data for this, but it feels like the shorter a project is, the less likely it is to feel half-assed? Most of the stuff that I come away feeling indifferent to are 90-120 minute movies. The single episode stories, the twelve minute shorts, those always feel well thought-out and thematically rich. Weird how that happens.

If I were to throw in my own speculation, I'd say that there's likely less corporate oversight over the smaller projects like this -- over what they have to be, what they have to include, what beats they have to beat etc. Since they're not a big feature-length movie put in theaters over the Summer or Winter periods, or a TV show selling a toy company's most successful toyline in the country, and are just smaller things put out to a niche audience on a budget that is maybe at best selling one thing on Premium Bandai... there's a lot less at stake, so corporate likely takes a more hands-off approach with them and lets the creatives do whatever they like as long as they follow certain broad guidelines

You're probably right, but it's difficult for me to square Corporate Oversight with Three Inoue-Led Kamen Rider Series In One Decade.