It still weirds me out so much that you joined this forum to vent your frustrations with Ghost, and yet somehow Den-O seems to have wound up being the series we're most frequently at odds about. Because, uh, yeah, this one is actually my favorite of this little trilogy? And also I just plain like New Den-O a lot (partially as a consequence of Den-O & Decade being my first Den-O thing), so that probably helps? I don't have some grand rebuttal prepared here, but I've always genuinely enjoyed how straightforward it is, and I definitely felt more endeared to Koutarou and Teddy as a duo after seeing it.

Shame it didn't work as well for you, Die, but I guess this is just the price I have to pay for that glowing praise of Episode Red. :p

And, honestly, that's fine. I don't know if loving or hating this one can be litigated or refuted. It's very personal preference, maybe even more than usual? If you have more fondness for Kotaro/the actor who plays Kotaro than I do (which is the only possibility!), or if story didn't feel as drawn out, then you're bound to have a better experience with it. I don't begrudge anyone having more positive feelings about this one than I did.

I hated these three movies as a whole for being a horrible attempt at trying to milk the show dry when it was already a mummified corpse. Horrible, just horrible. That said New Den-O's Double Action is one of my favorite renditions.

And that's fine, too!

I feel... I feel like the whole Why Are They Making More Den-O aspect of this trilogy (where the third one stars Diend of all people, review coming this Thursday or Friday) is sorting people pretty quickly into the Liked or Hated piles. If you're okay with Den-O as an endless series of follow-up projects, or if you came in during the period when it was an endless series of follow-up projects? I don't know if these films are that bad. Certainly, the idea of More Yuuto worked gangbusters for me, even as other fans got their fill of his doomed romance (with Airi, to be clear) back in the TV series.

So, yeah, I think my ability to find value in these stories largely depends on them feeling vital in some way. Yuuto and Airi? Vital! That story definitely benefited from a few extra beats! But Kotaro, to me, just never feels vital to the story, especially since Young Ryotaro is now a permanent member of the cast.

It's the intent that I hated than the actual movies so fear not, I'm not dogging on the stories. It was just sad to see that this is how the show peters out and aside from the occasional cameos years later, they now got the Taros reduced to mascots for some tourist attraction in Kyoto and some random flash animation looking clips after these movies.

I've always like New Den-O, but... but I could not tell you why.

I did at some point literally count him as one of my favourite Riders and one of the few I'd want a Seihou SHF of. Something about him drew me to him, which is weird, because... because basically all his starring roles have been anywhere from forgettable to didn't-like for me in retrospect, when I actually think about it? And this review is very much making me come to terms with that because I agree with just about every word said! I didn't hate it quite as much, I wouldn't even class it as one of my 10 least favourite rider movies or anywhere near that as much as I'd say it was middling; but nothing about it compelled me and some of the stuff with that one-off family was just a bit weird, yeah! It's essentially a boring do-over of New Den-O's first outing, and...

and... why do I like this guy? Is it just in concept? Is it because he has a sick design? Is it because I like future riders? Because OOO/Den-O was one of my first Rider movies and I thought he was Den-O's actor and final form at the time and to this day it's one of my favourite Rider movies? ... maybe a combination of all four? Is this just me venting at this point? I have so many questions!

This is just not a great movie, and not even one I like, and yet. "I Like New Den-O" is so ingrained in my mind when there's nothing about him I like or nothing special about him. My mind is doing loops tonight

For me it was the JJBA aspect of it. And the suit was a nice retool utilizing bits of Climax and Liner. And Teddy is Jotaro before being actual Jotaro. :lolol

Of these two movies, I remember Episode Red a lot more, and not just because it has such a beautifully convoluted subtitle. I was really invested in the Yuuto and Airi romance back when I first watched this, even though I have no idea why after rewatching the show. It was still nice of this film to give us some closure for that storyline, as well as a final star-gazing snuggle flashback (I think; haven't seen this film in years).

Episode Blue is definitely a movie that I saw. I know this intellectually, even though I remember pretty much nothing about it. On the subject of New Den-O, I always feel like he was kind of an aborted concept that stuck around a little bit past the point where he was scrapped. I suspect that the idea was to have him come in and replace Ryotaro as the main Den-O protagonist, but then someone at Toei said "Wait, what if we just use the kid from the first movie?" and they ran with that instead.

I plan to rewatch Episode Blue and Yellow together this weekend, so I totally look forward to giving my full thoughts later. For now, the abridged version of my thoughts for Episode Blue is that I agree with Fish that it's the best of the Chou Den-O Trilogy and I agree with Kurona that New Den-O is generally good.

I had also planned to finally start watching Blade this weekend, in my quest to finish the Heisei Era. It's going to be a full schedule!

Not entirely what I was trying to get across :lol