A lot of good things have already been said about this film, so I can only join in. The best crossover rider and sentai, one of the best crossover rider and definitely deserves a place in my top movies. I love watching it too.
I also want to note that the creators of SHS found themselves in a difficult position. On the one hand, the 50th anniversary of the franchise required a big story, and the very nature of Saber and Zenkaiger implied a meta-commentary. On the other hand, Generations Forever and Over Quartzer were already a love letter from the riders to their viewers, and by adding Sentai they risked breaking the 4th wall Taisen, which they clearly didn't want. Therefore, it was decided to turn to Shotaro Ishinomori and create a film for him and about him. Hence the details like the mention of characters that look angry or Shotaro from the movie being embarrassed in front of Mei because she fits his favorite type of heroine.
I also want to mention Asmodeus. In such a big crossover, the villain is doomed to remain in the shadows, but his plan was not bad, and the moment when he points Shotaro to the fighting heroes and asks if he likes what he sees is very good. Indeed, what better way to make a person give up on superheroes than to throw him into their world? Especially during another global fan-service brawl.
In addition, I note that in this film, Saber becomes the most important hero in the franchise, because it is he who inspires Shotaro to return to creativity, which means that without his intervention there would be no riders, no sentai, not even Zubat. Amazing if you think about it!
So I will repeat once again that I love this film and finally I will drop my favorite shot from there. Even though it has nothing to do with Saber or even riders, it doesn't change how good this moment is:
https://i.ibb.co/n7bR49V/So-Cringy-I...ally-Hurts.png
Fanfiction is also very good, to match this wonderful movie.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...744&height=418

10/10 crossover no notes.

But yeah, I appreciate how this film basically takes the exact same starting point as the Zi-O/Build crossover ("Kamen Rider may be fictional, but we're important to something to someone, which means we're not meaningless!") and puts its own spin on things. Not just by being really fun, but by directly involving Ishinomori and Touma's own voice as a writer, it perfectly aligns.

Also, I get what you're saying, about the final battle being a long string of catchphrases (said by some incrdibly bad sound-alikes, Jesus Toei, was your stock library being cleaned that day?) being Toei boasting about how Kamen Sentai is the best thing ever, but I've been thinking about it - Sure, Rider/Sentai might from one angle be a tool to sell impressionable kids some merch, but also, merchandising franchises come and go. These characters, and indeed those catchphrases, wouldn't mean anything to anyone if the writers and characters and stories were just a vessel to sell toys in the minds of everyone. That probably ties into how nostalgia is used in modern media as a crutch vs as inspiration, which is something equally deep as the intersection between art and selling toys. Idk, I'm no sociologist.

Seriously though they had the Akibarangers on screen in 2021 for their 10th birthday and everything I am not immune to nostalgia

Very cute story! And thanks for all the info!

Wow! Thanks so much for the in-depth thoughts! This was a pretty fun film to engage with (the entire Real World sequence in the middle is maybe a Saber-era highlight for me, despite not really unpacking it here, time has been not helpful), and it's fun to see many folks sharing their memories here.

Touma Inspired Sentai And Kamen Rider is an incredibly weird thing to think about, but I don't hate the writer Rider having a greater significance than any other hero.

I mean, it's a messy thing to try and untangle, because art and commerce have been intertwined for as long as capitalism has been a thing, and even before that. You're not going to be able to reach an entire nation for decades unless someone's paying for it.

And, yeah, people have been using the power of major companies to stealthily finance personal visions for about as long as patronage has existed, so there's no denying that any (or all) of these tokusatsu shows have high-minded morals and deeply-felt ideologies that are being transmitted alongside a demonstration of the new Q2 toy line.

It's a hard thing to explain, where it starts to tip into feeling like I'm being asked to support a company more than a story, but: the end of that statement, I guess. I love Kamen Rider stories, and I appreciate the franchise, but I don't love Toei or Bandai. There's a transitive property-style thing that it feels like the movie might accidentally wander into during some of the stirring defenses of a pair of world-class tokusatsu franchises, and it makes me a little less excited.

Though the movie had the franchises being mocked as recycling the same premises over and over, but it's coming from the big bad. Asmodeus claiming that everyone can be protagonist including him is true though, there can be villain protagonists. I'd say though, kinda wish that Saber perhaps would have this kind of premise in the actual series of entering stories or such like in this movie. Mei seems to be real intrigued with Shotaro Ishinomori and his works here. I kinda like it that Shotaro Ishinomori's work is related with Mei's job, of her suggesting to have his comic got noticed by her editor. The authors are described as the gods of the stories, and Shotaro Ishinomori displayed his invulnerability inside, though it's used against him by Asmodeus to demotivate him and erase every heroes.

You mean, the Arutouma team up ~ (why next protagonist name didn't start with "ma"). I guess the other parts outside of Saber and Zenkaiger (the ones who aren't the part of final ensemble) like Zi-O or Den-O is the "Super Hero Senki" part on the title too. Unfortunately, this movie seems to have more focus on Kamen Riders, for Sentai fans, with them not getting a lot of screentime. About Touma thinking that he makes the characters suffer in his story compared to his real life Kamen Rider work, that'd seem like a view of not separating fiction and reality, of which it's often discouraged. As it's pointed out that there are stories where the characters don't suffer, that'd mean perhaps Touma has room of improvement as an author to get more perspectives in writing.

About the term of flawed heroes, that's usually used by fanbase to refer those who have awful or nasty traits, while people like Arutouma are (mistakenly) viewed as perfect and flawless due to them having little to no negative traits. Wonder if you'd also include the likes of them or most other main Riders among the flawed heroes, because it's true that being a nice guy doesn't mean they're flawless, but gotta have a distinction about their type of flawed to the ones more morally flawed. I'd also think for the people who witness heroes, this is a reminder to not have impossible expectations of a hero and like, not immediately ditch or purge them (doesn't mean no criticize) when they don't meet your expectations. Stories can be conveyed in varied things though, the paragon types who are above humanity can provide alternate perspective to view the conflict in, providing some other themes and premises through their perspective.

Well, it's a bigger Kamen Rider anniversary (50 vs 45), so it's more reasonable to have Saber take the lead. There've been a few of the old Taisen movies that felt more Sentai-focused (the Fourze one!!!), so it's not like this is an all the time thing. I'm sure we'll have a Sentai/Rider movie for Sentai's 50th that'll probably be less Rider-focused.

Worth noting that later that year, one of Zenkaiger’s 4 G-Rosso stage shows was a celebration of 50 years of Toei Tokusatsu, which was mostly focused on Sentai (the representation for other series amounted to Kamen Rider and Metal Heroes getting three of their Legends (Ichigou, V3 and Black for the former, Gavan, Fire and Blue Beet for the latter) showing up for the final battle.

TTFC DIRECT THEATER: KAMEN RIDER SABER ACT 2 - “SAVE EVERYONE, SABER & BLADES!”

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/ttfc2a.png

Cute! Fun! That’s… basically it?

I don’t even remember what I wrote about the last one of these, and it’s too late at night for me to investigate. (AEW Revolution was a very long PPV.) Arisa is a fun addition to the formula, but we’re still in a very stunt-heavy Kamen Rider Saber stage-show-by-any-other-name, so the story is simple, if still charming in its simplicity. There’s really nothing here other than the lightness of the material, which – in all honesty – totally a highlight. The threat is goofy, the victory is assured, and the effort involved is minimal. It’s 15 minutes of thrills, the end.

I liked it, though, for what it was. Nothing that made me work too hard to dig out subtext, ‘cause there really isn’t any. Saber and Blades save the girl, and Blades has to fend off a new admirer. Good enough for a late night Saber escapade!

—

ON THE BUBBLE

https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/saber/ttfc2b.png

“...okay, there we were, frozen in little bubbles, while an ant monster threatened our lives.”

“Uh huh.”

“But then a superhero named Kamen Rider Blades showed up to save us!”

“Uh huh.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Uh huh.”

“But then Kamen Rider Saber showed up to save us!”

“Uh huh.”

“Except he had to fight Blades to save some lady who’d been turned into an ant monster.”

“Uh huh.”

“But then he beat Blades, saved the lady, and freed all of us from our bubble prisons!”

“...So what you’re telling me is that you STILL didn’t order the pizza.”

I legitimately have nothing on these other than what my theory was last time. So like...

That story! Very simplistic and i honestly don't blame you for basically doing I'm assuming a play by play of what happened via one of the audience members. What got me at the end was the punchline purely because I seem to recall mention of a dude not ordering the pizza from way back when.

Now that's what I like to call a callback.

Ha ha, glad you liked it. It's... I don't remember the episode, but it's the one where Tassel's on the phone with someone off-screen. That poor couple is never going to get their goddamn pizza!

This Act is made in the same way as the first, only with the addition of Blades. So I'll just add that the girl in this episode is Naomi Majima from the same agency as Angela May. And since we are talking about Zeroichi Familia, I will share their poster, which looks very cool:
https://i.ibb.co/R2874rR/zeroichi-familia.jpg
Fanfiction is funny.