[Enchilada645]

So I watched a bunch of Stage Shows, and decided I'll briefly give my thoughts on them.

Zero-One Final Stage - Aka Metsubojinrai Final Stage:

I say this because really, I feel like MBJR got the most depth and characterization among all the Riders present. Just the stuff with Ansatsu-Chan returning, the little details with Horobi and Jin, and all four of them at the end, it was really nice stuff. Oh and Zero-One, Vulcan and Valkyrie were cool too, I guess. Also not even 10 minutes in and Thouser immediately jobs, all is well.

Not much to say other than I loved the focus on MBJR in this. Also I kinda found it cute how the yelling in this was replaced with "clap your hands to the beat of the theme song" for obvious reasons.

Kamen Rider Zangetsu - Gaim Gaiden:

This was an interesting thing to sit through, mostly because it felt almost like watching a replay of Gaim. Literally every Proto-Rider and even the dude parading around as Zangetsu for a bit, are literal expy's for their real Rider counterparts. It evokes a weird sense of Deja Vu.

It's an interesting exploration into Takatora's past and shows just how much Yggdrasil screwed things up before all the stuff in Zawame went down. And it basically shows a country that ended up becoming a Failed Zawame city in a sense.

It's a lot more high budget than most Rider Final Stages up to that point, they do some real good things with projectors and screens to do cool transformation effects as well as attacks and stuff. I say up to since Zero-One's final stage ended up doing some similar stuff. And I really dig how well they were able to perform a live toku as a result. One thing that sorta just struck me odd though was all the dancing that ended up happening in the middle of fights. I'll be real when I say I just didn't really see the point to it.

Even in stage play form though, Zangetsu Kachidoki is a beaut.

Kamen Rider Build Special Event

I feel like the first 7 or so minutes is basically a meta commentary on how pathetic Shocker has grown over the years. It's basically them going "Wow we kinda suck and only ever do special events anymore" for a bit. Also three Shocker Scientists are fans of Miitan, more on that later.

So this oddly fits very snug right after Cross-Z Magma's debut, Gentoku is still working for Nanba, or in this case Shocker because Stalk said so. And we've got Sento, Ryuga and Kazumi acting as our heroes.

And man, they really got everyone on point here, and i have to wonder... do we really need Kazumi to suffer more? So after finding out the three shocker scientists love Miitan as much as he does, they end up becoming comrades and they start calling him boss. This all comes to a head when they sacrifice themselves to save Misora who got kidnapped. And thus, Kazumi once again tragically loses three people.

But to get away from that depressive spiral, Ryuga was a riot in this one. I guess only Build is allowed to form change since Ryuga busts out Cross-Z Magma immediately just to punch some Shocker grunts. He ends up being beaten by being tricked to drink Soy Sauce labeled as a protein drink.

Overall a goofy and meta poking stage show with sudden depression towards the climax.

Kamen Rider Den-O Final Stage

You know it's interesting how far we've come in regards to certain Final Stages, while Zero-One's was more lowkey, past ones have been rather insane in certain aspects.

Den-O's is pretty standard honestly, the most I really got out of it was the Time Terminal/King Liner has a Hot Springs Inn with its own Manager. But yeah, it's your usual Imagin Shenanigans, touching moments with Ryotarou, Deneb and Yuuto are fun as well (PS you can send Yuuto New Years cards all throughout January), and overall just the usual stuff, nothing too thought provoking really.

Next time I post I'll probably talk about the Ex-Aid and Build Final Stages, I may even rewatch Gaim's just cause it's been a while.