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So one of the things that Den-O did that was really unique for the era but that would become common in Phase 2 is the set-up for the movie. In earlier shows, the movies are really divorced from the series. You might get some promo shorts at the end of an episode or a throwaway gag about Hibiki wanting to see a samurai movie, but that was it. Den-O is the first series to not only have the movie be fully canon to the show, but to also spend time setting it up in the series proper.

Nowadays it's not uncommon to have the movie get set up in advance. Drive, for instance, had a couple episodes where the Movie Rider showed up. Den-O did that first and it started here (and will continue right up to the movie's release date). For now, the big feature is Sieg and Wing Form. Wing Form is another future staple: the movie form. Good parallels to think of here would be OOO BuraKaWani or Fourze's Rocket States: forms that exist primarily, if not solely, for the movie. Wing Form is a bit more like the latter than the former in that it does have a bit of presence in the show, but it mostly shows up in the films.