[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER THE MOVIE: CHO-DEN-O TRILOGY
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EPISODE BLUE - "THE DISPATCHED IMAGIN IS NEWTRAL”



This is the second time I've started writing this piece. I was a few paragraphs in, and I just wasn't into where things were going. It was mean, and it lacked much elaboration. I don't think it was very insightful, or even fair. It was mostly just four paragraphs of me talking about how much I hated this movie, and how soul-deadening it was to watch it.

And, god, it was that! You almost got no write-up for Episode Blue because I found the entire experience to be absolutely devoid of happiness. (Even now, I'm like, No, There Must've Been Something Good. I literally can't think of anything! At all!) I had to take about seven breaks from watching this movie. Every ten minutes I'd get so bored I'd look for distractions. Recounting it was like recounting an incredibly long line you stood in. Joyless.

But I don't... I don't find any value in just screaming I Hated This, even if I hated it. So, I don't know. Let's see if we can talk about this movie objectively. Try to get at its failures.

Which, there are plenty. Structurally, this thing is wafer thin. If this story had been cut down to the length of a single Den-O TV episode, I'd've still wanted to pad it out with a Yuuto subplot or a Naomi runner. The core idea, that Kotaro and Rinko From Wizard need to learn a lesson in not taking people for granted, is obvious from the jump. Owner might as well have said it out loud in the first act, since it's zero percent subtle, and him withholding it just makes him seem like a prick. (He is emotionally torturing the entire team! I don't think Hana or Momo or Ryotaro needed to learn a lesson!) Same thing for the Rinko From Wizard doppelganger, who doesn't need to act nearly as menacing and psychotic as she does in the first half of this story. The motivations are telegraphed a mile out, and the twists are so minor that I'm not sure they count as twists. They're, like, curves. Plot curves.

And besides a contract holder plot that's obvious and sort of mean (so, Grandma just forces the real Rinko From Wizard to play tennis until she collapses for fun or something? And makes Rinko From Wizard think she's going to get replaced by a monster? This is... why is she treating her granddaughter so horribly? I would probably want to hang out with my friends instead, too!), there's the weird reliance on Teddy and Kotaro's relationship, which feels like a huge miscalculation... despite being this movie's only reason for existing.

I think I hate New Den-O? I feel like I gave him a shot, but I really disliked him in this movie. The actor is... hoo boy. Zero charisma. And the conception of the character of Kotaro is still, like, Worse Yuuto? It's Yuuto's horrible attitude and refusal to open up, but without the particular bratty twist that Yuuto put on it? Yuuto always came off as sort of pathetic, in his childishness. He was pitiable. With Kotaro, it just comes off as him being a snotty jerk. The plot of the movie is to get both Kotaro and Teddy to the point where they're open about their need for one another, but that means that we get an entire movie of Kotaro turning his back on Teddy. It's another whole movie of Kotaro being withdrawn and mopey, and the actor not finding a single interesting note to it. He just, like, sucks. He's the least interesting character in this story, and it's his goddamn story.

Teddy... I mean, he's just a less interesting version of Deneb. Same as above. The whole Kotaro/Teddy dynamic is like (I don't like saying this, but it's the only way to explain it) Inoue trying to create Yuuto/Deneb. It's there in the broad strokes, but everything inside is undercooked, unappetizing. It's a Worse Yuuto, and a Dull Deneb.

I feel like I've already gone back on my desire for this post to not just be me complaining about this movie. I can't help it, though. I hated this movie so much. It's bereft of quality. It's an exhausting slog through an obvious story with terrible characters. If it was twenty minutes long, it'd be ten minutes too long. Watching this movie made me wonder if I ever liked Den-O at all. I wish I hadn't watched it, and I wish I hadn't written about it.

Also, WHY WAS SIEG IN THIS MOVIE!!!!!