[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER GAIM & WIZARD: THE FATEFUL SENGOKU MOVIE BATTLE




A super-standard Movie War outing! The only stuff that really got a reaction out of me were a couple (probably incredibly subjective) ups and downs.

Overall, there’s nothing to really complain about in this Movie War. It does a solid job of providing an epilogue for Kamen Rider Wizard, and it throws together a goofy one-off to explore some Gaim themes without changing the characters in any way. It’s the standard ratio of 1/3 Old Guy to 2/3 New Guy. There’s a brief shot in the credits for the new Gaim Riders who’ll be debuting after the new year. There are a whole bunch of Legend Rider costume appearances, and a whole bunch of new Legend Rider collectibles. It’s all very clean and straightforward.

It’s just not very clever? Or fun? The two villains suck. Ogre and Bujin Gaim both show up literally out of nowhere, try to bump off our heroes, and then get detonated. I’d seriously forgotten what either of these guys' deals were, or that they appeared in this movie. (I recently bought a Bujin Gaim figure ‘cause I loved the suit, and I hand to god thought it was from an HBV or something.) There’s nothing special about either one of them. Bujin Gaim gets the minor nod for at least inverting Kouta’s nascent pacifism/selfishness into a power-mad conqueror, but it’s not like he ever has a coherent philosophy beyond ORANGE YOU GLAD I RUN EVERYTHING NOW. (Ogre’s worse, because he just wants to destroy everything. He doesn’t even have a desire to subjugate his opponents, which is almost reprehensibly boring.)

The storytelling is smooth and faultless, though. Things happen in a reasonable way, the actors are present emotionally, and there’s a high level of competence to the proceedings. Solid, if unexceptional.

The couple parts for me that were worth spending time on were Koyomi, and Kaito.

Koyomi never really worked for me on Wizard. I found the performance to be too one-note, all Sad Girl Is Sad. I never really got a feel for what Haruto and Koyomi’s relationship offered either one of them, other than feeling protected (her) and feeling needed (him). With this epilogue, and its focus on their bond, I was really hoping for something that’d make it all work for me: a performance, a detail, an explanation that makes Koyomi finally feel like the rich, interesting character the show always implied she was.

I did not get it! Everything basically boils down to Haruto’s feelings about Koyomi, and those feelings are that he felt responsible for her safety, and that responsibility helped him believe in a brighter future. There’s a little more in there about him needing her so he won’t be alone, but… that’s bleak? That’s all sort of pathetic, in that it ends up treating Koyomi – AGAIN – as simply an object to be protected; a possession to treasure. (I mean, she’s literally an object to be protected in this one, so, like, I appreciate the consistency?) It’s all about Haruto’s feelings of being alone, and Koyomi’s ghost exists to smile beatifically and disappear. Everything in here feels more in line with the loss of a favorite Pokemon. It never felt on the show like Haruto and Koyomi had a nuanced and relatable dynamic, and it still doesn’t feel like it here.

And it really had a shot at providing that. With Dark Koyomi running around, I hoped we’d get a scene or two where she expressed some deeper emotions, some careful words on what Haruto meant to her. Instead, she’s just a sneering puppet who wants to kill Haruto. She’s just a henchwoman, nothing more.

Still, the Wizard section tries SO HARD to land those emotional punches, and I can’t fault them for the effort. Seeing Wizard and Ogre fight through scattered memories of Haruto and Koyomi’s friendship was a really sweet touch, but even those scenes aren’t really illuminative or anything. Great idea, but there just wasn’t ever enough substance for Haruto and Koyomi’s relationship to make this part of the movie as poignant as it was meant to be.

Strangely, while I didn’t have the fundamental problem with the Gaim section as I did the Wizard section, I think I liked the Wizard section more? The Gaim stuff… it’s slow going, comparatively.

It’s a story about Kouta learning to take being a Kamen Rider / Armored Rider seriously, which means we get a bunch of sequences where he’s either disengaged with the plot, or actively trying to avoid it. His reluctance is sort of the story, which is not nearly as much fun as the entire cast of Wizard fighting monsters.

Where it popped for me was when the story focused on Kaito, because Kaito is the best.

I love the simplicity of his schtick; that literally any situation he’s dropped into that has a power structure, he will battle his way to the top. Dude’s dropped in Sengoku Era With Riders, and he just rolls up his sleeves and starts annexing territories. It’s always funny, and it instantly propels nearly any dumb plot where you’re having trouble generating conflict. His grim dedication to any stupid contest or setting is absolutely charming.

Beyond that, I didn’t really get a lot out of the Gaim section? I feel like Is There Such A Thing As Ethical Warfare is maybe too big a topic for sixty minutes in a two-story movie (also, Build exists now), so a lot of the stuff about Ieyasu being a Good Warlord didn’t work for me. But the focus on Kouta realizing that fighting to protect others is different from fighting to dominate others – the franchise-specific take on using darkness to protect light – was okay, even if there’s stuff around the edges I can quibble with. (Good Warlord! Really not a fan of that!)

At the end of the day, this was a movie that didn’t really screw up the pacing enough to lose my interest, but had almost nothing that’s going to stick in my mind a week from now.

Well, except for the Legend Appearances in this one being entirely secondaries and supporting cast. NAGO! KENGO! DATE! RYU! AKIKO! That stuff was awesome. I gotta hear it, one more time!