[Fish Sandwich]

I realize I'm waaay late to the party by now, but I've had a partially-completed writeup for Superhero Senki sitting around since before it was subbed, and the thought has finally occured to me that I'm better off putting some thoughts about the movie out there rather than none. I'll get to explaining why this took me so long in a second. And just in case, this post will have a few *SPOILERS* in it... assuming you're even later to the party than me, anyway!

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Having seen this movie now, I really appreciate how significant the title being "Senki" instead of "Taisen" is.

Those earlier crossovers, they were always selling themselves on being, exactly like the latter word says, Big Conflicts. A lot of the time, for better or for worse (I legitimately like a lot of those films, to be clear), the scale of that conflict would be emphasized by how all these heroes who had gathered would feel the need to fight with each other, at least for an act or two. That was a key part of how... weirdly dour, I guess, some of those movies could feel. They were supposed to be celebrations of these huge franchises coming together, but they always stumbled with that need to focus on fighting, fighting, and fighting.

Superhero Senki, on the other hand, is about, exactly like the word says, how the Conflicts of these characters have left a Record behind. An indelible history carved out by countless faces over the course of many years. The stories behind those fights, and the impact those tales have left.

If you ask me which series got more focus here, I'll tell you in a heartbeat it isn't Zenkaiger. While there's surely potential for that show's own themes to carry a meta plot like this, Kamen Rider Saber stars a writer defined by his genuine belief in the power of storytelling, and you'd better believe they get everything they can out of that in this one. I can't even be upset the Zenkaigers aren't a more active driving force in the plot, because the plot they came up with instead is the kind of story only Saber could tell.

I'm maybe getting ahead of myself now, though. First of all, it's hardly as if the Zenkaigers are glorified extras or anything. (Even *if* my one complaint about this movie is that, like everything, it would be greatly improved with more Magine.) The team still gets their moments to shine, for sure, and I was particularly fond of how effectively they split the groups up for the first big chunk of the plot.

For the whole portion where everything is split between the alternating Hakkenden and Journey To The West stories, you get this clever twist where the equally excitable Touma and Kaito essentially swap their contrasting partners, resulting in some pretty fun dynamics. Zyuran's mellow attitude and snarky quips bounce just as well off the always earnest, often rather emotional Touma, and Rintarou's inclination towards hestitant analysis of his surroundings makes a great contrast to Kaito's eagerness to dive headfirst into anything. There's an instant sense of chemistry that builds up, and it's a real treat seeing two casts I love coming together this way. Again, there's no heroic infighting in this movie, so they're just kinda hanging out right away, and it's awesome. Even though there are bigger ideas the film moves on to tackle eventually, this section emphasizes the actual crossover stuff so well that I ended up feeling totally satisfied on that front. It helps that the twisted recreations of those classic tales are so much adventurous fun in their own right, with all the other returning characters getting their moment or two to shine.

And what helps that along is the usual stellar direction by Ryuuta Tasaki, who brings an *immense* amount of visual clarity to everything that happens. Beyond even the direction, Superhero Senki has a level of detail to every little scene that elevates it a ton. It's sort of like, begging to be savored, and I found because of this that even the smallest moments can feel like big deals.

An easy example is when Saber and Zero-One team up -- the first time Saber and Zero-One have teamed up, because the traditional winter crossover for them got lost in the shuffle. That's a huge bummer for me when I adore both these characters so much, but Superhero Senki clearly gets that. Even though it only has room to be just another small thing, those couple of shots of the two together are framed *really* carefully to convey them being an awesome action duo, fighing back-to-back against evil hordes. It really shouldn't be anything that impressive, and yet it's kinda so epic it manages to scratch the itch left by the absence of a full-length team-up in about a minute. Fumiya Takahashi only gets to do one quick Aruto joke, but he makes sure to absolutely kill it. Grand Zi-O gets to be cool. The both of them, and all the returning Sentai characters, specifically get to transform on-camera, because this movie understands it's cool to see the actors filming new transformation scenes again after an absence. As a Saber fan, I love how well-represented his fashion sense is, with quite a few different forms showing up, including a surprise appearance by Traffic Light Saber, the affectionate nickname I gave in my head to Dragon Hedgehog Peter because I like it so much even though I never expected to see it beyond the early episodes of the show. Everywhere you look, Superhero Senki displays a strong understanding of what... well, at least what I'd want to see from all these characters in a movie together. There are so many little things that made me smile and go "I see what you did there!", like Aruto making his entrance saving an android(!) who then explains his joke(!), and I adored how much thought it was evident they put into this.

And it isn't just the thought put into the delightful fanservice, either! When the story gets to those heavy emotional beats, the execution makes them land so much harder. That scene of Touma and Mei reading their own story is so wonderfully realized. First of all, you can see right from when it's on the shelf at the beginning that the book after Zero-One has no title, and while the twist of Saber being fictional too is entirely internal, having the book's title be hidden because it was in the form of a pop-up book style flap is still a fantastic reveal.

And yet that doesn't even compare to the way everything that comes immediately after this impressed me with how *visceral* it was. Tasaki's fantastic direction mixes beautifully with Nobuhiro Mouri's script to make you empathize with how shocking this all is for Touma. It's a recap of Kamen Rider Saber up to that point, but it's all being reduced to a bunch of lines of text on a page. Touma's whole life, with all the sorrow he's endured and all the victories he's earned, is nothing more than text on a page. The subdued piano version of Saber's BGM motif underscores the melancholy of what's happening, as the film suddenly slows to a crawl after so much bombastic action. The music stops completely for a bit as it becomes apparent the book even has the dialogue that's happening in this scene, word for word, and the way the text pops up gets more and more aggressive and unnerving, culminating in the absolute darkest hour for the heroes.

Until is isn't the darkest hour, because Touma is back home, in "reality", living the peaceful life of his dreams. The score continues to be impressive throughout this scene too, contrasting even more with the rest of the film, and Tasaki does his part to convey both the subdued break in the pace and the surreal vibe by making this one long 7 minute take. (Or at least it's made to look like one; I'm pretty sure the part with Mei and Shoutarou is a separate bit, but it's hidden seamlessly, and the two chunks are still pretty dang long!) The green screen background is classic Saber, but it looks fake here for a legitimate purpose. We're in the "real" world now, but you can tell how cramped it is, and combined with the elaborate staging, it feels like just that -- something staged. It's a theatrical production Touma is an actor in, because for him, the real world is the escapist fantasy. It's also just a plain impressive scene to watch, completely earning how much it's showing off. This is the emotional peak of the film, and Tasaki wants you to know it.

There's a certain level of arrogance that's maybe inherent in making Shoutarou Ishinomori a character in a movie based on his creations. Fortunately, I get the sense Mouri felt that pressure, and used it as motivation to make a very respectful tribute to how Ishinomori's legacy has grown even beyond the man himself. Touma's nature as an author makes this a much smoother process, because he is absolutely the guy who is going to see the beauty in a young Ishinomori's unique vision of heroism, and encourage him to tell the stories only he can. (Touma would know the importance of expressing yourself through art, considering he wrote a hit book inspired by his literal Lost Memory.) Similarly, Hiroshi Fujioka's brief appearance lends a weight to it all that you could only get from the actual original Kamen Rider himself. It's as much him speaking as it is Hongou, and I love how many of the lines in that brief exchange carry different meanings depending on who you imagine is saying the dialogue.

...Aaaaaand this right here is where I stopped! I watched the movie like two or three more times back when it was released, hoping that would help me to gather my thoughts, but all it did was cement the hang-up I was having. This movie is "begging to be savored". I was too right about that, and it was beginning to feel like some kind of paradox trying to express all the things I enjoyed about it in any kind of succinct manner. I might have been having a similar crisis of faith to Touma at the start? I lost sight of what I was even trying to accomplish with the review.

Was I just going to sit there listing things about the movie I liked off? I'd have to describe every single scene! From the very first shot, where we pan up from Southern Base to some orbital station that's apparently always been there, all the way through to the climax, where the logos of the shows join the fight as if to emphasize the heroes are fighting back AS works of fiction, the amusing creativity in this film is off the charts throughout. If that was the direction I wanted to go, I might as well be making a commentary track for the whole thing. I mention how much better Superhero Senki is then the Taisen films were, but even putting them in the same breath feels like an insult to Senki. The thought put into stuff like the score and the shot composition is basically on a whole different dimension, and I love so many completely random minor bits that I could never list them all off. That's part of why I think it's a great movie! You'll always notice something new on a rewatch. It wasn't until the second time through, for example, that I noticed Zyuran drew Gaon's picture smaller than everyone else's on the sign he's carrying around at the start, alluding to their bickering dynamic in Zenkaiger.

Was I just trying to convey a general appreciation for the overall film, then? Wasn't I basically done already, in that case? I guess I didn't feel satisfied with that at the time, because part of me, even now, really does just want to go picking this thing apart in a stupidly detailed recap, but it's probably asking a bit much of anyone to read whatever monstrosity of a rambling post I'd make doing that... not to mention asking a bit much of myself to sit down and write it.

So, after rewatching the movie yet again recently in the hopes I might finally settle things this time... I'm settling them! This is what I'm doing! I'm not going to go into excruciating detail about stuff like what an amazingly gutsy and poignant statement it was to have the Saber cast do an outright Sentai roll call here -- even though I would *so* love to do that -- but I am chiming in to say that I find this movie to be something of a masterpiece tribute to both these franchises and their legacy, and mentioning enough about the details that I can hopefully encourage everyone else to look at it a bit closer themselves.

Superhero Senki isn't anything as lowly as "the best one of those crossovers yet" or whatever; it's a fantastic crossover, plain and simple. It combines the beautifully unashamed sentimentality of Kamen Rider Saber with the insane amount of layers and detail in the production that Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger brings to the table, and the resulting mix is something to behold. I love it enough that... well, I mean, I've already watched it around half a dozen times in like half a year, so I think that about says it all. Or at least, as close to "all" as I feel like getting right now!