[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER JUUGA VS KAMEN RIDER ORTECA - EPISODE 1



Is it seriously “Orteca”?

That feels like an insane question to ask after months of writing about Revice, and in one of the final posts for this thread, but: Seriously, it’s not “Olteca”? All of my subs have said “Olteca”, and I swear that’s what they’ve been calling that guy for episodes and episodes. Except, clear as day on the title screen for this episode, it’s “Kamen Rider Orteca”.

I honestly don’t know what to do with that. I don’t want to say it’s all I could focus on in this episode, but it pretty much was. I’m just gonna call him “Olteca”, to keep my brain from hurting quite so much. Let’s move on!

I haven’t been able to care a lot about the emotional journey of George Karizaki, and thankfully this miniseries doesn’t seem to, either. It’s very much George in his initial mode of Kamen Rider Super Fan – like, an enthusiastic fan of Kamen Riders; also, a fan of Super-1 – rather than anything too tortured or layered. He’s back to trying to make his Daddy proud via mad science, and he’s having a great time with it. It’s not… it’s not a story with any real deep insights into George’s character, so much as it’s a quick run through of his motivations and immediate goals. He wants to make Kamen Riders look cool, and a recently escaped Olteca is standing in his way.

The Olteca side of things is as surface-level as the Juuga side: Olteca’s been sprung from prison, Neo Deadmans, Demons Driver, whatever. It’s Olteca going through the motions, and it’s a shame that after all this time, no one could quite come up with a deeper look into his psychology than Smirking Sociopath. He’s a familiar face to fight Juuga, and that’s about it.

Speaking of familiar faces: Rinna and Otta from Drive!!!

It’s saying something about how flimsy and inessential this story felt that the best, most memorable part is Rinna from Drive talking about her dissolved relationship with the eternally embarrassing Otta. In a wacky episode where nothing feels especially tethered to reality (I love Olteca, an escaped prisoner on his way to commit crimes, just walking past George), Rinna cartoonishly destroying pictures of Otta is both an episode highlight and lowlight. It’s goofy fun, but it has nothing at all to do with George or Olteca, and it eats up time that’s maybe better spent on addressing the title characters.

Or not! I liked the Drive stuff a lot, and I sort of sat through the Revice stuff. Even the shock reveal of Hana/Aguilera being one of the Neo Deadmans is just an Uh Okay moment, rather than anything too mysterious or exciting. It’s a special where I don’t really care about the main characters, and the special doesn’t really seem to care about them either, so let’s just all try and have a pleasant time until the credits roll. I guess I did? Mostly?