[Kamen Rider Die]

originally posted on December 6th, 2021, as part of “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Legend Rider projects (and more!)”

OOO, DEN-O, ALL RIDERS: LET’S GO KAMEN RIDERS



That’s the one thing I remembered from this movie.

I love that shot of Our Heroes (well, Our Heroes And Also Ankh) getting crucified in Kamen Rider Plaza. (Not to be confused with Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza.) It’s… I was very new to Kamen Rider when I saw this movie, and the gigantic thematic swings a Kamen Rider movie could take hadn’t really been made clear to me yet. So seeing a public execution steeped in Western religious iconography was… I did not see that coming! It’s a pretty shocking image!

No pun intended! I dimly recalled that this was one of those Phase 2 movies where Shocker takes over everything, and it’s definitely that. (I think the other one is Kamen Rider 3?) There’s not really much to this movie outside of Kamen Riders and Shocker, though. It’s a 40th anniversary celebration of Kamen Rider, and boy do they never let you forget it.

Like, the story or moral or lesson or whatever, it’s paper-thin: Kamen Rider -- much like Wu-Tang -- is for the children. We see a world without Kamen Riders, and we see children with nothing to look to for examples of bravery and dedication and sacrifice and sweet-ass bike tricks. It’s a very good lesson! I find it hard to complain about a movie whose text and subtext is Thank Goodness For Kamen Rider.

But, man, this movie eventually just becomes a parade of Kamen Riders, with all the story inherent in, y’know, parades. It’s an entire final third that’s just introduction after introduction, and that’s in a movie that already spends a ton of its runtime introducing Kamen Riders!



Like this guy! It’s the return of New Den-O, now with (I want to say) lighter hair. This was my first ever Den-O experience, and I don’t know that I got even half of the premise. I definitely didn’t get why Momotaros could just become a Den-O despite being one of the monster guys, and I think I sort of get it now. I guess those Decade episodes where he became a real boy are Den-O canon? Maybe?

This was a fairly middle-of-the-road outing for New Den-O. He doesn’t really have an arc. (None of the superheroes do in this movie. Hell, not even Ankh learns a lesson, and he’s the one instigating the plot!) He’s put through another brief demise of Teddy, which I think now accounts for half of all Teddy stories to date? Him dying and Kotaro feeling distraught until Teddy just shows back up? But the Imagin are all very fun, and Kotaro doesn’t drag anything down. He’s fine, and Den-O’s always at least fun. Nice to see that cast again.



And then it’s just a million Showa guys. I don’t truck with Showa, so all them old guys flipping through the air was not what I wanted in an OOO/Den-O film. They’re just there, which is pretty much how the entire final third of the film felt to me. I like Kamen Rider suits and all, but these guys were interchangeable for the plot. It was just more and more dudes, without anything for them to do or say.



Except, of course, for the returning W team! It’s a cameo, at most, but I love seeing them. (And, what the hell, did Philip’s voice change between Movie War Core and this?! He’s got a relatively husky voice when he’s saying his two or three lines! He’s all grown up now!) Shotaro and Philip are maybe my favorite duo in all of Kamen Rider, so I’m going to be a hypocrite and applaud this movie for bringing them back for maybe thirty whole seconds.

Beyond that… god, I don’t know what there even is to talk about. It’s a million hero suits fighting a million villain suits, and the only real theme is that Kamen Rider is an awesome franchise. It’s nothing I disagree with, but I don’t know that I needed it shouted at me for ninety minutes.

Still, that crucifixion shot! Very cool.



—

40 MONTHS LATER



It’s really the prototype for the Taisen movies, isn’t it?

There’s the requisite Nighttime Showdown at Kamen Rider Quarry, preceded by an entire third of the film spent introducing conspicuously silent and glaringly interchangeable Legend Riders, preceded by a plot that asks more questions than it answers, preceded by an emotional story that actually engages with its audience in a smart way. Read another way, it’s a good story that gets progressively dumber the more it leans into spectacle.

Like, I think all of the Rider Scouts stuff in this movie is great? Really great? I gloss over it above – to almost the same degree the movie eventually abandons it to spend more time burnishing the legend of, like, ZX – but the way this movie talks about how Kamen Rider’s gift to the children of Japan for 40 years is that it taught multiple generations to believe in things like hope and kindness… that’s so cool. Creating an alternate non-Rider world whose tragedy is that kids are meaner and more selfish and scared? Very smart, and genuinely affecting for all of its nonsense in worldbuilding. (I like that Shocker kept building inspiring buildings and making fun fashion for people throughout Showa and Heisei, despite being a malevolent kleptocracy.) I like when these movies get at something sweet, rather than just something awesome. That’s such a nice thing to celebrate for a major anniversary.

And then the movie basically forgets about it for over 20 minutes.

The spectacle is what we’re nominally here for, if you believe the filmmakers, and I find it a fairly mixed bag. There’s an effort to get everyone and everything onscreen in some capacity, logic and/or history be damned. (Kind of surprised #1 and #2 invited, like, Scissors to the big brawl at the end. I feel like being a serial killer would be disqualifying, but maybe being Shocker henchmen for 40 years blurred their red lines some.) The bikes all can fly now because Why Not, everyone's just back because of belief so there's zero consequences, and the scale eventually dwarfs the humanity. It’s Quantity over Quality, which is basically the formula for every upcoming Taisen film. It’s a big party at Kamen Rider Quarry, and everyone is invited except for compelling storytelling.

But the beginning! Kind of a fun story, right up until the movie decided it didn’t need one anymore! A shame this all begat the Taisen series!



edited to add OH RIGHT THE OOO GUYS. Incredibly funny that Eiji and Ankh go on a literal journey without going on any sort of emotional journey -- they travel through time and alternate realities, but the only lessons they come away with are Fighting Harder (Eiji) and I Wasn't Listening To The Question (Ankh). Absolutely just along for a celebratory extravaganza, and they didn't even get to share the screen with the two Riders they actually knew already. Amazing. YONEMURA!!!