[Sh Ranger]

Sh Ranger Also Watched Medal Of Resurrection

Almost 2 years later, this movie still seems to be pretty polarizing, between those like me who enjoyed it and thought it was thematically appropriate and those who disliked it and thought it ruined the original ending.

As I haven't yet deigned to rewatch OOO, this movie is my most recent memory of it, but even with all that time lapsed, I still felt like I was watching peak OOO. A story about Ankh and Eiji and the ways they changed each other for the better, that's literally the heart of the show and it's exactly what I expected from a movie celebrating 10 years. OOO's ending made it one of the most deserving of a sequel, with the hanging thread of Ankh's revival being constantly teased over and over again without ever letting it stick. Megamax, HeiGen Final and Memory of Heroez kept giving us back Ankh and then taking him away again. So a movie that actually gives us Ankh back and lets us keep him, granting the desire in our hearts, while taking Eiji in exchange, that's a very OOO thing to do, a reminder that desire comes at the cost of something.

I think DreamSword gave a good explanation in reply to my post from that thread. While it's easy to see Eiji's decision to let himself die as hypocrisy and maybe even a little stupid, the whole point is to warn Ankh not to end up like him. Eiji is a true hero to others, but at the same time, he's not an ideal that any sane person should aspire to. Being Eiji, a man without desire who would risk everything for your desire, sounds like a life of endless suffering. And nobody knows that better than Eiji himself. He doesn't want Ankh to spend 10 years looking for a way to revive his loved one, since Eiji already did that and even then, he only succeeded by accident. It's a final admission that desire is essential for human happiness and he doesn't want Ankh to lose that.

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Originally Posted by GodSpeedLove

Wow, really? I would love to see whatever plans they had for those, just to see how that would even happen, especially Ryuki. I mean, what would the message/moral be for those endings? "Your heroes all died, the end"? What are the kids gonna think of that, lol?

Like the final episode where Knight defeats Odin and wins the wish to save Eri, except no reset. I imagine Kobayashi's thoughts for the moral was to highlight the danger of wishing for something at the expense of others (like what OOO Episode 21-22 talked about), while the end of the Rider War does provide a happy ending for basically everybody else that's not a Rider or Yui, except for civilians who were killed by Riders or Contract Monsters. Probably the closest thing to that would be Rider Time Ryuki.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

I?m not calling it bad, but I don?t think it?s great either. Firmly middle of the road.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

I'd never say it isn't a good show, but it's not one of my personal favorites.

Same here. OOO is only 14th on my Heisei Rider Ranking, but it's still good. Just that for anything it does good, I can usually think of another show that does that thing better.

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Originally Posted by Androzani84

Eiji?s death doesn?t really do much but make the movie anything but predictable, in spite of being planned for a while (Kobayashi confirmed in the leaflet that Ankh in Megamax was written with the fact Eiji died to bring him back in mind, and indeed, a lot of his actions there are properly recontextualised here).

Nice to see that Kobayashi was able to secure her vision using Megamax to suggest Eiji's fate, which was then shown in full by Mouri. People blamed Mouri for their dislike of Medal of Resurrection, but if they actually did their research about Kobayashi, they'd know getting the original writer wouldn't have made much difference to the ending. Sucks to see Mouri get scapegoated like that, just like people blaming Fukuda and Takahashi for choices actually made by producers.