[Locke]

Almost finished my watch through of Gavv, might post longer thoughts when I get to the end. My overall thoughts some five episodes away from the end is Gavv at it’s best is some of the best Rider around, genuinely, but I just think the show is overall just kind of a mess.

And maybe not in the way other Rider shows are a mess. I just think the show lacks a clear focus and a driving engine, but is able to convince you for like half the show that it actually does have a focus and an engine, right up until the point where it needs to actually start paying things off and the reality that the show has kinda been going nowhere the whole time becomes suddenly super apparent.

There are far worse offenders in this regard in other shows, but it almost hurts more here cause I really loved Gavv during the first half, and even during its messiest moments in the back half I still think the show is pretty wonderful, I just maybe wish they gave the writing room a few more draft attempts before shooting.

The main reason for checking in though is I finished watching the Gavv Summer Movie and I thought it was super fun. Kinda felt like a bit of a filler episode rather than like a proper movie, but it was fun to get all the cast back together (they are really what make Gavv for me, such a loveable bunch of characters with such tangible chemistry, they manage to put that on full display here, if only briefly) and play through a what if scenario, while retaining so much of the wonderful queer-coding of the main show and introducing us to Zeztz.

While it doesn't have really any higher production values than a standard episode really in terms of pure production quality (and it seems like all the new Riders / forms are just reused parts of existing suits from the main series), it balances that out in the scope and scale of the action scenes.

Honestly, just as an aside, and I know this has a lot more like filmic language and choreography baked into it compared to a standard episode. But even like taking a standard episode of Gavv, I have also gone back and started watching Drive again which I am pretty sure was one of the final shows for me before my Toku candle went out and I kinda fell off actively following every series. And like maybe from a pure production quality standpoint things haven't moved as much as you would have maybe wanted, but shows like Gavv and Zeztz show we really have come a long way when it comes to the superhero stuff in a Rider show.

I’m still early into Drive, so it might change, but right now, every fight scene is just dudes standing still cranking plastic crap, while their Drivers shout Engrish and fire CG bullshit at each other. Like I am so close to falling off of Drive again because I think the actual Rider stuff is the worst part of the show, it is just so boring.

I feel like shows like Gavv and Zeztz have done such great work in fleshing out action scenes and making them interesting in the moment to moment, not just flashy poorly disguised toy commercials (even though I know that is what they are all in cases, you don’t have to be blatant about it).

The scene of the Stomach Family all fighting shoulder to shoulder had to get the biggest pop from me though. Even if it was only brief, I still feel like this movie uses them better than the actual show does!

I also liked how it leaned into the body horror stuff from Gavv, one of the many meander to nowhere storylines in Gavv is the body horror stuff, and I do think it was a shame they never really committed to it fully. But it comes back in full force here, and is pretty gruesome as well.

If I were to have any real complaints over the film, it is probably running time. I think the film is fine as is, but I couldn’t help but wonder how special this might have been had we had more breathing room to play out more of the what-if scenarios, to spend more time on the relationship between Shouma and Taorin and to give the villains proper motivations. Again, I don’t think it ultimately matters because I think the film is pretty great as is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t want it to have been even better.