[Kurona]

I adore Sento and Banjou more than is probably healthy, so honestly? The SentoXBanjou stuff in here was easily enough to pull it through for me and actually make it one of my favourite Rider movies ever, because that's how much I love these guys.


But uh, yeah, hard agree on a lot of that. These villains are, like, the most tropey, stereotypical group of one-off villains you could get. The Puppetmaster Leader, The Other Guy One That Laughs And/Or Is A Knucklehead, The Girl One. Just... deeply uninspired, I get nothing from these guys, and Blood isn't even a good fuckin suit.

I can kind of get past the 'we were behind everything' plot point because to me, it seemed more like they were the ones executing stuff while Evolt was still the planner -- eg Evolt wants Faust Experiment #31 covered up, don't worry dude; I'm here in a position of power, I can do that for you. Just fills in that part of the chain to me when it didn't get much development on the show (though, not like it needed to). Also it kind of helps that after being absent for most of the movie, Evolt essentially says at the end "haha you wanted to do my thing? Fuck you lmao". But... man. These are just bad, forgettable villains. I was going over a list of what major suits Figuarts hadn't made yet, and I completely forgot that Blood even existed to list him. Just, so rubbish.


Also agree with the Cross-ZBuild suit. It shouldn't work. It really, really shouldn't. But through the thematic and emotional connections, it's the best thing ever and I adore it! The fact that it doesn't look like it should work yet is in fact the most powerful thing in Japan is so obvious a metaphor that I don't even feel the need to spell it out. Perfect.


I will say though, I kinda disagree on the whole "Blood says he's not controlling them when he obviously is" bit. I read into it as him more or less awakening negative feelings towards the Riders but sending them into hyperdrive. As you noted, the citizens would have plenty of reasons to harbour some sort of malice towards them -- former enemy combatants, property damage, treachery, just the idea of seeing some super-powered person going around and punching people with for the most part no government or public entity to reign them in. Hell, this almost reads like a follow-up to Build's plan 5 or so episodes ago to declare himself a traitor to Touto's government in order to go after Evolt without declaring war!

All of which to say: I feel like Blood's being a politician here. There's teeeechnically a bit of truth behind his words, which you find out at the end; but he's stretching it beyond all credibility and using it to create a meaning and reading that just is not there. He's taken "the citizens don't feel great about you guys and have uncertainties and anxieties about this whole thing" and turned it into "the citizens HATE you and want you OUT and we'd ALL BE BETTER OFF IF YOU'D JUST DIE". So that wasn't bad to me.


Also you didn't talk about the scene where Sento completely fucks himself over because he wanted to take pictures of the cute dogs, so 0/10 for this review I'm afraid