[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by 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.

That's one of the things that makes this movie more frustrating to me, that the SentoXBanjou stuff works so effortlessly, but they just buried it in weirder, confusing storylines. Did they forget what they had in these two? Did they really think that kind of chemistry couldn't carry a 60-minute movie?

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Originally Posted by Kurona

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.

"The Girl One In A Skirt Or Shorts" is, I believe, her villain-type on the Wiki. She has an embarrassing amount of company on that page!

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Originally Posted by Kurona

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.

Generally fair, and if they'd played that up I'd be more into it. A group of lieutenant aliens who are, like, Boss, you're screwing us over, we're taking over now, that could work for me. It's just, they specifically did a scene where the Blood Tribe (thank you, Wiki) claims that they were the ones to pick Banjou's girlfriend to be monsterized, and, like, no? Why take one of the biggest moments for Banjou in the series, one of his biggest beefs with Evol(t), and give it away? It'd be like if the Blood Tribe told Sento that they were hiding in that parking garage and THEY killed his dad. Like, are they a race they metabolizes acknowledgement or something? Do they need to jump on every achievement of Evol(t)'s?

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Originally Posted by Kurona

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.

So true. These two oil-and-water goofs made something unstoppable.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

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.

I mean, fair enough. In general, I do like the premise, I just think the execution was muddled (he's amplifying feelings that already exist, except it also makes Sawa and Misora try to kill Sento?) and too binary (I really wish I could've gotten one scene in the movie that was in-between "thank you Build" and "all Kamen Riders must die"). There are legitimate reasons to be suspicious of extra-legal science heroes who ignore borders and destroy property, and it bugged me that the movie went the cackling, controlling villain route when it felt like it was the least-effective way in.

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Originally Posted by Kurona

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

Do you want these write-ups to just be a thousand screencaps of the shit I found hilarious? Because they nearly are! That scene was delightful, and some of that early on-the-run stuff had me really hoping for a "28 Days Later, but the jokey tokusatsu version" that we didn't get.

Also, you could've referenced the rage-filled cheerleaders shouting "Destroy!" in an upbeat, rallying way, and you didn't, so maybe we all need to look inside of ourselves and ask some hard questions.