[Kamen Rider Die]

MASKED RIDER RYUKI - EPISODE FINAL MOVIE



Femme's a pretty interesting character. She's a mix of a few different established characters (Kitaoka's cunning, Ren's dedication to saving a loved one, a decent chunk of the Knight costume and weaponry, Reiko's assertiveness), but she manages to feel wholly original and also like a missing piece from Ryuki.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkibaSilver

Maybe Inoue should get into making Romcoms someday.

Well, uh, here it is! Miho and Shinji have excellent chemistry, and their scenes are when the film's at its best. Her subtlety and deceptions play great off of his gullibility and quick temper. His kindness and generosity spark against her distrusting, guarded nature. They're total opposites, but some terrific acting makes their antagonism realistically melt into respect and romance.

I'm not sure Kamen Rider does a lot of real romances? There's definitely chaste crushes, and a hospital wing's worth of women suffering from Endangered Girlfriend Syndrome, but actual dates, sexual chemistry, that shit is largely ignored. Not by everyone, though. I feel like I could subconsciously tell when Inoue wrote an episode of Ryuki because the show got 23% more horny. Men started to get more aggressive, women started to get more flirty, everyone started acting like the young people they are. It's the same thing in this movie, where immediately Shinji is getting eyerolls from Reiko over how protective he gets about Miho. And, like, yes, gorgeous. But there's some really great chemistry between them. They cast great on Miho, because I completely got what the two of them saw in each other, and that is invaluable when you've got to make her death matter in under an hour.

And, yeah, she dies. Romances like Miho and Shinji may not be a staple, but Doomed Romances sure as shit are. As soon as she started to fall for Shinji, really care about him, the axe was going to fall on her. It's a shame, but this is a one-off story, so this was all she was going to get anyway. As it was, I was thrilled that so much of this story, ostensibly about concluding the Ryuki story in a movie, was given over to the Miho/Shinji stuff. I definitely wish it had just been that, it's the best part of this movie, but I still enjoyed it.

The rest of the movie, though...

It's a real weird idea, to hand the secondary writer the reins to the movie, to let them take a run at wrapping up Ryuki. If I were Kobayashi, I don't know how much I'd love that? I get that, for production reasons, it was probably necessary to have an A/B team for TV versus special projects, but letting someone else do something called Episode Final? Gotta be some complicated emotions for Kobayashi on that one.

What's in this movie... it's fine. It's a movie that lacks the infuriating lows of the TV ending, but misses out on the transcendent highs. It's all middle.

The big improvement is the Mirror World stuff. It's still not the best thing ever, but it's coherent in a way that the TV show wasn't. Having young Yui make a deal with a Mirror Yui for a second chance at life, it's a much stronger way into that story. It's got a dark fairytale feel to it, with a child escaping to a world of fun before having to make a deal with an otherworldly force to return home. It also makes Yui culpable, creating a less-victimized aspect to her performance, more guilty than terrified. She has a role beyond being a damsel, and her choices stay hers for the duration of the movie. It's a way stronger ending for Yui than the TV show allowed her.

Everything else manages to feel a little more thought through, with a variety of quick explanations covering the weird lapses in storytelling from the show. It's not a ton of time spent to bring it up to the level of This Isn't Frustrating, which actually makes the TV show's version more frustrating. It doesn't seem, based on this movie, that it would've taken so much work to get the Mirror World stuff working on the show. Super disappointing, in retrospect.

But, while they could drag the floor up, they also lowered the ceiling. Everything that happens in the story is fairly predictable, and plays like a less-imaginative version of Ryuki. Characters are slowly whittled down, an Evil Version of Shinji is one of the final bosses (mirrors!), and there's a focus on just Ren versus Shinji at the end. It's sort-of what you'd expect of a show about mirrors and monsters (the black version of Dragreder is called Dragblacker, though, which is so exquisitely dumb that I need to pay it homage), which means it doesn't have the nuance or idiostyncratic touches of the TV finale. Kitaoka just leaves to go to lunch with Reiko, despite his illness. Asakura's final battle is with Miho, and he's mostly a victim of the new Big Bad, Ryuga. The mirror version of Shinji, it's a cool visual that 100% doesn't thematically fit this show. Like, what is Ryuga supposed to represent about Shinji's story? He's just evil, and wants to win the Rider Battle. Why? What does that have to do with the themes of sacrifice, of self-examination? The stuff that gets changed about the ending to Ryuki, it's all plot, no heart. It's constructive without being illuminating.

And that makes the process of watching this movie very fun for stretches (RomKamen Rider!), but it's a largely hollow endeavor. It's a fun story that cleans up the messiness of the TV show, but that messiness is what made it memorable. This one? I'll remember Femme (although, Jesus, why not just call her Kamen Rider Girl and be done with it), and that's probably all.

Oh! I'll also remember this as a STEALTH MOVIE WAR WITH LEGEND RIDERS!






Is that all of them? I think I got them all. When Shinji goes to that second restaurant to meet Miho, I thought the waiter might be Shouichi, and it was. And then Mana showed up! And all of Team G3! It was such a pleasant surprise!

Fun flick, and a nice dessert after the meal of Ryuki.