[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

These characters aren't able to stand on their own, cause the movie requires the audience to superimpose their existing opinions of the present characters on to the past characters. It's like you say, this movie isn't a Hibiki story. It's a story that just happens to involve a guy called Hibiki, who looks and acts like Hibiki. I don't feel a strong difference between these two Hibikis other than the latter is more likely to get killed off due to the apparent expendability of everybody in this setting. It breaks the suspense by making the stakes more predictable.

I mean, I called it "uncanny valley Hibiki", so I'm not immune to this feeling.

I think the presence of Kabuki as a strong central villain (With an arc! And a twist! And a motivation!) helps make the story compelling in its own right. I'd argue that you honestly don't need to have an investment in the TV cast to enjoy this movie? Nothing's that core to the TV characters, and what's here is fairly easy to invest in: village under siege, boy wants to save his friend, maligned heroes, etc. It's a sturdy story.

It's... yeah, it's not really a Hibiki story, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Asumu is a given name though, not inherited like Oni. I guess it's possible that there was a Todoroki lineage that went extinct and Zanki chose that name for his apprentice to revive it. Without a successor to his name, the Zanki lineage will probably go extinct as well until someone in the future decides to make it their own.

I was mostly just thinking that, with how hand-wavey the Asumu thing is, that it's just as likely that there coincidentally was a one-off Oni named Todoroki back then, and the newer Todoroki never even heard of him.