[Kurona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enchilada645

Given how Ark-One was supposed to be in Azu's place in RealXTime, and the very ZAIA assisted nature of Thinknet...

And also just the fact that they seemed to be reworking Gai's role before Covid hit so they had to rush his redemption. Yeah it definitely seems like Williamson was supposed to have a bit of a different role aside from what we got.

A bit like Genm becoming a villain again in the Ex-Aid V-cinemas, a lot of this movie feels like Takahashi doing things he for some reason wasn't able to follow through on in the series proper -- and I imagine we'll see that continue in Vulcan/Valkyrie. Arkland in particular feels like Amatsu's earlygame role ramped up to 11 and is a very natural replacement for him; you've got Jin's whole mystery actually being revealed and explored here; SOLD is at last Zero-One going back to its themes of Humagear freedom and autonomy; and MBJR is given a sensible, interesting way for them to be opposing society and humanity that ties in with the overall themes of the show. Like, the movie is basically them sacrificing themselves to break the Humagears' chains - with visual symbolism that is so literal it doesn't want you to miss that point - and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Everything here from the plotting to the mystery revelations to the characterisation to the theming feels like something that would actually have been the show's endgame instead of just some extra post-series adventures, with Kamen Rider MBJR being the 'Ark-One' that Zero-One has to take care of instead of Vulcan and Valkyrie. I can absolutely imagine this being the general plan and thrust of the show at around the episode 40 mark if production hadn't been interrupted. That's all just speculation, though, and very much based on how I felt watching!