[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER KIVA: KING OF THE CASTLE IN THE DEMON WORLD



This was one that... I had some problems with it. There are a weirdly high amount of little things that bothered me, stuff that was added in the shift to a movie that I found slightly baffling. But I ended up really enjoying it for reasons that I'm not sure I can even quantify. (I am also writing this incredibly late at night again. My scheduling this week for this thread has been abysmal.)

Some of it's just, like... look at that screencap! It's a movie where Wataru spends time with his dad. It's basically that simple. There's some incredible work done in giving the audience the emotional beats that feel widescreen and epic (Megumi and Yuri both kick ass as IXA!!!), rather than a billion Riders or some massive fight scene or whatever. It's really just a vehicle to give you some Parent/Child bonding across a toku landscape, and I'm not sure pointing out its flaws really tells the whole story.

In fairness, though: there are some flaws!

As much as I love the Wataru/Otoya story here, there's really not a lot to it. The opening parts play like a sweeter version of the recent Nago two-parter, as Otoya refuses to entertain Wataru's claims and they brawl in a classic Heroic Misunderstanding way. Once Otoya believes it, though, it's all weirdly played at the exact same level as the Net-Movies? Otoya loudly loves and supports his son, and Wataru unfailingly supports his dad. There's no friction in their story once they're both in 2008, which means there's almost no arc to their story for about 45 minutes. It's very sweet, and it arguably works better than having the two of them at each other's throats for a whole movie, but it makes everything in their relationship seem too easy. A lot of what Wataru is struggling with in Kamen Rider Kiva is how he fits in with his father's legacy, and what parts of him are passed down. So to have a movie like this dropped into the middle of the show's run that pretty much says Daddy Loves You No Matter What... this is going to make watching some of the Wataru scenes in Kiva a little less fun, even if this movie is non-canonical. (It has to be non-canonical.)

The other big thing is that, like, what the hell is even the deal with Takoto? His character only makes the slightest amount of sense if you watched the third Net-Movie, where it's revealed that Takoto was friends with Nago back when Nago was an overly-emotional crybaby. Because in the movie? There's no details about this dude at all. He shows up, Nago shrinks like he's trying to will himself out of Takoto's eyeline, and we're never told why. And this is the big adversary for IXA! There's nothing to key into for their rivalry or their friendship or any of it. Beyond that, he's a guy that has a belt for some reason, and betrays them for some reason, and it's all sort of shrugged at. (I believe the movie's answers to both of these mysteries are "another group made a Kiva belt somehow”, like that's just an easy thing to reproduce; and "that's just the type of guy Takoto is”, which, what? He's well-known for betraying people to immortal monsters who want to subjugate humanity? I thought he was the ace agent for a big monster-hunting agency? I feel like Most Likely To Betray Humanity should be a disqualifying trait!) He's a guy that has almost zero character, zero appreciable motivation, and dies in a fight that never really made any sense.

Otherwise, my gripes are fairly trivial. I don't know why there's a whole thing about Wataru going back to high school, since the only benefit it has (beyond some funny gags) is introducing Natsuki, and I feel like they could've done that some other way. Everyone knows Wataru is Kiva, but that's probably changed to make the story flow faster. All of the 2008 stuff with the Arms Monsters, who Wataru somehow already knows. Just little stuff.

(Well?€? there's also Otoya hanging out with his son in 2008, but I'd rather not wade into that plot at all if I can avoid it. It's a minefield. I didn't think it was nearly as problematic as describing it would make it sound, but describing it makes it sound intensely problematic, so no thanks. There is some maybe genuine bonding in it, though.)

Almost none of what I just talked about matters to me, though. It's a movie all about trying to find the value in who your parents were, no matter the baggage. It's not really a movie about Fathers and Sons, it's a movie about children trying to understand their parents. There's a sweetness to that being a theme for a giant toku movie (toku movies always go more vertical than their corresponding TV shows; look at how Shima is climbing a wall for his mission briefing with Nago!), and I liked how the movie used Natsuki's totally minor story to embrace its universality. We got to see Wataru and Otoya play a song together on stage. How am I not going to enjoy a movie that ends like that?



Oh! And I loved how the movie shoveled in all of the Den-O voice actors (and Naomi, I think) in cameo roles. They're all very funny in how they tip their hand (Kin's quote on the chalkboard, Ura and Ryuta doing their catchphrases), but the absolute best cameo was, naturally, Momo: