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Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

That?s the one thing I remembered from this movie.

I love that shot of Our Heroes (well, Our Heroes And Also Ankh) getting crucified in Kamen Rider Plaza. (Not to be confused with Kamen Rider Aubrey Plaza.) It?s? I was very new to Kamen Rider when I saw this movie, and the gigantic thematic swings a Kamen Rider movie could take hadn?t really been made clear to me yet. So seeing a public execution steeped in Western religious iconography was? I did not see that coming! It?s a pretty shocking image!

No pun intended! I dimly recalled that this was one of those Phase 2 movies where Shocker takes over everything, and it?s definitely that. (I think the other one is Kamen Rider 3?) There?s not really much to this movie outside of Kamen Riders and Shocker, though. It?s a 40th anniversary celebration of Kamen Rider, and boy do they never let you forget it.

This is very much a Showa reference. I think Ultraman did it first, but crucifixions were surprisingly commonplace during Rider's early years. Long-running Rider supporting character Tachibana Tobei has probably been crucified more often than the lead actor in a tour of Jesus Christ Superstar.

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Like this guy! It?s the return of New Den-O, now with (I want to say) lighter hair. This was my first ever Den-O experience, and I don?t know that I got even half of the premise. I definitely didn?t get why Momotaros could just become a Den-O despite being one of the monster guys, and I think I sort of get it now. I guess those Decade episodes where he became a real boy are Den-O canon? Maybe?

This was a fairly middle-of-the-road outing for New Den-O. He doesn?t really have an arc. (None of the superheroes do in this movie. Hell, not even Ankh learns a lesson, and he?s the one instigating the plot!) He?s put through another brief demise of Teddy, which I think now accounts for half of all Teddy stories to date? Him dying and Kotaro feeling distraught until Teddy just shows back up? But the Imagin are all very fun, and Kotaro doesn?t drag anything down. He?s fine, and Den-O?s always at least fun. Nice to see that cast again.

I'm glad you liked seeing these characters again, because I'm fairly certain this is the last time we ever see New Den-O (I think the Cho Den-O trilogy came out before this, but legitimately don't remember and can't be bothered to look it up). By this point, W was obviously the new hotness and Toei probably figured that it was easier to just get Momotaros' actor in a recording booth than it was to get either Kotaro or Kid Ryotaro in front of a camera. We're not quite at the end of Den-O being a required component of everything, but we are past the point where it was no longer essential to get the full cast back.

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And then it?s just a million Showa guys. I don?t truck with Showa, so all them old guys flipping through the air was not what I wanted in an OOO/Den-O film. They?re just there, which is pretty much how the entire final third of the film felt to me. I like Kamen Rider suits and all, but these guys were interchangeable for the plot. It was just more and more dudes, without anything for them to do or say.

I know they'd never do it, but I so badly wanted the scene with everyone chanting Rider names to include Shin popping out and the whole crowd going "Uh... that guy!"

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Originally Posted by Enchilada645

And then the appearance of four showa characters I didn't even know existed because I only assumed Kikaider and Inazuman were anime. And then there's this Pokemon dude named Zubat? But turns out the dude in the show is this super badass guy? Real good stuff. And that's not mentioning stuff like the cool All Rider Break at the very end.

Was this the one with Zubat? I love that guy. I highly recommend the show to anyone who a) can truck with Showa and b) loves insanely over-the-top heroes. He's gotten a decent amount of tributes in New Generation Ultraman stuff, most notably Orb borrowing his whole "wandering onto the scene while playing his own theme song" shtick.