[Kurona]

Back to back, these are two of my favourite Kamen Rider movies; and my impressions of both only got better on a recent rewatch!

Let's Go Kamen Riders is, for me, entirely a bit of fun -- which good, because that's all it's trying to be! Yonemura seems a strange writer choice for a movie that's ostensibly a crossover between two Kobayashi shows, but the reason becomes clear: he is unabashedly in love with Showa Rider. The entire thing is a love letter to it, wonderfully blending the undertones of a lonely fight against a fascist empire; and also through the Kamen Rider Scouts just embracing how absolutely stupid and batshit the entire show actually was! The scouts are actually my least favourite part of the original show but this movie is fighting to make me love them and... and it just about succeeds! It's a fun, joyous romp; and it probably is not doing much to endear itself to someone who isn't a huge Showa fan, but in terms of 'fun anniversary crossovers', this is absolutely the best one to me and I will never get enough of Momotaros ripping up Shocker grunts in the past left and right for no reason. Just a great movie

OOO Wonderful on the other hand captures OOO's themes in ways that I found the series itself lacking in at times. It's something funny I've found on my OOO rewatch; the series has a lot of high points but so so so much in the middle is just very bland or forgettable... which means that movies, with their condensed runtimes, are able to cut out all that and just get right to the good stuff! One very obvious exception at the beginning excluded, of course. OOO Wonderful stands out to me for its very blunt, proud declaration of its themes of coming together and reaching out to each other; the scene where Eiji goes "you're letting me take my family with me? Well everyone is my family!!" is perhaps a very obvious twist but... man. MAN it gives me chills each time, it's straight up one of the best OOO moments to me. Alongside that you've got the excellent Shun subplot, Ankh and Eiji getting some great moments, a bunch of form fanservice, the Fourze cameo, an absolutely batshit crossover idea that if anything furthers those themes of reaching out by being between two things you'd never have expected to join up in a billion years? Yeah, this kinda has everything! One of the best summer movies for me, hands down