[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN SENTAI GORIDER - MAZE 3: GORIDER FOREVER



The thing I remember most about this mini-series is how clever the mystery’s resolution felt. It’s multi-phased, and it plays fair; two attributes that most Legend Rider stories do not exactly have in abundance.

There’s Emu’s solution to the mystery at the heart of this supernatural roguelike, where he scrawls codes to himself to circumvent the memory wipe he endures each time the game resets. It’s all based on the Japanese language, so I absolutely didn’t get it until the translators jumped in for Emu’s big reveal, but it’s exactly the sort of thing Emu would try. Kiriya’s the detective of Team Ex-Aid, but Emu knows how to find the weak points in game design.

But using Kenzaki to dismantle Kuroto’s world? Perfect. I loved it even before I watched Blade, if you can believe it. The slow, deliberate pacing of the exposition helps novice Rider fans get the significance of what’s happening, but the dawning realization on Kuroto’s face elicits just the most decadent joy at him figuring out that he accidentally built the trap that is now closing around him. It is so, so good.

(Having now watched Blade, the obvious problem with Kenzaki going into the game world to shut down Kuroto is Wait That Means There’s Only One Undead On Earth Now. Technically correct, but Earth has previously needed a lot more than fifteen minutes to get apocalypsed by Darkroaches, so it’s probably okay for Kenzaki to pitch in real quick and help out Team Ex-Aid. Not great for him to almost sacrifice himself, maybe, but he’s always been a little impetuous.)

(I also love the mental image of the Sealing Stone being like GOD FINALLY, floating up there for twelve years waiting for the last two dudes to finish the fight, only to get a cup of coffee into its apocalypse before Kenzaki calls it off. Again. Let it do its job, you selfish jerk!)

After that reveal, though, it’s all a little messy. It’s a fight at Kamen Rider Quarry. There are a bunch of old monster suits and henchmen to humiliate. There’s the final deployment of the series’ ostensible raison d'?tre: getting five people into Kamen Sentai outfits. (It’s as random and pointless as in the Super Duper Hero Wars movie.) As immaculate as the pacing was in the first two episodes, the back half of the third episode was a slog. The series as a whole peaked with the mystery’s solution, and the heroes’ strategy for ending Kuroto’s Wizard-inspired take on Hades. The gigantic fight afterwards feels poorly motivated and obligatory.

Well, there’s a final moment for the resurrected Riders to tell Emu that he’s a sweet boy whose dedication helped them become better people, and that’s just the best. That’s worth sitting through another Kamen Sentai fight at Kamen Rider Quarry. It feels earned, like the best parts of Episode 2. To have weird psychopaths like Kino and Kaito wonder if they always should’ve been more caring and selfless… how can you not respect Emu more after a moment like that? How can you not look at this random movie tie-in special as one of the best pieces of Ex-Aid media?

I massively enjoyed getting to re-experience this story, now with the added (but not wholly necessary!) benefit of knowing who all the characters are. To see some fantastic actors return, to see them get beautiful codas to their characters’ stories, and to have it all resolve with a declaration that Emu’s ability to make people better than they thought they could be is more important than the power he wields as Ex-Aid… man.

Gorider Forever indeed.