[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER MAJADE: GIRLS REMIX IN HALLOWEEN PARTY



I really like how Girls Remix is currently The Rinne Show.

It's a great way to dodge the Outsiders problem of a plot feeling divorced from its characters, due to the plot being the only constant: just, like, pick a new lead character. With as sporadic and arbitrary as the release schedules for these Legend Rider fan club projects can be (like, the Halloween stuff here is pretty tenuous), I think just waiting for Rinne's actor to be available is the best way to keep this thing from losing whatever emotional consistency it has. Focusing on the plot is a waste of time – Akiko declares the case solved at the end of the episode, despite getting no closer to Cloud's objectives, motivations, schemes, or masterminds; I guess this is why Hana's name is on the door – and the show cannot just be whoever is on the Toei backlot when Sakamoto calls Action. We gotta have someone, anyone to build this larger story around.

And I think Rinne's a great choice? I always liked her in Gotchard, with her chafing under expectations and boxing herself in by trying to please everyone, at the cost of her own actualization and happiness. Now that we're on the other side of her main series plot of, like, a daughter's social agony (also the third most popular Camera Obscura cover band in Northern Ohio), she's firmly in her Kamen Rider solo adventure phase. She's assertive, generous, powerful, empathetic, and dedicated... while still possessing the exact right level of New At Having Girlfriends energy to allow for any possible character to share the stage with her. Amongst the welcome-yet-underutilized returns of characters like Shizuka and Sara, we get to watch Rinne drive a superhero narrative through her own charisma and newfound bubbly enthusiasm. (I just... I think Rinne's actor genuinely has fun on these projects? I think she likes doing these TTFC weirdo specials every few months alongside other ladies, and that energy is infectious.) Where the main plot feels inert and hilariously vague – I would bet you that Cloud's mastermind will end up being whichever Legend Rider lady they can book the week of filming – there's this incremental story of Rinne's self-improvement and solidified code that makes a lot of the undercooked nonsense that's the ostensible draw feel like a side dish I can pick at, rather than a main course that feels insufficient.

The thing that makes Rinne perfect for all of this is that her whole thing is alchemy, right? And here she is drawing bits and pieces from all of these women she's meeting, in order to build a version of Kamen Rider Majade that can exist outside of some boy's narrative. Her battles are her battles now – stories of her rescuing sad girls from nebulous machinations, or her finding support in the women who walked so she could run. Taking all of that in and synthesizing it into a show about Kamen Rider Majade is the most perfect way to use these intermittent looks back at Kamen Rider history.

Because, shit, it sure isn't for any stellar use of the Legend Ladies!

While it's neat to see Shizuka again in a Halloween special, neither of those really amount to terribly much, and the less said about Ghost Glotta and Ghost I Genuinely Had To Look Her Up Because The Screen Said "Mimei From Gotchard" And I Was Like "WHO from Gotchard???" And Then It Was Like "Oh, What's Her Name From Those Dumb Legend Episodes, Sure, Fine, Whatever" the better. I can appreciate the show thinking that Ghosts were good enough for a Halloween story, but a) the one back in May had 'em, too, and b) they weren't even ghosts of the villains for any of the heroes on this episode. They could've been anyone, and while I like Glotta just fine, nothing here felt like it mattered to her arc or character.

Shizuka, same thing. She's here to give the Kamen Riders Carry A Terrible Burden speech, and while I can squint and see that from her relationship with Wataru back in the Kiva series – she does take care of him, like she recounts here, because he's a disaster when that show starts – you seriously could've given that few lines of dialogue to nearly any of two dozen Heisei ladies without changing a word. There's no specificity to anything with her in this plot, which is a continuing problem for TTFC specials. We get fun little lines and jokes and callbacks (Rinne remembering Keiwa from the crossover movie, for example), but all of that just papers over how interchangeable the heavily-promoted Legend Ladies are to the actual story being told. The plot is Rinne and friends fighting some number of enemies, and it never feels like those friends or enemies matter all too much, despite the hoops jumped through in order to make this all feel considered and deliberate. (Akiko with Tsukuyomi's Faizgun!!!) The cast is game, and the usage is never distracting or insulting, but they are just doing fun riffs and basking in nostalgia. I love Akiko getting hammered and being a detective that swaps out deduction for bravado, or Shizuka laying the groundwork for 2031's Kamen Rider Kiva Versus The Neo-Fangires reunion film, but that ain't a whole story.

But we've still got Rinne, and her increasingly suggestive bond with Nayuta, and Nayuta's increasingly suspicious past, and that all works more than well enough to carry this special to being a success. This isn't a special about famous faces that populate a narrative that Rinne moves through, it's a special about Rinne moving through a narrative populated by famous faces. It's a crucial difference, and I'm glad this series figured it out.