[cosmicrescend0]

Wrote up my Shinobi thoughts to post last night, until I remembered what day it was..........In the meantime! Here's something I forgot to post when we watched HeiGen Forever: some fun interviews with the Zi-O and Build casts! Theyre just dumb fun, which feels appropriate.

[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

RIDER TIME: SHINOBI EPISODE 1 - ?FIRST NINPOW! VOLUME: HATTARI'S ONE-SIDED LOVE"

So it?s exciting to learn that three years after his Zi-O appearances, he?s not just some solo hero, but a fully-trained ninja, back from a worldwide training expedition. It?s great to see Shinobi living up to Sougo?s hopes for him. Shinobi?s done the hard work of gaining power the right way, and he?s a strong, confident hero in the aftermath. He?s practically a new man, brimming over with enthusiasm and excitement. Far from using darkness as cover, this Shinobi bursts into the light and runs wild. This isn?t the version that Another Shinobi and the Time Jackers robbed us of (not crazy about the new red costume), but everything about this new version feels like the happy ending Sougo wished for.

Rentarou faces some difficulty, he had to pretend to be unskilled to hide his identity as Kamen Rider Shinobi for some reason, as well as missing job interviews thus his family had to live in poverty, thus Iroha also tried to get them out of poverty by her aiming for Konjou Company. Not to Sougo's extent.... but even Rentarou pretends to be less competent than he actually is... like him, but this does make him seem goofy to Iroha.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

And the fun additional cast! I missed the part in Zi-O where Shinobi comes from a family of ninjas (or maybe they never said?), so it was really fun to find out that Shinobi?s world is one where he?s part of a team. And a team that follows Shinobi?s lessons about not giving into fear, and becoming more than you were? like, those are Sougo?s lessons, but coming out of Shinobi?s mouth. Shinobi gets to be the hero for his sister and cousins that Sougo was for him. I really love that.

I guess Zi-O didn't explain about Shinobi coming from family of ninjas, because the opening narration explained about how Shinobi's world has become rife with ninjas. I don't know what cousin did you talk about, Icchi is the childhood friend of Rentarou and Iroha. With the Rider identity being unknown, the set up is that Iroha is in love with Shinobi while Icchi also has the hots for Iroha...

[Androzani84]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Snip

He’s not actually watching the first episode of the Shinobi miniseries. He’s watching the first episode of Ninninger and treating it as the first episode as part of April Fools (he did he same thing last year watching ToQger 36 instead of Den-O 36).

[AkibaSilver]

I can't believe Shinobi's final form has him wearing a poncho and using the BurgerDriver, a brilliant call-back to Ex-Aid's JuJu Burger form, which remains unbeaten!

[Kamen Rider Die]

RIDER TIME: SHINOBI EPISODE 1 - “FIRST NINPOW! VOLUME: HATTARI'S ONE-SIDED LOVE"



First off, thanks for indulging my little April Fool’s Day gag of watching the first episode of Ninninger instead of Shinobi. I was going to do the ZO movie, but we happened to land the start of Shinobi on April 1st, so I called an audible and decided to write up Ninninger’s premiere instead.

It was a neat premiere, and a huge change of pace from the recent DonBrothers premiere. (I think those are the only two Sentai debuts I’ve watched?) It was pretty surreal to have so much of the cast and premise laid out in the first episode, with a giant battle to cap it all off. Not 100% my thing for tokusatsu, but I had a fun time watching it and writing it up.

The only problem is, uh… I think I already said everything there is to say about this episode? Accidentally?

Like, ha ha ha, Shinobi DOES come from a family of ninjas! And his younger sister IS a ninja that he feels responsible for! And he IS significantly more goofy and enthusiastic than we saw him as in the Zi-O episodes! And there IS a ton of cool world-building in this first-third of Shinobi’s entire run!

Thankfully, it doesn’t just feel like it’s cribbing from Ninninger, despite way more coincidental similarities than I’d’ve assumed. It still has the shape of a Kamen Rider series. There’s a rival corporate Kamen Rider, Hattari, who has a friendship with the hero’s secret identity. The whole gimmick of The Nation’s Biggest Company Is Controlled By The Villains is the most on-target Heisei reference that the ongoing Zi-O project has come up with yet. There’s a sense of isolation to Rentarou’s role as Shinobi, even though he’s got friends and family. We don’t really get a lot of shows where the Kamen Rider hides his identity from his friends and family (not since... Agito?), but it feels pertinent for the Ninja Rider. There’s absolutely no bike-riding, so it’s clearly a Kamen Rider series.

It’s a pretty fun little goof, honestly. It doesn’t really make a case for itself as a lost gem, or anything. I didn’t watch this episode and think Why Were We Robbed Of This Series. It’s a little too light to feel like there’s potential here. Rentarou is too slapstick-y, and the world is too Everything’s Ninjas without really feeling like a coherent theme. It’s the sort of thing you can play around with for three episodes, and that’s plenty.

The only real misfire is the absolutely insane detail of Rentarou’s sister having a crush on his secret identity (gross), which Rentarou is super excited about (GROSS). It’s a bizarre gag to try and pull off, because it ends up making both Rentarou and Icchy look like massive creeps. Iroha is seventeen years old. The idea that grown-ass-adult Icchy is wistfully saying her name is alarming enough, but Rentarou even inadvertently stringing his own sister along as a love interest is mortifying. Rentarou should have immediately confided in Iroha that he’s Shinobi, if only to dissuade her from crushing on him. (But also because it’s uncool to hide his identity from his sister? Who is also in peril? That he didn’t tell her about?) There’s no need for this plotline, and I can’t believe it made it out of the planning stages.

Otherwise, this is easily in the Top Two for ninja-themed tokusatsu premieres I watched this week. Fun, but not exactly a revelation or anything.

[Enchilada645]

Shinobi's mini series is pretty alright to me, nothing majorly impressive for me tbh, I like his theme song. That's about it.

Anyway...

I will forever be sad that we lost Dark Drive to Hattari.

Not a fan of Hattari's design in the slightest. And the fact that we lost Dark Drive... like one of my favorite suits...

Sad...

[cosmicrescend0]

Special Time: Shinobi edition!

-Do love that they immediately went with the most ridculous worldbuliding imaginable for this one. "Why is Shinobi a shinobi?" "Because everyone is, silly! It's the scheme of the evil ninja organization controlling the goverment, yknow?"

-Rentaro's master being a frog on a scroll is clearly some kind of folkore thing I'm missing, but it is a really fun idea for a mentor character lol.

-Literally felt my gut twist when they did the "Hattari loves Iroha", and felt it drop a thousand feet or so when "Iroha loves Shinobi! (who is her brother)" came up, can we like, not?

-...Speaking of Riders from an alternate future, Hattari sure is a kitbash of Dark Drive. It isn't bad or anything, but it makes me kinda sad we lost such a killer suit.

Overall, it doesn't have enough meat on the bone in concept to feel like I'm being robbed of this concept as a fully fleshed out 48~ epsiode season., but it sure is a nice little romp! We're probably going to have a good (Rider) time with this one,,

[GrandComplete]

So I love Episode 16 it such a great way to end the first quarter of the show imo. It alot more lowkey then usual but I love the feeling of dread as the future accelerates further. That scene in the pit with Sougo and Geiz is one of favorite moments in Rider it's personal and raw to the characters. And I love how at the end when Decade leaves we get very similar effect to what happened in Decade Episode 3 with Tiger and Delta.



Also bringing this up right now we have Geiz using Ex-Aid Armor which I find a little funny largely because A) He already has Genm Armor but also B) he uses Ex-Aid more times than Sougo does despite that Armor being advertised as mainly his.

[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

First off, thanks for indulging my little April Fool?s Day gag

Look, I'll indulge just about any excuse to get you to watch Ninninger. I was wondering if you'd have some gag this year, and this one made me extra happy to see.

But uh, playing along meant I sort of skipped over episode 18, so!

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP18)

Man, I can't believe I said there I didn't think Sougo was any sort of exceptional protagonist. I mean, I guess I can, actually, but it still surprises me that I maintained such a healthy skepticism about this show for that long.

Needless to say, even though my past self wasn't sure yet, in retrospect, I consider Sougo's whole confrontation with Rentarou to be another defining moment for his character. It's a great glimpse into the more... introspective (is maybe the word for it?) flavor of drama that Shimoyama starts bringing to the series' writing now that we've been able to establish Sougo as a protagonist with some proper depth.

I sort of can't speak to how much I agree or disagree about how the episode surrounding this plays out, because the two things that dominated my opinion of it back then are still the things I remember most now. It's cool that Zi-O gets to do an elaborately filmed Rider Kick just in his base form, even with so many other, newer toys to shill, and him screaming at Rentarou to believe in his future self is a line that's really engraved itself in my recollection of the series for some reason. I think I just like Sou Okuno's delivery of it? I always felt he had a rougher time than most of the young stars in these shows finding his character, since the writers seemed to be having trouble finding it too, but this is around where his performance truly starts to click, and even though this is just one tiny little line I'm talking about right now, I really do like how much you can tell Sougo isn't only talking about Rentarou.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I sure hope Fish doesn't mind me borrowing his format here. But I thought it would be a real shame not to share my review of this arc that I did a few months ago.

Of course I don't mind! It was nice reading that again!

[Androzani84]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

(I think those are the only two Sentai debuts I?ve watched?)

Third, I know you?ve seen Jetman’s premiere (and no, I refuse to elaborate for anyone who doesn?t know how.)

Anyway, since this is strictly Shinobi, with nary a Ridewatch in sight, I’ll point out some references that aren’t immediately apparent from a knowledge on Ninninger based on three episodes, two of which focus on one character.

* The opening visuals accompanying the narration are a spoof of Ninninger’s.

* The guy Rentaro throws his fight against is wearing Tawada’s character Kinji’s outfit from Ninninger.

* And for a fun bonus, the voice of the sentient frog tapestry is Nobuo Kyo. You know him as Amazon Neo Alpha from The Last Judgement, I know him as the guy who gave me my signature quote (which is the reason why he’s in this).