[Androzani84]

Man, this was a small gap between a sub release and a review.

To be honest, when I watched this raw, I completely missed Sachika’s cameo and assumed it’d been cut from the finished piece. Regardless, it’s funny that this is the closest we’re getting to GAVV vs Gotchard.

And I love that Cloud goes full Showa villain by picking a single word from a foreign language and running with it, in the vein of groups like Mess, Crisis, Neros, Tube, Volt, Gear…

Though one wonders who conjured that magic portal… and why they were after Sumire’s rather basic looking Rider belt… though a part 2 has been confirmed by the commentary, so I guess we’ll have to wait on that.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Though one wonders who conjured that magic portal? and why they were after Sumire?s rather basic looking Rider belt? though a part 2 has been confirmed by the commentary, so I guess we?ll have to wait on that.

It's nice that, while this special is clearly setting up a sequel -- disappearing belt, Sumire's creepy smile, Nayuta as the new assistant/inevitable Rider -- it doesn't do the thing of teasing too much of the grander story at the expense of letting the singular unit of entertainment be fulfilling. (*cough* Outsiders *cough*) We get this win over an army of faceless baddies and one Legend Rider, and that's plenty for an outing.

[Switchblade]

Watched this last night, which honestly felt a little strange because it's been close to two months since I watched any tokusatsu and I felt very rusty. It was fun but it also felt very throwaway, like the entire special is the equivalent of Sachika's role in Kamen Rider Majade with Girls Remix.

• Full disclosure, as someone for whom the Sakura/Hana ship is the only part of Revice they still have any emotional attachment to, I was curious to see if/how this special would handle it (especially in light of how badly it was managed in the first Girls Remix). I am happy to say that I was completely satisfied.
• The other thing I was really looking forward to was the return of Minami Tsukui as Yoko. I don't love that we got stuck with the worst version of her, but I always love seeing that actress throw down and I was not disappointed.
• I've spent the better part of the last decade bemoaning how Kamen Rider weapons don't look like real weapons anymore but seeing Nozomi going after people with a goddamn mall dagger actually made me second guess that because oh man, was that uncomfortable at several points.
• These specials is the perfect place to reuse Akiko and I hope she continues to be a part of them for as long as they exist.
• Next time bring back Femme, L'Arc, and/or Akira, cowards.
• Holy shit, the actress who played the villain was terrible. I know it's just a web video, but what fourth string idol group did they go digging into to find... [insert quick Google check here]... Yoko from GoBusters? I... how did... Switchblade.exe has encountered a fatal error, and will now terminate.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Next time bring back Femme, L'Arc, and/or Akira, cowards.

If I somehow gained control of Toei, and the cast of Zi-O didn't murder me, the first thing I'd do is put Asumu's mom from Hibiki -- Asumum -- into the next Girls Remix.

(It also... it just really bummed me out that Poppy wasn't in this. I want to say I heard that suit got cannibalized for some other show, but you can still get the actor! She's just doing insurance commercials! I think she'd make time for this!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Holy shit, the actress who played the villain was terrible. I know it's just a web video, but what fourth string idol group did they go digging into to find... [insert quick Google check here]... Yoko from GoBusters? I... how did... Switchblade.exe has encountered a fatal error, and will now terminate.

Man, what? You're crazy! It's just the lady from the matchmaking two-parter in the Job Battle arc of Zero-One! She ain't no Sentai. She's just a Kamen Rider actor, like the guy who played Quiz on Zi-O!

[Androzani84]

You’re both wrong. She’s the princess who was the villain of the Ultraman Ginga S movie.

[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.

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER EINS WITH GIRLS REMIX



At long last, Girls Remix became its own thing.

I like that, as potentially a final statement for Girls Remix, or least this iteration of it. (I mean, Girls Remix started four series ago as a Kamen Rider Jeanne vehicle, who hasn’t been in at least the last two adventures, and Rinne’s arc feels fairly concluded.) For a series that could’ve just as easily been Outsiders: Ladies Night, Girls Remix inexplicably used its random releases and ever-shifting cast to first argue for the validity of its heroes, before arguing for the validity of itself as a story.

Obviously, your mileage may vary as to whether or not they succeeded at that goal – the emotional throughline of the series vacillated with which franchise it was beholden to; returning cast members looked increasingly detached, bordering on haggard; they only gave me one scene with Ozawa, who arguably should’ve been the lead – but I think the series as a whole has been a bright spot, and this episode in particular leveraged its place in the franchise to talk about, basically, is the TTFC actually making art, or are they just regurgitating content.

If Outsiders makes the case against art, then I think Girls Remix makes the case for? Kurono is dismissive of the rehashed and resurrected dopes that she’s built, their knock-off Mage and Ride Player suits in the most boring beige, and she longs for something real to come out of her work. While Eins is ostensibly that, Nayuta’s heroism doesn’t come from a vacuum, and it’s her exposure to specific viewpoints and backstories of a dozen different women from 20 years of Rider history that resolves Eins into Kamen Rider Eins. Girls Remix is the same way – built from spare parts, but shaped by circumstance and dedication into something unique and original. If it’s derivative in its Showa signifiers (Nayuta’s eyebrows, mostly), then it becomes itself from the setting it's placed in, and the heroes it's placed next to. Everything comes from somewhere, and its only a copy if you can’t think of something interesting to do with it.

And, man, I’m gonna say that this episode does itself justice, mostly on the action front. Sakamoto continues to make this series his absolute statement on Kamen Rider, making sure that Nozomi, Sawa, and Rinne get kick-ass fight sequences; Nadeshiko returns, butt-bump ready to deploy against an enemy; and there’s a slow-motion sequence of Eins dismounting from a motorcycle. For an extra-length installment that might act as a series finale, I sort of expected the extra runtime to go to lengthier dialogue sequences, or heart-to-hearts, or just vaguely to things that are not money- or labor-intensive. Instead, it’s Sakamoto, so everyone’s brawling in every scene, forever. It’s still got that TTFC thing of, like, Sara and Reika showing up out of nowhere to be in a fight, but I hope that we’ve all made our peace by now with that narrative conceit. Nayuta’s in trouble, and Kamen Riders always help each other out, and Girls Remix is forever, so hell yes they just show up when they’re needed.

Which is sort of all I wanted this thing to turn into, really. I loved when it could talk about the ways women were treated in Kamen Rider stories about boys, or how men’s stories keep pressing in the lives of the women in these stories, but I’m a-okay with Girls Remix turning into a bunch of women who support each other and raise up the next generation of kick-ass heroines. I love the way it looks forward, to make an Eins a true original – a Kamen Rider whose story is built on the shoulders of women, to learn heroism from outside a man’s perspective, and take her story out into the world.

I think that’s a story worth telling? I think it’s nice when a bunch of disparate (and distaff) characters, employed at random, over a number of years, can somehow make something that speaks to not only the legacy of its cast, but the potential of its legacy. Rinne finds the confidence to inspire another woman to find her confidence, both of them becoming their own heroes in the process. (Also Rinne gives Nayuta a ring before she leaves town, just normal friend stuff.) I don’t know. I think there’s something very fun about how unique and special Girls Remix became.

Also, they brought Ozawa back. Lifetime pass for Girls Remix!!!