[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER OOO FINAL STAGE



Even by Final Stage standards, this one’s just a suit showcase and stunt show. The setup is thin, the story is Fight Villains To Go Home, it doesn’t really address anything from the finale of the show, and the face actors (two of them, anyway) don’t even show up until the literal last minute. All you get in exchange is the aforementioned mountain of suits, and constant action.

Yet it all still sort of works? With only the stunt team providing anything of merit, they went above and beyond to incorporate as many cool gimmicks as possible in the setting. The bit with a dozen Gatakiribas lining up in sequence to fight is arguably the coolest use of that suit in any version of Kamen Rider OOO, while the ending battle one-ups the summer movie by including some team-ups before the final attack on the villain. (Neat to get Kougami to voice King OOO, incidentally.) It’s a fun gallery of suits, all given interesting ways to fight. If it’s never much more than that… I guess it’s not nothing?

Oh, but huge kudos to the stage show for introducing the idea of Desire Sentai Greeedman. Sure, they didn’t do much with it beyond that roll call, but that roll call was EPIC.

[Androzani84]

One thing I love is how Uva declares that the 4 Greeed will create an army of Yummies out of the audience, only for Eiji to respond “Sorry, but everyones’ desire to meet OOO has been granted”.

One wonders how the concept of alternate universes with different base forms works with Rider forms that require another form be transformed into first, such as Kabuto Hyper Form, or Wizard AllDragon.

Also rather notably, this forum’s own ZeroEnchiladas, when writing his tribute to OOO in his crossover between Kamen Rider Zi-O and Rooster Teeth original web series RWBY included the King as the villain with the same logic used here (his desire is powerful enough to revive him), in addition to pulling out the centipede/bee/ant themed new Greeed from Memory of Heroez and the idea of Ankh turning into a thematic variant of TaJaDol from the S.I.C stories.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

One thing I love is how Uva declares that the 4 Greeed will create an army of Yummies out of the audience, only for Eiji to respond ?Sorry, but everyones? desire to meet OOO has been granted?.

Judging by the crowd reaction, though, I'd say their real desire was to meet Ankh, and that wasn't granted until the end. It's sad that Eiji had to lie to Uva like that!

[Kamen Rider Die]

originally posted on December 12th, 2021, as part of “Kamen Rider Die rewatches Legend Rider projects (and more!)”

KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER FOURZE & OOO: MOVIE WAR MEGA MAX (DIRECTOR’S CUT)



Good set of films!

It’s not really one story, though. It’s like the Decade/W movie, where there’s an epilogue story doing one thing, and then another two-thirds of the runtime dedicated to a completely different story doing an entirely different thing. I liked both stories, though, so I’m not really too upset at how haphazardly they’re joined together.

The OOO story is a good one, and it’s one of my favorite epilogue stories. It reframes the way we’re given Ankh back -- just to lose him again -- as a larger message about protecting the present so you can experience a better future. The hope of Ankh’s return doesn’t disappear, even if (especially if!) Ankh himself does.

I’m not sure this story would work without Eiji’s character, though. You just buy his optimistic dedication to eventually see his friend again. It never comes across as delusional or foolhardy, just this very sweet sense that some day it’ll all work out. And in the meantime, he’ll make sure there’s a world for Ankh to return to.

The Riders that appear in this part of the movie, Aqua and Poseidon, are effective in different ways. (Also, ha ha, we’re back to the Phase 1 thing of No One Actually Says The Character’s Name, so that’s fun.) Aqua’s the sense that the future is something someone else will be responsible for, the fear that the weight of the past renders our actions irrelevant. Poseidon is the consequence of that abdication of responsibility; the cowardice of inaction. They create this nice morality play about how Ankh ain’t gonna just fall out of the sky for Eiji, despite this being a movie where Ankh literally falls out of the sky for Eiji.



Plus, great action-y suit designs. Poseidon has a kind of vulgar aggression to him, letting his opponents know that he’s lowering himself to fight with them. (There’s this one move where he tosses his sword for an opponent to hold, beats them with both fists, then takes the sword back!) Aqua, meanwhile, is this slim Showa design, with a fluid fighting style that prioritizes parries and deflection.

And the action in this movie! Oh, man! It’s an insane amount of fighting that’s largely done by the non-stunt actors, which was pretty amazing. I usually don’t love when Kamen Rider projects give a bunch of action sequences over to non-suit performers, but this was the exception. The fight in Cous Coussier, where Ankh and Eiji hold off about a hundred Yummies (and Eiji does a kip up!) is on par with any of the other fights in the movie. The whole OOO section gives everyone some awesome action, and it keeps the non-suit stretches of this fairly long movie (two hours for the Director’s Cut, which is long for a tokusatsu thing) from ever feeling padded or unnecessary.

It’s a really solid take on Eiji’s eternal -slash- decade-long goal of reviving his friend, one that makes Maybe Tomorrow into a beacon of hope.



And then there’s Fourze’s section, that’s just straight-up teen romance, and I dig it.

There’s not much linking tissue to the OOO story, thematically. The Fourze story is about first love, and seeing past someone’s exterior to love them for who they are, and it’s all done in a story where Gentaro falls in love with a non-sentient pile of girl-shaped space goo. While the OOO story is built around the past and the future, the Fourze story is very present tense, with a focus on the fleeting nature of teenage infatuation.

I kind of love how easily Fourze stories talk about teen issues, how sturdily they support its inherent melodrama. Everything’s very Big, you know? It’d be idiotic in a W story, or in Gaim story, but for Fourze this all feels perfect. Taking the time to tell this brief story of Gentaro falling in love with a girl from space, instead of tying up loose ends or seeding future ideas or whatever… yeah. Yeah, that’s what I want from a Fourze movie story.



Nadeshiko isn’t much of a character, unfortunately. Suit’s great, and her fights are more fun than I remembered (I mostly recall the Butt Bump, which is not this movie’s proudest moment), but there’s basically no character there until maybe the end of the movie. She’s a non-sentient pile of space goo; this story could’ve worked almost exactly the same if she’d taken the shape of a puppy. It’s a story entirely about Gentaro’s semi-possessive feelings of affection, and the way he’s projecting those feelings onto Nadeshiko. It doesn’t feel reciprocal, until the very end of the movie. If this movie has a flaw, it’s that the concept of Gentaro’s Space Girlfriend doesn’t get more detail than those three words.

Well, there’s another flaw: the Foundation X villains in this one suck. While Poseidon is a bad-ass fighter that reflects back on Aqua’s guilt and fear, the Foundation X mad scientists are trying to rule space? By controlling the world’s energy? All… all of the energy, somehow? It’s all nonsense, exacerbated by the shrug of trying to create a Core Medal and Astro-Switch doomsday device. It’s only the proximity of the two series that provides context for the villain’s scheme, not anything that feels logical or clever. OOO has medals, Fourze has switches, so here’s a villain who makes a switches-and-medals Driver to take over the galaxy. Okay, sure, why not.

It’s a plot that, unlike OOO’s story, has to support a way bigger cast of characters, and its broadness actually ends up making for a really thrilling final third.



I mean, last appearance of Philip and Shotaro together, you know? If this is the last onscreen appearance for these two actors to share, it’s a good one. This is their Legend Rider graduation, the moment where they can feel like they’ve set the stage for future heroes. We’ll see Shotaro again soon, but we won’t ever get to see Kamen Rider Double again. Bittersweet.



And, in case the gigantic NO. 40 HANGAR in the background doesn’t give it away, this was the second 40th Anniversary Kamen Rider film. Look at all of them Showa guys! That’s going to make someone’s day, and that someone is not Kamen Rider Die. I think they’re used a little better than they were in Let’s Go Kamen Riders, if only for the stellar montage of Every Showa Finisher, but it’s still not a thing I care a ton about. (I think this is the first movie where they gave Nigou a black helmet, though? To make him more visually distinct from Ichigou?) They’re not here to tell a story with them, or about them. They’re here to make the movie feel massive. At that, they succeeded.

There’s a thing that this movie does in its final act that is probably my favorite thing any movie could ever do. When I saw it this time, it immediately activated that Hell Yes feeling the best toku movies can unlock. It’s when all three of the Phase 2 Riders are beating the holy hell out of mobs of monsters, and each Rider’s opening theme plays as they’re doing it: W-B-X while Double is cycling through Gaia Memories; Anything Goes while OOO is soaring the air as Tajador; Switch On while Fourze slots in Astro-Switches. It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s a trick nearly every team-up movie would use in the future, because it’s the most potent nostalgia you can mine. It puts you right back in the days when you were watching those shows for the first time, right back when it meant the most to you. I don’t care when Showa suits are trotted out to show the history of the franchise, but I am all in on them playing those killer opening songs while dozens of monsters are cut down like the grass.

(Which, I mean, Phase 2 Heisei is 100% my sweet spot for opening songs. Your mileage may vary!)



All that, and we get the Early-Bird debut of Kamen Rider Meteor. After skipping it for the W/OOO movie, we’re back to that post-credits thing that Accel got, where we see the suit and the actor, with the promise that they’re on a collision course with our Primary Rider. Not much to talk about besides that. I like Meteor! I like what he brings to Fourze’s plot. Here, it’s a brief cameo.

Anyway, this movie was way more fun than I remembered, even if it’s stitched together in a way that doesn’t feel fully thematically coherent. The OOO parts sit sort of uneasily beside the Fourze parts, but both parts are really good. I am okay with a clumsy movie that still delivers pathos, action, and humor. This one did the job! Plus, it gave me one of my Top 5 Favorite Kamen Rider Moments:



—

FRIDAY IN THE FUTURE



Yeah, I think this one’s a good one. It’s an OOO section that operates at the highest degree of difficulty possible for a post-series project: You gotta bring Ankh back, because that’s the show, but you also gotta do it in a way that honors the bittersweet ending of that show. I think the decisions here were all the correct ones? Letting Ankh’s return and disappearance be a message of hope, to counter the seeming futility, is a very smart move. It’s a chapter in the larger story, not the end of it, so it’s okay to enjoy the moment without letting it be more than that. Unbelievably effective at getting back to the sweet rhythms of Eiji/Ankh/Hina, if only to entice us to pine for more.

It is still an incredibly long movie, though – god, I love Kamen Rider, but any Rider team-up movie over 90 minutes feels punishing at a certain point. There’s just not enough sense that you’re watching one story, you know? It’s like bingeing a miniseries. Summer movies can get away with it, a long runtime, because you’re in one story. This one’s completely not that, and I feel like each of the first two parts was probably right to trim out 15 minutes or so for the theatrical cut, even if it values pacing over coherency.

But! Still one of the all-time great winter movies for Phase 2, with Sakamoto making everything appropriately cinematic and super-sized. Spent longer than I would’ve wanted rewatching this, but it’s a good flick.

[Androzani84]

So yeah, not much to say about this one that I didn’t say in the last thread (mostly that I spent a watch party pointing out what would be a P-Bandai toy in today’s age, making call backs to the then recent Memory of Heroez Let’s Play [“So Die was wrong when he said Eiji would never stab you in the back”] and debates on localisation terms].

At most, if you look closely at the Core Medals being created in the future, they’re the ones that had forms created for the two CSM releases: BiKaSo (Shrimp, Crab and Scorpion), MukaChiRi (Centipede, Bee and Ant), SeiShiroGin (Walrus, Polar Bear and Penguin) and ShiGazeShi (Deer, Gazelle and Cow), with the one used by Poseidon being SaRaMiuo (Shark, Whale and Wolffish, according to the official subs on TTWO).

Also, we get ShaUTa’s insert song, and as a guy who claims ShaUTa is his favourite combo… man, I don’t like this song. I’m not that broken up at it not being played in-series.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

Also, we get ShaUTa?s insert song, and as a guy who claims ShaUTa is his favourite combo? man, I don?t like this song. I?m not that broken up at it not being played in-series.

Yeah, not one of the best songs.

Along those lines, I sort of feel like Anything Goes being used in the massive three-series fight montage sort of doesn't work? It's too peppy and celebratory, compared to the other two songs. It just doesn't feel like the correct song to play over rapid form changes and explosions?

[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

SERIES WRAP-UP

That’s my favorite thing about the show, I think – the pleasant symmetry of the ending. It all loops back to the beginning, a perfect circle of storytelling: Eiji on his own, some pocket money and tomorrow’s underwear; Shingo and Hina, living their domestic bliss; Ankh, reduced to Medals. Far from making things feel pointless, it’s like the show took the same state at the end as the beginning to make everything feel richer now that so much had transpired. It’s the lesson Ankh learns by the end, and that Eiji had forgotten at the beginning – a life needs more than just existing to be worth living. Giving all of these characters a new starting point is great, but giving them an old starting point with a new perspective is even better.

Tbh, I often expect shows to end in a completely different state than it was at the beginning, but often KR shows have endings that doesn't feel different from the beginning, other than perhaps some deaths, like Ankh's here, of which it happens too to series like Drive (Chase) and Gotchard (Lachesis). I don't know what kind of show, at least in your mind, that has the ending where it's the opposite of OOO, where it doesn't have pleasant symmetry and doesn't have similar state at the beginning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

I love that choice. I love that we’re sort of back in the Ryuki mode, where the success of our heroes is all internal, and the reward is a blank slate for the future. This was a show where the main spine of the series was the evolution of a narcissistic avian asshole into a sacrificial and grateful avian asshole. Everything with the Medals, and Maki, and the Kougami Foundation… it’s all just the obstacle course that Ankh has to go through alongside Eiji, in order to understand why a life isn’t just something you get, it’s something you earn. For as much as the iconography and merchandising of the show has Eiji as the lead, and Ankh as his hilariously cruel sidekick, I don’t think that’s right? This season is Ankh’s story, with Eiji as, ironically, the angel on his shoulder. The journey of Ankh is everything this show is talking about, while Eiji’s story is the cautionary tale and example. It’s like… it’s like Hibiki. Hibiki is a show where Asamu (and other children; I don’t want to trigger anyone with a full cast list) go on a journey, while the Kamen Rider is there to struggle alongside of them, with a few lessons of their own along the way. OOO is that same thing: Ankh is the character with a finite story, and Eiji is the hero who helps him become a better person.

It's standard trope for KR to have a role model character, usually the main Rider, who is about inspiring others around them to be a better person. Though by this trope, I don't like if everyone else is lumped together as assholes who need the role model's guidance, more likely to happen in darker shows, but for OOO, perhaps someone like Date or Hina (Goto, while wanting to save the world, yes, he can be dickish too, so he needs it). Ankh obviously needs it. Otherwise, with Ryuki being there, despite being the asshole of the main trio, both Ren and Ankh are ironically the stabilizing force of them; Ren had Shinji and Yui constantly trying to find and stop him, and in the process, have Ren read them better, realizing that he needs to save them from themselves too, while for Ankh, where Hina fails to reason with him and Eiji after Ankh's betrayal, Ankh is the one that finally gets Eiji to reveal what he really wants, to never be powerless again to save anyone, and perhaps later indirectly solving Hina's issues by getting her to realize that she wants everyone together, by the help of Chiyoko.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

All of that is why this show always works, even during episodes or stories that weren’t my favorite. There were for sure some bum Yummy stories, same as any other show with their monster plots, but OOO has that Hina/Eiji/Ankh core to keep everything moving in the right direction. There was never a huge turn in the plot that felt forced or even inorganic. Everything for a year felt like a natural consequence of a car accident, an abduction, a heroic deal, and a chance to help others. You could literally watch the first episode and the last episode and you’d get the entire story of OOO. (I mean, I wouldn't recommend it, but you could do it.) Show’s just real solid in its framework.

Dunno if I'm repeating myself, but this can be perhaps why the MOTW-based shows are some of the more well-received shows (my thing is more the serialized stuff), despite how some fanbase are complaining if it's something formulaic (primarily happened during Wizard). There's less chance that these kind of shows will feel forced or inorganic, because the show is mainly about the core cast, while the plot elements, no matter how bad they're are all temporary, it only happens for two weeks. The MOTW plots are something rarely brought up in the fandom, from what I see. This might work for you as you're primarily about characters, though I forgot what were your take about this structure in a show like W (and Fourze would be likely your next talk for KR); you claim it's not your favorite while being the best, but your profile still has it listed as your favorite.

[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreadBringer

I don't know what kind of show, at least in your mind, that has the ending where it's the opposite of OOO, where it doesn't have pleasant symmetry and doesn't have similar state at the beginning.

I feel like, at least in my memory, it's more common to have a series resolve itself into a completely different shape than its beginning. Certainly over the last few years, shows like Gotchard, Geats, and Saber blew up their premises enough to feel like anything that would come after would be a whole different concept. Back in Phase 2, Fourze's focus on high school meant that it had to move on. For stuff like OOO... Ghost, maybe? Or Ex-Aid?

[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER OOO - THE RESURRECTED CORE MEDAL PROLOGUE



Never watched this one before! It’s a little five minute promotional thing from TTFC, with all of the financial and narrative limitations that implies. We get a single brief action sequence against Kazari, a couple lines from Chiyoko, and then a longer dialogue sequence for Hina and Eiji. It’s really not very much.

And yet, I think it’s sort of great? I’ve got complaints, for sure – I don’t think it really leverages time the way that it should; this all feels like it could’ve happened during Fourze – but I think the immediate connection between this scene and the final Hina/Eiji/Ankh scene from OOO is a smart way to reengage the fans with what they loved most from the original series. I sort of wish they hadn’t spelled out that it was a reference by patching in the shot from 48, but I understand that not every viewer just watched that episode earlier in the week, like I did. Still, I immediately perked up when I saw that staging – Hina, center of frame, with Eiji to the left and an absence to the right. (They even recreated that strobing light effect!) It’s such a great way to visually state that the situation is still unbalanced, still broken. Eiji’s back, and that’s very cool, but OOO isn’t back until Ankh’s there, too.

Kind of amazing that this thing could do all of that in just a few minutes!

[Androzani84]

So back when the movie itself got subbed (funnily enough, around the time you watched the OOO episodes of Zi-O), a few of us from the LP group got together to watch it and these two shorts, and the two things I remember from the conversation after three years are:

“Now you know why Kazari isn’t in OOO 10th… Never mind”.

(After Eiji says that he’s the only one who can save the world) “And also there’s this kid who made a deal with devil? Perhaps we should get his help”