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I'm a little late to the party this time, but I have to do my civic duty and point out that these two episodes were directed by Ishida, because of course they were. They're also...
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Both of the titles also have wordplay built into them that is thankfully pretty self-explanatory, with 21 being "Kenka no Ryuugi, and 22 being "Hanasenai Mirai". But yeah, really love these ones. Hard not to have fun with a two-parter where my favorite characters in the show have an epic fight in the middle that even brings in the bikes. Oh, and speaking of which, here's one more of these: - Zeronos' bike has such a lazy design and I adore it. Like, it's just Den-O's, but with bull horns, and you'll never convince me that isn't perfect. What more could you possibly ask for? |
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KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 23 - "ENTER THE PRINCE, KNEEL DOWN TO HIM!"
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den23a.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den23b.png Of the many Phase 2-isms that Den-O pioneered, I think my favorite is Monsters Who Hate Their Jobs. Like, both of the Imagin in this story are terrible at their jobs. Prince is too self-centered to give a single bird dropping about trying to obliterate the timeline (or whatever), and the Crab (?) Imagin is just totally bored with trying to grant wishes. They're both overwhelmingly awful at their entire reason for being. And they aren't even the first ones to suck at this! The two Imagin from the last story were garbage at opening people's Time Holes, and we've probably had at least another half-dozen Imagin Of The Week that could barely string a scheme together. Plus every single Imagin on both Liners! Weirdly, it not only doesn't matter for the success of the IOTWs missions (they are successfully enlarging Time Holes, no matter the Imagin), but it doesn't hurt the stories they appear in. Sure, they're goofy as hell, but they're still formidable obstacles to the heroes. If anything, their awfulness at being menacing actually increases the degree of difficulty in stopping them, since who the hell knows what they'll do next. It's a show full of unpredictable characters, which makes each story a little more fun, a little less rote. I mean, this one's fairly straightforward (for a Den-O value of "straightforward"): Team Den-O needs to reunite a baby with his mother. The complications are not just a lazy-ass Imagin out in the world, but a self-absorbed Imagin on the DenLiner. Prince! He's bringing a new energy to Den-O, but not exactly a new energy to Kamen Rider. Look, I'll say it: it's Kabuto. Ryotaro got possessed by Kabuto, and now we're in a story where Hana and the team have to find a way to harness Kabuto's bottomless self-regard and pathological inability to follow other people's orders, all in the hopes of reuniting a family. It's a fun, fleet story, moving through a dizzying amount of information for just one episode. There's not a ton of thematic stuff to haul out of this story yet, but the plotting and construction of this bonkers story was top notch. The way the story fills in blanks with a bare minimum of dull exposition, opting instead for ridiculous flashbacks (Ryuta brought Prince onboard days ago and never told anyone!) and comedic happenstance (Ozaki's tiny picture is on a page of the newspaper with every single piece of info Hana needs!) to keep the story rollicking along. Just a fun little caper of a story, with a neat new Imagin on the DenLiner. And animals! So many animals! https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den23c.png THE BAGGAGE CAR -Not a lot for Yuuto or Deneb to do this episode, but at least Zeronos gets added to the opening credits! Otherwise, we get a funny little scene of Deneb worrying after their groceries (honestly, Yuuto could've taken them with) and some Finger Guns to cover for Ryotaro's escape. Yuuto does seem incrementally more engaged with the team, however, and that's nice to see. He's not here to make friends, though! -I really enjoyed Prince as a character, and not just because it's nice to see Tendou again. He truly has a sense of brotherly affection for this baby he accidentally possessed, which (like Ryuta's love of animals) helps smooth over the fact that he's a demanding asshole to the group. (Quick to threaten, as well! You don't want to end up as Friend #2!) There's never a moment in this episode where Prince isn't fully committed to safeguarding this child until its mother is found, and the safety and happiness of the baby is never played for laughs. Prince's an imperial jerk, naturally, but he wants to do what's right for this kid. It's a really well-formed character. |
I'd honestly forgotten that this is when Sieg shows up, but that's kinda because I tend to forget that Sieg is a thing. Sieg is here right now for a very specific reason, but it's something that I'll probably get into in more detail after the next episode. Suffice to say, he's another thing that's setting up a precedent for something else that happens a lot during Heisei Phase 2.
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Advent, to the top.
And here’s my two entries for today, as the countdown to the Den-O movie begins here. Starting with the Imagin currently known as Prince. Shin-ichiro Miki. Notable anime roles: James and Charizard in Pokémon, Kisuke Urahara in Bleach, Lockon Stratos in Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Roy Mustang in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Zamasu in Dragon Ball Super, Benton Dusk in the Bakugan reboot Notable Tokusatsu roles: Gerjev/Blue Hakkaider in Mechanical Violator Hakkaider: the Video Game, New Generation Rider equipment voice in Kamen Rider Gaim, Megahex in Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Drive and Gaim: Movie War Full Throttle Notable dubbing roles: Erik Lehnserr/Magneto in the X-Men First Class Trilogy (and Dark Phoenix), Sherlock Holmes in Elementary, Roger Clifford in Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Prince Albert in The Young Victoria, Aladdin in the Disney movie Nobutoshi Canna Notable Anime roles: Kabuto Yakushi in Naruto, Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic X (and the greater franchise), Kai Kohashiwa in Initial D, Guts in Berserk, Inferno and Six Shot in Transformers: Energon, Kagemaru in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Notable Tokusatsu roles: Hitotsumi in Kamen Rider Hibiki and the Seven Senki, Kamen Rider Skull in Kamen Rider Battride War, Keeper Rook in Ressha Sentai ToQger, Bangray in Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger Notable dubbing roles: Nightscream in Beast Machines: Transformers, Private Hudson in Aliens, Johnny Storm in the Fsntastic Four series |
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Hey, everybody. I know this is normally my day off (and I'm actually writing all of this late Monday night), but I wanted to do a quick post for my 3rd Riderversary.
Three years ago, on March 16th of 2018, I watched my first Kamen Rider episodes. I actually did the first eight episodes of Ex-Aid, which is a pace that seems gratuitous and wasteful to me now. (I've matured...?) Last year, my first Riderversary on the TokuNation boards, I celebrated by rewatching the first episode of Ex-Aid. Unfortunately, that was a rewatch of a show about heroic doctors trying to save innocent people from a rampaging plague, which felt weird to watch at the start of a global pandemic. Well, said pandemic is still going on, so I'd rather not tempt fate by watching anything that could trigger another real-world disaster. Also, day off. So! Here's a look at what three years of being a Kamen Rider fan looks like when you have something broken inside of you that you're now too old to fix so it's really more about mitigating disaster: 843 episodes 46 movies probably a billion HBVs, Net Movies, commercials, music videos, and ephemera Rough guess, we're looking at over 300 hours of Kamen Rider, or nearly two full weeks. It's a lot! Even spread across three years, that is a lot of Kamen Rider. I don't regret it, though. How could I? Setting aside the enjoyment these shows have brought me (even the ones with Shunpei/Jean/Hiiro's dad in them), which is a considerable amount of joy, it introduced me to a fandom that is more rewarding than any 50-year franchise ever could be. Kamen Rider's great, but Kamen Rider fans are the best. Here's to many more Riderversaries! -- So, I wrote all that, and it's midnight, and it's officially my day off, but I'm like Man I Need To Write More. I don't know why! None of this is that interesting, and it's needlessly indulgent. But, I don't know. Felt like writing more. I wanted to spend a little time shouting out an article here on TokuNation that was... I mean, I don't think it was the first thing I ever looked at for Kamen Rider (I want to say I'd heard about the Dark Knight Returns-esque Ichigo from the Ghost movie), but it was the thing that pushed me into finally watching these shows. I've mentioned my toku origin story before, but to recap: Transformers fan, went to TFW2005 to lurk, tabbed over to TokuNation, eventually started watching shows. The specifics, though... I don't know if I've talked about them? The one post I can remember being so bizarre, so inexplicable, that I was like I Gotta See What This Show Is, it was this review for S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Snipe Simulation Gamer Level 50. That's the one I can recall as the final push I needed to investigate Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/snipeboat.jpeg The joke to me now is how random that gallery should be, considering a) Snipe ain't my guy from that show, and b) that suit is terrible. It is, aesthetically, the opposite of what I like in suit designs. It's cumbersome and ridiculous and garish even for Ex-Aid. It's a neon yellow man wearing half a boat. It's a stupid design. But, shit, it is memorably stupid. It is the kind of stupid that stops traffic. It is a design that has you asking a million questions, about the world it comes from and the kind of man who'd wear half a boat. It is wrong in every conceivable way something can be wrong, and that's maybe better than being just a little right. It is the ship that launched a thousand hours of me watching Kamen Rider. It's not a great meet-cute, maybe. It's not a story where I saw something sublime and followed it to happiness. It's not a story with smart decision-making or taste. But it's, I think, a very Kamen Rider origin story. It's this design that shouldn't work, that's laughable in its More Is More aesthetic (like all Ex-Aid), but it somehow triumphs through its mediocrity. It is earnest, playful, genuine. It is asking you to meet it on its own terms, and rewarding you by letting you enter a world of misfits and mistakes; a world of electric pink superheroes and megalomaniacal villains and helpful nurses who are also colorful mascots and sentient diseases that need love and three men with messiah complexes who sometimes remember to stop fighting each other long enough to save the world. It... I wanted to make a dumb Simpsons joke, a quote by a temporarily non-evil Mr Burns: https://media.giphy.com/media/xT5LMU...FQxa/giphy.gif But, god, maybe that's the point of this dope wearing half a boat. I've made friends because of this hideous design. I've discovered a fanbase that is earnest, playful, genuine. It's not a great suit, but it's worth a damn to me, thanks to these friendships. Happy Riderversary, everybody. |
Happy Riderversary!
Now then, I must stop everything to tell you that Shunpei is the best part of Wizard and that because you disagree with me on this I have no choice but to put a ring on your finger and have you touch my belt buckle. CLEARLY only a Phantom would think otherwise! |
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you're as bad as shunpei |
I’ll admit I don’t remember the exact date I started watching Rider regularly. I’d seen some crossovers with Super Sentai and when I saw hat one of them led into a movie (Super Hero Taisen GP), I decided to check it out. I got hooked, watched the crossover and movie from the previous year, and then I spent two weeks catching up on Zi-O, before I started watching the ongoing show regularly from the Kikai two-parter, and then watched another series whenever it took my fancy and I could fit it in to my watch schedule.
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Being more serious, I think I've mentioned somewhere before that I don't actually have a proper date for when I watched that first episode of OOO, but I do know it was somewhere in spring (like April or May maybe?), which means, at some point or another this year, I'll have been watching Kamen Rider for an entire decade, which is insane to think about, but also, just like, really cool? Also, as a special Riderversary present, please allow me to do my usual thing and say that Simulation Gamer is kinda awesome? Like, I'm pretty sure the initial catalogue scans and everything meant we saw both Brave and Snipe's new forms around the same time before they debuted, and like, obviously Fantasy Gamer looked way cooler. But then, come their appearances on the show, I feel like Snipe ended up getting the way cooler focus episode out of the deal (and Hiiro's was pretty good in its own right), and then from that point on, he's constantly making strategic use of that doofy ship armor, even as everyone around him gets more powerful upgrades, and somewhere along the way, I ended up super endeared to that design. It's not a kind of overly busy garish I'd defend as legitimately smart and thoroughly considered the way I would a lot of Ex-Aid's suits, but I mean, on the other hand, his little sailor hat is SO adorable. :p |
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I originally saw this post during my break at work, when it had its original typo. As such you have only yourself to blame for the following image. https://i.imgur.com/0sQehsD.png I regret nothing. |
KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 24 - "THE PRINCE'S GOODBYE LULLABY”
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den24a.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den24b.png This is probably the definition of a B+ Den-O episode. It's fun when it needs to be (tiny Deneb!), utilizes a big chunk of the DenLiner Imagin (that interrogation scene!), has a compelling guest star (Sieg!), a good set of stakes (he's dying!), and a fantastic action sequence (Ax Form!!!!). It even throws in a brand-new Form Change! It's just, it's not really saying anything about our core cast, and that's where it misses the mark for me. This isn't a story that asks Hana, Ryotaro, or Yuuto to do more than witness Sieg's story. It's a good story, no complaints about that, but this story could've basically happened to any cast. You could tell this same story in Ghost, in Ex-Aid, in Wizard. Sieg's story doesn't reflect the story of a main cast member, and no human really learns anything because of this story. No one changes or grows on account of Sieg's survival. It's just, like, some adventure they go on. It's a good adventure! It just doesn't connect with any of the cast emotionally or thematically. And it seemed like it was going to? For a second? When I saw Airi, I was like Oh Sure Protecting Your Sibling. And then Airi never shows up again? And she never shares a scene with Ryotaro? It's the easiest way to use Sieg's story to say something about Ryotaro's relationships, about how it feels to protect a sibling or be protected by a sibling. But the story never really moves its lens off of Sieg. That's useful, inasmuch as the finale of this story desperately needs you to care about Sieg. The more we spend time with Sieg in this episode, the more invested we are in him sticking around (or at least not dying). But by keeping the stakes all on Sieg, and reducing the rest of the cast to grieving onlookers, it keeps this episode from being more than an entertaining adventure. That said! Very fun episode with some real pathos. All of the Ryotaro Arrested stuff was terrific, with each of our OG DenLiner Imagins working together to keep Ryotaro from going away for a long time. Ryotaro is a very sweet Kamen Rider, but the real hero of this part of the episode was Urataros. If you need a plausible alibi concocted at a moment's notice from thin air, you tag in the turtle. I love that Ura not only lied his way to nearly being released, he basically filibustered his way to freedom? Asking Urataros to explain his side of things is basically signing your death warrant, and it goes as well for the cops as you'd think. Bonus points for Ura's masterstroke: subbing in a sleeping Kin to avoid any follow-up questions. This team is coming together! Speaking of Kin, I loved that Ax Form fight scene. (The Wing Form scene was nice, but it's mostly just a Henshin and one move and that's it.) It's just Den-O taking hit after hit after hit as he stalks towards the Imagin. Those shots of Kin shrugging off these spark-inducing blows, so heroic, and then a palm strike into Dynamic Chop. Just the kind of badassery you cheer for. It's a really nice moment, that fight. I'm not sure this is a two-parter I'm going to rank highly, despite its many pleasures. (Deneb gets his head stuck in a gate because he forgot he got big again!) It's too disconnected from the cast, too much just them rescuing someone without it feeling relevant to their stories. It'd be like if they saved people from a burning building, or fixed a flat tire. It can be a fun story, but it doesn't feel like a Ryotaro (or Hana, or Yuuto) story. https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den24c.png THE BAGGAGE CAR -I hope Sieg returns! I feel like he will. A character with a nice arc over these two episodes, and a smug nobility that works well in the show's dynamic. The very fact that he pisses Momo off makes me root for him a little bit! |
So one of the things that Den-O did that was really unique for the era but that would become common in Phase 2 is the set-up for the movie. In earlier shows, the movies are really divorced from the series. You might get some promo shorts at the end of an episode or a throwaway gag about Hibiki wanting to see a samurai movie, but that was it. Den-O is the first series to not only have the movie be fully canon to the show, but to also spend time setting it up in the series proper.
Nowadays it's not uncommon to have the movie get set up in advance. Drive, for instance, had a couple episodes where the Movie Rider showed up. Den-O did that first and it started here (and will continue right up to the movie's release date). For now, the big feature is Sieg and Wing Form. Wing Form is another future staple: the movie form. Good parallels to think of here would be OOO BuraKaWani or Fourze's Rocket States: forms that exist primarily, if not solely, for the movie. Wing Form is a bit more like the latter than the former in that it does have a bit of presence in the show, but it mostly shows up in the films. |
By random coincidence this post was uploaded on the birthday of the actor voicing Sieg (he’s 53).
Also, to borrow something from your Kabuto watch thread… A QUESTION: What do you think would’ve happened if Sieg had stayed on? |
So Sieg is a unique one in that he does not follow the standard -taros naming convention. He is based off the swan from the Swan Lake ballet and his name derives from Siegfried, the prince who appears in Swan Lake. And Wing Form is a retool of Sword Form but with a different color scheme, buckle, shoulders, and eyes. His Dengasher configuration is also unique in that it beocmes two weapons; a boomerang and a one-handed axe.
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Another interesting thing is that the concept art for Seig is labeled as the Swan Imagin and this is reflected in his chest saying SWAN as Seig is one of 2 Imagins that had their name changed between their design being approved and showing up in media
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KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 25 - "DOUBLE CLIMAX JUMP”
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den25a.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den25b.png I'm glad they went with a whole Dreams motif for this episode, because the easiest way to describe this thing is A Fever Dream. The fact that it starts with a disoriented Ryotaro is perfect, because the majority of this episode is perplexing and contextless. There's a decent enough throughline for the Spider Imagin, where a guy wants his hospitalized little sister to see the stars and it all goes wrong (he made the wish in a nightmare!), but nearly every linking scene feels like the exposition has been edited out. Multiple Yuutos and Denebs appear, Momo and Kin are acting incredibly weird, and most dialogue could be replaced with This Will All Make Sense Later. It's an episode that's the setup for a joke, with the punchline still to come. Like, there's a movie coming up! I get it! I'm not really mad at some protracted tie-in to what looks to be an appropriately bonkers Den-O summer film. This thing is serving a different narrative/corporate master, and that's fine. It's just, boy, real hard to talk about this one! Setting aside all of the movie tie-in stuff (which looks very fun!), we get a variety of team-ups that generate variable excitement. The first team-up, and the best one, is between Ryotaro and Yuuto. It's a situation that kicks off because Deneb demands it, basically. Ryotaro needs some help getting Milk Dipper set up for a party, and Deneb volunteers Yuuto's body. Yuuto gets mortified by Deneb's enthusiasm (that Yuuto actor looks hilariously psychotic), so he opts to help out on his own, even though he's Not Here To Make Friends. I will maybe always love how transparent Yuuto is. He literally can't keep the smile off of his face as he channels Future Sakurai to put up the constellation decorations, and then he gets all grumpy and sullen when he thinks someone sees him enjoying himself. It's so dumb, him needing to keep this stoic facade when absolutely no one is impressed by it. It's a show about embracing who you are inside and not judging it, so of course we need a dope like Yuuto who's pushing away the people he wants to befriend by denying who he is. Of course. It's also just fun to see Ryotaro and Yuuto try to solve an Imagin Mystery, because Ryotaro is honestly not that great at it? Yuuto immediately has a solid plan on how to proceed as a team, while Ryotaro almost blows their surveillance, then gets time-abducted, leaving Yuuto to do the whole goddamn thing himself. I'm starting to get why Yuuto doesn't want Ryotaro as a friend! (One of the best gags in a riotously funny episode is that big declaration from Yuuto that the Spider Imagin is going to have to face Ryotaro... who is nowhere to be found. That shot from out in the hallway, with Yuuto's confused look through an empty doorway, and then the Spider Imagin leans in with an Oh Dude He Ghosted You, that was a great visual gag.) The second team-up's a little one, but I like Naomi and Hana taking care of Milk Dipper for a minute. It's mostly there for an Ozaki thing, but I just like the concept. In my head, any scene of the two of them off of DenLiner is just Hana Teams With Legend Civilian Mana. But, like, Mana got weirdly into vinyl clothing in the last five years or something. Had a real fun time at uni, maybe. The third team-up is an Airimirers thing, and I'm skipping that. Fun episode to watch, even if I got no idea how any of it fits together yet. I guess between the next few days of episodes, and Sunday's movie, it'll all come together. Looking forward to understanding this episode retroactively! https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den25c.png THE BAGGAGE CAR -So, the movie. I originally had it planned for after 26, since it came out the day before 27, but then the Wiki said 25-27 are all a lead-in for the movie, so now I'm watching it after 27. Sound right? -One of the greatest character moments in all of Den-O is probably Deneb cursing himself for not making his candy delicious enough to get Hana to believe in Yuuto. The purity of Deneb is both adorable and pathetic in equal measures, a recipe that nourishes my soul. The fact that Momo got a Seihou before Deneb is galling, and easily one of the 800 dumbest things Bandai has done in the last two years. -Ryotaro's bedroom is... nice! It's a room that's exactly like Ryotaro himself: pleasant, spacious, unassuming, forgettable. It's a vanilla box, just like its inhabitant. It's missing the color that the Imagin draw out of him. Smart set design. |
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This pair of episodes is also the point in my rewatch where I felt the need to call out the great staging for the Den-Liner scenes and the like, and while I was talking in general there, looking back, these particular episodes were directed by Tasaki, so it's maybe more than a coincidence that this is the point I got fired up enough to mention it. Really, even just looking at the use of those curtains in your screencaps for 24, it's kind of obvious this is his work. Not that I even comprehend why that's apparently an obvious tell in my mind, but it is! :lol Quote:
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But, like: Cubi. Cubi's story works within the world of Ghost because that show is all about how Takeru connects to people, about how everyone's connected to everyone else, about how inspiration is something that lives inside of everyone, even cubist monsters. With Den-O, it's... I want to say it's a series that's less about how Ryotaro connects to the world, and more about how Ryotaro connects to himself. Doing a story about a sympathetic monster that doesn't ask anything extra of Ryotaro, or doesn't map to something in his experiences, it just feels like it's not doing the work it needs to do to make this story belong to this series? If I'm explaining my criticism well? |
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I legitimately don't disagree, though. For as good as these episodes are, it's admittedly easy to see where tying it back to the main characters in some way could've elevated it further. |
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You really have to respect the audacity Den-O pulls here to spend multiple episodes setting up the summer movie with a ton of content that won't make sense unless you go to the theater. Even in other shows with close movie tie-ins you don't see this kind of heavy integration/promotion. I suspect I know why that is, but that will be a topic for a later Kamen Rider Die Watches thread.
This is a fun one, though. I really like having Yuuto and Ryotaro hang out with minimal Imagin interference. It means that the Imagin scenes are extra weird to compensate, but it's nice to see our heroes working together as themselves. |
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Seeing Ryotaro hit the Imagin beat with Yuuto, it's consistently funny to me that the show is sticking to its Ryotaro Is A Crummy Kamen Rider But He's A Great Den-O thesis statement, and how little that argument sways Yuuto. He's not here to make friends, so a well-meaning Den-O that can't pull his weight is worth about zero Zeronos cards. Long story short, I still love that Yuuto's basically correct to look down his nose at Ryotaro. |
So the countdown to the movie begins. I’ll say this now, I am going to be breaking my rule for this thread, as most of the Imagin in the movie have the Tokusatsu equivalent of a celebrity voice actor.
Speaking of voice actors… Chihiro Suzuki (nicknamed Chi-chan) Notable Anime roles: Soichiro Arima in Kare Kano, Shun Kazami in Bakugan, Windy in Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS, Kurisu Osaka in Angel’s Feather, Akira Kamio in Prince of Tennis, Notable Tokusatsu roles: Grand Beast Rei in GoGo Sentai Boukenger, Clown Imagin in Kamen Rider Den-O x Kiva: Climax Deka. Notable dubbing roles: Golic in Alien 3. Yeah, this is pretty sparse, so I’ll give you a hint to the guy playing this week’s contractor. You may recognise him if you’ve been following my watch thread, but then you may not, since I’ve only included him in three pictures where you can see his face clearly (and I can tell you, that’s not exactly going to improve within the next week). |
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KAMEN RIDER DEN-O EPISODE 26 - "THE TICKET TO GOD'S LINE”
https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den26a.png https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den26b.png Hey, let's talk about the Yuuto/Ryotaro plotline in this episode, a.k.a Literally The Only Thing I Can Talk About From This Episode. (Holy shit, this thing is just one gigantic ad for the film. While I appreciate the change from having the film be some weird-ass AU thing and actually trying to enhance and expand the world of the TV series, a change I'm certain I'll be talking more about once I watch the movie... this is too much! This episode had me longing for the days of the opening credits dropping in some movie footage as the only acknowledgement of there even being a film, so I could avoid the hard-sell of this movie pitch. I'm actually a little less excited to watch the movie now, because I feel like it cost me at least half an episode of Den-O.) It's nice. It's the inevitable storyline where Yuuto learns that Ryotaro is more heroic than he appears, and Ryotaro learns that Yuuto is more empathetic than he appears. It's them both learning that they've maybe unfairly judged each other. It's sweet. It's a plot that excels in its specifics, because the overview is such a goddamn template by now. Literally every show with two or more Riders needs to do this story. We even got a version of it earlier this series between Ryotaro and Momo! These two guys don't think much of each other, but then they learn they're more alike than they thought. Tensions have thawed somewhat, roll credits. It's the little details, though, that make it still somewhat enjoyable. (Somewhat! This is not my favorite episode!) Yuuto getting to see the lengths Ryotaro will go to as Den-O is the less compelling part, since it's a story we've gotten a few times before, but I'm never going to be too down on an episode where Ryotaro honors his commitments and takes down an Imagin. Honestly, it's just nice to see Sword Form get some screentime again? I feel like every other Form has been getting the spotlight, and when Ryutaros cuts the line for the big fight in this one, I was channeling Momo's frustration. But then Ryuta gets bored, Ore Sanjou, and Sword Form gets the climax. Fun fight. Sometimes I'm easy to please! Yuuto's empathy, though, that was the nicest part. Ryotaro getting to see those flashes of Sakurai in Yuuto, the passion for astronomy, it's a great way to show Yuuto's hidden depths. My favorite part is the... I don't know, the aftercare that Yuuto does, same as Ryotaro would. Yuuto knows the Imagin is defeated, but the job isn't finished until this brother and sister get to have a nice night of watching a meteor shower. (Yuuto is such a giddy nerd about when meteor showers are visible in Japan! It's adorable!) It's the continuation of Ryotaro's victory in that earlier Yuuto Vs Ryotaro two-parter, where the mission and the calling are two different things, and Yuuto feels that same need to help people as Ryotaro does. Which, Ryotaro kind of learned it from Sakurai, so that makes sense. Time travel! It's a lot to deal with! https://kamenriderdie.com/images/kr/deno/den26c.png THE BAGGAGE CAR -I'm watching the movie tomorrow. I was going to wait until watching the concluding episode of this tie-in, but I don't think I can do one more barely-sensible Just Go With It episode. This one felt like I was being penalized, so I'm just going to try and get some context for all of this, no matter what it does for my viewing of 27. -I don't know if this is a plot the show's going to come back to in 27, but that whole Milk Dipper thread went absolutely nowhere? It's just some kids on break? I thought, bare minimum, we'd see the hospitalized sister brought to Milk Dipper to see some stars. The two Riders decorated and everything! The way the show ended up going, the Hope Hill stuff, was probably better, but it's weird how extra-unimportant the Milk Dipper scenes ended up being. |
I second Fish's comment earlier, there's not that much to lose by watching the movie before 27. Anyway, I'm going to watch it as well, like I did with God Speed Love, which I liked and you disliked. Maybe this time we can both agree on the quality of a movie for the first time since Paradise Lost.
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One thing I remember about this movie is despite being a very key part of Den-O’s (admittedly sparse) continuity, it barely gets referenced again afterwards (aside from the episode immediately following it in continuity order), with none of the characters it introduced making so much as a cameo later on. Conversely, the Gekiranger movie released alongside kept getting indirect references in the form of the exclusive mecha reappearing multiple times in later movies and episodes with Gekiranger, despite the movie it debuted in being utterly forgettable (to the point where every reappearance acts like it’s the first appearance of said movie exclusive Mecha, despite all of them being written by the same guy).
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It's definitely a good thing the development with Ryoutarou and Yuuto is as strong in these episodes as it is, because, yeah, it's maybe a ~little~ brazen of Den-O to end 26 with Owner basically outright telling the audience to head to their nearest theater? What Den-O did with the summer movie is interesting as an experiment, and it's one they couldn't have picked a better show to do it with, as it's so character-driven that a lack of a fully coherent plot manages to be a surprisingly minor issue, but it's still pretty strange!
I really do love any time Ryoutarou gets run ragged and just keeps on ticking though, limping along after Yuuto and such. If you're wondering from the Faiz thread why I equate getting constantly injured with heroism, I definitely learned it from watching this guy. :lol |
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