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11-09-2021, 10:34 AM | #901 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,100
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Still true though!
Between my meh reception of Final Countdown and Ryoutarou continuing to be present in the Chou Den-O Series in his de-aged form, I think it's easy to feel like New Den-O is always being overshadowed by other things, especially with him being rendered a hostage plot device in Chou Den-O & Decade. But everything else about him, the sweet design, counting gimmick, the dynamic between Koutarou and Teddy, it's almost enough to compensate for his irrelevance to whatever story he's in. He's like Mihara, but cooler, I guess is how I would summarize.
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11-11-2021, 09:27 PM | #902 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER THE MOVIE: CHO-DEN-O TRILOGY
--- EPISODE YELLOW - "TREASURE DE END PIRATES” Fun Diend movie! I keep going back and forth on how this worked as a Den-O movie, though. It's got all the trappings: the cast, the time travel (...ish), how the past can become a weight on the future, a climactic and largely irrelevant rice battle, etc. It's pretty thorough on the Den-O aesthetics. It's just, it's 100% a Diend story. That actor has a way of warping stories just by sheer charisma. He's like Nega New Den-O, where his mere existence gets you invested in his schemes and stratagems, rather than confused and irritated by his presence. (YMMV!) It's Kaitou's story, and the Den-O characters are just along for the ride. Probably no surprise that this one turned out great, considering that a) it's written by the guy who did the Hibiki arc on Decade, a.k.a. The Best Kaitou Story, and b) it gains a lot of its power from hitting that story's beats. (No, uh, pun intended.) It's a fun heist story where Kaitou makes a bunch of people's lives miserable in pursuit of a rare trinket... and some small kindness that can assuage his flatly-denied guilty conscience. It's sort of fascinating, to see Kaitou back in that Reluctant Hero role. His entire motivation here is that he accidentally robbed a young boy of the emotional closure needed to stop resenting an absent mother, and he goes to INSANE lengths to rectify that mistake. He makes a deal with an Imagin to draw out Den-O. He somehow makes his way to the past, just in time to grab Sword Form's predictably-discarded DenPass. (I love that a huge plot point rests on Den-O always throwing away the very important DenPass, almost as much as I hate how lazy it is that Kaitou can suddenly time travel now.) He hijacks the DenLiner, multiple times. He tries to murder himself in the past. It's all incredibly convoluted, and it's all just so he can fix this one kid's life that he accidentally ruined. Which, I like that! I like a Kaitou who will spend the entire movie being a frustrating asshole, telling everyone he manipulates that Feelings Are Dumb, while he would literally kill himself to get this kid to stop hating his own mother. I like it because it's what the Phase 2 of Diend's story could've been. It's Tsukasa's influence, and you can tell. This isn't something Kaitou decided to do until after he joined Team Decade, and it's not something he's doing to get Reiji off of his back. He just, y'know, felt guilty! And so he stole a time train at gunpoint! And this is the only character that can get away with being so frustratingly opaque and resolutely uncooperative. He's so damn charismatic that you can buy Urataros (who can see the squishy feelings inside the most dismissive of liars) and Ryotaro (who just innately believes in people) being willing to help Kaitou. He's someone who can spend an hour as a selfish thief, but you're still able to say But Maybe He's A Good Guy. I can't ever stay that mad at Kaitou, and neither can the narrative. It's a solid story, too. The idea of a Den-O "cops and robbers” story that mostly revolves around the danger of strict adherence to rules in the face of mitigating circumstances is a pretty fun one to tell. Reiji always comes off as a vengeful goon, which helps refocus Kaitou's scheming as the lesser of two evils. Den-O as a series always saw value in judging individual situations without bias, and it's nice to see those values carry over into this movie. It's a story that largely rejects things like Rules and Justice in favor of holistic solutions and personal responsibility. It definitely flatters Kaitou's view of the world! This is the last little bit of Den-O I'm going to have for a while (I think Pretty Den-O will land in the space between Zi-O and Zero-One, unless anyone can think of a reason not to), and it's funny to see it finally figure out a way forward for the franchise just as it's about to run out of track: as perennial guest stars. This movie works great because it tells a Diend story in a Den-O language. It's not even vaguely interested in pushing forward Ryotaro's story, or Momo's story, or whatever. All of the Den-O cast is there to help support Kaitou's journey, and that's great. Den-O's cast... I mean, what the hell is there left to learn about them? They've had 49 TV episodes, 7 movies, countless specials and short films... their story is over. Having them star in anything is just... why? But having them show up to provide a comedic bedrock for someone else's time-traveling journey towards a life with less regrets? That's pretty much ideal. THE BAGGAGE CAR -Ha ha, I just remembered I used to do these for Den-O episodes! WHOOPS. -Diend Complete being powered entirely by Movie-Only characters is... a choice! It's cute, but it doesn't have nearly the visual impact of Decade Complete's collection of Final Forms. Like, G4? Okay, sure. -Absolutely unclear why the Time Police had a Diend-themed K-Touch (complete with a carrying case emblazoned with Diend's logo!), but that can get filed alongside a bunch of other things under the heading Best Not To Think About. I am not entirely sure that this story fits comfortably between Kaitou's Missing Ace backstory and where we find him in Decade Episode 9. Maybe! Feels like a tough fit, though. -I liked Kamen Rider Den-Officer's suit! Reminds me a bit of the Space Sheriff design, which helped subconsciously sell it as a Cop Rider. -The Station Master Vs Owner contest at the end is, as Momotaros is infuriated by, the flimsiest bit of nonsense that could be used to pad out this thing's runtime (story ends about two-thirds of the way through), but I also completely don't care. It's terrific. Of all the fan-servicey callbacks this post-series contest has dredged up, I will never get sick or the Station Master Vs Owner rivalry. NEVER. -Naomi peeling off her own skin to reveal Kaitou underneath is some of the most horrifying imagery I've ever experienced in tokusatsu, or possibly all of media. Cannot believe this movie was aimed at children.
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11-11-2021, 09:38 PM | #903 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Diend shoving his way into a Den-O movie trilogy and (through virtue of All Riders not having an exclusive Rider) having his series' "movie/dark rider" be a Den-O rider who's a cop is... it's so perfectly Decade and so perfectly Den-O that there is zero room to complain about that. It's kind of beautiful? If anything I'm ashamed of the franchise to not have Cop Den-O show up whenever Decade needs some dark nemesis pulled out of the ever-present Shocker Revival Portal to fight
In fact the only complaint I really have here is that outside of Complete, Diend's only summons are the Riotroopers! Have a bit of fun with it; lean into Den-O's comedic antics by summoning guys like Scissors and Garren, or even summon Zeronos to make every single character involved extremely confused about everything. But ah well. Minor nitpick! This is just a fun, solid movie and the only reason I'm going on about these outside observations is that you said basically everything else I could have. Just... yeah, good Diend movie! Not what I expected from the final instalment of Den-O until Kobayashi next wrote a Rider show, but I'll happily take it!
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11-11-2021, 09:48 PM | #904 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
(Also, my first-ever Den-O anything was a Momo appearance in an Ex-Aid movie, but I didn't understand his significance at all. I didn't get the joke that he was the Pink in their Sentai team!) (Also also, there are still some non-Pretty Den-O stories with these characters I haven't seen yet, so I guess I haven't yet closed that loop. It really felt like I did, though!)
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11-11-2021, 09:53 PM | #905 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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There's an image that shows Den-O has turned up in some form every single year since it aired? Some of it's a stretch like legacy forms but they really do just never stop!
I'm very curious how you'll feel about Den-OOO especially this time around. It's one of my favourite pieces of Rider media ever with how much of a loving celebration it is; but it's so rooted in its unabashed love of the original Kamen Rider that I imagine it wasn't your cup of tea? Or maybe Imagin antics save it for you
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11-11-2021, 09:59 PM | #906 |
Alias: ZeroEnchiladas
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,580
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Probably the most memorable and my favorite movie of the bunch. I love Daiki and really, him taking the lead role with the Den-O cast playing support was great to see.
Also while I would have possibly preferred secondary Riders, this gave me Skull again and I'll never get tired of seeing that suit even for brief periods of time. |
11-11-2021, 10:13 PM | #907 |
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,415
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damn i lost my bet on this one
Anyway, good movie! I wish I had had anywhere near as good a time watching Decade as I did watching this.
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11-11-2021, 10:23 PM | #908 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Quote:
There's an image that shows Den-O has turned up in some form every single year since it aired? Some of it's a stretch like legacy forms but they really do just never stop!
I'm very curious how you'll feel about Den-OOO especially this time around. It's one of my favourite pieces of Rider media ever with how much of a loving celebration it is; but it's so rooted in its unabashed love of the original Kamen Rider that I imagine it wasn't your cup of tea? Or maybe Imagin antics save it for you I definitely didn't care a lot about the Showa stuff, and I don't think that'll change in a month or so. But the movie itself is anchored by the cast and crew of The Best Kamen Rider Series, so I'm sure it'll be fun to revisit. Even with New Den-O in it! Quote:
Probably the most memorable and my favorite movie of the bunch. I love Daiki and really, him taking the lead role with the Den-O cast playing support was great to see.
Also while I would have possibly preferred secondary Riders, this gave me Skull again and I'll never get tired of seeing that suit even for brief periods of time. Why in the world would you think I wouldn't like the Kaitou movie?! He's the best actor from Decade! As weird as it was to spend a third of a Den-O trilogy telling a story about a guy from another series -- and letting Yonemura write it -- this was a pretty agreeable movie. Not the dizzying highs of Red, or the staggering lows of Blue, but just, like, a fun movie to watch on a day off.
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11-11-2021, 10:25 PM | #909 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 10,420
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This is probably the film I remember best from this trilogy, primarily on the back of the really solid gag about Momotaros throwing the Denliner pass. I am always a sucker for a tokusatsu gag that pokes fun at some of the conventions of the genre.
The other, kind of sad thing, is that while Kamen Rider Den-O will return in, like, a lot of stuff, this is the final time we'll see the whole crew together. The Taros are good, but the human cast members start appearing more sporadically and some characters, like Kohana, are just gone after this point. |
11-11-2021, 10:30 PM | #910 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Would it maaaaybe help your not trucking with Showa if I told you that Rider crucifixions happen basically every 5 minutes in the 70s?
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