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11-13-2021, 05:19 PM | #921 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
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As promised, here are my full thoughts on Episode Blue and Yellow.
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KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER THE MOVIE: CHO-DEN-O TRILOGY
--- EPISODE BLUE - THE DISPATCHED IMAGIN IS NEWTRAL? Owner might as well have said it out loud in the first act, since it's zero percent subtle, and him withholding it just makes him seem like a prick. (He is emotionally torturing the entire team! I don't think Hana or Momo or Ryotaro needed to learn a lesson!) Quote:
Same thing for the Rinko From Wizard doppelganger, who doesn't need to act nearly as menacing and psychotic as she does in the first half of this story. The motivations are telegraphed a mile out, and the twists are so minor that I'm not sure they count as twists. They're, like, curves. Plot curves.
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(so, Grandma just forces the real Rinko From Wizard to play tennis until she collapses for fun or something? And makes Rinko From Wizard think she's going to get replaced by a monster? why is she treating her granddaughter so horribly? I would probably want to hang out with my friends instead, too!)
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I think I hate New Den-O? I feel like I gave him a shot, but I really disliked him in this movie. Zero charisma. And the conception of the character of Kotaro is still, like, Worse Yuuto? It's Yuuto's horrible attitude and refusal to open up, but without the particular bratty twist that Yuuto put on it? Yuuto always came off as sort of pathetic, in his childishness. He was pitiable. With Kotaro, it just comes off as him being a snotty jerk. The plot of the movie is to get both Kotaro and Teddy to the point where they're open about their need for one another, but that means that we get an entire movie of Kotaro turning his back on Teddy. It's another whole movie of Kotaro being withdrawn and mopey, and the actor not finding a single interesting note to it. He just, like, sucks. He's the least interesting character in this story, and it's his goddamn story.
Air freshener, duh! Quote:
KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER THE MOVIE: CHO-DEN-O TRILOGY
--- EPISODE YELLOW - TREASURE DE END PIRATES? 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. The way his fellow liar Eitoku-portrayed blue antihero interacted with him was smart, with Urataros projecting his own personality on to him to try and find that softer more heroic side he doesn't want anybody else to know about. It's a little more hidden in Kaito and debatable whether or not it's actually genuine, but against my better judgment, I also like to think that he did all this not just to protect his own treasure of the golden gun, but Reiji's treasure of his mother's letters as well. When Kaito says he only cares about treasure, that's true, but that's not always a bad thing. I think he works better as a Den-O character than he did as a Faiz or Decade character. The scene where Kaito tries to warn Reiji that Denliner is being stolen reminds me of Urataros' line that (paraphrasing) an interesting lie is worth more than 1000 predictable truths. But in this scenario, Kaito's truth was so interesting that Reiji falsely dismissed it as a lie. The discarded pass being an important part of Kaito's plan is also a humorous throwback to how Gaoh easily hijacked Denliner in Ore Tanjou. Momotaros didn't learn his lesson! Quote:
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!
Other than the character, G Den-O is also pretty cool! From the way he arrives like a Terminator to the police aesthetic. It's ultimately a villain suit though, due to Eve going rogue like the Fal'Cie Adam, but I would still like to see Reiji become his own police Rider fighting for a more refined justice to show how he has grown from his experiences. Quote:
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Yeah, I think this was probably my second favorite of the three films. I'd maybe even consider it as good as Red, just in different ways. It's prioritizing a madcap energy for the bulk of the story, rather than letting you know right upfront that it's going to have some sadness in it.
Which, god, maybe puts Yellow ahead of Red for me? Probably not, Red is so good, the reviews back me up, but Yellow absolutely lands an out-of-nowhere emotional punch at the end that is really amazing. But at least, even if our opinions on Red and Blue are polarized, we can both agree that Yellow is the second best/worst of the trilogy.
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11-13-2021, 05:49 PM | #922 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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Oh, this movie may also be where I first began to like Arc? He's just a big dude! I like how much they play on him just being a Big Dude here in the summon visuals and it's great. He should be around in more stuff so we can have more fun groupshots like this one
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11-15-2021, 12:48 AM | #923 |
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 119
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This thread makes me want to watch Kamen Rider Den-O again. I actually watched this a long time ago when I'm not fluent in English so there are still a lot of things that I don't understand, so it will be interesting to watch this again and fully understand the story.
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11-15-2021, 01:13 AM | #924 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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OH CRAP! I knew there was something I was forgetting to do!
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Future Miku's menacing behavior is targeted specifically towards Present Miku, as a result of self-loathing for not appreciating her grandmother enough. It's a recurring plot in both this movie and Episode Yellow, the desire to use time travel to rectify a mistake in the past, with varying outcomes.
And Rinko From Wizard From The Future's, like, haunting of Rinko From Wizard is more about trying to set up the fakeout of some evil doppelganger/Imagin, and it just keeps going long after that's obviously not the case. It's a character acting in secrecy for dramatic reasons, not logical reasons. Quote:
What would be alternative though? They're both the real Miku, so it's not like she can just choose. I think making them compete with each other does a lot to show the shallowness of Present Miku's problem, how she simply ceases to appear in this movie as soon as Future Miku gets rescued by the Denliner crew. Her objective was merely to get Future Miku out of her life, which seems pretty spiteful considering that the grandmother actually enjoyed having two Mikus, while Future Miku was the only one taking the competition seriously to get to spend important time with her grandmother. Present Miku probably spends the rest of her time with her friends offscreen, giving more reason for Future Miku to oppose her. She wants to save that lost time and the ending is bittersweet, with the grandmother destined to die soon, but at least Miku eventually gets closure. It fits with Den-O's prominent theme of inevitability but allowing small consolations that can have profound effects on people in the future. Miku's actress totally sells the emotions as well, so it's not surprising that she would later portray main characters such as Rinko from Wizard and Magical Goth Girl (I don't remember her name right now) from Travelers Dimension Police.
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It's a little more hidden in Kaito and debatable whether or not it's actually genuine, but against my better judgment, I also like to think that he did all this not just to protect his own treasure of the golden gun, but Reiji's treasure of his mother's letters as well.
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This thread makes me want to watch Kamen Rider Den-O again. I actually watched this a long time ago when I'm not fluent in English so there are still a lot of things that I don't understand, so it will be interesting to watch this again and fully understand the story.
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11-15-2021, 07:12 PM | #925 |
Master Procrastinator
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 367
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By the way, Pretty Den-O is very non-specific when it takes place. It could be happening any time from the end of the series onward and so can be safely watched whenever. You probably want to watch it roughly in release order, but I just wanted you to know there are no spoilers of anything else in it, so you don't need to.
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11-15-2021, 11:23 PM | #926 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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By the way, Pretty Den-O is very non-specific when it takes place. It could be happening any time from the end of the series onward and so can be safely watched whenever. You probably want to watch it roughly in release order, but I just wanted you to know there are no spoilers of anything else in it, so you don't need to.
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11-16-2021, 12:21 PM | #927 |
Standing By
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: USA
Posts: 2,113
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It's a story that pads out its time by having characters not just say the main thing that their performance is SCREAMING at the audience, and I didn't have a ton of patience for it. I needed something from Rinko From Wizard From The Future that was more honest, and I needed something from Grandma that was more blunt. I don't know. It was a story where the entire second act didn't work for me, because there was no surprise or tension.
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I mean, I see what you're saying about it being a necessary part of Kotaro's evolution into A Real Den-O, but my problem with that element is my same problem with the Rinko From Wizard stuff: I just don't feel like it was doing anything fresh or clever with those ingredients? It was trying to evoke similar feelings from the Den-O TV series, but that just reinforced for me how hollow and repetitive the movie's story was. It missed trying to warp or twist any of those beats in a clever way, instead leaning into the trope of People Being Jerks To Teach A Lesson, which always comes off as unimaginative and lazy to me.
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Written by: Yonemura Shoji Maybe you should consider skipping that one?
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11-16-2021, 09:45 PM | #928 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Quote:
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Uh, no. I would watch that tomorrow.
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11-25-2021, 04:30 PM | #929 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
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Happy (American) Thanksgiving, everybody!
This is... it's a little weird. I'm not super-thrilled with TokuNation's setup right now, if I'm being honest. Something happened in the backend infrastructure of the site, and nearly every episode post I ever did for this site is riddled with encoding errors. Like, look at the first post for this thread. Every single apostrophe, quotation mark, or ellipsis is now a string of bizarre characters. (Much like Kamen Rider Den-O, so I appreciate the errors at least being on-topic.) It's possibly something to do with writing my episode posts in another application, and then pasting them over as plain text, but it's not 100% clear. It's a recent error, but it's affected hundreds of my posts. That's a bummer, man. That's a couple years of work that's now... diminished, I guess. Something I'd rather people not see. That's been a little bit heartbreaking, if I'm honest. It's been reported to the admins by both myself and Androzani84, and we'll see if it gets fixed. I'd hoped it'd be fixed before trying to start something new, but it's the holidays, and I get it. It's just... I don't love the idea of starting something new at a time where everything else I've done is in a state of disrepair. I don't love the idea of trying to create something new that could look like garbage as soon as I click Submit Reply. It's frustrating, and dispiriting. Part of me was/is willing to walk away from these projects if things can't get fixed. I love you guys, and I love this community, but I'd rather walk away with fond memories than live with omnipresent frustration. But, who knows? Who knows if it'll all look terrible, or if things will never get fixed? Why walk away under a cloud of uncertainty? So, yeah, let's talk about Kamen Rider Die rewatches Legend Rider Movies and Specials. Starting (tentatively) December 2nd, I'll be rewatching a whole bunch of Heisei Phase 2 movies and specials, to get me from Decade to Zi-O. It's all stuff I've watched before, but now I'll be doing it with the full knowledge of the Phase 1 characters that are returning. It'll also be a nice chance for me to reacquaint myself with all of the Phase 2 shows, so I'll recognize characters when/if they show back up in Zi-O. A good mix of I Get That Takumi Plot Now and Hey Fourze Is Cool. Here's our roster (let's see how the site parses it): Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate Kamen Rider ? Kamen Rider OOO & W feat. Skull: Movie War Core OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders Kamen Rider OOO Wonderful: The Shogun and the 21 Core Medals Kamen Rider ? Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War Mega Max Kamen Rider Fourze: Rocket Drill States of Friendship Kamen Rider ? Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen Kamen Rider Fourze the Movie: Everyone! Let's Feel The Universe! Kamen Rider ? Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum Kamen Rider ? Super Sentai ? Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z Kamen Rider ? Kamen Rider Gaim & Wizard: The Fateful Sengoku Movie Battle Heisei Rider vs. Showa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai Kamen Rider ? Kamen Rider Drive & Gaim: Movie War Full Throttle Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3 D-Video Special: Kamen Rider 4 Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future Kamen Rider Chaser Drive Saga: Kamen Rider Brain Kamen Rider ? Kamen Rider Ghost & Drive: Super Movie Wars Genesis Kamen Rider 1 *Kamen Rider Ghost: The 100 Eyecons and Ghost's Fateful Moment *Kamen Rider Ghost: Legendary! Riders' Souls! *Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders *Kamen Rider ? Super Sentai: Chou Super Hero Taisen Kamen Rider Brave: ~Let's Survive! Revival of the Beast Rider Squad!~ Kamen Sentai Gorider *Kamen Rider Heisei Generations FINAL: Build & Ex-Aid with Legend Riders *Kamen Rider Build: Be The One Anything with an asterisk was already written up in the Ghost, Ex-Aid movie, or Build threads. Those won't get new write-ups, but I'll probably repost them in the new thread for convenience. I will rewatch them, though, and I might toss in a few new comments if anything is a revelation. If you think anything else should be in there, let me know. I'm skipping most of the comedy-oriented stuff because... god, it's all very long! It's nebulously canonical, so that's my cover story, but it's also hours of additional content I do not have time to rewatch. Like, the Fourze ones alone would consume an entire month. But if there's a couple episodes of something I've overlooked, I can try and slot it in. That thread should go up on December 2nd, with new review/recap/discussion/whatever posts going up two or three times each week. These movies aren't short, and I might have other commitments that limit me from spending three or fours on Kamen Rider in a night. But, y'know, I do want to watch these movies and specials. It's never work. Anyway, that's where we're at. I'm still pretty bummed that the site carved up a few hundred episodes worth of writing, but we'll try and work through it. No promises, but hopefully this won't permanently derail things. We'll all find out in December! See you then!
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11-25-2021, 04:37 PM | #930 |
Showa Girl
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 9,064
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The summer movie ones are pretty surprising! I totally expected this to just be movies featuring returning Phase 1 riders since those are the ones that would actually be new to you. But, hey, I'm definitely gonna dissuade you from rewatching movies as good as OOO Wonderful and Be The One!
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