Kamen Rider 31
Their admiration soon turns to dismay when he shoots at Ryuutaros trying to retrieve the stolen Rider Pass, and announces that they're under arrest too! They're in violation of the rules with all that unlicensed altering of history and being rogue Imagin and all. This is actually a kind of interesting bit: G Den-O talks of the Imagin like they're extinct, despite Spider appearing earlier in the movie and Piggies and Mantis in the previous installments. Is he just clueless, or is there something bigger being seeded here? Am I just hoping there's more to this than there actually is? Will Jiro ever find happiness?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Kamen Rider 30
Their admiration soon turns to dismay when he shoots at Ryuutaros trying to retrieve the stolen Rider Pass, and announces that they're under arrest too! They're in violation of the rules with all that unlicensed altering of history and being rogue Imagin and all. This is actually a kind of interesting bit: G Den-O talks of the Imagin like they're extinct, despite Spider appearing earlier in the movie and Piggies and Mantis in the previous installments. Is he just clueless, or is there something bigger being seeded here? Am I just hoping there's more to this than there actually is? Will Jiro ever find happiness?
Kamen Rider 29
G Den-O zaps Daiki with some laser handcuff thingies. Momotaros and the others are impressed by how he apprehended the thief, and his ability to time-travel without a Den-Liner. There's some plot exposition about Eve, the first of the manmade Imagin, who apparently has near-infinite knowledge and has made G Den-O the ultimate crime-fighting machine. He's also tiresomely by the book. Kurosaki is just kind of a smug bastard; considering he's in a movie with Daiki, that's saying something.
Kamen Rider 28
Diend uses his Final Attack Ride, but G Den-O counters with his "Perfect Weapon", a confusing attack that the creates an unbreakable force field which the Riotroopers suddenly decide it would be a good idea to run into. It stops Diend's blast and sends off all these red and blue lasers... it's one of the messier final attacks I've seen, I'll need to rewatch that one on DVD a few times to figure out what's going on. I think the Riotroopers try to get in the way to save Diend, but it doesn't do much good. They all get destroyed and Diend is knocked back to Daiki.
Kamen Rider 27
Unfortunately Diend brought a gun to a knife fight. You'd think he would just shoot the other guy and be done with it, but G Den-O gets in quickly and starts thrashing him good. So he naturally resorts to Diend Combat Procedure #1 and summons a bunch of Riotroopers. G Den-O changes his weapon to a gun, and with help from Eve (who knows everything, including where they all are in relation to him even from behind) kicks their butts.
Kamen Rider 22
G Den-O starts to form his Den-Gasher pieces into a knife-like weapon. Of course, our star treasure hunter isn't taking this well. If there's one thing that Daiki (the future... er, present version) hates, it's being deprived of freedom, so he transforms into Kamen Rider Diend. And before anyone worries, no, it's the same as ever. No continuity-busting "why-is-it-moving-towards-them-like-Leangle!?" changes made here.
Kamen Rider 19
Apparently, he wants to kill himself. No really, he finds his past self, and shoots him dead, much to Ryôtarô's shock. To Daiki's shock, he doesn't die! I mean either version. The bloody wound vanishes and past Daiki gets up and runs without asking any questions. Daiki tries to shoot himself some more, but the bullets (or whatever the Diendriver fires) just seem to disintegrate into some kind of force field. So basically, Daiki is like the Borg. The other Imagin show up to chase the Daiki who is also chasing a Daiki.
Kamen Rider 17
As the 'Liner careens through public domain footage the Time Vortex, Daiki holds Owner and Kohana at gunpoint, but since this is at least the 7th or 8th time the Den-Liner has been hijacked/sent out of control/etc., they take it pretty casually. Naomi, not so much. And if you've ever wanted to see Akiyama with a bucket helmet, wish granted.
Kamen Rider 14
The Den-Liner arrives back in time and Den-O Sword form appears on the Den-Bird ("Arriving... with the bike!" he shouts) and he attacks the seemingly-confused Spider Imagin, who is quickly destroyed with what I think is yet another new version of the Extreme Slash, but I've honestly lost track at this point. Basically Den-O does the "flying sword" bit then finishes it off by running into the monster, reattaching the blade, and slashing him again. Anyway, the rehashed monster blows up and Den-O reverts to Ryôtarô and Momotaros.
Kamen Rider 12
Tsukasa, have you eaten any Spoiler Warnings?: This is the Spoiler Version of the review for the third part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy. That means there's spoilers. If you don't want to know about the plot details for the movie, there's a Spoiler-Free Version just above this one.
Still the same trailer for Kamen Rider Double Forever: A to Z/ The Gaia Memories of Fate. There's a new one at the end of the movie which doesn't show a whole lot new aside from suggesting that Shroud's identity will be revealed (though I'd be shocked if it isn't a fake-out, since I can't believe they'd blow that in a trailer.) There's more of the baddies, including the resident sexy villainess kissing her Gaia Memory, Fang Joker vs. Eternal, and a lot of people looking like they're about to bust out dancing when they use the T2 Gaia Memories. Most importantly, we see Philip just plain losing his shit and punching out Shôtarô! Exciting stuff.
Alright, it's time for the final part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy, this time starring a character not from Den-O, but from Decade: Kamen Rider Diend, alias Daiki! Is that enough "D"'s for you? This was probably the most anticipated part of the Trilogy for me, given my unabashed love of Decade and even more so, my love of Rider crossover team-ups. Not to mention Diend is a character with loads of storytelling potential still in him, but I'll get back to that. How does it stack up?
Still the same trailer for Kamen Rider Double Forever: A to Z/ The Gaia Memories of Fate. There's a new one at the end of the movie which doesn't show a whole lot new aside from suggesting that Shroud's identity will be revealed (though I'd be shocked if it isn't a fake-out, since I can't believe they'd blow that in a trailer.) There's more of the baddies, including the resident sexy villainess kissing her Gaia Memory, Fang Joker vs. Eternal, and a lot of people looking like they're about to bust out dancing when they use the T2 Gaia Memories. Most importantly, we see Philip just plain losing his shit and punching out Shôtarô! Exciting stuff.
Alright, it's time for the final part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy, this time starring a character not from Den-O, but from Decade: Kamen Rider Diend, alias Daiki! Is that enough "D"'s for you? This was probably the most anticipated part of the Trilogy for me, given my unabashed love of Decade and even more so, my love of Rider crossover team-ups. Not to mention Diend is a character with loads of storytelling potential still in him, but I'll get back to that. How does it stack up?
Kamen Rider a
Urataros has trailed the past Daiki, who I should mention here wears a hat and dresses similarly to Daiki at the beginning of Decade, although it's questionable if it is supposed to be a pre-series Daiki, given what happens later. Then again, Daiki stomps all over his own time line in this movie and doesn't end up as his own grandfather or anything (I think) so it all works out, somehow.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Kamen Rider b
Anyway, he's breaking into... the Kurosaki estate! To steal a wooden chest containing the same golden revolver Kurosaki was seen with before. On the way out, he is confronted by a boy who tries to stop him. Daiki shoves him aside and leaps over the perimeter fence, and tells the kid that it's nothing personal, yadda yadda treasures blah blah justification!1! talky-talky. Urataros witnesses all this, but is found by G Den-O, and soon proves to be a pretty lousy escape artist.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Kamen Rider c
We see the time police headquarters in the time-desert place, which looks like a clock tower over a bunch of King-Liners. Actually, it might be the Terminal, since they reuse the heck out of that set here. Speaking of clocks, Kurosaki is often seen carrying around a pocket watch; it's mostly just a little character detail since the other thing he's always seen with, the golden gun, is the important thing. So no, he's not secretly Sakurai or anything. Speaking of which, where is Yuuto anyway? Kôtarô's back in the future I guess, but Yuuto and Deneb must be having one hell of an adventure to miss out on this.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Kamen Rider d
Momotaros and co. are tossed in a cell, and Daiki is in the cell across from them. He laments the amount of noise he must put up with as the Imagin do nothing but demand to be released.
The actors for Airi, Ozaki & Miura were apparently all under contract to appear in all 3 movies, so here they are. They don't do a whole lot, other than Airi making some disgusting-looking dish (which she tells Ryôtarô to eat so he can grow up to be big like he "used to be", which I guess means she knows about the whole de-aging thing?) Ozaki and Miura forget all about Episode Red and continue to pine over her. Ryôtarô and Kohana try to work out what Kurosaki's deal is and what exactly Daiki was trying to accomplish with that whole "killing my past self" thing. The name reminds Ozaki of an incident on November 22nd, 2008 when a valuable item was stolen from the Kurosaki household. And that item was... the golden gun! The kids formulate a plan...
The actors for Airi, Ozaki & Miura were apparently all under contract to appear in all 3 movies, so here they are. They don't do a whole lot, other than Airi making some disgusting-looking dish (which she tells Ryôtarô to eat so he can grow up to be big like he "used to be", which I guess means she knows about the whole de-aging thing?) Ozaki and Miura forget all about Episode Red and continue to pine over her. Ryôtarô and Kohana try to work out what Kurosaki's deal is and what exactly Daiki was trying to accomplish with that whole "killing my past self" thing. The name reminds Ozaki of an incident on November 22nd, 2008 when a valuable item was stolen from the Kurosaki household. And that item was... the golden gun! The kids formulate a plan...
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Kamen Rider e
Kurosaki and some guards confronts Daiki and they have a little chat, with Daiki mentioning how Kurosaki's pleased that he's taken away the ultimate treasure— his freedom. Kurosaki paraphrases a line that Urataros finds familiar: the last thing past Daiki said to that kid when he stole the gun from the Kurosaki house. I think you can make the obvious connection. Kurosaki points his gun at Daiki and we see that the handle is damaged...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Kamen Rider f
The Imagin are told they will be put on trial, but suddenly Owner appears, trying to use his street cred to get them out of jail. Eve pipes in that Owner is guilty of harboring renegade Imagin and generally screwing with the laws of time himself, so he's placed under arrest! As Owner comically resists, Daiki grabs a guard through the bars and begs to be released, claiming he'll renounce his thieving ways. Kurosaki doesn't buy it and decks him before leaving, but anybody who knows Daiki knows that he snatched the keys off of the guard. He lets himself out, then throws them to the Imagin... where they land just out of reach.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Kamen Rider g
The Den-Liner is now under the jurisdiction of the time police. Kurosaki boards, but is informed by Naomi that Daiki has escaped. He senses something though, and pulls his gun on Naomi, who he insists is actually Daiki! Sure enough, it is. Yes, Daiki is wearing a rubber Naomi suit. No, I have no idea how that works, and I'm not sure I want to know. After unmasking, the two have a stare down.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Kamen Rider FINAL
Ryôtarô & Kohana have gotten themselves arrested somehow (probably for claiming to be Satô and Shiratori since they're going to be old enough in a few more years) and are being placed in the jail adjacent to the Imagin, who have been trying desperately to get the keys. Ryôtarô tells Momotaros to "Come over here", and after being slightly puzzled, the big red one gets the hint and merges with Ryôtarô. M-Ryôtarô beats up the guards. Kohana busts loose and performs a "Matrix"-y flying kick that's about a decade out of date. Okay, I think they were also going for some Bruce Lee homage or something.
It turns out Owner had no trouble taking care of himself either, and joins the kids as they release the Imagin. Ryôtarô concludes that they need to get to the Den-Liner and figure out just what's going on so that they can clear their names and settle all this. Owner tells them that he has important business with the Station Master (I guess it is the Terminal after all) so he hands Ryôtarô the Infinity card and tells him to look after the Den-Liner. This is a great moment, really showing just how far Owner has come to trust Ryôtarô and his friends.
As if this escape couldn't get any cooler, our heroes then jump out of the tower with parachutes, though Momotaros' fails on him. He's had worse.
Kurosaki forces Daiki out of the Den-Liner at gunpoint. Daiki tries to distract him by telling him Ryôtarô & co. are escaping... which they actually are! They board the Den-Liner, taunting Kurosaki after Urataros uses the Den-Gasher (Fishing) Rod Mode to steal back the Rider Pass. Momotaros has a really evil laugh here. The train leaves, and Daiki uses the distraction to escape, firing a laser grappling hood into the end of the Den-Liner and being pulled along with it. So that's how he does it. Kurosaki is ticked off and so is Eve, who says that all their judgments have already been passed. Total elimination.
On the Den-Liner, Diend appears in the front to hold Den-O Sword Form (who's driving) at gunpoint. There's then a big exposition info dump, where Daiki explains (sort of) what he was up to on November 22nd, 2008. After stealing the chest from the Kurosaki house, he paused on a bridge to examine the prize... and noticed something else beneath the gun. Pulling away the felt, he finds something that shocks him, but the gun and chest are shot out of his hands by some trigger-happy cops. Yes, cops actually chasing Daiki! The gun is damaged as a result, and Daiki escapes. Also, a whole lot of papers flutter around everywhere...
Our heroes speculate that Daiki wanted to go back to that day so he could try stealing it again and get it right this time. Daiki does confirm that he likes his treasures in mint condition, though it still seems there's more to the story yet to be told. Despite everyone else just about ready to dump Daiki in the middle of the desert, Ryôtarô decides to go along with his demand to take them back to November 22nd, 2008 (after which the thief will turn control of the Den-Liner back over to them, he claims.)
Ryôtarô, Daiki & the Imagin disembark, but are ambushed by G Den-O teleporting in. Eve instructs him to issue them the maximum penalty, and the police Rider assembles his weapon and attacks. Momotaros takes a blow to protect Ryôtarô, who becomes Den-O, though Kintaros pushes out Momotaros so he changes to Ax Form. After a brief fight, Ax uses the Dynamic Chop. There's a great nod back to the beginning of the movie when he takes out the Rider Pass, swipes it... then after a moment, carefully puts it behind his back where he got it from rather than tossing it aside. G Den-O is able to block the attack with his force field.
Ryuutaros takes command and Gun Form goes up against G Den-O. Despite being well-matched shots, Eve's targeting skills are superior and Ryuuta gets blasted clear. Momotaros takes control once again. G Den-O fires at Daiki, but Urataros covers him and possesses him, transforming (much to Daiki's disapproval.) U-Diend uses his rod weapon to deflect G Den-O's bullets and attack him directly. He changes back to the Diendriver and uses the Invisible card... but surprisingly, not to run away! Den-O does his Extreme Slash on G Den-O, who blocks it with his force field... then Diend comes out of cloaking and blasts him away point-blank. This is probably the best use of that power yet!
With G Den-O temporarily down for the count, Diend reverts to Daiki and hoofs it. For much of the movie Daiki has been checking his wrist watch; we get a full-on countdown here, and he rushes to find his past self and prevent the gun from being damaged... seemingly. As the countdown hits 0, Daiki finds himself cornered by Kurosaki, who Eve eggs on to just get it over with and put one right between his eyes. Ryôtarô arrives and watches on, shocked.
Daiki reaches for his gun, so Kurosaki shoots, and the bullet pierces right through Daiki and out the other side, where the past Daiki is running by with the suitcase. The bullet his the case, knocks past-Daiki over a railing. The papers from before scatter everywhere, and the present, shot-up Daiki catches the gun in his hand. As a result, the gun disappears from a shocked Kurosaki's grip, and Daiki seems to be just fine.
Let me try and explain what's basically happened here.
Daiki made contract with a Spider Imagin and let it go back in time to November 22nd, 2008. He used the intervention of Ryôtarô & friends to steal the Den-Liner, which after a brief joyride returned to that time anyway. He then attempts to shoot himself several times, eventually giving up (he admits "I thought it would be like that" upon failing to kill himself the first time.) As it turns out, this was all really to lure Kurosaki into coming after him (Daiki already knows who he is when he first appears.) After a fight, he gets arrested, but breaks out, commandeers the Den-Liner again, goes back to the same point in time and ends up getting "killed" himself.
Except that since the stolen gun from the past falls into his future hands, it never would have been damaged and later retrieved by Kurosaki (which is why his future, adult self has had it all this time.) So basically, Daiki saves his own ass by getting shot, having his past self lose the gun to his future self, who then would have always had it from that moment on. And as a result, Kurosaki never could have gotten it back, and never could have shot it, so it disappears from his hand. And since he never could have shot Daiki with it... Daiki's now okay.
Just wait, it gets even better.
The papers are in fact letters from Kurosaki's mom. Remember the mommy issues he hinted at earlier? They seem to run pretty deep, but the truth is Kurosaki's mother loved him even if he never realized it. Kohana arrives to spell it all out for us, though I must confess this is the part of the movie where my memory fails. It actually is fairly adequately explained, I just forget the exact reasoning behind it all so if it seems contrived, it's actually pretty well foreshadowed and you can chalk this one up to reviewer brain degradation.
Either they divorced, or she died early, or something like that. Probably none of the above! I also *think* that Kurosaki got the letters as a kid, and just never read them/forgot about them, burying them under the gun. Seeing them now though, he comes to realize what he's been missing out on. It explains his cold, clinical personality so far (seeing Eve as his only true partner in life) and as part of the Daiki Master Plan™ (unintentionally turn hapless child into future arch enemy, then show him he's actually been a dick all along!) it oddly works.
Truth be told, I was also kind of distracted during this scene by some nearby graffiti (unnoticed by the characters but visible to the audience) which looks like it says 井斗... as in (Sakura)i (Yuu)to. Simple coincidence, reference to a Den-O story I totally forgot about, or the most subtle foreshadowing to a future Den-O adventure yet? Is Yuuto the Bad Wolf? Did I just read it wrong? (Probably)
Daiki tells Kurosaki that these letters are a great treasure, but one that he has no need for, so he hands them back to the man himself. Eve has been getting constantly irritated by the emotional stuff of the last few minutes, and orders Kurosaki to uphold the law and take down Daiki. The man is too overcome with emotion though, which ticks off the logic-minded Imagin to no end.
So of course he has the very natural reaction of forcing himself to split from Kurosaki's badge, manifesting into the corporal form of G Den-O, and declaring that artificial Imagin must rule the world and humans are weak, emotional wrecks! You couldn't make it up if you tried.
To be fair, Eve's heel turn is signposted early on enough. You know he's by-the-book, but in this case is psychotically so. I'll talk more about that later though. Now split from Kurosaki, Eve/G Den-O goes nuts and our heroes scatter.
Daiki ends up running into his past self. They have a brief Mexican standoff, since even Daiki loves pointing his gun at himself. G Den-O shows up growling like a feral dog, so they transform together. Things get a little confusing here but I think the present Daiki that we've been following for most of the movie proceeds to escape with the golden gun, outwitting his other self (who is of course impressed: "I'm really great!") and leaving things up to him. Or maybe it's the past one. Well, there's now just one Diend in the fight, we'll leave it at that.
Ryôtarô/Den-O and co. join in the fight, though the out-of-control G Den-O easily holds his own against 2 Riders and the Imagin. Kurosaki is still around to watch the ensuing chaos. An attempt to finish G Den-O results in him using that force field/laser thing attack, and a stray one goes towards Kurosaki. Diend pushes him out of the way though, saving him, and the grateful man takes out his badge and pushes some buttons on it. It changes into a metal briefcase with Diend's logo on it, inside of which contains Diend's own K-Touch.
Alright, I'm not too sure what the story is with this... the dialogue implies that Kurosaki has always had it, waiting for the right person to give it to. Considering it's meant for Diend, you've got to wonder about the implications there. Anyway, Diend is impressed by this "true treasure" and uses it to change to...
Diend Complete Form! He uses the special Attack Ride Gekijôban card to summon an array of familiar faces...
Kamen Rider G4!
Kamen Rider Ryuga!
Kamen Rider Orga!
Kamen Rider Glaive!
Kamen Rider Kabuki!
Kamen Rider Caucasus!
Kamen Rider Arc!
Kamen Rider Skull!
Somewhere in here Den-O becomes Den-O Climax Form too. The Movie Riders and Diend perform their finishing moves, overwhelming Eve/G Den-O. The rampaging Imagin's cry of anger fades into nothingness as he explodes.
Then comes the multi-part ending similar to Episode Blue. Daiki parts ways with the Den-O crew, and we get a nice little cameo of the exterior of the Hikari Photo Studio! Nobody else, but at least we know they're all still around and Daiki's traveling with them. Kurosaki goes to visit his mom (in 2008 or 2010, I'm not sure) who works at a flower shop and it's a well-done, touching scene on par with Blue's original character wrap-up. I'm going to need to see the movie again because I think I missed out what exactly caused such a rift between them. Well hey, time-travel made it all un-happen anyway so it's cool!
There's then a scene on the Den-Liner that... look, you're just going to have to see this one for yourselves. It's got Owner and Station Master facing off, using spoons as golf clubs to throw chahan rice onto plates from the Den-Liner's Holodeck. No really, that's pretty much exactly what it is. I suppose this ties back to the spoon-polishing stuff from Episode Blue and maaaaybe the tape measure from Episode Red, I dunno.
And of course to top it all off, when everybody gets served coffee, Ryôtarô realizes his mug is missing. It turns out Daiki did steal something from the Den-Liner after all, though the main man (or boy) isn't too bothered by it, because they'll most likely meet again...
The End
Review
Now that's what I'm talking about.
In a lot of ways, this is the Den-O movie that finally really delivers on a facet of the series that up until now has mostly gone unexplored: presumably, they can meet anybody in history, or at least Rider history. It's a trait shared with Decade, though while that show is built around the concept, Den-O's only briefly toyed with it in the past.
In the previous team-ups with Kiva and Decade, the guest Riders were basically doing cameo appearances. Here however, Diend is definitely integral to the plot and entrenched into the Den-O mythos. The movie simply wouldn't be the same without him. It's still a Den-O movie featuring Diend, but he's the first name in the credits and it's not hard to see why.
After all, the main selling point of the Trilogy, beyond the idea of 3 Rider movies spread out across 6 weeks, is that each one focuses on a Rider other than Den-O. Although so far, they've still been Riders to come out of the Den-O series/movies, whereas finally we have a character from a different series, albeit one that has crossed over with Den-O in the past and has the potential to cross over with it easily.
From this point on, it'd be interesting to see if Toei will up the ante with the next inevitable Den-O movie/series of movies. How about Episode Green featuring V3? Episode Black featuring BLACK? Episode Bluey-Purplish featurning Hibiki? The sky's the limit. Of course Diend, like Decade, is a unique case, given how steeped in Rider mythology the character is. It's practically his whole reason to exist.
Diend is a strange character; in many ways his inclusion made Decade's narrative infinitely more complex, as it added in another mystery man who knew about the hero's back story but refused to tell, and who had his own world-hopping abilities and motivation. We did find out a little about him along the way, but he's still largely an enigma by the end of the series and subsequent movies. What's more, he has some of the oddest characterization in Kamen Rider, appearing to regress with each appearance back to the core concept of "world-hopping treasure hunter" despite whatever he'd just been through in the previous episodes.
I'm mainly thinking of the one-two punches in #22-23 & 24-26, where we got some of Daiki's back story, learned about his inner demons and then saw him get taken down a few pegs when a Sentai villain swipes his weapon and goes hog-wild. It seemed like at that point the character might go from his earlier, more reckless and somewhat morally dubious self where he's not a bad guy (but he'll still shoot at Tsukasa and Yuusuke and heaven help them if they don't dodge) into something a little more conventionally heroic, and maybe even give us some of the answers we've been waiting to hear.
Instead we have Daiki at probably his all-time most head-scratching. In #26 & 27, he intentionally opposes Tsukasa to get his hands on Apollo Geist's Perfecter, which is already not a very smart idea as it is ("Yes, I'll just walk up to one of the most dangerous Rider villains in existence and take it! Treasure Hunting wooooooooo!") You gotta love how quickly he runs once he realizes he's up against an enemy who actually uses his shield like a shield. To be fair, he still proves in the end that he's a good guy by bringing in another Kurata Tetsuo for that moment every fan still gushes over. Also, Daiki drops some serious X-Rider continuity in these episodes, so he's all right by me.
In #28 & 29, he's even more bonkers, but I say that as an Amazon fan knowing that on their own, the Gigi and Gaga are basically just cool-looking jewelry; combined is where the real power lies. Not to mention that as long as you have one, pretty much anybody who knows the back story will be after you 'til the end of time. This arc also saw him getting his power-up card from Narutaki, a plot development that's still pretty hard to explain (and after this movie, nothing's changed there. I'm pretty sure Daiki's still using the old Kamen Ride Diend card anyway. My fan theory is that the card just gave him some new tricks, Illusion & Barrier, etc., but I dunno)
The last two are confusing enough as it is, and (along with the trip to his own world) another look into how emotionally unstable he can be at times; see his almost-teary-eye "only I can destroy you!" bit with Tsukasa. And then of course there's that ending, though with the re-aired episodes chopping out the face-shooting bit, it's hard to know what actually has happened anymore. On this one, I'll vote with my wallet, and say I still consider the original ending to be the real one until Toei's marketing department says otherwise. Given that books published post-re-airing still refer to it (Yuusuke turned bad; Diend's headshot, etc.) you gotta wonder.
To be honest, I don't remember Double & Decade Daiki much, other than a lot of standing around and being as confused as everyone else by Wataru's gibbering nonsense, and then joining in for the kick-ass fight at the end. But All Riders is where the character finally sort of hit his apex for me, despite a shaky start (he gets to be the top 3rd Heisei Rider in the tournament because he showed up late?)
That movie has Diend facing down some serious bad guys and joining with the rest of the Rider family at last; probably the two defining moments are his classic Shocker soldier reveal, and then escaping with Natsumi while having to fight off pretty much everybody after the Rider pow-wow goes bad (what'd he expect, hooking up with two nutbars though?) At last, Diend really felt like a proper hero here, as opposed to simply a thief with a heart of gold.
The other big thing about Diend, apart from his characterization, is the fact that he's kind of indirectly responsible for making Narutaki into such a worthless character, given how he took his one cool ability (summon in old Riders to fight Decade) and put a more marketable spin on it. Thus we go from feeling like the real Hoppers and Kaixa have come into he show, to just a bunch of grunting digital copies. To be fair, Diend does it far more over the course of the series than Narutaki, who could conceivably still do it later if he wanted to (re: Hibiki World) so it's more the writing's fault than it is Daiki's.
And yet... I honestly can't say I dislike him. Yes, his character has qualities I don't (and still don't) understand. Yes, he looks like the super heroic equivalent of a PS2. Yes, we still know so little about how he travels between worlds that the "he journeys through the plot holes" theory actually makes complete sense (that said, Episode Yellow does offer up a pretty good explanation of how he gets around Den-O's world, anyway.)
But at the end of the day, he's a cool concept both as a character and as a Rider: A world-hopping guy who wants valuable bits of fan service and fights by bringing in anybody from the past 10 years, and even beyond. It's another case of Decade's high concepts rising above how effective/ineffective they might have actually been realized.
And really? It's just so good to see him back. Decade's barely over a year old and for all the ups and downs it has, I love that show, and bringing elements of it back gets the nostalgia gears grinding. That there's still so much untapped potential in it is only a bonus.
So that brings us to the main man. As you've probably sussed, this movie doesn't do a whole lot for explaining where Diend came from, though it might serve as a good indication of where he's going. The reason for this is one that's both a little disappointing, but also rather brave: Decade is nowhere to be seen or even mentioned; outside of the Hikari Studio cameo at the end (and even that's just a building.) This is Diend striking it out on his own, almost divorced from the series from which he came. It's like that episode of New Kamen Rider where Riderman guest stars solo and holds his own as well as anybody. You know you've hit the big time when you can do that.
It's a bold idea, and it kind of lends credence to the idea that the Chô Den-O Trilogy stars really should have been all non-Den-O Riders. I enjoyed Episode Red and Episode Blue (the latter particularly so) but they've inarguable got a Den-O-centric appeal to them. If you didn't like the series and movies before, those probably won't make you like it now. With Episode Yellow, it's a bit more tricky. If you liked Decade and mainly Diend, you'll probably like this, because even with the Den-O cast appearing, he's still front in center. In fact I'd say that unlike Episode Red, where Zeronos felt sidelined by his own movie, Diend is all over the place here (sometimes twice) and gets the big hero moments at the end. To be honest, I can barely even remember what Climax Form did!
As for characterization... well, it's Daiki. Written by Yonemura, the man who probably handles him the best. Although I brought up his wacky turns earlier, if you just sit down and examine the Yonemura-written episodes with Diend, there's at least some consistency among them. Under the other writers, I always felt he seemed just a bit too antagonistic, as if they all expected he'd wind up a villain by the end, and it's up to the actor to keep you liking him. But Yonemura seemed to get it. He writes Daiki as a magnificent bastard who always seems to have a plan, or at least is good at making it up while he goes, and beneath the bluster there is a good guy in there.
If it at first looks like he's doing something really stupid (going after treasures that happen to be attached to Daishocker leaders, etc.) then usually there's some twist or trick to it, a method to the madness. Hibiki World Daiki is one of my favorite depictions of the character, who up until then had seemed a lot more sinister than he really is. It's also the best-ever use of him as a rival to Tsukasa I think, with each backed up by an opposing school in that killer confrontation which quickly descends into unabashed lunacy. If When I get to write for Kamen Rider, I'd like to create a secondary Rider who never actually voluntarily gets into fights with the main one when they're transformed, but only when they're in human form. And even then, it's less fisticuffs and more about then pitting their wits. I like that stuff, like Tendô and Tsurugi trying to one-up each other.
Such is the case here. Daiki's time-travel scheme is unbelievable, some of the most insane plotting ever inflicted upon Rider... and yet it completely works. I mean that both in the literal sense (it all works out) and that as far as the story goes, it's logical in its own mind-melting way. I mean think about it: how can he have been shot by the other guy if the other guy never had the gun at that time in the first place? Admittedly if you've seen anything else involving time-travel, including other Den-O movies, it may break your brain, but hey.
Totani is having a ball as usual. He even makes for a convincing action hero at times, fighting G Den-O untransformed and running around with the Den-O regulars like part of the gang. Of all the Rider worlds out there, he fits into the Den-Oniverse one quite well. For a Diend fan, this is really a pretty solid outing, giving him a chance to exhibit all his trademarks: the smugness, the greed, the cockiness, and the layers beneath all that where we see that Daiki really is a good guy beneath it all, if more than a little cracked. I'd like to think that maybe traversing the worlds and seeing things like Kamen Rider THE NEXT World has taken its toll and kind of driven him a little bit batty.
Diend uses his usual tricks, although probably better than ever before. The Riotroopers are always great to see and I maintain that this movie might be the best use of "Invisible!" yet. And as for Diend Complete...
Well, honestly? I'm fine with the suit, because Diend is already such a strange, unorthodox design that throwing a bunch of cards on there and some silver paint works about as well as anything. The whole process by which he gets his K-Touch is a little out of left field, but considering some of the stuff Kamen Rider's pulled in the past (power-ups in the mail, power-ups hidden in the walls, power-ups brought by Fuse Akira, etc.) I can roll with it.
The assemblage of movie Riders is the highlight of the whole movie and elicited the most audience response in the theater. Any time you throw together a bunch of different Riders, people are always going to eat it up. Granted they're basically just there for a final attack, but it lasts long enough that you get to see everything clearly and remember who's involved. And hey, this is like the first Decade-related thing where Ryuga doesn't die! Also, this is Skull's second movie appearance with another one apparently on the way. Okay Toei we get it! He's cool! The hat thing was a good idea after all! Sorry we ever doubted you!
Also, you've got to love the commentary of having a movie Rider killed by movie Riders with a card that flat-out announces they're movie Riders. Only in the (Rider) movies.
Moving onto the movie's other main star, that being Kurosaki/G Den-O, although I should say Kurosaki and Eve/G Den-O. Kurosaki's good. He's pretty much what you'd expect from what the trailers have shown: time-traveling by-the-book cop guy. He's a great foil for Daiki and the implied twist that Daiki is sort of responsible for his creation (as a time cop) is a neat one. It adds another layer, as does the whole mom thing. I gotta rewatch the movie to get what that was all about, but it was pretty good. As far as movie-Riders-being-bastards go, he's got good enough reasoning behind him.
I also liked that in the end, he's not really evil, and he's not even just doing his job; he's misguided and really being egged on by a voice actor. It's a funny blend, reminding me of something like combining G3-X with G4, having him teamed up with an evil Deneb, then turn out to not be a bad guy at all really.
G Den-O's okay. As a costume it's pretty much what we've come to expect from "bad" Riders in Den-O, that being they took the basic Den-O Plat Form look and changed around the armor here and there, new helmet there, etc. I have to applaud them for having an actually pretty heroic-looking design be used for a villain. G Den-O looks like he could easily be a good guy suit, or even a not-so-bad guy suit, but he's straight-up bad news from start to finish. While Kurosaki might ultimately be a good guy, G Den-O as a character in himself never is.
Which brings us to Eve, and his revelation as the movie's true villain. To be honest, I did not see that coming. Or I mean I did, but not the way they went about it. I thought that maybe he'd take control at the end, force-changing Kurosaki into G Den-O, or that Kurosaki would reject Daiki's kindness and turn out to really just be beyond help in the end. Or something. The whole "Eve flies off of him and manifests as G Den-O himself" bit is weird... until you consider that it's a natural extension of what we've seen elsewhere. Negataros turned into Nega Den-O directly; the other Imagin all got to go Den-O in Final Countdown. It's basically the same idea, just that we never see Eve as anything other than a face on a badge/G Den-O's chest, with the exception of the splitting-off-of-Kurosaki process (there's a brief outline of what he might look like if he had a full bipedal form like the others.)
As for the character, Eve is kind of fascinating. It'd be easy to just say that him going bad and becoming this nutter who rants about taking over the world and how all humans must be put on trial is just some wonky characterization, but I actually have a different reading of it. I think Eve might be one of the few truly insane villains to come out of Kamen Rider. The franchise has had a lot of crazy guys, but more often than not they're either half-putting up an act or only nuts to a certain degree.
For example... Asakura's got some loose screws, but I never found him as truly mad, because he's shown to be able to exercise reason, he can decide when and when not to be a megabastard (those episodes with the girl on the boat) and while he clearly enjoys inflicting pain on others, I think the writing paints it as that being because he's a bad apple rather than because he can't help himself. He's a sadist, but he's also a schemer, and he often uses manipulation and deception to get one over on others, usually only flying into homicidal rages when he's actually legitimately mad at something. He's dangerous, but you could still have a conversation with him, as often happened later in the series. In other words, you can still talk him down, though given that it's Ryuki it'd much easier to just blow him away with a giant bull mech thing.
Tôjô on the other hand always did strike me as someone who is literally is incapable of stopping himself, which makes him a far more frightening character. Asakura knows he's bad to the bone, but Tôjô's truly convinced what he's doing is good, even when it involves him murdering the people who he respects and trusts. His ending is one of the most powerful in the show; yeah you can say it's typical Inoue where a nigh-unstoppable character dies of some small thing after his big last battle in an attempt at irony or the like, but with Tiger I thought it worked since the character wasn't really a hero before that except in his own mind, but his last act is heroic... if almost unintentionally so.
Another example is Kagami Riku. Now I love Riku, and he is off-the-wall craziness at times. But much like Owner, it always struck me more as a cover; they play the goofs to hide that beneath it, they're actually very smart and completely in control; the silliness and eccentricity is just there to distract everyone. When it hits the fan at the end of the show, Riku steps up to the plate, even if he goes through what can only be called a breakdown when Mishima turns on him. In the end though, I always felt like he's mostly just doing the "lemmings! Mozart!" thing to cover up his real intentions. Dunno about God Speed Love though!
With Eve however, I could actually buy it that the character is completely out of his gourd, because of how irrational and illogical his actions are. It's one thing to get ticked off at Kurosaki for putting personal feelings over duty, but Eve pretty much loses it at that moment, and this is after the movie showing that for all his by-the-book follow-the-rules logic-conquers all mentality, he really just plain hates Daiki and co. and wants them removed because they're simply wrong.
They don't fit into Eve's version of how the world should work, and you get the feeling that trying to convince him otherwise will only end with him wanting to shoot you in the face. Speaking of which, isn't amazing how they're still finding new ways to combine the Den-Gasher?
Ultimately it's a pretty fascinating idea. We've had evil Imagin by the boatload, and even an evil-taros, though this might be the first one who's also just plain psychotic. In a way it's kind of the culmination of the whole time police idea, because if you stop and think about it it really doesn't make much sense. Protecting time is like, the whole reason for Den-O and the Den-Liner; these future cop guys just do more harm than good.
I'm not really clear on what happens with them at the end, other than that the Den-Liner team is cleared and everything ends happily. I'm going to throw it out there that maybe Kurosaki meeting his mom had some effect on his relationship with her as a kid in 2008/2010, and as a result maybe they got erased from history or something. Hey, it's easier than having to explain why they haven't been going after Wataru for ensuring that he actually gets born.
As for the rest of the cast: at this point I've just run out of things to say about the regulars. We had them in the last two movies, we've had them before that, etc. Mizoguchi is still amazing, Momotaros is still hilarious (the parachuting scene is one of my favorites ever involving the character) and everybody else is about what you'd expect, with Owner really coming out of this one well, perhaps to make up for last time.
Actually, Urataros fares pretty well in this one too, coming to have a special kind of role in the story since he's the one who witnesses how it all started. U-Daiki is great of course, and along with Spider-Daiki continues to further my theory that Kamen Riders = Singularity Points. Seriously, with maybe one or two exceptions, every person who's gotten possessed by the Imagin with the hair and eyes and all either is a Rider (Ryôtarô, Yuuto, Kôtarô, Wataru, Tsukasa, Daiki, Yuusuke, the Diend dupes) or eventually becomes one (Natsumi.) Maybe there's another one in there I'm forgetting, but it's an interesting idea.
There isn't a whole lot else to say beyond the characters (as the Trilogy has been pretty character-centric.) The plot's crazy and goes all over the place, but like I said, it somehow all works. Good action, good music and all that. The song as the end's a funny mishmash; I'd have liked a new version of Treasure Sniper or something, but it's cool. If I had any complaints, and it's a smaller complaint: I would have liked a small unannounced cameo from someone else from Decade. Maybe Eijirô or even Kivaara. I'll live, but these movies really need more total surprises. Everything's so advertised these days, and it kind of builds expectations too high. I think Kiva's appearance in Climax Deka would have gone over much better had it been a complete surprise, small but welcome, rather than being promoted as like half the movie.
How does it stack up to the others? It might be my favorite, though Episode Blue was pretty good too. At some point soon I'll do a final Trilogy wrap-up with my thoughts on the whole shebang and all that. Although I might need to watch this one again.
So that's it for the Chô Den-O Trilogy. Given the box office success of each installment, I'd say we're due for more Den-O in the future, though I'll speculate on that another time.
It turns out Owner had no trouble taking care of himself either, and joins the kids as they release the Imagin. Ryôtarô concludes that they need to get to the Den-Liner and figure out just what's going on so that they can clear their names and settle all this. Owner tells them that he has important business with the Station Master (I guess it is the Terminal after all) so he hands Ryôtarô the Infinity card and tells him to look after the Den-Liner. This is a great moment, really showing just how far Owner has come to trust Ryôtarô and his friends.
As if this escape couldn't get any cooler, our heroes then jump out of the tower with parachutes, though Momotaros' fails on him. He's had worse.
Kurosaki forces Daiki out of the Den-Liner at gunpoint. Daiki tries to distract him by telling him Ryôtarô & co. are escaping... which they actually are! They board the Den-Liner, taunting Kurosaki after Urataros uses the Den-Gasher (Fishing) Rod Mode to steal back the Rider Pass. Momotaros has a really evil laugh here. The train leaves, and Daiki uses the distraction to escape, firing a laser grappling hood into the end of the Den-Liner and being pulled along with it. So that's how he does it. Kurosaki is ticked off and so is Eve, who says that all their judgments have already been passed. Total elimination.
On the Den-Liner, Diend appears in the front to hold Den-O Sword Form (who's driving) at gunpoint. There's then a big exposition info dump, where Daiki explains (sort of) what he was up to on November 22nd, 2008. After stealing the chest from the Kurosaki house, he paused on a bridge to examine the prize... and noticed something else beneath the gun. Pulling away the felt, he finds something that shocks him, but the gun and chest are shot out of his hands by some trigger-happy cops. Yes, cops actually chasing Daiki! The gun is damaged as a result, and Daiki escapes. Also, a whole lot of papers flutter around everywhere...
Our heroes speculate that Daiki wanted to go back to that day so he could try stealing it again and get it right this time. Daiki does confirm that he likes his treasures in mint condition, though it still seems there's more to the story yet to be told. Despite everyone else just about ready to dump Daiki in the middle of the desert, Ryôtarô decides to go along with his demand to take them back to November 22nd, 2008 (after which the thief will turn control of the Den-Liner back over to them, he claims.)
Ryôtarô, Daiki & the Imagin disembark, but are ambushed by G Den-O teleporting in. Eve instructs him to issue them the maximum penalty, and the police Rider assembles his weapon and attacks. Momotaros takes a blow to protect Ryôtarô, who becomes Den-O, though Kintaros pushes out Momotaros so he changes to Ax Form. After a brief fight, Ax uses the Dynamic Chop. There's a great nod back to the beginning of the movie when he takes out the Rider Pass, swipes it... then after a moment, carefully puts it behind his back where he got it from rather than tossing it aside. G Den-O is able to block the attack with his force field.
Ryuutaros takes command and Gun Form goes up against G Den-O. Despite being well-matched shots, Eve's targeting skills are superior and Ryuuta gets blasted clear. Momotaros takes control once again. G Den-O fires at Daiki, but Urataros covers him and possesses him, transforming (much to Daiki's disapproval.) U-Diend uses his rod weapon to deflect G Den-O's bullets and attack him directly. He changes back to the Diendriver and uses the Invisible card... but surprisingly, not to run away! Den-O does his Extreme Slash on G Den-O, who blocks it with his force field... then Diend comes out of cloaking and blasts him away point-blank. This is probably the best use of that power yet!
With G Den-O temporarily down for the count, Diend reverts to Daiki and hoofs it. For much of the movie Daiki has been checking his wrist watch; we get a full-on countdown here, and he rushes to find his past self and prevent the gun from being damaged... seemingly. As the countdown hits 0, Daiki finds himself cornered by Kurosaki, who Eve eggs on to just get it over with and put one right between his eyes. Ryôtarô arrives and watches on, shocked.
Daiki reaches for his gun, so Kurosaki shoots, and the bullet pierces right through Daiki and out the other side, where the past Daiki is running by with the suitcase. The bullet his the case, knocks past-Daiki over a railing. The papers from before scatter everywhere, and the present, shot-up Daiki catches the gun in his hand. As a result, the gun disappears from a shocked Kurosaki's grip, and Daiki seems to be just fine.
Let me try and explain what's basically happened here.
Daiki made contract with a Spider Imagin and let it go back in time to November 22nd, 2008. He used the intervention of Ryôtarô & friends to steal the Den-Liner, which after a brief joyride returned to that time anyway. He then attempts to shoot himself several times, eventually giving up (he admits "I thought it would be like that" upon failing to kill himself the first time.) As it turns out, this was all really to lure Kurosaki into coming after him (Daiki already knows who he is when he first appears.) After a fight, he gets arrested, but breaks out, commandeers the Den-Liner again, goes back to the same point in time and ends up getting "killed" himself.
Except that since the stolen gun from the past falls into his future hands, it never would have been damaged and later retrieved by Kurosaki (which is why his future, adult self has had it all this time.) So basically, Daiki saves his own ass by getting shot, having his past self lose the gun to his future self, who then would have always had it from that moment on. And as a result, Kurosaki never could have gotten it back, and never could have shot it, so it disappears from his hand. And since he never could have shot Daiki with it... Daiki's now okay.
Just wait, it gets even better.
The papers are in fact letters from Kurosaki's mom. Remember the mommy issues he hinted at earlier? They seem to run pretty deep, but the truth is Kurosaki's mother loved him even if he never realized it. Kohana arrives to spell it all out for us, though I must confess this is the part of the movie where my memory fails. It actually is fairly adequately explained, I just forget the exact reasoning behind it all so if it seems contrived, it's actually pretty well foreshadowed and you can chalk this one up to reviewer brain degradation.
Either they divorced, or she died early, or something like that. Probably none of the above! I also *think* that Kurosaki got the letters as a kid, and just never read them/forgot about them, burying them under the gun. Seeing them now though, he comes to realize what he's been missing out on. It explains his cold, clinical personality so far (seeing Eve as his only true partner in life) and as part of the Daiki Master Plan™ (unintentionally turn hapless child into future arch enemy, then show him he's actually been a dick all along!) it oddly works.
Truth be told, I was also kind of distracted during this scene by some nearby graffiti (unnoticed by the characters but visible to the audience) which looks like it says 井斗... as in (Sakura)i (Yuu)to. Simple coincidence, reference to a Den-O story I totally forgot about, or the most subtle foreshadowing to a future Den-O adventure yet? Is Yuuto the Bad Wolf? Did I just read it wrong? (Probably)
Daiki tells Kurosaki that these letters are a great treasure, but one that he has no need for, so he hands them back to the man himself. Eve has been getting constantly irritated by the emotional stuff of the last few minutes, and orders Kurosaki to uphold the law and take down Daiki. The man is too overcome with emotion though, which ticks off the logic-minded Imagin to no end.
So of course he has the very natural reaction of forcing himself to split from Kurosaki's badge, manifesting into the corporal form of G Den-O, and declaring that artificial Imagin must rule the world and humans are weak, emotional wrecks! You couldn't make it up if you tried.
To be fair, Eve's heel turn is signposted early on enough. You know he's by-the-book, but in this case is psychotically so. I'll talk more about that later though. Now split from Kurosaki, Eve/G Den-O goes nuts and our heroes scatter.
Daiki ends up running into his past self. They have a brief Mexican standoff, since even Daiki loves pointing his gun at himself. G Den-O shows up growling like a feral dog, so they transform together. Things get a little confusing here but I think the present Daiki that we've been following for most of the movie proceeds to escape with the golden gun, outwitting his other self (who is of course impressed: "I'm really great!") and leaving things up to him. Or maybe it's the past one. Well, there's now just one Diend in the fight, we'll leave it at that.
Ryôtarô/Den-O and co. join in the fight, though the out-of-control G Den-O easily holds his own against 2 Riders and the Imagin. Kurosaki is still around to watch the ensuing chaos. An attempt to finish G Den-O results in him using that force field/laser thing attack, and a stray one goes towards Kurosaki. Diend pushes him out of the way though, saving him, and the grateful man takes out his badge and pushes some buttons on it. It changes into a metal briefcase with Diend's logo on it, inside of which contains Diend's own K-Touch.
Alright, I'm not too sure what the story is with this... the dialogue implies that Kurosaki has always had it, waiting for the right person to give it to. Considering it's meant for Diend, you've got to wonder about the implications there. Anyway, Diend is impressed by this "true treasure" and uses it to change to...
Diend Complete Form! He uses the special Attack Ride Gekijôban card to summon an array of familiar faces...
Kamen Rider G4!
Kamen Rider Ryuga!
Kamen Rider Orga!
Kamen Rider Glaive!
Kamen Rider Kabuki!
Kamen Rider Caucasus!
Kamen Rider Arc!
Kamen Rider Skull!
Somewhere in here Den-O becomes Den-O Climax Form too. The Movie Riders and Diend perform their finishing moves, overwhelming Eve/G Den-O. The rampaging Imagin's cry of anger fades into nothingness as he explodes.
Then comes the multi-part ending similar to Episode Blue. Daiki parts ways with the Den-O crew, and we get a nice little cameo of the exterior of the Hikari Photo Studio! Nobody else, but at least we know they're all still around and Daiki's traveling with them. Kurosaki goes to visit his mom (in 2008 or 2010, I'm not sure) who works at a flower shop and it's a well-done, touching scene on par with Blue's original character wrap-up. I'm going to need to see the movie again because I think I missed out what exactly caused such a rift between them. Well hey, time-travel made it all un-happen anyway so it's cool!
There's then a scene on the Den-Liner that... look, you're just going to have to see this one for yourselves. It's got Owner and Station Master facing off, using spoons as golf clubs to throw chahan rice onto plates from the Den-Liner's Holodeck. No really, that's pretty much exactly what it is. I suppose this ties back to the spoon-polishing stuff from Episode Blue and maaaaybe the tape measure from Episode Red, I dunno.
And of course to top it all off, when everybody gets served coffee, Ryôtarô realizes his mug is missing. It turns out Daiki did steal something from the Den-Liner after all, though the main man (or boy) isn't too bothered by it, because they'll most likely meet again...
The End
Review
Now that's what I'm talking about.
In a lot of ways, this is the Den-O movie that finally really delivers on a facet of the series that up until now has mostly gone unexplored: presumably, they can meet anybody in history, or at least Rider history. It's a trait shared with Decade, though while that show is built around the concept, Den-O's only briefly toyed with it in the past.
In the previous team-ups with Kiva and Decade, the guest Riders were basically doing cameo appearances. Here however, Diend is definitely integral to the plot and entrenched into the Den-O mythos. The movie simply wouldn't be the same without him. It's still a Den-O movie featuring Diend, but he's the first name in the credits and it's not hard to see why.
After all, the main selling point of the Trilogy, beyond the idea of 3 Rider movies spread out across 6 weeks, is that each one focuses on a Rider other than Den-O. Although so far, they've still been Riders to come out of the Den-O series/movies, whereas finally we have a character from a different series, albeit one that has crossed over with Den-O in the past and has the potential to cross over with it easily.
From this point on, it'd be interesting to see if Toei will up the ante with the next inevitable Den-O movie/series of movies. How about Episode Green featuring V3? Episode Black featuring BLACK? Episode Bluey-Purplish featurning Hibiki? The sky's the limit. Of course Diend, like Decade, is a unique case, given how steeped in Rider mythology the character is. It's practically his whole reason to exist.
Diend is a strange character; in many ways his inclusion made Decade's narrative infinitely more complex, as it added in another mystery man who knew about the hero's back story but refused to tell, and who had his own world-hopping abilities and motivation. We did find out a little about him along the way, but he's still largely an enigma by the end of the series and subsequent movies. What's more, he has some of the oddest characterization in Kamen Rider, appearing to regress with each appearance back to the core concept of "world-hopping treasure hunter" despite whatever he'd just been through in the previous episodes.
I'm mainly thinking of the one-two punches in #22-23 & 24-26, where we got some of Daiki's back story, learned about his inner demons and then saw him get taken down a few pegs when a Sentai villain swipes his weapon and goes hog-wild. It seemed like at that point the character might go from his earlier, more reckless and somewhat morally dubious self where he's not a bad guy (but he'll still shoot at Tsukasa and Yuusuke and heaven help them if they don't dodge) into something a little more conventionally heroic, and maybe even give us some of the answers we've been waiting to hear.
Instead we have Daiki at probably his all-time most head-scratching. In #26 & 27, he intentionally opposes Tsukasa to get his hands on Apollo Geist's Perfecter, which is already not a very smart idea as it is ("Yes, I'll just walk up to one of the most dangerous Rider villains in existence and take it! Treasure Hunting wooooooooo!") You gotta love how quickly he runs once he realizes he's up against an enemy who actually uses his shield like a shield. To be fair, he still proves in the end that he's a good guy by bringing in another Kurata Tetsuo for that moment every fan still gushes over. Also, Daiki drops some serious X-Rider continuity in these episodes, so he's all right by me.
In #28 & 29, he's even more bonkers, but I say that as an Amazon fan knowing that on their own, the Gigi and Gaga are basically just cool-looking jewelry; combined is where the real power lies. Not to mention that as long as you have one, pretty much anybody who knows the back story will be after you 'til the end of time. This arc also saw him getting his power-up card from Narutaki, a plot development that's still pretty hard to explain (and after this movie, nothing's changed there. I'm pretty sure Daiki's still using the old Kamen Ride Diend card anyway. My fan theory is that the card just gave him some new tricks, Illusion & Barrier, etc., but I dunno)
The last two are confusing enough as it is, and (along with the trip to his own world) another look into how emotionally unstable he can be at times; see his almost-teary-eye "only I can destroy you!" bit with Tsukasa. And then of course there's that ending, though with the re-aired episodes chopping out the face-shooting bit, it's hard to know what actually has happened anymore. On this one, I'll vote with my wallet, and say I still consider the original ending to be the real one until Toei's marketing department says otherwise. Given that books published post-re-airing still refer to it (Yuusuke turned bad; Diend's headshot, etc.) you gotta wonder.
To be honest, I don't remember Double & Decade Daiki much, other than a lot of standing around and being as confused as everyone else by Wataru's gibbering nonsense, and then joining in for the kick-ass fight at the end. But All Riders is where the character finally sort of hit his apex for me, despite a shaky start (he gets to be the top 3rd Heisei Rider in the tournament because he showed up late?)
That movie has Diend facing down some serious bad guys and joining with the rest of the Rider family at last; probably the two defining moments are his classic Shocker soldier reveal, and then escaping with Natsumi while having to fight off pretty much everybody after the Rider pow-wow goes bad (what'd he expect, hooking up with two nutbars though?) At last, Diend really felt like a proper hero here, as opposed to simply a thief with a heart of gold.
The other big thing about Diend, apart from his characterization, is the fact that he's kind of indirectly responsible for making Narutaki into such a worthless character, given how he took his one cool ability (summon in old Riders to fight Decade) and put a more marketable spin on it. Thus we go from feeling like the real Hoppers and Kaixa have come into he show, to just a bunch of grunting digital copies. To be fair, Diend does it far more over the course of the series than Narutaki, who could conceivably still do it later if he wanted to (re: Hibiki World) so it's more the writing's fault than it is Daiki's.
And yet... I honestly can't say I dislike him. Yes, his character has qualities I don't (and still don't) understand. Yes, he looks like the super heroic equivalent of a PS2. Yes, we still know so little about how he travels between worlds that the "he journeys through the plot holes" theory actually makes complete sense (that said, Episode Yellow does offer up a pretty good explanation of how he gets around Den-O's world, anyway.)
But at the end of the day, he's a cool concept both as a character and as a Rider: A world-hopping guy who wants valuable bits of fan service and fights by bringing in anybody from the past 10 years, and even beyond. It's another case of Decade's high concepts rising above how effective/ineffective they might have actually been realized.
And really? It's just so good to see him back. Decade's barely over a year old and for all the ups and downs it has, I love that show, and bringing elements of it back gets the nostalgia gears grinding. That there's still so much untapped potential in it is only a bonus.
So that brings us to the main man. As you've probably sussed, this movie doesn't do a whole lot for explaining where Diend came from, though it might serve as a good indication of where he's going. The reason for this is one that's both a little disappointing, but also rather brave: Decade is nowhere to be seen or even mentioned; outside of the Hikari Studio cameo at the end (and even that's just a building.) This is Diend striking it out on his own, almost divorced from the series from which he came. It's like that episode of New Kamen Rider where Riderman guest stars solo and holds his own as well as anybody. You know you've hit the big time when you can do that.
It's a bold idea, and it kind of lends credence to the idea that the Chô Den-O Trilogy stars really should have been all non-Den-O Riders. I enjoyed Episode Red and Episode Blue (the latter particularly so) but they've inarguable got a Den-O-centric appeal to them. If you didn't like the series and movies before, those probably won't make you like it now. With Episode Yellow, it's a bit more tricky. If you liked Decade and mainly Diend, you'll probably like this, because even with the Den-O cast appearing, he's still front in center. In fact I'd say that unlike Episode Red, where Zeronos felt sidelined by his own movie, Diend is all over the place here (sometimes twice) and gets the big hero moments at the end. To be honest, I can barely even remember what Climax Form did!
As for characterization... well, it's Daiki. Written by Yonemura, the man who probably handles him the best. Although I brought up his wacky turns earlier, if you just sit down and examine the Yonemura-written episodes with Diend, there's at least some consistency among them. Under the other writers, I always felt he seemed just a bit too antagonistic, as if they all expected he'd wind up a villain by the end, and it's up to the actor to keep you liking him. But Yonemura seemed to get it. He writes Daiki as a magnificent bastard who always seems to have a plan, or at least is good at making it up while he goes, and beneath the bluster there is a good guy in there.
If it at first looks like he's doing something really stupid (going after treasures that happen to be attached to Daishocker leaders, etc.) then usually there's some twist or trick to it, a method to the madness. Hibiki World Daiki is one of my favorite depictions of the character, who up until then had seemed a lot more sinister than he really is. It's also the best-ever use of him as a rival to Tsukasa I think, with each backed up by an opposing school in that killer confrontation which quickly descends into unabashed lunacy. If When I get to write for Kamen Rider, I'd like to create a secondary Rider who never actually voluntarily gets into fights with the main one when they're transformed, but only when they're in human form. And even then, it's less fisticuffs and more about then pitting their wits. I like that stuff, like Tendô and Tsurugi trying to one-up each other.
Such is the case here. Daiki's time-travel scheme is unbelievable, some of the most insane plotting ever inflicted upon Rider... and yet it completely works. I mean that both in the literal sense (it all works out) and that as far as the story goes, it's logical in its own mind-melting way. I mean think about it: how can he have been shot by the other guy if the other guy never had the gun at that time in the first place? Admittedly if you've seen anything else involving time-travel, including other Den-O movies, it may break your brain, but hey.
Totani is having a ball as usual. He even makes for a convincing action hero at times, fighting G Den-O untransformed and running around with the Den-O regulars like part of the gang. Of all the Rider worlds out there, he fits into the Den-Oniverse one quite well. For a Diend fan, this is really a pretty solid outing, giving him a chance to exhibit all his trademarks: the smugness, the greed, the cockiness, and the layers beneath all that where we see that Daiki really is a good guy beneath it all, if more than a little cracked. I'd like to think that maybe traversing the worlds and seeing things like Kamen Rider THE NEXT World has taken its toll and kind of driven him a little bit batty.
Diend uses his usual tricks, although probably better than ever before. The Riotroopers are always great to see and I maintain that this movie might be the best use of "Invisible!" yet. And as for Diend Complete...
Well, honestly? I'm fine with the suit, because Diend is already such a strange, unorthodox design that throwing a bunch of cards on there and some silver paint works about as well as anything. The whole process by which he gets his K-Touch is a little out of left field, but considering some of the stuff Kamen Rider's pulled in the past (power-ups in the mail, power-ups hidden in the walls, power-ups brought by Fuse Akira, etc.) I can roll with it.
The assemblage of movie Riders is the highlight of the whole movie and elicited the most audience response in the theater. Any time you throw together a bunch of different Riders, people are always going to eat it up. Granted they're basically just there for a final attack, but it lasts long enough that you get to see everything clearly and remember who's involved. And hey, this is like the first Decade-related thing where Ryuga doesn't die! Also, this is Skull's second movie appearance with another one apparently on the way. Okay Toei we get it! He's cool! The hat thing was a good idea after all! Sorry we ever doubted you!
Also, you've got to love the commentary of having a movie Rider killed by movie Riders with a card that flat-out announces they're movie Riders. Only in the (Rider) movies.
Moving onto the movie's other main star, that being Kurosaki/G Den-O, although I should say Kurosaki and Eve/G Den-O. Kurosaki's good. He's pretty much what you'd expect from what the trailers have shown: time-traveling by-the-book cop guy. He's a great foil for Daiki and the implied twist that Daiki is sort of responsible for his creation (as a time cop) is a neat one. It adds another layer, as does the whole mom thing. I gotta rewatch the movie to get what that was all about, but it was pretty good. As far as movie-Riders-being-bastards go, he's got good enough reasoning behind him.
I also liked that in the end, he's not really evil, and he's not even just doing his job; he's misguided and really being egged on by a voice actor. It's a funny blend, reminding me of something like combining G3-X with G4, having him teamed up with an evil Deneb, then turn out to not be a bad guy at all really.
G Den-O's okay. As a costume it's pretty much what we've come to expect from "bad" Riders in Den-O, that being they took the basic Den-O Plat Form look and changed around the armor here and there, new helmet there, etc. I have to applaud them for having an actually pretty heroic-looking design be used for a villain. G Den-O looks like he could easily be a good guy suit, or even a not-so-bad guy suit, but he's straight-up bad news from start to finish. While Kurosaki might ultimately be a good guy, G Den-O as a character in himself never is.
Which brings us to Eve, and his revelation as the movie's true villain. To be honest, I did not see that coming. Or I mean I did, but not the way they went about it. I thought that maybe he'd take control at the end, force-changing Kurosaki into G Den-O, or that Kurosaki would reject Daiki's kindness and turn out to really just be beyond help in the end. Or something. The whole "Eve flies off of him and manifests as G Den-O himself" bit is weird... until you consider that it's a natural extension of what we've seen elsewhere. Negataros turned into Nega Den-O directly; the other Imagin all got to go Den-O in Final Countdown. It's basically the same idea, just that we never see Eve as anything other than a face on a badge/G Den-O's chest, with the exception of the splitting-off-of-Kurosaki process (there's a brief outline of what he might look like if he had a full bipedal form like the others.)
As for the character, Eve is kind of fascinating. It'd be easy to just say that him going bad and becoming this nutter who rants about taking over the world and how all humans must be put on trial is just some wonky characterization, but I actually have a different reading of it. I think Eve might be one of the few truly insane villains to come out of Kamen Rider. The franchise has had a lot of crazy guys, but more often than not they're either half-putting up an act or only nuts to a certain degree.
For example... Asakura's got some loose screws, but I never found him as truly mad, because he's shown to be able to exercise reason, he can decide when and when not to be a megabastard (those episodes with the girl on the boat) and while he clearly enjoys inflicting pain on others, I think the writing paints it as that being because he's a bad apple rather than because he can't help himself. He's a sadist, but he's also a schemer, and he often uses manipulation and deception to get one over on others, usually only flying into homicidal rages when he's actually legitimately mad at something. He's dangerous, but you could still have a conversation with him, as often happened later in the series. In other words, you can still talk him down, though given that it's Ryuki it'd much easier to just blow him away with a giant bull mech thing.
Tôjô on the other hand always did strike me as someone who is literally is incapable of stopping himself, which makes him a far more frightening character. Asakura knows he's bad to the bone, but Tôjô's truly convinced what he's doing is good, even when it involves him murdering the people who he respects and trusts. His ending is one of the most powerful in the show; yeah you can say it's typical Inoue where a nigh-unstoppable character dies of some small thing after his big last battle in an attempt at irony or the like, but with Tiger I thought it worked since the character wasn't really a hero before that except in his own mind, but his last act is heroic... if almost unintentionally so.
Another example is Kagami Riku. Now I love Riku, and he is off-the-wall craziness at times. But much like Owner, it always struck me more as a cover; they play the goofs to hide that beneath it, they're actually very smart and completely in control; the silliness and eccentricity is just there to distract everyone. When it hits the fan at the end of the show, Riku steps up to the plate, even if he goes through what can only be called a breakdown when Mishima turns on him. In the end though, I always felt like he's mostly just doing the "lemmings! Mozart!" thing to cover up his real intentions. Dunno about God Speed Love though!
With Eve however, I could actually buy it that the character is completely out of his gourd, because of how irrational and illogical his actions are. It's one thing to get ticked off at Kurosaki for putting personal feelings over duty, but Eve pretty much loses it at that moment, and this is after the movie showing that for all his by-the-book follow-the-rules logic-conquers all mentality, he really just plain hates Daiki and co. and wants them removed because they're simply wrong.
They don't fit into Eve's version of how the world should work, and you get the feeling that trying to convince him otherwise will only end with him wanting to shoot you in the face. Speaking of which, isn't amazing how they're still finding new ways to combine the Den-Gasher?
Ultimately it's a pretty fascinating idea. We've had evil Imagin by the boatload, and even an evil-taros, though this might be the first one who's also just plain psychotic. In a way it's kind of the culmination of the whole time police idea, because if you stop and think about it it really doesn't make much sense. Protecting time is like, the whole reason for Den-O and the Den-Liner; these future cop guys just do more harm than good.
I'm not really clear on what happens with them at the end, other than that the Den-Liner team is cleared and everything ends happily. I'm going to throw it out there that maybe Kurosaki meeting his mom had some effect on his relationship with her as a kid in 2008/2010, and as a result maybe they got erased from history or something. Hey, it's easier than having to explain why they haven't been going after Wataru for ensuring that he actually gets born.
As for the rest of the cast: at this point I've just run out of things to say about the regulars. We had them in the last two movies, we've had them before that, etc. Mizoguchi is still amazing, Momotaros is still hilarious (the parachuting scene is one of my favorites ever involving the character) and everybody else is about what you'd expect, with Owner really coming out of this one well, perhaps to make up for last time.
Actually, Urataros fares pretty well in this one too, coming to have a special kind of role in the story since he's the one who witnesses how it all started. U-Daiki is great of course, and along with Spider-Daiki continues to further my theory that Kamen Riders = Singularity Points. Seriously, with maybe one or two exceptions, every person who's gotten possessed by the Imagin with the hair and eyes and all either is a Rider (Ryôtarô, Yuuto, Kôtarô, Wataru, Tsukasa, Daiki, Yuusuke, the Diend dupes) or eventually becomes one (Natsumi.) Maybe there's another one in there I'm forgetting, but it's an interesting idea.
There isn't a whole lot else to say beyond the characters (as the Trilogy has been pretty character-centric.) The plot's crazy and goes all over the place, but like I said, it somehow all works. Good action, good music and all that. The song as the end's a funny mishmash; I'd have liked a new version of Treasure Sniper or something, but it's cool. If I had any complaints, and it's a smaller complaint: I would have liked a small unannounced cameo from someone else from Decade. Maybe Eijirô or even Kivaara. I'll live, but these movies really need more total surprises. Everything's so advertised these days, and it kind of builds expectations too high. I think Kiva's appearance in Climax Deka would have gone over much better had it been a complete surprise, small but welcome, rather than being promoted as like half the movie.
How does it stack up to the others? It might be my favorite, though Episode Blue was pretty good too. At some point soon I'll do a final Trilogy wrap-up with my thoughts on the whole shebang and all that. Although I might need to watch this one again.
So that's it for the Chô Den-O Trilogy. Given the box office success of each installment, I'd say we're due for more Den-O in the future, though I'll speculate on that another time.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Kamen Rider 21
It's a similar process to the other Den-Os, although with different armor on the body of course and it's a police car-looking thing that drives down his head and forms his mask. It's... weird. There's also a tune before he swipes the pass over his belt, but it's just like someone mucking around with a synthesizer, and not as elaborate as some of the others. Eve's face also takes a place on his chest, sort of like the Vega Forms.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Kamen Rider 20
Daiki is under arrest for wanting to erase his own existence, causing a time paradox; such actions are illegal. Kurosaki throws in an odd comment about feeling the same way, and brings up his mom (!) This will come into play later. Anyway, the other Imagin are impressed with the new guy, who proceeds to transform into Kamen Rider G Den-O! He tells Daiki that if he wants to be erased from history so badly, he'll be more than happy to oblige.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Kamen Rider 19
As if things couldn't get more ridiculous, a man teleports in, Terminator-style, though thankfully wearing more clothes. This is Kurosaki Reiji, and almost every time he shows up in a scene, this guitar riff comes on to remind us that this is some serious @#$% we're dealing with here. Kurosaki is a Time Cop... there's really no other way to describe it, that's what he says. He's armed with a golden revolver and a badge that talks. This badge holds the face of Eve, an artificial Imagin who is basically Deneb and Teddy combined, but without either's charm or morality. His eyes light up whenever he talks, and he talks a lot of trash. Kurosaki's also wearing a Den-O belt, but with a big chunky golden circle on the front (the time police's logo.)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Kamen Rider 18
Owner explains how, despite the Imagin being destroyed, the date on the stolen Rider Pass remains, so the Den-Liner will return there because, after all, that's where whatever Daiki wants is. You gotta wonder why he bothered stealing the Den-Liner then; my guess is that Daiki doesn't really know how it works, despite coveting it back in Decade, which fits in with his "ho ho ho, this must be precious" personality. Ryôtarô & the guys see the Den-Liner returning and hoof it. On the way Ryôtarô spots Daiki and decides to follow him. Guy sure gets around fast! So what is Daiki after, anyway?
Monday, September 27, 2010
Kamen Rider 16
Daiki takes off in the Den-Liner, leaving Ryôtarô & company behind. Cue the same opening credits as the last two movies. It's kind of funny how some stuff featured so prominently in it was on screen for a few minutes, tops (like Mantis Imagin's masked dude persona.) In any case this is the last time we'll be seeing this credits variation anyway, since it's part 3 of the trilogy and any further movies/trilogies will likely have something new. And yes I'm just trying to fill space in this paragraph while I remember what the hell happened next.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Kamen Rider 15
After Daiki shoots at them a bit, Momotaros remembers him as "that robber guy". We never get any flashbacks to prior movies/episodes like in Episode Blue, but we can just assume he's talking about Decade #14 & 15, and any subsequent meeting they've had. At this point, don't even try to bring in the concept of alternate universe Den-O's any more. The Chô Den-O Trilogy has basically taken any hope of that, doused it in kerosene, and lit a match. Not that I mind though! It's all one big happy thing and it pulls in Decade, Kiva, Ryuki and whatever the hell else it feels like. You could probably go as far as to say that Dragon Knight and the stage shows are all viable ground too.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Kamen Rider 14
In one of the best jokes in the movie, Momotaros forces the others into helping him look for the Rider Pass. Yes, every time he just tosses it aside like that, he actually still has to go and find it after the battle. This time though, Daiki has found it first, and he's already on board the Den-Liner. As it turns out, he tricked everyone, allowing himself to get possessed by the Spider Imagin so that the Den-Liner would go back and he'd be able to take it over. If you think Daiki's plan is pretty crazy now, just you wait. Before the movie is over, you're going to find that Daiki is either a total genius, or the luckiest man in fiction.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Kamen Rider 13
He outwits and outfights the four, who end up punching each other silly. Daiki is sporting pinkish-purple strands in his hair, suggesting possession by an Imagin. It turns out to be a Spider Imagin (straight out of the TV series) who emerges once Ryôtarô arrives, as confirming his identity was apparently all the Spider Imagin needed to complete his contract. He opens up Daiki and goes into the past. Our heroes soon follow, with Ryôtarô noting the blank expression on Daiki's face as he puts a ticket to him and learns the date the Imagin fled back to: November 22nd, 2008.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Kamen Rider 12
The movie opens with a pan of nighttime Tokyo. High atop it all, a mysterious man casts out sparkly sand out as he leaps from building to building. This has naturally attracted the attention of Momotaros, who is following his non-existent nose on the trail of an Imagin. He's dragged Urataros, Kintaros and Ryuutaros along with him, although all 3 of them would clearly rather be doing something else (sleeping, taking a bath, etc.) The crew confront the man, who Momotaros finds suspiciously familiar. As well he should: it's Kaitô Daiki, Kamen Rider Diend! Although it takes Momotaros longer to realize this than it does the audience.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Kamen Rider 11
Actually, one of the other regulars fares pretty well in this one too, coming to have a special kind of role in the story since given what he gets to see. If you think he's been sidelined in the past few films, you might like this.
There isn't a whole lot else to say beyond the characters (as the Trilogy has been pretty character-centric.) The plot's crazy and goes all over the place, but like I said, it somehow all works. Good action, good music and all that. The song as the end's a funny mishmash; I'd have liked a new version of Treasure Sniper or something, but it's cool. If I had any complaints, and it's a smaller complaint: I would have liked a small cameo from a particular series, but I'll live. We do get a nice little shout-out to it in the form of something that's in almost all the episodes, and always seems to be changing.
How does it stack up to the others? It might be my favorite, though Episode Blue was pretty good too. At some point soon I'll do a final Trilogy wrap-up with my thoughts on the whole shebang and all that. Although I might need to watch this one again. Also, that'll be loaded with spoilers most likely so you might want to pass on it for now.
So that's it for the Chô Den-O Trilogy. Given the box office success of each installment, I'd say we're due for more Den-O in the future, though I'll speculate on that another time.
There isn't a whole lot else to say beyond the characters (as the Trilogy has been pretty character-centric.) The plot's crazy and goes all over the place, but like I said, it somehow all works. Good action, good music and all that. The song as the end's a funny mishmash; I'd have liked a new version of Treasure Sniper or something, but it's cool. If I had any complaints, and it's a smaller complaint: I would have liked a small cameo from a particular series, but I'll live. We do get a nice little shout-out to it in the form of something that's in almost all the episodes, and always seems to be changing.
How does it stack up to the others? It might be my favorite, though Episode Blue was pretty good too. At some point soon I'll do a final Trilogy wrap-up with my thoughts on the whole shebang and all that. Although I might need to watch this one again. Also, that'll be loaded with spoilers most likely so you might want to pass on it for now.
So that's it for the Chô Den-O Trilogy. Given the box office success of each installment, I'd say we're due for more Den-O in the future, though I'll speculate on that another time.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Kamen Rider 10
For a Diend fan, this is really a pretty solid outing, giving him a chance to exhibit all his trademarks. He uses some of his usual tricks, although probably better than ever before. He of course gets one particular new one that you probably already know about. Needless to say I liked it. Its introduction is a bit odd, but if you're used to how some past Heisei Riders got their new toys, it's pretty much in-line with what we've come to expect. You'll like that final attack, no doubt.
The movie's other main star is an interesting character, or maybe I should say characters? There's a pretty good storyline going on with him and you might be surprised at who the actual villain turns out to be. It's signposted, but the way the movie went about it was interesting and not what I expected.
The new Rider, G Den-O, is okay. As a costume it's pretty much what we've come to expect from movie Riders in Den-O, that being they took the basic Den-O Plat Form look and changed around the armor here and there, new helmet there, etc.
As for the rest of the cast: at this point I've just run out of things to say about the regulars. We had them in the last two movies, we've had them before that, etc. Mizoguchi is still amazing, Momotaros is still hilarious, with one scene that's become one of my favorites ever involving the character. And everybody else is about what you'd expect.
The movie's other main star is an interesting character, or maybe I should say characters? There's a pretty good storyline going on with him and you might be surprised at who the actual villain turns out to be. It's signposted, but the way the movie went about it was interesting and not what I expected.
The new Rider, G Den-O, is okay. As a costume it's pretty much what we've come to expect from movie Riders in Den-O, that being they took the basic Den-O Plat Form look and changed around the armor here and there, new helmet there, etc.
As for the rest of the cast: at this point I've just run out of things to say about the regulars. We had them in the last two movies, we've had them before that, etc. Mizoguchi is still amazing, Momotaros is still hilarious, with one scene that's become one of my favorites ever involving the character. And everybody else is about what you'd expect.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Kamen Rider 9
As for characterization... well, it's Daiki. Written by Yonemura, the man who probably handles him the best. Although I brought up his wacky turns earlier, if you just sit down and examine the Yonemura-written episodes with Diend, there's at least some consistency among them. Under the other writers, I always felt he seemed just a bit too antagonistic, as if they all expected he'd wind up a villain by the end, and it's up to the actor to keep you liking him. But Yonemura seemed to get it. He writes Daiki as a magnificent bastard who always seems to have a plan, or at least is good at making it up while he goes, and beneath the bluster there is a good guy in there.
If it at first looks like he's doing something really stupid (going after treasures that happen to be attached to Daishocker leaders, etc.) then usually there's some twist or trick to it, a method to the madness. Hibiki World Daiki is one of my favorite depictions of the character, who up until then had seemed a lot more sinister than he really is. It's also the best-ever use of him as a rival to Tsukasa I think, with each backed up by an opposing school in that killer confrontation which quickly descends into unabashed lunacy. If When I get to write for Kamen Rider, I'd like to create a secondary Rider who never actually voluntarily gets into fights with the main one when they're transformed, but only when they're in human form. And even then, it's less fisticuffs and more about then pitting their wits. I like that stuff, like Tendô and Tsurugi trying to one-up each other.
Such is the case here. Daiki's at the center of a great crazy plan. You'll have to see the movie for yourself to get it, but there's a lot of time-trickery involved. The plot's bonkers, but I liked it and it all works out in a weird sorta way.
If it at first looks like he's doing something really stupid (going after treasures that happen to be attached to Daishocker leaders, etc.) then usually there's some twist or trick to it, a method to the madness. Hibiki World Daiki is one of my favorite depictions of the character, who up until then had seemed a lot more sinister than he really is. It's also the best-ever use of him as a rival to Tsukasa I think, with each backed up by an opposing school in that killer confrontation which quickly descends into unabashed lunacy. If When I get to write for Kamen Rider, I'd like to create a secondary Rider who never actually voluntarily gets into fights with the main one when they're transformed, but only when they're in human form. And even then, it's less fisticuffs and more about then pitting their wits. I like that stuff, like Tendô and Tsurugi trying to one-up each other.
Such is the case here. Daiki's at the center of a great crazy plan. You'll have to see the movie for yourself to get it, but there's a lot of time-trickery involved. The plot's bonkers, but I liked it and it all works out in a weird sorta way.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Kamen Rider 8
But at the end of the day, he's a cool concept both as a character and as a Rider: A world-hopping guy who wants valuable bits of fan service and fights by bringing in anybody from the past 10 years, and even beyond. It's another case of Decade's high concepts rising above how effective/ineffective they might have actually been realized.
And really? It's just so good to see him back. Decade's barely over a year old and for all the ups and downs it has, I love that show, and bringing elements of it back gets the nostalgia gears grinding. That there's still so much untapped potential in it is only a bonus.
So that brings us to the main man. It's a good outing for him. I'm not sure if you'll have a lot of your questions answered about him, but you'll still get a good handle on who he is and where he might be going. The movie does some brave things with its lead.
It's got bold ideas, and kind of makes me feel like the Chô Den-O Trilogy stars really should have been all non-Den-O Riders. I enjoyed Episode Red and Episode Blue (the latter particularly so) but they've inarguable got a Den-O-centric appeal to them. If you didn't like the series and movies before, those probably won't make you like it now. With Episode Yellow, it's a bit more tricky. If you liked Decade and mainly Diend, you'll probably like this, because even with the Den-O cast appearing, he's still front in center.
And really? It's just so good to see him back. Decade's barely over a year old and for all the ups and downs it has, I love that show, and bringing elements of it back gets the nostalgia gears grinding. That there's still so much untapped potential in it is only a bonus.
So that brings us to the main man. It's a good outing for him. I'm not sure if you'll have a lot of your questions answered about him, but you'll still get a good handle on who he is and where he might be going. The movie does some brave things with its lead.
It's got bold ideas, and kind of makes me feel like the Chô Den-O Trilogy stars really should have been all non-Den-O Riders. I enjoyed Episode Red and Episode Blue (the latter particularly so) but they've inarguable got a Den-O-centric appeal to them. If you didn't like the series and movies before, those probably won't make you like it now. With Episode Yellow, it's a bit more tricky. If you liked Decade and mainly Diend, you'll probably like this, because even with the Den-O cast appearing, he's still front in center.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Kamen Rider 7
To be honest, I don't remember Double & Decade Daiki much, other than a lot of standing around and being as confused as everyone else by Wataru's gibbering nonsense, and then joining in for the kick-ass fight at the end. But All Riders is where the character finally sort of hit his apex for me, despite a shaky start (he gets to be the top 3rd Heisei Rider in the tournament because he showed up late?)
That movie has Diend facing down some serious bad guys and joining with the rest of the Rider family at last; probably the two defining moments are his classic Shocker soldier reveal, and then escaping with Natsumi while having to fight off pretty much everybody after the Rider pow-wow goes bad (what'd he expect, hooking up with two nutbars though?) At last, Diend really felt like a proper hero here, as opposed to simply a thief with a heart of gold.
The other big thing about Diend, apart from his characterization, is the fact that he's kind of indirectly responsible for making Narutaki into such a worthless character, given how he took his one cool ability (summon in old Riders to fight Decade) and put a more marketable spin on it. Thus we go from feeling like the real Hoppers and Kaixa have come into he show, to just a bunch of grunting digital copies. To be fair, Diend does it far more over the course of the series than Narutaki, who could conceivably still do it later if he wanted to (re: Hibiki World) so it's more the writing's fault than it is Daiki's.
And yet... I honestly can't say I dislike him. Yes, his character has qualities I don't (and still don't) understand. Yes, he looks like the super heroic equivalent of a PS2. Yes, we still know so little about how he travels between worlds that the "he journeys through the plot holes" theory actually makes complete sense (that said, Episode Yellow does offer up a pretty good explanation of how he gets around Den-O's world, anyway.)
That movie has Diend facing down some serious bad guys and joining with the rest of the Rider family at last; probably the two defining moments are his classic Shocker soldier reveal, and then escaping with Natsumi while having to fight off pretty much everybody after the Rider pow-wow goes bad (what'd he expect, hooking up with two nutbars though?) At last, Diend really felt like a proper hero here, as opposed to simply a thief with a heart of gold.
The other big thing about Diend, apart from his characterization, is the fact that he's kind of indirectly responsible for making Narutaki into such a worthless character, given how he took his one cool ability (summon in old Riders to fight Decade) and put a more marketable spin on it. Thus we go from feeling like the real Hoppers and Kaixa have come into he show, to just a bunch of grunting digital copies. To be fair, Diend does it far more over the course of the series than Narutaki, who could conceivably still do it later if he wanted to (re: Hibiki World) so it's more the writing's fault than it is Daiki's.
And yet... I honestly can't say I dislike him. Yes, his character has qualities I don't (and still don't) understand. Yes, he looks like the super heroic equivalent of a PS2. Yes, we still know so little about how he travels between worlds that the "he journeys through the plot holes" theory actually makes complete sense (that said, Episode Yellow does offer up a pretty good explanation of how he gets around Den-O's world, anyway.)
Friday, September 17, 2010
Kamen Rider 6
In #28 & 29, he's even more bonkers, but I say that as an Amazon fan knowing that on their own, the Gigi and Gaga are basically just cool-looking jewelry; combined is where the real power lies. Not to mention that as long as you have one, pretty much anybody who knows the back story will be after you 'til the end of time. This arc also saw him getting his power-up card from Narutaki, a plot development that's still pretty hard to explain (and after this movie, nothing's changed there. I'm pretty sure Daiki's still using the old Kamen Ride Diend card anyway. My fan theory is that the card just gave him some new tricks, Illusion & Barrier, etc., but I dunno)
The last two are confusing enough as it is, and (along with the trip to his own world) another look into how emotionally unstable he can be at times; see his almost-teary-eye "only I can destroy you!" bit with Tsukasa. And then of course there's that ending, though with the re-aired episodes chopping out the face-shooting bit, it's hard to know what actually has happened anymore. On this one, I'll vote with my wallet, and say I still consider the original ending to be the real one until Toei's marketing department says otherwise. Given that books published post-re-airing still refer to it (Yuusuke turned bad; Diend's headshot, etc.) you gotta wonder.
The last two are confusing enough as it is, and (along with the trip to his own world) another look into how emotionally unstable he can be at times; see his almost-teary-eye "only I can destroy you!" bit with Tsukasa. And then of course there's that ending, though with the re-aired episodes chopping out the face-shooting bit, it's hard to know what actually has happened anymore. On this one, I'll vote with my wallet, and say I still consider the original ending to be the real one until Toei's marketing department says otherwise. Given that books published post-re-airing still refer to it (Yuusuke turned bad; Diend's headshot, etc.) you gotta wonder.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Kamen Rider 5
I'm mainly thinking of the one-two punches in #22-23 & 24-26, where we got some of Daiki's back story, learned about his inner demons and then saw him get taken down a few pegs when a Sentai villain swipes his weapon and goes hog-wild. It seemed like at that point the character might go from his earlier, more reckless and somewhat morally dubious self where he's not a bad guy (but he'll still shoot at Tsukasa and Yuusuke and heaven help them if they don't dodge) into something a little more conventionally heroic, and maybe even give us some of the answers we've been waiting to hear.
Instead we have Daiki at probably his all-time most head-scratching. In #26 & 27, he intentionally opposes Tsukasa to get his hands on Apollo Geist's Perfecter, which is already not a very smart idea as it is ("Yes, I'll just walk up to one of the most dangerous Rider villains in existence and take it! Treasure Hunting wooooooooo!") You gotta love how quickly he runs once he realizes he's up against an enemy who actually uses his shield like a shield. To be fair, he still proves in the end that he's a good guy by bringing in another Kurata Tetsuo for that moment every fan still gushes over. Also, Daiki drops some serious X-Rider continuity in these episodes, so he's all right by me.
Instead we have Daiki at probably his all-time most head-scratching. In #26 & 27, he intentionally opposes Tsukasa to get his hands on Apollo Geist's Perfecter, which is already not a very smart idea as it is ("Yes, I'll just walk up to one of the most dangerous Rider villains in existence and take it! Treasure Hunting wooooooooo!") You gotta love how quickly he runs once he realizes he's up against an enemy who actually uses his shield like a shield. To be fair, he still proves in the end that he's a good guy by bringing in another Kurata Tetsuo for that moment every fan still gushes over. Also, Daiki drops some serious X-Rider continuity in these episodes, so he's all right by me.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Kamen Rider 4
From this point on, it'd be interesting to see if Toei will up the ante with the next inevitable Den-O movie/series of movies. How about Episode Green featuring V3? Episode Black featuring BLACK? Episode Bluey-Purplish featurning Hibiki? The sky's the limit. Of course Diend, like Decade, is a unique case, given how steeped in Rider mythology the character is. It's practically his whole reason to exist.
Diend is a strange character; in many ways his inclusion made Decade's narrative infinitely more complex, as it added in another mystery man who knew about the hero's back story but refused to tell, and who had his own world-hopping abilities and motivation. We did find out a little about him along the way, but he's still largely an enigma by the end of the series and subsequent movies. What's more, he has some of the oddest characterization in Kamen Rider, appearing to regress with each appearance back to the core concept of "world-hopping treasure hunter" despite whatever he'd just been through in the previous episodes.
Diend is a strange character; in many ways his inclusion made Decade's narrative infinitely more complex, as it added in another mystery man who knew about the hero's back story but refused to tell, and who had his own world-hopping abilities and motivation. We did find out a little about him along the way, but he's still largely an enigma by the end of the series and subsequent movies. What's more, he has some of the oddest characterization in Kamen Rider, appearing to regress with each appearance back to the core concept of "world-hopping treasure hunter" despite whatever he'd just been through in the previous episodes.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Kamen Rider 3
In a lot of ways, this is the Den-O movie that finally really delivers on a facet of the series that up until now has mostly gone unexplored: presumably, they can meet anybody in history, or at least Rider history. It's a trait shared with Decade, though while that show is built around the concept, Den-O's only briefly toyed with it in the past.
In the previous team-ups with Kiva and Decade, the guest Riders were basically doing cameo appearances. Here however, Diend is definitely integral to the plot and entrenched into the Den-O mythos. The movie simply wouldn't be the same without him. It's still a Den-O movie featuring Diend, but he's the first name in the credits and it's not hard to see why.
After all, the main selling point of the Trilogy, beyond the idea of 3 Rider movies spread out across 6 weeks, is that each one focuses on a Rider other than Den-O. Although so far, they've still been Riders to come out of the Den-O series/movies, whereas finally we have a character from a different series, albeit one that has crossed over with Den-O in the past and has the potential to cross over with it easily.
In the previous team-ups with Kiva and Decade, the guest Riders were basically doing cameo appearances. Here however, Diend is definitely integral to the plot and entrenched into the Den-O mythos. The movie simply wouldn't be the same without him. It's still a Den-O movie featuring Diend, but he's the first name in the credits and it's not hard to see why.
After all, the main selling point of the Trilogy, beyond the idea of 3 Rider movies spread out across 6 weeks, is that each one focuses on a Rider other than Den-O. Although so far, they've still been Riders to come out of the Den-O series/movies, whereas finally we have a character from a different series, albeit one that has crossed over with Den-O in the past and has the potential to cross over with it easily.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Kamen Rider 2
Tsukasa, have you eaten any Spoiler Warnings?: This is the Spoiler-Free Version of the review for the third part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy. That means there's no spoilers. If you want to know about the plot details for the movie, there's a Spoiler Version just below this one. Well okay, there's loads of spoilers for the Decade series, but you've probably seen that by now if you're reading this.
Still the same trailer for Kamen Rider Double Forever: A to Z/ The Gaia Memories of Fate. Futo must die!
Alright, it's time for the final part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy, this time starring a character not from Den-O, but from Decade: Kamen Rider Diend, alias Daiki! Is that enough "D"'s for you? This was probably the most anticipated part of the Trilogy for me, given my unabashed love of Decade and even more so, my love of Rider crossover team-ups. Not to mention Diend is a character with loads of storytelling potential still in him, but I'll get back to that. How does it stack up?
Still the same trailer for Kamen Rider Double Forever: A to Z/ The Gaia Memories of Fate. Futo must die!
Alright, it's time for the final part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy, this time starring a character not from Den-O, but from Decade: Kamen Rider Diend, alias Daiki! Is that enough "D"'s for you? This was probably the most anticipated part of the Trilogy for me, given my unabashed love of Decade and even more so, my love of Rider crossover team-ups. Not to mention Diend is a character with loads of storytelling potential still in him, but I'll get back to that. How does it stack up?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Kamen Rider
Kamen Rider OOO, or 仮面ライダーオーズ. Like Faiz, I expect he'll have some other version of his name we'll all be using eventually. Oz or something. In which case I already know what I'm calling the episode 1 review.
Anyway, by now it seems like everyone else has weighed in on how they feel about this, so it's my turn. And...?
I like it! I basically feel the same way I did about Double. Pretty cool suit, weird belt, but it's going to make for a cool toy and you just know it'll have its share of fans in a few months' time. It does scream "Look! We're going to have form-changing" in the way Double does. Whether the other forms will look any good, that I've got to wait on. They're apparently going to have weird names I'll probably be mixing up. TakaSakaMakaLamaDingDong and such. The medals are okay, though even I'll be surprised if they achieve Rider Card/Gaia Memory-level coolness.
A couple more things: the surprisingly-accurate artwork that turned up some time ago wasn't very reassuring, but I like the actual suit. There's a crispness to the colors on the black. It looks simple, but in the kind of way I like.
The claws are cool, and an unconventional weapon for what I'm assuming will be the "main guy" costume (i.e. the one that lands on the most merchandise.)
The crooked belt will take some getting used to (straighten it dude! Then it almost looks Typhoon-ish.)
And I love the green eyes. There just aren't enough green-eyed Riders, honestly.
Overall I'm psyched, though the big leering question is that if this is the 40th Anniversary series... is it going to live up to that at all? Or is this just buying time before the real deal in 2011? We'll see.
Starting September 5th, though he'll be turning up somewhere else a little earlier...
Anyway, by now it seems like everyone else has weighed in on how they feel about this, so it's my turn. And...?
I like it! I basically feel the same way I did about Double. Pretty cool suit, weird belt, but it's going to make for a cool toy and you just know it'll have its share of fans in a few months' time. It does scream "Look! We're going to have form-changing" in the way Double does. Whether the other forms will look any good, that I've got to wait on. They're apparently going to have weird names I'll probably be mixing up. TakaSakaMakaLamaDingDong and such. The medals are okay, though even I'll be surprised if they achieve Rider Card/Gaia Memory-level coolness.
A couple more things: the surprisingly-accurate artwork that turned up some time ago wasn't very reassuring, but I like the actual suit. There's a crispness to the colors on the black. It looks simple, but in the kind of way I like.
The claws are cool, and an unconventional weapon for what I'm assuming will be the "main guy" costume (i.e. the one that lands on the most merchandise.)
The crooked belt will take some getting used to (straighten it dude! Then it almost looks Typhoon-ish.)
And I love the green eyes. There just aren't enough green-eyed Riders, honestly.
Overall I'm psyched, though the big leering question is that if this is the 40th Anniversary series... is it going to live up to that at all? Or is this just buying time before the real deal in 2011? We'll see.
Starting September 5th, though he'll be turning up somewhere else a little earlier...
Saturday, September 11, 2010
a new RF server
it would be great to set one up Rf online is one of my favorite video games of all time it's so great because their is no game like it it is one of a kind although it can get boring at times this is one game i would rather play
Friday, September 10, 2010
OLD SKOOL CARTOONS
well today most would say old school as in like loony tunes but to me old school would be road runner, speed racer and transformers the thing about them is i'm a 90's kids and that's what i grew up with even though i barely had cable.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Orange...
yes i know i've talked about oranges a couple times but the thing is my parents have this thing where the only thing good is apple juice or orange juice so it's either some kind of acid problem or vitamin C poisoning. i swear
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Lipton Tea bags
I'm having an apiffony here or w/e how you spell it but i used to remember some kind of prototype or something like that was packed with lipton tea bags i used it twice til it was bad because that's what some people do to save a little more on money and it has a taste of orange.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
pepto bismol or w/e the fuck it's called
the sukka works! i honestly been using it for the past month since I've been getting more sick often for some reason it used to be where in high school i was sick only ONCE and it's usually during the beginning of the year when i get only one fever which is strangely odd to me.
Monday, September 6, 2010
upgrading my phone from 3.1.2 to 4.0.1
I upgraded to 3.1.2 because i wanted new applications that were awesome and i wanted to use with my iPhone 3g which is jailbroken then the new iPhone 4 came out and my dad had like a pissing contest where hey son my friend upgraded my phone to 4.0 and well since the person that i am can't let that be i upgrade to 4.0.1 successfully and rubbed it in his face. fun^^
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Me and My current addiction to orange cream soda...
so on my way to class i usually stop by tobaco junction which is just one of those shops that sell cigars and loto cards and etc. i usualy buy my metro cards there but one day i decided to try something new since i had the money for it it was these soda's that were in glass bottles almost like the coco cola classic ones and since i havent herd of these flavors i stuck onto one that sounded familiar orange cream since then i've been addicted
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Old Anime's 2
This anime is awesome Looong looong time ago i remember watching it in the Philippines with my best gal friend Mina. It was in tagalog i think the anime was dubbed in (I could not find a Sorcerer Hunter dubbed example though if you look around there are proofs that the anime was tagalog dubbed) and it was awesome though jap version is of course. Tagalog dubbed anime = interesting and good to watch, unlike english dubbed anime = fail.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Old Anime's
Yep as the title says Old Animes are WIN! Sure new animes today such as Durarara, Fairy Tail, and etc are also good but you have to miss the old time animes such as Rurouni Kenshin, Fushigi Yuugi, Yuyu Hakusho, Flame of Recca and etc...including the anime i'm watching right now...Sorcerer Hunters (AKA: Bakuretsu Hunters)!!!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
RF Online
Now since Codemasters dropped the game because of contract issues which is dumb on the koreans side since they had a lot of players for just that one game. Play RF has picked it up but between the gap private servers have been created and having a greater following. My question is will the game stay down and be in the hands of the explayers and fans of the game or will Play RF get all of codemasters players back.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Seananners
his name is adam i think he's an employee who posts video's on the company channel Machinima i like how he has one of those kind of voices that are great for commentating which is what he does it's not that he has a cliche one but he has one and watching his videos makes it worth it because of the quality.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
New Semester
Today starts a new semester I'm actually glad that it's kingsly. professor is one of the best one's they've got in DeVry. It's the same as any other day I usually just go to school but I'm not going to remember it I actually thought my class started on Wednesday so i faked going to school wandering around town for a good 3 hrs saying that the professor only gave us work so i came home.
Monday, August 30, 2010
17 more days
17 more days until i can actually go to Florida where my fiance resides and actually celebrate my birthday for once now i am not born in June but in July I'm just going there for the week of the birthday plus a couple of days. it's going to be the day i actually celebrate a holiday (4th of july) and my birthday for once. surprisingly enough i have never celebrated my birthday, because my family doesn't care that i ever had one and that it's just a regular day that i happen to be born on and that is it. Now i can actually celebrate it and with the person i care about most.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Night Elf Mohawk
their is this class called night elf's in the game of world of warcraft and up until the other day i found out that the mohawk grenade in the Mr. T. world of warcraft commercial is actually real you really just shoot it at a designated tarted and it will give them a mohawk while i don't know if it has some kind of timing or anything but what i am guessing is that the mohawk that appears on monsters and characters during player versus player events it will be cast like a spell and it will give the target a mohawk until either death or a set amount of time.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
AxE and it's heavy scent
why... just why... we see these commercials that are on TV or on the computer when you browse the internet but why in the world are these deodorants or what ever they call them these days. AxE specifically has this smell that they all are the same just that they give out gimmicks that make you want to buy the next one but they all smell the same and they have the heaviest smell for one I've ever had is it worth it? i don't really think so.
Friday, June 11, 2010
odd numbers in teamwork/ part 2
now this isn't meaning that if their are three or any given odd numbers you can get a lot more done as if you were in a party or something like that but the odd numbers in teamwork is that my fiance Robin likes odd numbers so every time we do something and it is a teamwork effort it is by odd numbers so she starts off with the first one and i do the second and then she does the third and it goes on.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Random talk breaks into good conversation...
i wanted to talk to you today about random conversations. sometimes a random conversation can turn into a really good conversation since it can turn into a real and good serious like for example event I've always had these conversations and I've always loved them because they always brighten my day because sometimes random one are the ones that keep your day going if you look back on it.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Video Games Update... on myself
make sure you read what's after the ellipse you might get confused. this entry is about what games i am currently into. they are World of Kung Fu, Rising Force Online, All Points Bulletin, and surprisingly enough World of Warcraft. WoKF is an asian martial arts type MMO meaning that it uses weapon in the martial arts kind of way set in an asian type environment and no i do not mean chinatown. it's pretty good, it's catching to the eye; well at least the weapons and cloths are. RF online i've already disgussed this but it's more of a sci-fi kind of game but has elements of a classic MMO but these times RF retail was shut down while i was playing this which was brought back up by another gaming company which didn't seem all too appealing to me seeing as how most of the versions on their way to converting to 2.2.4 meaning second expansion, second episode update 4 when the current retail is still on 2.2.1 very outdated. it's a pretty good game. one of the new games that came out is called "All Points Bulletin" or APB for short and from the previews it looks more like a grand theft auto online multiplayer i've yet to try it but i hope to try it with my fiance, Robin.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
My Favorite Anime Series
When i was younger i would have said pokemon i watched it everyday and i would memorize the poke'raps and they only had 150 to remember it isn't what it is today which is like over 400 of them. Now i like anime's with adult humor not exactly porn or anything but just humor that isn't for children, comedy things that can make me laugh and somethings that are pleasing to the eye.
Monday, June 7, 2010
My Favorite Musician
it has to be maroon 5 when i was very little i used to turn on the radio and the station that really ever appealed to me was z100 new york's number one hit music station now i'm not trying to advertise because they did not pay me not saying that they ever did that i will but i listened to it and i was about the age of 5 or 7 years old it was the reason that i got into rock and all of the harder things i am into like metallica and nine inch nails.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Yale Fan...
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/weird/Yale-Fan-Picks-Harvard-96068994.html
a person of Asian descent is named Yale W. Fan or just Yale Fan. Who got accepted to HARVARD. That's right, but his name is actually just ye but his parents thought it was too short so they added le to the middle hence Yale, although it's pronounced different let that be kicker in English it's pronounced like the ivy league college.
a person of Asian descent is named Yale W. Fan or just Yale Fan. Who got accepted to HARVARD. That's right, but his name is actually just ye but his parents thought it was too short so they added le to the middle hence Yale, although it's pronounced different let that be kicker in English it's pronounced like the ivy league college.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Florida part 2-2
So back to the topic at hand i am going to Florida!! to see my Robin and to celebrate my first birthday i've "Actually" celebrated. My parents weren't too big on birthdays when any of us ever had one we would have something specially made for us to eat and i didn't want none of that and it was not really a birthday. So the only holiday or special day i've ever actually celebrated is Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year. Which is pretty sad seeing as how my only joy in holidays before Robin was something that had no meaning for me except money. Now i can actually celebrate my first real Birthday with the one i love most Robin.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Florida part 1-2
The first place that i've actually left this state in 16 years... yeah i know sad but true. For New Yorkers i believe it when i say for everyone Jersey don't count. I have went to New Jersey a couple times because my uncle and my four cousins, second cousin(cousins daughter) or at least that's what google says, my family counts it as i'm her uncle because everyone from my fathers side including his brothers and my cousins count as my brothers and sisters so little ava counts as my niece, lives there. Both of my uncles used to live there until he moved to the UK with his wife who is totally awesome because she knows a lot and can keep up a conversation.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
World of Warcraft
I have to say i'm not a fan of it, i don't know why people liked it but i started playing the trial of it to play with Robin, and turned out it was in it more for the exploring and things you can do in it than the whole of it if that makes any sense. I am currently in Dolanaar and currently what i love to do is the emotes that comes with the night elf class for males so everytime i type /dance i do a Micheal Jackson dance like his signature spin and hands in the air and the air humps. The female night elf's does a dance from a french artist by the name of Alizée. That's all i have for today
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The future for us...
refer to this post and read it if you haven't already before i start
http://redvenomex.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-hopeful-future-home.html
I've been thinking about it for a while and I've seen pictures and it feels like somewhere I've dreamed of living in the country it has everything i need and it has things that Robin wanted too and I've been researching it and asking my uncle about it it seemed to have some drawback like learning Swedish, applying to the country and work that can be transferred there but when all that is finished we can finally get to one of our goals together as a couple. I love my Robin with all of my heart and this is something that i think will make us happier.
http://redvenomex.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-hopeful-future-home.html
I've been thinking about it for a while and I've seen pictures and it feels like somewhere I've dreamed of living in the country it has everything i need and it has things that Robin wanted too and I've been researching it and asking my uncle about it it seemed to have some drawback like learning Swedish, applying to the country and work that can be transferred there but when all that is finished we can finally get to one of our goals together as a couple. I love my Robin with all of my heart and this is something that i think will make us happier.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
How we have been togeather ever since...
Since that moment we have known each other for a long time now, and we've overcame arguments, became stronger, teamwork is very strong and we have been there for each other every time and spend almost every waking moment with each other it feels like it's better than a perfect dream. I love Robin with all of my heart and when we can she will be Robin Ren. We don't know what is to come but all we know is that we will be together doing it.
Monday, May 31, 2010
How me and my fiance met
If you actually read my blogs that's great if you don't well here it is i have a fiance. we met in a MMO called Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online the name translates out to True Goddess Resurrection, but i thought it was new divine goddess at first until i looked it up. It was an event on AGE (aeria games entertainment) called something like student mentor even, i was the mentor and she was the student. she originally had 2 mentors but the other one never showed up. I got to her goal of level 25 and some help with items and she joined the clan i created. We started playing with each other logging on everyday and i fell in love with her personality of course i didn't know what she sounded like or looked like but it never really occurred to me. she left for a good 4 months because of complications but when she came back i was the happiest I've ever been so i took the chance and asked her out, we started talking on Skype via voice call then, we both got the courage to finally do a video call and at that moment i saw that she was everything I've ever wanted in a woman.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Red Velvet Cake
My semi-new discovery!! one day my fiance was having Red Velvet Cake i thought it was the cakes I've seen with red silk wrapped around it and it was something like regular cake. Then she said it had cream cheese, i took a double take and and she showed me i was astounded by the deep red color and the taste of it. so i had the idea of doing some research and since I've never had it Robin, my fiance thought it was a southern thing since her mother swears it up and down but the earliest publishing was The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook and Good Things to Eat (published in 1885)not entirely sure if it's Boston NY or Boston MA but enough about the history it's really good try one if you haven't already and not the kind you get from 7-11 where the ones they have are with regular ultra sugary icing.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Being too Thin Outlawed
In Spain they have made it illegal for models to be below a certain weight for their height as well a certain clothing size. It's about time in my eyes. People saying "I'm fat" when they are in a size 4 really is too much. Being skin and bones is far from beautiful. What's inside counts the most, however having a healthy mid-weight body is greater then being size 1 or even 0 (how 0 is possible really beats me). Way to go Spain for outlawing it! It's about time people started taking steps to letting up on this crazy ideal image of skin and bones.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Recent Events
There's not much going on in the world that I have seen aside from mainly sports information and things over racial controversies. One big controversy right now is that people are pushing for an African American Spider-Man. Sorry to say this, but if the creators of Spider-Man (Stan Lee and Marvel Comics) really wanted him that way he would have been. I highly doubt there was anything racist about Spidy being Caucasian. He was suppose to be a geeky nobody who was able to finally change the world and his life by becoming a mutated human with the DNA of mutated genetically engineered spiders. Oh well, just one more thing people are too ignorant and want to change for the "better" only to make it worse in my honest opinion. Robin doesn't seem too happy about it as she sees Spider-Man one of her all time favorite heroes.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Guatemala has Pit of Death
my favorite quotes from Meet the Spartans "Stop kicking people into the bloody Pit of Death!" I never thought that the Pit of Death could exist. I looked on Yahoo only to find a new article posted titled "Storm Triggers Giant Sinkhole." Tropical Storm Agatha swept over Guatemala and opened up a massive sinkhole. The sinkhole is said to be the size of an entire street block and if you look at the images yourself you will see it's no joke. The world is turning to shambles.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Motivation and Admiration
Out of all the things I adore about my fiance Robin, her motivation just causes me to admire her more. She doesn't give up. It takes years for her to give up on something. That is how much she will keep trying at different approaches to succeed. She accomplishes so much that people always want help with, whether it be leveling herself strongly in a game (a LOT of people whine if they don't get power leveled. PL for short meaning to have a person way higher then your level take you to big time mobs that will give massive experience and level you right up), earning things she wishes for out in the real world or even out-lifting people while working with her horses and having to tend to their feed and hay being restocked. I have only seen her give up once. Sometimes, with how hard it is on her, she gets close to her breaking point, however with a slight boost from those closest to her, she is right back on track. I truly admire and love her and her strengths.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Google Pac-Man?
Recently I had a friend of mine from Sweden say on Ventrillo "Everyone go to Google.com, they have Pac-Man up for a couple of days." I have seen many banners on the Google homepage, but never before have I seen them actually have a flash game up, especially of Pac-Man. Sure enough, it was Pac-Man's 30th birthday. That's 30 years of nerds and geeks being excited over eating enemies and successfully completing the game. I found myself playing that for a while on the Google site. LONG LIVE PAC-MAN!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Yahoo
Yahoo is full of topics so I might just sit tight and read up on there for a while. I just love going to the main page of the site and looking through all the articles they have updates every 4-12 hours. I know my fiance reads them all the time. She gets great articles on relationship ins and outs from there as well as information on recent affairs in the world. Time to read-up a bit.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Failure Write
Topics, no matter how much you know it can be about anything, can be so difficult to come up with. Thus my topic now is about how I can't find a topic at all. I could write about so much, but really my mind draws a blank. As I quoted G.I. Jane before "Brain Fart". Maybe I can find something on Yahoo articles or on the news channel. I've gotten topic ideas from asking for help but now I've drawn more blanks then ever.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Games and Music
My fiance was talking with me the other day about her past. She used to be in symphonic and marching band for 5 years. What she told me actually was pretty cool and I enjoyed it. Her favorite band teacher actually made it homework to play games, such as hand-held or consoles. He said it was a fact that they would aid in hand-eye coordination and that in music you needed that for sure. I think that probably made a few parents angry but it helped for better musicians. She's an avid gamer and topped most of others in the band with her trombone.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Gulf Oil Spill
You know, just as we hear "An accident causing an oil spill is highly unlikely". Look at what happened. This thing is massive and should have been stopped sooner. It has killed many dolphins and other sea life, is threatening delicate wetlands and one of our main sources for seafood. This oil spill has gone on far to long and is still unfixed. The experts from BP or British petroleum as my favorite high school teacher Mr. K Zisel once said are saying it could take up to 3 months. 3 months?! That's long enough to fill the entire Gulf of Mexico, get drawn into the current that flows around the entire world and kill all sea-life. Why can't they just dive down put a clasped piece of sheet metal around the leak and seal it with waterproof sealants? I hope it will be fixed now instead of too much later. It's been long enough.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Food's Good
Food has so many choices and varieties to it. You can have multiple different salads, entrees, appetizers, main dishes, desserts and that's not even the just of it. Food can comfort you, give you energy, quench your hunger or just satiate some mild or major cravings you are having. Some of my favorite foods are Korean BBQ, ribs (all variants here are welcome), halal, and fried dumplings. Food is great in so many ways and should never be wasted. Bon apetit.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Obsession with Odds
Today, once again, my fiance showed her somewhat odd obsession with odds. I don't mean the types of odds like coincidences or betting for or against horses at a race track. I simply mean she is obsessed with odd numbers. When she puts things in the microwave, odd number always for the last digit she presses. A couple of examples "4:25" or "0:95". This girl is math crazed and her favorite style of number is the odd number, just because it is that single digit more that makes it unique and imbalanced.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Ronald McDonald an Influence for Obesity?
Ronald McDonald has been around since before anyone in my generation. He's been around since the 40's or 50's if I remember correctly and now instead of parents taking the responsibility on themselves for their child being overweight, they turn to blame the spokesperson of the chain itself. Ronald McDonald, in fact, is not at fault for obesity and in no shape way or form should be blamed for it. How about we admit we eat there and stop blaming him? Start blaming the want for McDonald's. Also, McDonald's is actually one of the leading restaurants in changing their foods to be healthier for the consumers. People are sheer ignorant.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Dora the Explorer as an Illegal Alien Symbol?
In the past couple of weeks I have noticed a great many things going on in the world of things I grew up experiencing. One of which is Dora the Explorer. Dora is a great show for helping children with awareness of many things, some of which are greater morals, strategizing and memorization and even teaching the Spanish language. Now-a-days, this child icon is being used for illegal immigrants as a spokesperson. To me this is actually disturbing that she is such a bright symbol for children but in the terms of politics and adults could soon be frowned upon. Some things are just better left for the age group they were intended for.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Bonding Exorcises
Bonding is one of the key things in relationships. My fiance and I actually do them without knowing that we do sometimes. Sometimes we video call each other via Skype and one of the games that they have is called Fuel Pipes about teamwork to change the direction of pipes so that the pipes can go from the pump to the car that evidently turns inflated after you completed the puzzle. Each player plays on a 3x7 boxes of pipes each. One of our great accomplishments while playing the game is that we finished a difficult one around 2 seconds how that is possible i don't know but it made me feel like we were closer. Some research show that their is a difference in strength in relationships after one group does challenges and finish versus couples that did not go through them.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Funeral Protesters
Again, I see an article and a video about protesters from a church Westboro Baptist Church. Which brings about my rant today. These protesters come in with signs like "America is Doomed" and statements like "God is punishing this nation" and "Everytime someone is sent to Iraq we rejoice it's the vengeance of god that commanded that you rejoice over" What the fuck is that, their is a fine line between Freedom of Speech and disturbing the peace. One state actually banned these acts by issuing a 300 feet distance between the wake and or the actual funeral that is an OK idea. If it were me it would be a 500 feet to a mile perimeter. These families are there to mourn for their lost relatives and friend and they don't need people to be there to say that their loved one died and that's great.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Our Story
No not one of the titles to one of the episodes to Scrubs. Which i love to watch by the when... If they ever come up with new episodes that is. Anyways one day me and my fiance wanted spend time together since we haven't had much time lately we spend through all the things we do and it got quiet all of a sudden my fiance comes up with an idea that we should do a "pass it on" type story which i thought it was a great idea she started off with an opening and i continued and we passed each other the story after we added our part. Of course i am the King of brain-farts. Like that cheesy movie line that goes
"I mean really sir, why don't you just issue me a pink petticoat to wear around the base?"
"Did you just have a brain fart, Lieutenant?"
"Begging your pardon, sir?"
"Did you just waltz in here and bark at your commanding officer? Because if you did, I would call that a bona fide brain fart, and I resent it when people FART inside my office!" -G.I. Jane
Anyways we passed it back and fourth in a word document and we got up to my part the eighth pass around and then i sent it back and i failed it to the point where it was a stalemate and no one knew what to put but it was fun doing it.
"I mean really sir, why don't you just issue me a pink petticoat to wear around the base?"
"Did you just have a brain fart, Lieutenant?"
"Begging your pardon, sir?"
"Did you just waltz in here and bark at your commanding officer? Because if you did, I would call that a bona fide brain fart, and I resent it when people FART inside my office!" -G.I. Jane
Anyways we passed it back and fourth in a word document and we got up to my part the eighth pass around and then i sent it back and i failed it to the point where it was a stalemate and no one knew what to put but it was fun doing it.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Rogue
Rogue is the name usually given to a person or a thing that is stealthy, cunning and masters of escape and entry. This Rogue literally the name is a horse. My fiance owns a cool looking black horse with a white blaze and one blue eye. To my knowledge it's less than 10% chance of getting that combination. One thing i love about my fiance is that what ever she builds up she takes care of it and care for it like it was one of her own. Rogue is no different; back to the topic at hand, This horse is named Rogue to my knowledge is because she is a master at escaping from her stall if you leave any kind of possibility.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Molly
If you have been reading the blogs... Molly is NOT my fiance's name but of my fiance's Great Dane, she is all black with a bit of white on the chest. Really pretty dog with a great personality doing things that i believe are almost human. Molly makes me happy because she make my fiance happy. Molly sleeps in my fiance's spot when she steps out and comes back to look at my fiance with a "What?" face to boot it's really cute. Molly is an awesome dog i hope she lives a really long life.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Facebook Games
I'm sure you've all herd of them. Games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Their all addicting games that can stick on to keep you excited to the next time an event happens. My uncle has gotten into them, and so have I these games is what I think are products of recession, to get unemployed to use their money more.
Monday, May 10, 2010
DeVry and it's many exciting boredom's
I've been attending DeVry ever since July 08 for the summer session doing 3 semesters a year. My friends tell me that I am crazy and nuts. That's a lot of nuts. I am one of those students who just take the bare minimum 12 credits to be accounted as a full time student and receiving grants while i have a lot of time on my hands. I believe the expression my parents always give me is "Xit ba ka ain" the last words is pronounced like the word "ain't" minus the T sound basically meaning "you eat full to have free time." Since they compare me with their co-workers is the amount of time i spend home while their co-workers kids go to school almost every day. Of course the person that i am i tell them "Xi Huan Gu" which means die far, now these are probably not the correct pinyin/spelling so don't hold me to it. With that boredom i become productive. I've learned to cook, iron, play the guitar and bass, more video games and speak a little bit of some languages like Romanian, German and Japanese.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
My Hopeful Future Home
Since I've been playing RF with my fiance I've been reading up on interesting articles on Yahoo News a couple of articles i want to touch up on is the one about the amount of sick days i believe a country is allowed like for instance USA is like 14 days and Sweden is 34. Their are more, some countries get an astounding 42 days. Then I was reading on the countries that are the best place to be a mother and guess what? USA came out number 24 shocker isn't it, but even at that the best place to be a mother is Vermont... So my future home hopefully is Sweden, i have a couple friends i made through my fiance and the country from pictures are beautiful but not as beautiful as my fiance though, only drawback is that I'd have to either get a job to stay there for more than 3 months or a relative that lives in Europe and get a European passport and the fact that I have to soon go through a McDonald's and have to know how to speak Swedish even though my friends there know English. So Rosetta Stone Swedish Edition here i come.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
This week on Kamen Rider Double...
I don't know what it is but i've been getting into this series called "Kamen Rider" it's an age long series of masked heroes who fight for justice. one thing that comes to mind is that it came from when kids who were born in the 80's-90's and started watching power rangers their was one episode where they introduced Kamen Rider. I think it's the episode where Kimberly is sick and the rest go to the planet where alpha 5 was built. This series has made many "riders" after all these years but it keeps going and it's popularity is just as popular world wide as power rangers
Friday, May 7, 2010
RF online
Needless to say this is a MMO a massive multi-player online. i've been addicted to this game for a couple weeks now. The game to my understanding is about 3 fighting factions that come from separate worlds Accretia, Bellato, Cora. ABC simple isn't it. They fight each other for the chips that control the mining fields that build up if your race loses. it's a pretty fun game
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Alpha Kenny Body [say it in your mind not out loud]
so a couple days back i got bored and started watching random youtube video's and i came upon a KevJumba video of his father and him. The video goes on to where his father was done doing physical exercise(jumping jacks). and Kevin the son writes "Alpha Kenny Body" on a big piece of paper and call's his father over and says "dad it's a mental exercise" his father repeats the words and doesn't understands it and repeats this about five times. Of course i had to try this i wrote it on a small sheet of paper and tried it on both my parents SUCCESS.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Pulling A Victory out of Sickness part 2
This was the final week for "Tuesday Early Mix 2009-2010" we were in 5th place from last (10th place) slowly building our skill and by "our skill meaning my skill" this was the second bowling tournament I've been in but this is the first money tournament and finished. It was an off day at best, we would have won but i was still not feeling too good we could have clean swept them but i couldn't hit more than 1 strike per game if any at best which was strange. I perfected my reverse curve throw but it wasn't enough to give the edge. We won the second game and by about 43 pins/points so to my knowledge we had high game so we took 5/11 points and we went back to 6th place winning a great amount of money which i won't enclose how much also i won "Most Improved Male in the League" with a plaque to prove. boosting with a magnet and a pin shaped magnet for having a 400 series game semi-final game or whatever you call it. So I left with the plaque and money and the player with the most awards in the League. Team "Say Something!" Eric the anchor, Jessica the captain and last but not least the MVP David (me).
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Pulling a Victory from Sickness
I have been sick with a stomach virus for 3 days now ever since Saturday 5/8/10 when i went to Flushing, NY to a Dim Sum place off Main ST where their is a huge parking lot across from it. it had all these great foods like, sweet rice paste shell with beef in it, my favorite was the bread-ish shell with roast pork filling. I have a fear of seafood, my mother is the WORST cook ever. She ruined my attempt at seafood forever, the only things i will ever go near is, fake crab sticks, tuna, date, and flounder the cheap kind that is fillet, battered and fried. Anything outside of it I will never touch. Let me give you an example of my mom cooking fish, it may look juicy and really good just from the smell but one touch is this really heavy fish taste like normal things that are fish, but one touch of saliva on it and it will explode like a bomb it feels like mini hairs tied up in a rubber band in your mouth. Totally not kosher of course I'm substituting kosher with right or righteous. I'm still sick, but most of the stuff is gone except the stomach pains. So at this Dim Sum restaurant it was really fancy it had table cloths, glass windows with curtains and detailed chairs. Their was this one dish that probably met my demise shrimp paste wrapped in bacon, I thought it was sausage or something. So from now on i am still never touching any kind of fish unless specified.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Welcome to my neighborhood (Cont...)
Welcome to my neighborhood, it is in Fuzhou, China it is on the coast right pretty close to Hong Kong. My neighborhood is with my mom and my sister with my aunts and uncles in a 3 floor house. Not a care in the world just me, and the backyard because i didn't go anywhere much besides the market that is it was pretty simple, i was 3 and it was just wake up, play outside, play with toys inside then eat and sleep. that's it. at least that's what i remember.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Part 2-1 Welcome to my "Crib"
My "crib" or house/living situation isn't the whole house that i live in. My "crib" is my room from what seems like a fortress of solitude with 2 real windows and 2 imaginary. my mind, and the internet.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
RedAdvent
My fiance Robin and I have known each other for well over a year and a half now. In our many games we use common screen names, hers always being AdventAssassin and mine RedVenom. We accomplish many things in our outstanding teamwork. One day she was talking about random things and said that we should have a name. She instantly says "RedAdvent" and then states "Or VenomAssassin or anything like that". However, we both knew RedAdvent had a very nice ring to it. Since that day we have been and forever will be known as RedAdvent, the undefeatable team that will conquer it all.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Anime vs. Western Cartoons
There are people who tend to knock on anime lovers such as myself. They think that it's just big eyes and not well developed. But taking a closer look and stopping to see it, they would see it how I do. Most every anime is actually meant for the late teen to adult audience. The detailing in Japanese anime (now used in multiple countries and cultures) is far more detailed then that of Disney cartoons. They have shading and their characters (this is my view) actually look Asian. Anime is pure bliss to me and will remain my favorite animation style.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Welcome to my Neighborhood
Welcome to my neighborhood. I live in what i call a city in a suburb, because where i live is exactly smack dab in the middle of everything, bad neighborhoods in Elmont, the upper class of Garden City and "The City" a couple blocks away. When we i describe this it describes me. I'm the average person who grew up in an average area that has endless possibilities for me.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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