It's time for another adventure of the Den-O crew with an appearance of the Rider in Pink.
Spoiler
I'm a bit surprised by the movie's focus of Deneb and Yuu but it's a good surprise. The Decade cameos were well done and the surprise cameo of the Arms Monsters were completely unexpected. Also Vega Strike form looks pretty neat as well. I'm a bit surprised that whenever Chibi Ryutarou henshin that he grew up instead of being Chibi Den-O like in the first movie.
Overall the movie explains why Yuuto is the way he is with his encounter of Deneb of when he was a child. I enjoyed the Chou Den-O movie.
Once again its really less than "Den-O & Decade", but more like "Den-O with special guest star Decade" as they get less than 10 minutes of screentime. Its better than how Kiva got shafted in there "Team-Up" movie.
Spoiler
In the end, everything always come back to yuuto in some way, and the revelation that the Kid was yuuto was a good twist.
As for why Little Ryotaro didn't stay little, i think it has to do with the fact that in Ore Tanjou that ryotaro was just a younger version of normal Ryotaro that existed at that time, where as this Ryotaro is the one weve seen in the series, but "De-aged" (IE Takaru ether didn't want to do it or he wanted too much money) like Hana was.
Last edited by Deka_Hero on Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I think we all saw the twist at the end coming, but it was still well done and pretty touching all the same
Spoiler
So this is the story of Yuuto going back in time and becoming his own grandfather?!
I think this is the best Den-O movie yet. All the characters were pretty funny, the relationship between Yuu and Toki was endearing, and it had a pretty straightforward story. Decade was just a guest star, but I think we all expected that after the Kiva crossover.
I'm a bit disappointed that Yuu doesn't get to fight, since that's who I thought that trippy Vega Form was going to be. Man, I feel sorry for Toki since she just kept getting beaten up all over the place
Agreed about the Arms Monster cameo. It's not much, but it's so meaningful if you're a fan.
One thing I really don't understand is why Kaito (Diend) summons riders to fight the taros and just leave like that. The directors had made Diend looks like a bastard who always do something without any reason, even in the series.
KamenRiderKaibo wrote:One thing I really don't understand is why Kaito (Diend) summons riders to fight the taros and just leave like that. The directors had made Diend looks like a bastard who always do something without any reason, even in the series.
Woo, more Den-O! I am a happy Den-O fan, because this is definitely a Den-O movie. (Decade? Oh, right, he's in it too.) I still think that Saraba Den-O is my favorite of the Den-O movies, but this was a strong contender. The Imagin are back, having as many crazy hi-jinks as ever, the human half of the Denliner crew is back, acting as wacky as ever, and the "familiar" heroes are back - familiar in quotation marks because it wouldn't be Den-O if we didn't have characters de-aging with minimal warning. (Although I loved Kotarou's line that his grandfather was really 19.)
I thought starting the death toll in the opening scene would have set a pretty grim tone, but the movie has its fair share of crack. By the middle of the movie, I was surprised at how crazy some of the stuff actually was. (The whole train fake-out scene was insane.) Usually the really wacky stuff is cut out of the theatrical version and saved for the Director's Cut - if that's the case for this movie, I'm a little scared to see what might have been cut.
I feel like I'm repeating myself, but Den-O continues to amaze me in terms of the casting. Young Ryoutarou's actor did a great job of matching Sato Takeru's speech patterns and still looks enough like him to make it believable that he's merely a younger version of Ryoutarou. Yuu-kun matched Yuichi's expressions and body language, well, maybe not perfectly but what I would expect from a younger version of Yuuto. And we even got to see the real Yuuto by the end!
Which leads me to the "twist" at the end. Deneb and Yuu really stole the show. Even though I was expecting Yuu's announcement that his name was Sakurai Yuuto by the time we hit the credits, the ending was executed so well. The finger promise between Yuuto and Deneb was so sappy, but that's what made it so sweet when the normally cranky/antisocial Yuuto deliberately brought it up. But Airi, Hana, now Toki...Yuuto really has terrible luck when it comes to being temporally-displaced from the important women in his life.
There were some great references back to the original series. Momo had two cute lines - his comment about being unable to swim as well as warning Ryoutarou that his hair was going to stand up as soon as he possessed him. I like the explanation about how you go about boarding Denliner. I don't think they ever clearly explained that in the series, although I remember the close-ups on the triple digits during Hana's exits and entrances in the early episodes. The puns during the credits, parodying the opening credits tagline and Yuuto's catchphrase, were also awesome.
Fight scenes were good. New Den-O doesn't handle direct hits to his chest well, does he? Second time in two movies that a hit like that has knocked him out of his transformed state. (In general, Kotarou was much more likable in this movie. Still cocky, but he's got other personality traits to balance it out now. Even Teddy had something of a personality this time!) The other new forms looked good. I loved the bickering when Sieg first assimilated into Chou Den-O. I don't think that Seiji Takaiwa was used to the wings yet, though, because it looked like he tried to pull his arms behind his back in Sieg's standard pose before he remembered the wings were in his way. On a similar note, Den-O Wing Form definitely trips on the rocks at the beginning of the big fight. I'm surprised they didn't re-film that scene, but I guess it wasn't enough of a mistake to run through it again.
The two segments with Tsukasa were actually pretty well done. It didn't feel too out of place for him to pop up. I guess that's the advantage of working with a series where the main gimmick is dimension hopping. Still, I thought it was absolutely hilarious that Hana "gave" Sieg to Tsukasa.
Daiki...really, what the heck is wrong with you? Just when I start to think I've figured out your purpose in the series, they have you do something bizarre like attacking Den-O without provocation and act like you're doing him a favor. You're making it very difficult to justify your actions.
I wasn't expecting the Kiva cameos. I knew that the actors had a cameo, but I wasn't expecting them to definitively state that they were the Arms Monsters. I'm not sure I want to try to puzzle out what universe they're from. But Urajirou? Sounds like something the fans would come up with.
Some other bits that I liked:
-Denliner umbrella. I'd use one.
-Giant band-aids - useful for peach oni and time-traveling trains alike.
-Owner and Kirihiko are scary. Judging by their facial expressions, they must have graduated from the same acting school.
-Cho Climax Jump has really grown on me. I've been listening to it for months, but it wasn't until hearing the softer beat underscore the credits and knowing the full plot of the movie that I fully appreciated it.
-Ryuutaros-Ouja is scarily funny. There's enough in common between the two characters to make Ryuu's possession very creepy.
PHurricane wrote:-Ryuutaros-Ouja is scarily funny. There's enough in common between the two characters to make Ryuu's possession very creepy.
Ouja was one of those characters that was so unpredictable he tended to give me a jolt of "oh, shit, they're in trouble" every time he showed up. Ryuuta-posessed-Ouja weirds the hell out of me, because there's the always serious serial murderer suddenly jumping around like a kid on caffeine. I worry that the world's going to end.
garfield15 wrote:Okay, what the....hell is wrong with Owner?
Was i the only one thinking that Little Yuuto during the credits instead of saying "I'm Sakurai Yuuto etcetc" that he was going to say his usual catchphrase?
Nah, the best Owner moment in the movie was how he was creepily staring at that Oni right before it boarded Denliner.
I liked this movie, saying this as a person who hasn't yet watched Den-O (yeah, yeah, I know, I need to get to it). They gave enough backstory in the movie itself that I wasn't confused (that along with knowing certain info about Den-O in general). Although I am a bit confused as to when Tsukasa learned how to use the wavy curtain. It wasn't unusual for Kaitou because that's how he got around anyway (although it wasn't definitively shown until the Shinkenger episodes, which were way after this).
Oh yeah, and where was Yuusuke in all of this? He was just hanging out at the photo studio? I mean, they couldn't even put him in for two seconds while they were in there? Ah well.
Maybe it's just me (probably is), but when Deneb told Yuu to make a wish I was expecting "I wish I could live in Tokyo again," so it caught me by surprise when he made a different one.
By the way, why didn't anyone else see the Oni chasing Yuu during the bike scene? They were practically right behind him in all the other scenes, I was hoping for the Oni to knock the bullying kids down and for them to get freaked out.
All in all, it was pretty good movie. I like it how it was pretty much center on Yuu and Deneb. I loved how the villagers were scared of Momo and he wasn't even fighting against them and the part where the Imagin-tachi combine into Climax Form. Althought Diend's part was pretty much pointless except to summon three bodies.
I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the Chou Den-O series if it turns out like this.