Kamen Rider Yongou Released

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Total votes: 22
vashstyle
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by vashstyle »

I doubt the opinion of a lapsed Kamen Rider fan is going to be valued here, but hey, as a guy who hates everything post Kabuto, here it goes.

I originally reactivated my account to basically write an essay about how fucking amazing Kamen Rider 555 is, and found this. I've been watching the series again (for maybe the 5th time, not something I've not done with any other Kamen Rider) and I am constantly amazed by the subtle things I notice as I get older. It's incredible. Everyone complains about how "sloppy" that show is and they're mostly referring to the dumb monster plotlines that didn't get resolved. Who cares? That series is more about misfits in Japan dealing with PTSD than it is about superpowered karatemen fighting soulless monsters.

I LOVED this. It's the only Kamen Rider thing I've enjoyed since Kabuto. They properly pay homage to the tones and themes of Faiz and the characters. I was so excited hearing about the ensemble movie with Kento Handa reprising his role and how they were going to properly "end" Faiz, AND THEN THEY CART OUT SOME KUSAKA DEATH SCENE AS IF THAT WAS THE MOST COMPELLING CHARACTER CONFLICT IN THE SERIES AJKGJDAJKSGDKJALGJADKSGJLDSJGLSKADJFDA. I'm so happy that Kiba's name was even just mentioned, and so beyond stoked that Kaido showed up. Now, I might be able to finally close the book on Kamen Rider and never have to watch one of those terrible Taisen movies again just to get a glimpse of Faiz getting his ass kicked.

I say that, but I guarantee they'll suck me back in by doing the same thing with Blade. Maybe bringing back the whole cast just to make them one-note villains is just the Blade version of Takumi showing up to fuck everybody's gameplan up.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Catastrophe »

It seems the fact you like Faiz is because it's Inoues drama coming through more than anything. The fact that it's a J-Drama with Toku in it is what kind of turns people off it.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by takenoko »

I think the fact that Inoue can write some really bad stories is what turns people off to his work, but that's a discussion for another day.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Victormaru »

I've never seen the Faiz series so now I feel like I have to watch it since Takumi's story has been included throughout all these movies.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Catastrophe »

So this is really good. Why all Kamen Rider movies aren't like this is mystifying because I enjoyed this far more than the usual crossover clusterfuck.

A nice conclusion to the Faiz story. Loved that scene with him just chilling on the grass. Zeronos there for no reason other than hilarious Deneb lariat antics, but nice to see Nakamura back acting.

This shows the quality of what can be done. Small cast, smaller budged (you can tell by comparing the slime effects on Mach in this compared to the flash back) but super enjoyable, probably moreso if you are a Faiz fan.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Ixalion »

GodStriker8 - Also, Baron and Sasword are not evil riders, they really should've put Duke and Dark Kabuto in their place.
They may not be evil riders but they have died in their series (Ouja still counts but Ryuki was a confusing series so no spoilers for who haven't seen it.) as for Dark Kiva, I think this was the Kurenai Otoya version.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by takenoko »

Gotta have a Den-O representative since there's time travel shenanigans. I wonder how far in advance they planned this, since all three are in Sangou, but to a much lesser degree.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by ViRGE »

So I should preface the following with this: I have never seen Faiz. All I know about the series is that the Rider is the guy with a lightsaber and super speed. So I'm probably missing a few things here. Whether it would improve my enjoyment of the movie or not, I dunno. But maybe a quick 2 paragraph summary of Faiz would be in order here if someone could be bothered to write it? What I really need to know (I think) is whether Takumi was alive or dead at the end of the series. Since I guess the implication of what's going on here is that he died at the end of the series, and the "problem" altering the timeline here is that he's alive for the recent movies?

Anyhow, this was a fantastic movie. In fact I think this is my favorite. As everyone has pointed out, Toei movies benefit from a smaller budget. The fact that they don't need to put so many butts in theater seats means that the focus is on characters and the plot. There's still plenty of fun toku action, but it's that raw, fun "stunties pretend to beat each other up" kind of action rather than over-the-top bombastic CGI action. Going into this I had no real clue about who Takumi and Yuuto were or what they stood for, and yet by the end they feel like complete, fleshed out characters.

The plot overall won't win any Emmys, but I so very much need to point out that Toei did a time travel/Groundhog Day type story, and for once (maybe for the first time?) my head isn't ready to explode by the end! This is a bit of a backhanded compliment since I'm saying that Toei normally messes this up, but the honest truth is that the standard for Toei is to abuse the heck out of time travel in order to handwave in the characters they want to use. Here? It's used as a tool. It's used sensibly. Groundhog Day plots are not easy to do, and yet Toei gets it right here. This is probably a consequence of the movie being a lower budget plot-heavy affair, but the end result is still a pleasant surprise.

Looking at the Wiki (side note: Takenoko, I know you write most of that stuff. Thank you!), I see that Mouri Nobuhiro wrote this one. I don't know the ins and outs of all of Toei's stable of writers, but I do try to keep track of who has worked on what. I have to say this significantly boosts Nobuhiro's standing in my eyes. So far he's basically been on Toei's B-team, writing some of the weaker episodes and the bad tie in episodes (e.g. Kikaider) of otherwise strong series like Go-Busters and Gaim. I don't know if Urobuchi Gen has been rubbing off on him or what, but when Nobuhiro has the helm we've gotten things like the ToQger/Gaim spring break special and Kamen Rider Yongou. If this is what he's capable of, maybe it's time he's given his own command. Then again maybe we're better off if he remains on the B-team, writing these fantastic low-key movies. Either way I want to see more from him, especially projects where he's not forced to write for bombastic movies.

The director, Yamaguchi Kyouhei, also deserves some credit here. I don't know how much of a production rests on the director's shoulders in Japan, but if it's anything like in the West, then it seems like a lot of the credit for making this low-key style work goes to him.

I also have to say that I appreciate the levity of this movie. I'm worried I'm falling into the trap that dark equals better, but in this case it's not so much that it has dark elements that makes it great, it's that everything is given the appropriate amount of levity. The world is going to hell faster and faster each time, people are talking about death in a serious manner (here's looking at you, Ghost). Yet the heroes keep trying, and they're clearly using their head rather than rushing in and winning due to braveness. And what you won't find here is some god-awful comic relief character to light the mood; Deneb and Go provide just enough lightheartedness to make the story work without going overboard.

Meanwhile, I have no idea who scored this movie, but they did a great job. I mean they completely and utterly nailed it. Since this is a one-off movie the score isn't the usual rock anthems, OP song, or character songs. In fact I don't think anything from Drive was used here. Instead what we got was a lower energy mix of rock and piano. At times there's a definitely E.S. Posthumus neo-classical vibe to all of it. It fit the tone of the movie and the action very well. At worst I could say that most likely due to the budget, some of the pieces were noticeably recycled; but then again this was originally presented in episodic format, so you pick up on these things when more or less binging on the content. And the one lyrical trick they did have was used very well; it wasn't a fight song, it was an ending song. I like this because it meant that the song could be heard in full and not drowned out in fight noises (or vice versa), not to mention it worked well to set the mood at the end of each episode. And grabbing Eternal for it is an amusing choice.

As for Yongou, it's interesting that despite being the title character of the movie, he's mostly a red herring. He doesn't even come in to the story until half-way through, and even then he's a bit of a generic villain in personality. The real star of the movie was the riders. I'm not even sure if Yongou is really counts as the primary antagonist here; that may go to Shocker as a whole. Meanwhile Takenoko already covered this, but Yongou had a really interesting design. As a westerner the WW2 fighter ace concept seems almost wrong at first - I actually had to look up how WW2 Japanese pilots dressed up, I didn't think they dressed so similarly to the western pilots - but in context I appreciate just how different it is from everything else. It's not a biker or a race car driver; an old school pilot is a neat design that fits the showa era style well, and AFAIK it hasn't been done before.

Speaking of Yongou though, the one thing I still can't fully forgive is how this had to be tied into the Sangou Taisen movie. Leaving that movie incomplete is a disservice to viewers, and just because this movie was awesome doesn't make up for that. Ultimately this movie does benefit from that tie in because it can hit the ground running with all of the set pieces in place (we don't need to spend time finding out why the other riders are here and how Shocker has a time machine) and make the best use out of the 80 minutes the movie is given. Also, why the heck is it that they could never be bothered to temporarily kill Go in the Drive series when he really deserved it, but here they're happy to kill Go several times between the two movies, right as he was behaving himself and being a proper hero?! :P

Oh, and what's up with Faiz and Zeronos being credited as "Masked Rider" while Go, Yongou, and Drive were all credited as "Kamen Rider"? The inconsistency just seems odd. I don't get it. Also now that I think about it, it's a bit of a bummer that Kiriko doesn't get in the OP at all since she's the only non-rider. Not that she was handled perfectly here (it is of course the female of the group that shoulders most of the emotional burden...), but she was an important part of the story, and better handled than she was in most of Drive.

Finally, the Wiki doesn't mention this, but when I was trying to figure out what Evil Takumi was doing with a signal bike, Google pointed out to me that this is the same bike that flew into Kiriko's shift car holder at the start of the Sangou movie. This answers the question of what a signal bike was doing flying into Kiriko's possession at the last possible moment and why it kept her from forgetting the original timeline. That said, I'm still completely in the dark why Evil Takumi has a signal bike, or why he'd send it to Kiriko in the first place.

Anyhow, it was a great movie and I really hope Toei continues to do these kinds of lower-budget, heavier-drama films. It's a nice change of pace from both the series and the bombastic theatrical releases, making good use of the characters and their stories. On a side note it's probably for the best that Toei doesn't bother with the western market, but this is one of those cases where if they did I'd happy send Toei HQ a $50 with a note attached reading "please make more films like Kamen Rider Yongou" just to properly encourage them to make more content like this. But in lieu of that, at this point I'll willingly put up with another Taisen movie if it means they can do another movie like Yongou as a companion release.

Edit: Uh, I didn't mean for this to go on for 1600 words. Sorry about that. :oops:
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Mandalori »

For the Masked/Kamen thing, the answer is simple. Before W, they were referring them as Masked Rider. Since W, they say Kamen Rider (probably because of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight).
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Phoenix512 »

My only problem with the movie was with Yongou being a non-factor. This is the 2nd time that Toei has put the name of a character for a movie but really had nothing to do with the overall plot of the movie.

Yeah this definitely help with the bad taste I felt with the Sangou movie. Less people equals better movie.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by bluegreen »

vashstyle wrote:I doubt the opinion of a lapsed Kamen Rider fan is going to be valued here, but hey, as a guy who hates everything post Kabuto, here it goes.
You are not alone in disliking everythingn post Kabuto. I've watched them all, but have only liked W since then (and Drive grew on me). To me Den-O was a turning point toward crap. My favorites remain Agito, 555 and Hibiki...maybe there is something wrong with me.


After watching this (I'm not sure if I should call it a movie or a mini-series) again, I realized I was so caught up in the Faiz end-plot that I didn't really pay attention to the overall end, which left me confused. I can see how Takumi's death could cause one of two different endings
1) The original starting point where Go is dead or
2) Continue with the screwed up, Shocker-controlled world with Go alive
I'm not sure how you get to the Faiz never existed (I think) path. But I'll have to think about that for awhile.

I don't pay much attention to suit and voice actors. Somewhere along the line have they changed the voice actor for Deneb? He does not sound anywhere near what I remember from Den-O. I wasn't sure the Faiz belt was the same voice in this and the previous movie, but after hearing it a few times I think it is the same only sped up or clipped or something...they really didn't have to re-record it, just take "Standing-By" and "Exceed Charge" from the series.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Go-On Macaroni »

No, Deneb's still voiced by Hochu Otsuka.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by takenoko »

Added a brief summary of 555's ending to my first post. Apologies if I made any mistakes, I haven't really seen the show in years.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by Catastrophe »

takenoko wrote:Gotta have a Den-O representative since there's time travel shenanigans. I wonder how far in advance they planned this, since all three are in Sangou, but to a much lesser degree.
I remember they announced this shortly after they announced the Sangou movie, so I imagine it was intended to give those other guys these roles in it.
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Re: Kamen Rider Yongou Released

Post by ViRGE »

takenoko wrote:Added a brief summary of 555's ending to my first post. Apologies if I made any mistakes, I haven't really seen the show in years.
Thanks Takenoko. That helps.:)
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