Toku... Review: Kamen Rider Taisen

Uggghhhhh, 2014 was quite a banner year for rider at the time, Decade was offically 5 years old, Kamen rider X was 40 years old, Blade turned 10, but the most notable thing regarding Gaim was with his introduction, both Heisei and Showa now had 15 main rider's a piece. Now I know what some of you more in the know would be saying Zach, there wasn't 15 showa era kamen riders, there were 8 shows how can there be 15, so to explain how we got there, both Nigou and Riderman counted as part of the main riders, there was ZX in the 80's during rider's first hiatus that was a pilot, and while Black RX, Shin, J, and ZO either spent more time or premiered during the first 10 years of Heisei, its more a banner of the series that had involved Shotaro Ishinomori. So yeah with a bit of chea- I mean counting more than the main riders, we now had 15 riders a piece for each era. So in lieu of the standard taisen affair, 2014's spring film focused primarily on the rider portion of Toei's toku universe for a fight between the new school and old school, two different era's coming together to see what is at the heart of rider's, a crossover that... oh why the hell am I trying to hype this. If your reading this you already know the deal with this, everyone knows this movie sucks, even the original Kamen Rider Hiroshi Fujioka hates this movie. Do I even need to go into much detail, can I just say that yeah its bad, its terrible, its a complete insult to the past 43 years of heroes, its not that pretty nor is it that well in the action. Seriously can I just move on and just move on to the soccer movie so its one less on the pile... Ughh, have to catalog everything so yeah let's just get this over with. Oh yeah, before we can even get to the fight we have a special. So since sentai was getting sidelined for this film, instead Gaim and its companion sentai at the time Ressha Sentai Toqger teamed up for an hour long special that teased this movie. This did technically started the trend of rider and sentai crossing over for an episode until Lupat and Build, so before we get to the worse, let's talk about... the perfectly fine.

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While on their journey, the Toqgers make a stop in Zawame city, and find they have time to relax since the shadow line is no where to be found, they decide to enjoy the local dance crews but their relaxing stop is interupted by monsters showing up, the notice they are not of the shadow line but choose to fight it because of the chaose they are causing. Just as they transform, Kouta shows up and transforms into Gaim himself confusing both sides as to what is going on. Though that confusion goes away as the two alongside gaim's allies team up to destroy the group calling themselves the Badan empire.

Kouta and Right pointing at the person they believe will suffer more trauma in lives.

So if I can be a little positive before a I have to put what comes down, I can at least say that this crossover is... fine, its not the greatest thing but considering what's coming up, and in comparison to it's successor in the ninninger and drive crossover, i think it is a bit better. One way that this is better than the follow up is that it does feel like its not just the red who is the focus here, while Right does have more prominence, the others do get some things to do like Mio and Kagura hanging out with Mai for a bit before Badan attacks again. That being said I still am not fully feeling this team, specifically Hikari who if you told me to describe I would just tell you that he plays Kendama, and I guess he's the serious one to Tokatti but man I barely remember him.

The main plot is rather minimal in the beginning with Badan attacking and the group stops them with the latter half of the special becoming a rescue operation for Mai when she is kidnapped when Kouta tries to get her to leave Zawame without her consent, which honestly is kind of a dick move, yeah the situation was getting more dangerous but dude, not cool. Like with it's sucessor, much of the exstenive cast is mostly side lined, Mitchy gets a little more but the rest on both ends is mostly on the sidelines, though I do like Takatora's cameo in particular when the toqgers are fighting an enlarged monster. But really, there isn't much to go over here, its a side story that is just a tie in for a terrible movie that is there because sentai was getting the sideline in the movie and just relegated to giant monster fight. Yeah its not the best, but its alright and when compared to the main film its like an oasis of quality in comparison.

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The movie opens with the riders in all out combat against one another in Zawame city, as Kouta looks out at what is happening and prepares for combat. We then cut back to some time earlier when Kouta and Mai investigating a rumor of yggdrasil workers going missing. The two end up falling into a reverse version of the city where they run into a young boy by the name Shu who also has powers. As they escort the young boy out, they are stopped by Takeshi Hongo who is being rather pushy and demands they hand Shu over to him. Before they can come to blows, the Badan Empire shows their face once more demanding Shu themselves. Takeshi transforms and tells them to head out but Badan is also attacking the surface and as it turns out, Badan also has a rider of their own... who also has a sengoku driver and a lockseed that has all 15 heisei riders... where he got these the film doesn't explain but I have two theories that Badan stole it or Ryoma just opted to give it to them because he thought it would be interesting. Anywho after they get away from Badan, Kouta, Mai and Shu meet Tsukasa Kadoya, Kamen rider decade, who then exposits about Badan and that they have to gather the Heisei riders to fight against them and Showa because... because the showa riders in this movie are assholes... there's no getting around it they are assholes in this.

So the story, or whatever you want to call this see's Kouta and the gaim cast take the backseat as Tsukasa goes around trying to recruit the other Heisei rider or to be more specific he tries to recruit Faiz and W and we see no other recruitment attempts. And the film meandering about with no aim of getting us back to that opening segment but really let's get to the meat of why this movie sucks, is that the way that the character's are characterized is not good, Basically all of the Showa era riders come off as a bunch of old jerks who blow off the heisei rider's for no reason for why until its revealed at the end. Meanwhile the Heisei riders, that we see and play a role semi come off as being whiny and not willing to help. This is espcially aggravating with Shotaro who considers finding a lost cat more important than the world potentially ending, and really the Gaim cast doesn't get much since they are gone from much of the plot for a good chunk of it, this really could've started with decade but since Gaim was the main rider at the time, he is quote on quote given more importance.

Hongo wanting to show the new generation how its really done, even though no one wants this.

Faiz get's a bit more during the middle where we focus on him as he is initally unwilling to transform into Faiz for some reason, which initally does give some mystery behind his reason for not transforming, is their trauma from his time as a rider, maybe he considers it potentially dangerous considering how at the end of his series he was fading but somehow was able to stabilize himself and maybe doesn't want to endanger himself. Or it could be some kind of retconning BS. So let's get something straight here, I am not fond of Retcons, I feel it cheapens major moments and a half assed way to make something how you want it be, whether it is bringing back characters or trying to make a story go the way you want. KRT changes Faiz to now have been their when Yuji killed Masato and Masato proclaiming that he can't fathom why someone hollow lives while he is dying. And that has stuck with him for years. Ignoring the fact that this is coming from a guy who not only hated his guts but was an irreprehensible scum bag who viewed everyone as lesser than him, his death was meant to be satisfying since the character did himself no good favors, treated everyone around his as lesser, killed innocent orphenoch's who had no desire to fight, and manipulated the situation to be far worse.it kind of feels hollow that this is what is troubling him about transforming and its only exasperated by the fact that it was retcon in order to fit with the reason showa hates heisei, oh what is that reason oh we will get there.

Anyway Faiz's portion feels like complete filler, he travels around meets up with Kamen Rider X and a girl he is caring for, which I will give credit that their interactions before their fight is probably the best part of the film. He gives him some encouragement and then doesn't when he realizes he is a heisei rider even though he fought to protect someone but we really to keep that conflict even though X is just beating up faiz who doesn't want to fight at all and then its back to the main plot revolving around Badan and some boy, and by extension Kamen Rider 15 Ren Aoi. I'll give credit that I do think the 15 suit looks actually kind of decent, the skull motif is a nice callback to both shocker combatmen and the original concept and I think the few forms he accessed. How he got his hands on the lockseed is never explained, I get that maybe Badan had some spies who pockected a sengoku driver but where did he get that lockseed, was that from the Bujin world, was it created by Badan the movie doesn't give that much and really his motivation isn't the greatest. A grieving parent for the kid who hopes to reverse the world of the living and the dead and of course has the arrogance of not understanding my pain, considering the kind of stuff Kouta goes through in the main series this feels almost laughable in comparison. And look this is not me trying to claim that losing a kid is a small issue, it can be very traumatic for parents and the people around him to lose him in such a way, but I just have grown tired of the you cannot understand my pain trope is annoying because claiming your pain is greater that others is outright insulting to others who have gone through it.

It's kind of sad to say that the best part about this is the decade stuff as Tsukasa is the only one to come off as decent as he is trying to make the best of this situation, is understanding of the other riders personal BS and stands as Heisei's team leader. Also returning from decade is Narutaki who just shows up with seemingly no purpose what so ever, he's just their because.

Stop me if you've heard this one before, I have lost a loved one and am doing evil to revive them

But yeah a lot of this seems like mostly standard Taisen fair, a meandering plot, characters acting like complete idiots, things just happening, if it weren't for how showa acts this would just be another taisen movie, but the bottom line is this movie takes that aditional step with how they portray the showa riders, so why do the showa riders hold the heisei riders in contempt. Well you see they are the reason as to why Badan is back, but why would that be. Well you see, they desire to see dead people back and that is the reason... no I am not kidding, that is the whole reason why they are, because they are being human. Look, loss is a big thing in many rider's history and their stories, many Showa era stories have them lose family, their humanity and happiness at the start and that even at journey's end may not see a normal life. And yes that loss became less pronounceable the longer the franchise has gone on but riders still suffer losses, yes some didn't get the most bitter of losses, Shotaro got Phillip back, Gentaro got Kengo back, and even Eiji was searching for means to get Ankh to come back but these people see many people lose lives in the conflict, lives ruined, fear spread throughout. But its just in the way that the showa riders act like this sign of weakness means that they don't count for that and everything is their fault, it would be a lot better sense if the Badan empire was made up of more Heisei rider enemies, but the majority of the monsters are showa era. The showa riders in this movie come off less like veterans who are trying to deal with their past on their own, they come off like a bunch of old assholes complaining about the modern generations being sad about people that are gone, congratulations on that Kamen Rider Taisen, you've made some of the most iconic heroes in japanese media into a bunch of jerks, I hope your poor attempt at drama was worth.

Which begs the question, who the hell was this movie made for, if we are talking showa era fans, is this how they want to see their heroes acting like, I wouldn't like to know about that and in heisei fans, by the gods if you are a fan of faiz this show just dunks on that show in regards to canon and how Takumi acts and if we are talking other representation of Heisei, the only real ones outside of Kouta are Shotaro and Haruto, and both are not really that quintessential, Shotaro has a fight against Black and Black RX, and Haruto slaps some sense into Takumi about helping the villains do their thing. Anywho big revelations, the leading general of Badan turns out to be Kamen Rider ZX who infiltrated the group as Hongo instructed him to do in a plan that would honestly make Marvelous and Tsukasa look at it with what the heck are you thinking. Big group fight and then Daigo Kiryu and the Toqgers show up to fight the big monster alongside Den-o and Gaim finshes off Fifteen in one of the worst looking suits imaginable while X, Faiz and Wizard destroy the machine that badan uses to reverse the worlds so movie over right... right?

I would make some witty comment about how this doesn't look good like, you've got a bug all over your chest Kouta, but if the costume designers are not giving their all then I won't

No, because the showa rider's still want to fight the heisei riders because... because they did this stupid you decide the ending BS about which side was the victor, Heisei or Showa, and just like the last time they did this, both options are unsatisfying and rather dumb endings to conflict, either Hongo admits defeat because Gaim protected a flower from an attack, or Kouta admits defeat because he realizes Hongo is holding back and they are all now buddy buddy, thank you for wasting your time on this and see you next year.

We hope you enjoyed this 1 and a half hour of unecesary fights, to the people we have flipped the bird with the writing here unfortuneately the credits do not include nothing but we are sorry over and over again.

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CONCLUSION

Let me be as frank as I can be as possible, Kamen Rider Taisen is the worst piece of Tokusatsu material I have ever seen. I may have gotten on this ride a bit later but just watching this felt like a gigantic insult to nearly 43 years of history. The characters are either unreasonable jerks or whiny idiots, the plot is barely there, the action sub par at best and just taking stuff we have already seen done before but has just grown to be mundane. As epilogues to both Decade and Faiz they are not, seeing as how Faiz was retconned and Decade having no epilogue outside of some claim about wanting to die. The villains suck and it is all around not a fun watch, watching this felt painful, like the worst kind of crossover that was done for marketing rather than an interesting story. Other Taisen movies may not reach amazing heights, but in comparison, Let's go, Taisen, Taisen Z, GP 3, and Superhero Senki feel like oscar nominee's in comparison to this tripe. Do not watch this movie unless you are absolutely curious about the film that even the main actor despises.

FINAL VERDICT: ABSOLUTE TRASH