The lack of a winter Kamen Rider crossover movie has got me thinking that we don’t really need a Gavv x Gotchard crossover.
Gotchard’s story ended in a way that makes it difficult to create an epilogue that can also cross over into Gavv’s currently ongoing narrative. Bias for Gotchard aside, the story ending with Houtaro and Rinne’s graduation ends up creating a bookend for Gotchard’s story as a whole. Things can happen in between the TV show finale and the VCinema, but unless Hasegawa and the writing team are expecting to ass-pull a threat that was on par or worse than Geryon is unlikely. And even then, how would that connect to Gavv’s narrative? They just killed Sheeta, and there hasn’t really been a narrative break that you could slot the crossover into. Jeep’s out for revenge, and Nylev’s conspiring with Suga about something. I guess you could have Rango or Glotta doing something, but usually the movie’s there to feature a celebrity guest. Like the only thing I could see being a hook for Gavv is Lage9 becoming Vram in a post-credits scene.
The continuity snarl just makes all the recent winter movie lineups just so… off. In Revice x Saber, Touma had already given his sword back to the Sword of Logos, but now he has it again? And Geats x Revice makes no sense from a timeline perspective. Somehow the Igarashis had a fourth kid in the three months since the end of Revice, okay, a bit of a leap, but okay. Then the villains of the Revice side of the story are… what exactly? They’re… aliens. They’re not even demons? You know, the whole motif of Revice? Of ALL the reasons to have Ikki resurrect Vice and become Revice again, it’s ALIENS?! Not like a Giff cultist leftover? Hell, you could even use Orteca as the villain and have him actually matter! But nah. ALIENS! And they’re just working for the villain of the Geats side of the story, Colus, a former Game Master of the DGP. Colus’s inclusion in the movie makes way more sense than just ALIENS. Oh, and Keiwa also has an inner demon. This won’t matter until the last arc of Geats, but… LOOK! KEIWA WITH AN EARRING! Oh, and Michinaga’s not dead, but he was supposed to be dead in the Jyama Gardens… weren’t the DGP on a manhunt for Ace? Wasn’t Giroli fired as Game Master? Oh, Michinaga’s dead again. Bye bye, Tinkywinky~
Honestly, the winter movies really took a narrative dive when they stopped using the Movie Wars format with Ghost x Drive. Drive’s main story ended with Mr. Belt sealing himself away and all Roimudes eliminated. And both VCinemas feel narratively satisfying, Chase’s story being a side story that fits in with Drive’s timeline, and the Heart/Mach story acting as the epilogue after Shinnosuke’s retired from being a Rider and Gou’s making plans to resurrect Chase (and possibly Heart, Brain, and Medic). But then for the Ghost crossover, the Roimude commanders and Chase are resurrected as a part of a butterfly effect only to disappear once more when the time travel un-travels, ON TOP OF Mr. Belt waking himself up for the final fight only to go back to sleep. That’s also not accounting for Heisei Generations 1, where Gaim crashes into the sealed Drive Pit to wake up Mr. Belt AGAIN just so we can have the five Riders fighting together. Narratively, having Drive the Rider show up in a crossover where he’s not a summon makes no sense and is unsatisfying.
Speaking of unsatisfying, Reiwa the First Generation. OH BOY MORE TIME TRAVEL! Oma Zi-O Sougo reset the timeline as well as his and his friends’ powers, so now he, Geiz, and Tsukuyomi are all normal teens. But wait, no, we need their original personalities for the crossover! Oh, and the Zi-O villain is… a Super Time Jacker Swartz had left over from before he died. Sure. The changes in the timeline make sense because Another Zero-One, but then after the final fight between Sougo and Aruto (???), the Zi-O trio are back to being ordinary high schoolers without powers? And they get their powers back for the Geiz VCinema and whatever the hell Inoue was cooking for the Decade VS Zi-O specials.
OH WAIT, HEISEI GENERATIONS FOREVER! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! HOW MANY TIMELINES ARE THERE NOW?!
The recent Sentai crossover VCinexts, too. What is happening? The last Sentai crossover movie that I actually enjoyed was probably Kiramager VS Ryusoulger, only because the story makes sense. It’s set after Ryusoulger’s ending, but during the events of Kiramager, and each character being present works with how the former ended and how the latter’s narrative worked. Okay. Cool. Surely they can keep that up for the rest of the Reiwa era, right?
Zenkaiger VS Kiramager: I thought that Zenkaiger established that each Sentai had their own world? But now the Kiramagers are just here? Oh, and why are all the Sentai Reds from Gokaiger up to Ryusoulger here? (RIP to Shishi Red’s suit).
Donbrothers VS Zenkaiger: Okay, Tarou’s done being the leader because he lost his memories- no, wait, he’s back. And Jirou being leader now makes sense, i guess- why is he a dick now? Didn’t his two personalities work things out? Oh, they killed Sonoi… No, it’s okay, it’s fine, I’m FINE WITH THIS! And now Zocks is the main antagonist, no, wait, why is there a Wald? DIdn’t all the Tojiru Gears get destroyed? At least we got Stacey and Hakaiser in the roll call…
King-Ohger VS Donbrothers: Uh huh. The Donbrothers are just… on Terra. No space travel or anything. At least they resolved Sonoi’s unsatisfying death- IT’S GII!
King-Ohger VS Kyoryuger: So… they reset the world of King-Ohger to put Gira in evil clothing. And Daigo just happened to be there when Jeramie was finishing his retelling of the main King-Ohger narrative so he can pull the Gaburimix Shooter out of nowhere to restore the kings’ memories. I think King-Ohger in Space made more sense- wait, why is Tsurugi here? Wasn’t Kyuranger in another universe from the main Sentai world? Oh hey, Kingranger’s here, cool.
Hell, any time the Gokaigers have appeared after the end of the TV show in 2012 with all the Ranger Keys again just… doesn’t make sense? Did they make time to go and collect all the keys one by one? How did they do that in Go-Busters VS Gokaiger? It makes more sense in Strongest Battle, since we see Akaranger lending Marvelous his key, but then in Ten Gokaiger, how does the government have the keys from the Go-Busters to Kiramager teams if they’ve been fighting all these other threats?
Back to the main point, I don’t really see any way that a Gavv x Gotchard could conceivably work, and part of me is relieved that we won’t. You can’t bring back the Sisters, because then what was the point of their deaths? There’s no way there’s another evil alchemist that no one knew about, since the Alchemist Union is basically rebuilt without the three stooges from the main story. And with how the Stomach company is set up, there’s no way Rango is hiding another unknown sibling or family member to act as the main antagonist. Not when the former is willing to throw out his own siblings if they’re not working hard enough. (I can see Dente going “Oh, yeah. Them. I forgot about them for a hot minute. Anyway, they’re SUPER evil, be careful Shouma. Want a potato chip?”)
Taka from Kotetsu Toys Japan made a good point about the Outsiders event - the impact of certain characters showing up in the miniseries or in contexts that don’t make narrative sense lessens the actions that happen to them in their home series. What was the point of Fuwa’s death (?) if Horobi’s back? Why did Evolt choose now of all times to return? Desast is back, but so is Brain? Wasn’t he still being restored by Gou? Why’s the Orphenoc King there? GODDAMNIT GENM’S BACK AGAIN?!
Kamen Rider Gotchard is like a bento. There are parts that you love to eat, and there are parts you can’t help but pick around. It’s comfort food, not extravagant, not rich, but just right.
Truly, this show has risen to my top ten Rider shows. Thank you to the cast and crew who made every week something to look forward to.
Gavv so far has been adequate. It’s a very Junko Komura show, if that makes sense. Looking back at her main works makes me consider her a “safety net” writer.
Zyuohger and LuPat both came after different approaches to the Sentai formula (Ninninger being a hot mess and Kyuranger overloading the budget), and were used to get “back on track”, though those two were hampered by their reliance on filler and refusal to progress the story. Zenkaiger similarly played it safe by reusing different MOTW plotlines for each episode with their own spin on the story, which was boosted by the script being very open to ad-libbing.
That’s what Gavv feels like—a safe Rider show to give everyone a breather after the experimental insanity of Gotchard and whatever the fuck is going on with Outsiders. So far, Gavv feels like it needs time to take off, but that’s because the show is taking its time doing all the safety checks.
That being said, I do think introducing the secondary rider at episode 6 is too fast, but what do I know?
The ToQger crossover was leagues better than the Go-Onger crossover. Genba’s obsession to defeat Disrace paralleled Akira’s desire to find his place to die so damn well! And getting Right actually fighting alongside the Boonboomgers was the best, especially the line-changing into Mio and Hikari’s colors! Why we couldn’t have that with Sosuke will be something I will nitpick forever.
Speaking of Akira, Boonboomger is doing a very poor job of convincing me Sakito and Byun D are trying to be a separate group from the core Boonboomger team. It’s an issue that I feel Sentai does seldomly very well in recent years, in establishing the extra heroes as separate entities from the core team. Either they immediately become a member of the team (Shinken Gold, Gokai Silver, Zyuoh the World), or they spend two or three episodes beefing with the core team before joining for real, then a later episode (around the 38 to 42 mark) actually has them join for real for real. In the case of Akira, he established himself as a separate party from the ToQgers and maintained that distance from them very easily, even coming into conflict with them due to a promise he made with Schwartz. And when he returned, it really felt like he joined for real.
Comparing that to Sakito, who unfortunately falls into the group of sixths who kinda… exist, a la Kiramai Silver, LuPat X, Don Dragoku/Torabolt. They all have really interesting backstories that are either not explored much, or they don’t matter in the long run. We haven’t really had many scenes where Sakito gets to be a cleaner, and he’s just there as the Boonboomger’s sixth. He’s beefing with Genba because… they’re both technically extraterrestrials(?).
Some examples of this kind of dynamic that Sentai has done well are with Shurikenger, Twokaiser, and Starninger. Zox and his family never identified themselves as Zenkaigers, despite being on friendly terms with them, and Kinji was introduced explicitly as a separate party from the Igasaki clan before being induced as an apprentice. Shurikenger especially worked well, due to his gimmick of borrowing faces and appearances. He was more of a shadow mentor to both the Hurricanegers and Gouraigers, and didn’t consider himself a member of the team until Lady Gozen was killed.
Sakito feels like missed potential, similar to Noel from LuPat. The show couldn’t really keep X from staying neutral, and ended up making him a permanent member of the thieves despite his main selling point. Hell, he even took the Siren Striker away from the Patrangers.
If you’re enjoying Boonboomger, all the power to you.
Gavv’s first episode was good. Without subs, I’d give it a 7.6 out of ten.
Watching the first fight, though… I guess this is what people wanted out of a first fight? Incredible set pieces and dynamic action. If you think about it…
Zero-One: dynamic slow-mo and camera work that was refined from the new filming techniques Toei began using with LuPat and Zi-O (an excellent start to the Reiwa era of Rider)
Saber: main characters transported to another dimension and a cg dragon (which tokutwitter got butthurt about because the cg wasn’t as advanced for Toei as it is post-King-Ohger)
Revice: very dynamic fighting choreography (I can’t think of anything else to comment on)
Geats: Ace destroys a flying castle with a motorcycle (I can’t think of anything else to comment on)
Gotchard: …the fight happens outside of the school in universe, and footage was taken with a drone, playing to the simplicity of the show, as well as an homage to Showa-style Rider fights (which tokutwitter got butthurt about because bleh)
Gavv: very refined and polished action with excellent editing, use of CGI that was tested during Zenkaiger, Donbrothers, and especially King-Ohger, and is concurrently being utilized for Boonboomger, and the constant changes in filming location for one fight alone
If we were to categorize what kind of Rider fan I am, I’d say… I’m kinda a Beroba? I love fight scenes and choreography out of everything shown in tokusatau, but I still stick with each show as it comes. I will be watching again with subs before I judge it. *cough cough don’t judge a book by its cover cough cough*
