What are your guys’ predictions on the vcinema plot line? 🍫
Here’s mine:
Hanto awakes in his apartment feeling unwell. At first he blames it on him being tired but after many sleepless nights he decides to go to the hospital to check on things for once. The doctor informs him that a strange organ was in his body causing an infection and offers to remove it but hanto refuses as he still wants to fight. He doesn't tell shouma or sachika of the sideeffects of the organ and goes about at his day. However the weight of the truth weighs heavy as he is the one with secrets now understanding the position shouma had been in trying to keep things to himself. Shouma notices his behavior but doesn't questions anything as they talk about how Lizel is still trapped in the human world. Lizel meanwhile is just chilling with her new gal pals.
Shouma and Hanto run into a Granute and fight it but it escapes and the side effects starts taking a toll on hanto. They go to a cafe so hanto could explain things and shouma urges hanto to try what he had ordered to help clear his head and he eventually does. Then Shouma runs into Lakia while chasing another granute and they fight alongside each other while hanto deals with a granute solo. Meanwhile Sachika is showing Lizel the wonders of the human world to convince her not to kill people cause that's illegal. Hanto is fighting a losing battle at first but then miraculously the new gochizo is born through shouma's wishes for hanto's survival and the og gochizos goes to deliver the new one to hanto. assuming it talks also maybe itll say some things and theh hanto uses it and explodes the granute yipee. Then lizel returns to the granute world to become president after being reformed and the day is saved. And then finally the doctor removes the organ so hanto no longer has to face the sideeffects and also relinquishes his position as a kamen rider.
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?!
