Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Taisen part 1: BETRAYAL! (Spoilers)

Well, here it is. Now if you seriously want to see this movie. Be warned that there will be spoilers for not only this but Gaim. So if you haven’t seen Gaim and really want too, then I order you to stop, watch up until episode 23, the spring special crossover with Toquger, and then come back. If not, then here is the movie in about 30 seconds.

Now that everyone else is gone, we can start this train wreck. We open up with Zawame city on fire. Hang on when did Zawame turn into Detroit? Well it’s definitely going to take more then Robocop to sort out this mess, especially when apparently the forecast calls for raining Kamen Riders

It's raining Kamen Riders, Hallelujah!

 Specifically Kamen Rider Kabuto in his masked form who then uses his cast off to turn into his Rider form. He then jumps down to fight against Kamen Rider Stronger and already Kabuto has this in the bag. Since Kabuto can use his clock up power to go almost as fast as the speed of light, he's one of the strongest riders ever. By that, almost nothing can touch this guy. And yeah, Kaubto is just playing with Stronger, however Stronger uses his electrical powers to create an area trap that stuns Kabuto. Of course, it proves futile as they both use their Rider kicks, with Kabuto clocking up again to stop Stronger and blasts the guy to pieces. Then Kabuto starts taking fire from somewhere up in the sky. This turns out to be Kamen Rider Sky Rider. NO, NO NO 1000 TIMES NO! For those who don't know, Sky Rider has anti gravity devices that allow him to glide with infinite flight time, he however has NO RANGED ATTACKS! It would be like if Rocky started to breathe fire or something, give a completely new meaning to his trademark "Hokey Smokes" line. Anyway, the really stupid part is where Sky rider takes down Kabuto, you know, the guy that can move at the speed of light. 

Because the plot says so.

 Anyway, after that moment of stupid we have some out of character stupidity, appropriately from one of the dumbest riders in recent memory, Kamen Rider Fourze. I say out of character since Fourze's shtick was trying to befriend all Heroes, and here he is in his Rocket States form fighting a hero. Brilliant. Sure, Sky Rider may be fast but then again a guy with two small rockets on his arms might be a bit faster, then the guy that took down a dude that can move at the speed of light!

"There, I'm sure we'll be friends now!"

However, Kamen Rider J doesn't exactly approve of Fourze's tough love approach and delivers his own heavy-handed response. Of course, since Fourze is as dumb as a sack of hammers he completely ignores the big, glowing weak spot on J and is smacked down as Kouta watches. Fourze then turns into, a Lockseed.

I have a joke for this, but I'm saving it for later, trust me.

The Lockseed then falls into the hand of this dude from the ministry of silly hats.

"With my collection of swag, I will rule the world somehow, MEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!"

This is Ambassador Darkness who seems to be in the purple realm as he laughs triumphantly while Kouta transforms to face off against J. While Kouta apparently paid off the CGI artist to give him super jumping powers, he then decided to use his Suika arms to finish of J as we cut to out title card for the movie. Wait, what? Yep, we're barely two minutes into this movie and there's one hour and thirty-six minutes to go! Well, that's why we have multi-parters right? Anyway, we then cut to one week earlier as we see Yggdrasil overseeing some construction. When suddenly a giant purple fissure appears and a purple hand starts to drag the construction workers under ground. Too bad they didn't have a six-demon bag; they could have fixed that no problem.

"You'll come out no more!"

We then cut to the garage where Team Gaim hangs out as Mai and Kouta are talking about another world inside of the earth. Yet there is no mention of mole people in this conversation, go figure. However, since the article that they are reading mention monsters appearing and eating people; they think that Inves have appeared and Yggdrasill may be trying to cover it up, Kouta decides to investigate, Mai coming along. The two eventually managed to find the site where the purple crack opens underneath them and Mai and Kouta fall, into a void of pink.

Especially since after that they land in an Upside Down Zawame. As the camera adjusts, Kouta looks up at the sky and sees an upside down Earth. The question is halted when the pair hears a noise in the distance and thinks there might be an enemy near by. The noise came from a boy, who then runs away, Mai giving chase, thinking the boy might know something, Kouta following behind. The boy, clearly being informed about stranger danger creates a hole in the stairwell he's on to avoid Kouta. Mai and Kouta manage to catch up to the kid, named Shuu who they manage to convince aren't his enemies. Shuu says that he has something he has to do with his powers; he's just not sure what.

Mr Chekhov, care to comment?

We then get one of our favorite clichés. The character with amnesia that plays a key part in the story for some reason, goody. He does however remember running from somebody. The three decide to go back the way they came for now until the plot says they can proceed, I mean Shuu gets his memories back. We then see Tsukasa taking a picture of the three from a distance like a creeper. One trip through the pink realm later and they find that they are back on their earth when a voice calls out from the darkness telling Kouta not to take Shuu out of the world. We then see a man slowly walking across the rail above them with shadows covering him, where we finally see his face.

SEGATA SANSHIRO!

No no, the man turns out to be Takashi Hongou aka Kamen Rider #1. Takashi askes if Kouta is Gaim, he says yes and Takashi says that Kouta must hand Shuu over. Kouta says hell no and Takashi says that he won't tolerate someone like Kouta as a Rider. This controversial conversation is tabled however when Kouta hears Combat-Roids coming up behind him, Shuu saying that he was running from them. Takashi then jumps from the rail and starts fighting the mooks off telling Kouta, Mai and Shuu to get out of there. Takashi then performs his classic Henshin pose, jumps into air, and then transforms into Kamen Rider 1. To give some credit to this movie I love the recreations of the classic riders transformation sequences. Having seen the original sequence, the recreations in this movie look damn impressive. Ichigo (Ichigo is Japanese for 1, Strawberry and 1,5) then easily takes care of the roids with a rider kick while Kouta and the other two get away. They manage to find a hiding spot while Kouta asks Shuu the first of the dumbest questions in this movie.

Hold on a sec there chief.

This actually requires explanation, since Kuuga, the rider series up until Decade have been mostly in separate universes, after Decade all previous primary Kamen Rider universes including the universe with the Riders from Ichigo to Black Rx have merged seamlessly into one main universe. After their version of Crisis on Infinite Earths aka the Rider war, the Rider series starting from Double aka the Neo-Heisei riders have mostly taken place in the same universe. However, there were a few bumps in the road in terms of continuity, though that was mostly due to OOO's continuity being screwed up. But aside from that, mostly a focused universe. Then after Super Hero Taisen the world of the Riders and the world of the other Ishinomori characters all take place in the same universe, again. "Where is he going with this?" You may be asking, well hang on and I'll tell you, in the end of Kamen Rider Wizards series Kouta was brought in to help Wizard against an enemy, in that encounter Wizard addressed himself as a Kamen Rider, Gaim then said that he might as well call himself a Kamen Rider as well. Kouta should know what a Kamen Rider is since he called himself a Kamen Rider during the encounter with Wizard!!!

                           

Ugh, by the way we're only at the ten-minute mark of the movie, get used to seeing this clip a lot more. Anyway, the three start to talk, Kouta taking issue about Takashi saying that he doesn't accept him as a Rider, Mai asking Shuu if Takeshi might want him for his power and Shuu saying that he doesn't know and that apparently his powers allow him to reverse things. Mai then asks Shuu to start drawing what he remembers to see if they can help.

What is that?

No, at first they think it's Yggdrasill tower, but it turns out it isn't. But before they can think anymore the Pink energy start to get really dangerous and starts erupting. But instead of pepto bismol it starts spewing out more Combat-roids which start attacking civilians. Kouta goes to intercept them, where he not only gets goons but also several monsters. The field leader, Porcupine-roid announces their group.

Faces only a mother could love.

They of course plan on taking over the surface world, but for their plans to succeed, they need Shuu. Kouta then takes out his Sengoku driver and transforms into Gaim.

Also, hello product placement I see you!

He then fights the minions along with several Shocker monsters before being intercepted by General Shadow along with three general level monsters and a normal monster to get in on the blanket party.

Quiz time! Name the monster with the series!

Kouta does get some much needed back up from the other main Gaim riders, Kaito as Kamen Rider Baron, Mitsuzane aka Mitchi as Kamen Rider Ryugun and his older brother Takatora as Kamen Rider Zangetsu Shin. With their help, Gaim turns the tides against the Badan monsters, until some dude in black shows up and smacks Baron and Ryugun like a rag-doll. He then asks if Kouta is the fifteenth hesei warrior. Kouta asks who he is and Mr Beatdown says that he is a Kamen Rider with the power of 15. He then pulls out a Sengoku driver (how he got that I have no clue) and a skull patterned Lockseed (really have no idea how he got that) and transforms into another credit that I give this movie; one of our main villains, Kamen Rider 15.

Trust me, he gets even better

With that, I think I should leave it here for now. Don't want to overexert myself here. Because next time is where I really start to get nitpickey.

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Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Mighty Morphen Power Rangers is owned by Saban Entertainment, Haim Saban, Renaissance Atlantic Entertainment, Toei Company, Ltd. and MMPR Productions, Inc. 
Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation.
The Spoony Experiment is owned by Noah Antwiler
Ultima IX: Ascension is owned by Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, and Richard Garriot AKA Lord British.