Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Another Ending 1: Brave and Snipe (Spoilers)

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 Oh goody more Kamen Rider Gaiden films to cash in on the last Kamen Rider season/ fill any left over plot-holes. Now these aren't all bad all things considered I mean the best that I've seen so far is still Drive Saga Chaser which I covered around when it came out.

Part 1 View

Part 2 View

Part 3 View

 However the other two Drive movies; Mach and Heart are a bit of a mixed bag. The Gaim ones were pretty decent as well with the best being in my opinion the special for Kamen Rider Knuckle, highlighting a character that really didn't get a whole lot of narrative focus in the main show. Dukes was at least vital for setting up a possible ongoing threat for the Armored Riders past the events of the show, and at least we get to see Duke in a non Energy Rider form. Baron and Zangetsu's specials were entertaining in their own rights.

Zangetsu View

Baron View

 While the worst of all the Gaiden specials is the Kamen Rider Specter special, but then again almost everything related to Ghost sucks like the Poltergust 3000 so at least its consistent with the show. As expected there's three movies for Ex-Aid, arguably one of the most popular recent Kamen Rider series though instead of the three focusing on one character they each focus on two and today we're looking at one of the worst riders on the show and the ongoing saga of Pepe Le Pew and his formerly jailbait charge. Now of course since this takes place after Ex-Aid spoilers are going to be unavoidable so here's the warning and off we go.

 We open two years after the main series concluded with the God Dan Kuroto at his mansion (would you expect less from this guy) auditioning to be the new That guy with the Glasses by rambling on about how he's going to, of course try to kill the Riders. According to Hiiro they not only somehow lost track of the guy but he also stole the Bugvisor and Proto-Gashat that he squirreled away. Ok how did this happen? He was kept in only one place you could literally have one guy watch him as he was stuck in Poppy's console under lock and key, what did Kuroto escape while the guy went to take a dump?! I imagine that it went a little something like this.

 But they've got bigger concerns then a deranged Kamen Rider with a dangerous god complex and a personality more akin to Daffy Duck then God. Thanks to the combined efforts of Taiga, Hiiro and Kujo ER is steadily working to not only curing all strains of Gamer Syndrome but are also close to restoring everyone who lost Kamen Rider Chronicle, including hopefully Hiiro's girlfriend Saki. As Taiga and Nico are wrapping up another day in the clinic Nico's past comes calling in the form of one of her old gaming rivals from America, Luke Kidman. But just before he finally gets that restraining order he clearly wanted he shows symptoms of Game Syndrome and collapses in pain.

Meanwhile at the hall of Justice, er I mean uh this place, whatever.

 Hiiro and Kujo are meeting with the head in charge of the project, Dr Saiko Yaotome.

EVIL, obviously evil! I mean whenever a new character is introduced in these specials odds are good that unless we see them in trouble in their first scene, they're evil.

 Dr Feelgood tells Hiiro and Kujo that her team has a bold idea to restore the lost people, by using Bugsters. Now don't worry this isn't like ADAM replacing cells with unstable steam versions; according to Feelgood the reason why completed Bugsters retain their hosts memories is because their genes still exist within the Bugster in a broken down or divided form. So instead of Bioshock pseudo science, the movie is going with Assassins Creed pseudo science in that memories are encoded into our DNA. Now keep in mind, Feelgood's an expert on Gene therapy, more like JEAN therapy right guys?! Shut up that was funny!

 After Hiiro turns down a dinner date with Dr Feelgood he runs into Saki. And no this isn't a static barely alive facsimile like what Chronos did; this is the real Saki restored from the Drago Knight Hunter Z Proto-Gashat. But she disappears before Hirro can confirm it is her. After the title card we follow up on Hirro indulging his sweet tooth. (Note his actor Toshiki Seto hates sweets, after apparently eating too much chocolate and got a nosebleed afterwords as a kid, casting can be a bitch.) Afterwords he runs into Saki again who confirms that he's not seeing things. But she's got herself a new boyfriend, unfortunately it's this cartoon.

Ren Amagasaki AKA the Lovelica Bugster AKA a Kilgrave you can barely take seriously.

 Hiiro is of course confused and horrified at this since last time he saw him he was begin permakilled by Chronos and last he checked people die when they're killed.

 Actually he did get better since after Chronos used Reset Ren and Saki were restored by an outside force, I'll give you a minute to guess who. But now that Saki's hooked up with this pink creeper Hiiro puts the pieces together, he knows a brainwashing job when he sees one and transforms into Kamen Rider Brave Fantasy Gamer LV 50 to fight Ren who in turn pulls out a Bugvisor to assume his Bugster form. But there's one detail Hiiro forgot, since Lovelica is a Bugster from a dating sim game, physical attacks won't work on him allowing Pinkie Pie to kick Brave's ass. Ren also has Saki pour salt and lemon juice on Hiiro's wounds by saying that all he did was for nothing before they leave him to stew in his failure.

 Back at Taiga's clinic Luke is slowly dying due to his infection from Lovelica and Nico doesn't want anything to do with him since he's basically a reminder of how she used to be. However there's no Lovelica vaccine so in order to save Luke they have to kill Lovelica. Back at CR Hiiro talks to Emu and Poppy about the investigation into where Kuroto ran off too, but nothing's come up. Though Emu might have a clue, during the events of the Kamen Rider Para-DX Hyper Battle Video he and Parado cleared a puzzle game Kuroto created and figures that that game was a trap to give him enough time to escape.

Get used to seeing this whenever Kuroto's involved it's basically his exclusive version of "there's a simple explanation for that" in being used to explain how and why he does half the shit he does.

 Speaking of; back at his mansion Kuroto lays out the terms behind Ren and Saki's restoration. He unlocked her data from the Proto Gashat and cultivated Ren's virus in Luke but like Cinderella unless Ren can become complete before midnight the next day he and Saki will be reduced back to data and disappear. Though it looks like he might have to worry about that end as Luke being the creepy stalker fuckstick that he is, well Nico can't stand the sight of him. After Hiiro has a walk down memory lane about his and Saki's relationship Tiaga pulls out the one thing he can use to get past Lovelica's defenses, the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat. He tries to transform into Chronos with it but since it requires a perfect immunity to all strains of the Bugster virus to use it it causes severe pain to him and he blacks out.

 The next day Kujo calls out Hiiro to give him information on the Kuroto investigation that according to eyewitnesses they saw someone rather interesting and gives him a map of the locations Lovelica was seen at. But before Kujo can offer assistance Nico calls Hiiro for help with Taiga hemorrhaging blood all over the place trying to control the power of Chronos and he runs off. After an interesting conversation between Kujo and Feelgood Hiiro makes it to the clinic where he learns why Taiga was trying to do this craziness, develop the perfect Antibody not only to defeat Lovelica, but restore Saki to atone for his failure to save her in the first place.

 Hiiro doesn't want Taiga to kill himself over this and tries to assuage his concerns by going after Lovelica himself but Taiga knows that only Cronus can disable Lovelica's defenses so he ambushes Hiiro and fights him. The two are barely standing after the encounter but Taiga leaves and after some melodrama he steals the Bugvisor 2 from Poppy. Though this is suicide since only Bugsters or a Patient Zero can use that driver otherwise it could be fatal to normal Gamer Driver users. Nevertheless before midnight Taiga manages to find Saki and Lovelica and using the Bugvisor 2 finally manages to become Kamen Rider Chronos and engages him managing to negate his anti-volience defenses and his brainwashing on Saki, but eventually his body collapses under the strain of Chronos and powers down, the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat flying away from the driver.

 Thankfully he has a tag team partner, Hiiro transforming into Legacy Gamer Lv 100 becomes a literal knight in shining armor and finally kills Lovelica. After he and Saki have one last heart to heart, midnight strikes and Saki fades away again until the Knight can finally awaken her from her spell of endless sleep. But this isn't where our story ends as with Lovelica's death Luke is cured and he and Nico decide to return to America to settle their beef once and for all. Also this was all according to God Dan Kuroto's plan, he got what he wanted from Lovelica, Taiga's Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat. Now that it could be used to attain the power of Chronos it can be used to reproduce the Master Gashat. So Brave and Snipe ends with Kuroto using the new Master Gashat to restore his father, Dan Masamune with the help of his accomplice Dr Feelgood!

 So that was Ex-Aid another Ending Brave and Snipe and it did work to give some closure to Hiiro and Taiga regarding Saki and how they both failed to save her as well as Taiga returning the favor for Hiiro saving his life back in the main series. The return of Lovelica can be a bit head scratching as the full effects of Cronus' reset is questionable, even in the main series it just seemed like something the writers pulled out of their asses to keep the plot going, though with what little is explained about reset it certainly is plausible, especially with God Dan Kuroto's programing capabilities. The Nico and Luke subplot was a bit unnecessary since we already got some development for Nico and adding this old rival of hers into the mix was unnecessary, though it probably worked better then just infecting some random person with Lovelica's virus to get this whole thing started.

 But we're not done here so come by next time for Parado and Poppy's stories.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.
Family Guy is owned by Seth Mcfarline, 20th century fox television, Fuzzy door Productions and Fox Television animation. 
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is owned by Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Python (Monty) Pictures and EMI films.