Tokusatsu Review: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Another Ending 3: Genm vs Lazer (Spoilers)

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 Here we are at long last folks, the culmination of the Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Gaiden movies, the epic showdown between Kamen Rider Genm and Kamen Rider Lazer. Now before you fret about how we got to this point here's the links to the reviews of Brave and Snipe and Paradox with Poppy.

Brave and Snipe

http://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/07/tokusatsu-review-kamen-rider-ex-aid.html

Paradox with Poppy

http://ondavidsbrain.blogspot.com/2018/07/tokusatsu-review-kamen-rider-ex-aid_21.html

 After some irrelevant BS involving Kuroto looking like Japanese Ricardo Montalbán we open on Kiriya Kujo paying his respects to his dead colleague, Jungo Aihara. Afterwords reports start coming in as the streets of Tokyo are swarming with Genm Dangerous Zombie Level X clones who are infecting everyone they come across with a Zombie Bugster virus. Kujo transforms into Lazer Turbo and tries to fight one of the Genm's but to no avail when suddenly an in game guide shows up to explain what's going on.

Pffft, I guess Kuroto decided that being God was boring so now he's auditioning for the role of Sebastian for a future Live Action Black Butler movie. Personally I think he'd be better as Grell, tell me you can't see him swinging around a chainsaw!

 Dan Sebastian explains that this is all a part of Kuroto's final game, Zombie Chronicle. It's literally just a zombie reskin of Kamen Rider Chronicle, yep it's official Dan Kuroto is now the perfect parody of the Triple A game industry, when all else fails, just add Zombies! The catch here is that if somebody kills one of the Genm's they can revive anyone who lost their life to Game Syndrome as a Bugster. But if anyone gets infected by the Zombie Virus then it's game over in all sense of the term. Naturally our heroes are livid at this development with Kujo combing the city to track the psycho down.

 While the rest of the riders (Save Emu who's still in recovery after the events of the last movie) form their own plan on how to deal with Kuroto's death game Lazer manages to save Dr Feelgood who was about to be zombified by one of the Gemns. She's still in shock after Kuroto's betrayal but he manages to snap her out of it and convinces her to start making up for helping Kuroto by working to solve his newest crisis. Back at his hideout Kuroto shows Masamune his latest and greatest creation, the God Maximum Mighty X Gashat. This Gashat will allow him to create any game he can think of, so it's basically the Unity engine if it were coded by Lucifer. Kuroto then tosses Masamune the Bug Visor 2 that contains Parano and the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat juuuust out his reach and leaves him with a Genm Zombie and walks out as he prepares to ascend to Godhood.

 This pisses off Daddy something fierce and he breaks out of the Level 0 Cables with nothing but his pure rage. Because if anyone with a dangerous God complex is going to conquer the world it's gonna be him and not his ungrateful bastard son! Kujo finally confronts Kuroto himself who tells him that Zombie Chronicle was created by God Maximum Mighty X, so if he can destroy that Gashat; Kuroto's plan will be completely flushed down the toilet. Kuroto, being the over confident nut bar that he is tosses him the Shakariki Sports and Jet Combat Proto Gashats as one of "God's blessings". Kujo, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth takes them and transforms into Lazer Turbo while Kuroto reveals his ultimate form, God Maximum Gamer Level Billion, which is just a Genm recoloring of Ex-Aid's Maximum Gamer Level 99.

 Despite the lame rehash of the costume the powers themselves more then make up for it as Genm kicks Lazer Turbo into next week even with his Level 0 ability. He even pulled a Sephiroth and used Meteor to blast Lazer Turbo out of the sky! Chronos has finally had enough of Genm's bullshit and tries to take on Jr but even the power of Pause isn't enough to stop him! Yes he can even move within the frozen time! But that's not enough, no no Genm delivers the finishing blow to Chronos by punching him into space and literally hitting him with the God Dan Kuroto moon!!! 

 I mean, forget forcing everyone to play a Live action Walking Dead game, just smash the Earth with the moon and they'll proclaim you as King Shit of Dick Mountain for all of eternity, I mean if you could do that why bother with her test of this horse hockey?! Nevertheless after demonstrating his Game Genie levels of BS Genm teleports away leaving the dying Masamune to tell Kujo his last request, stop Kuroto and dies again leaving his Bug Visor 2 behind.

Bakusou Bike, I don't feel so good.

 The next day the heroes are still desperately trying to deal with the Genm Zombie outbreak while Dr Feelgood asks a Sebastian the full details of how Zombie Chronicle will end. She learns that depending on how Zombie Chronicle ends "the world will be revolutionized". She tells this to Emu, Poppy and Parado and that all the games he's made have a hidden meaning behind them, reviving Lovelica; only Chronos would be able to destroy him due to his Null physical skill thus allowing him to revive Masamune and in turn extract his Parado in order to acquire the same power as Emu to handle God Maximum Mighty X once it was fully developed. She also says that above all else they can't let Kujo die. Though that may be a bit tricky since he found Kuroto again, only this time he came prepared and uses Masamune's Buggle Driver 2 with his Giri Giri Chambara Gashat to transform into Lazer Level X.

 Kuroto transforms into Level Billion again and proceeds to beat Lazer again until he unleashes his critical strike finisher that completely disables God Maximum Mighty X and reduces Genm back to his base form. Apparently Masamune transferred the last of Reset to the Driver so that he could completely erase Genm's God tier powers. This sends him over the edge and charges at Lazer like a mad animal. The battle continues into the night right towards Oomori Hill. The two finally deliver the final cross blow resulting in Kuroto losing his last life and like Jules had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity addressing himself as just, plain, Dan Kuroto before he dies.

 With his death the Genm Zombies disappear and the infected people are cured. After the end credits we see Kujo recovering in the hospital after nearly dying due to the use of the Buggle Driver 2 without a perfect Bugster Antibody. So, how is he still alive? He received God's blessing, thanks to Dr Feelgood she was able to reverse engineer God Maximum Mighty X and not only revived Kujo but also restored him to being a human again. Not only that but if she further researches that Gashat she'll eventually be able to completely restore the Game Syndrome Victims.

 So we end this trilogy with Kujo paying his respects to Kuroto and says that he'll tell of his legend. That was Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Another Ending: Genm vs Lazer and now that all is said and done I of course have some thoughts. Namely if Kuroto knew how to restore all of the victims all along, why go back to his God toying with people's lives routine? I theorize it was a hedging of bets for him, remember what the Dan Sebastian said? "Depending on the outcome of Zombie Chronicle the world will be revolutionized."

 Knowing it's Kuroto we're talking about there's only two outcomes as he sees it, 1 he'll take over the world with Zombie Chronicle and rule as a God of games with all lives on Earth as his playthings as the ultimate proof of his God tier game design skills. Or 2, he'll be defeated, they analyze God Maximum Mighty X and with Dr Feelgood's Geneticist speciality discover how to completely restore the Game Syndrome victims. So either way, he'll win and the world will have no other choice but to recognize his abilities. There's also been some controversy about his development over the series and suddenly backsliding for these movies but like I said he could have just focused on Zombie Chronicle so why create God Maximum Mighty X as well? Basically I see this whole thing as a cry for help, either he creates his fools paradise or someone finally puts him out of his madness, like I said at the end when he addressed himself as just plain Dan Kuroto he finally won his game and claimed the prize, peace.

 Also it turns out that he's not dead, not just because of the final scene I mean he's really not dead.

Yep he's still alive. In the Ex-Aid Sequel novel Mighty Novel X which takes place three years after this movie it's revealed that Kuroto created a back up of his core consciousness inside of the God Maximum Mighty X Gashat. Now before anyone says otherwise this was written by Ex-Aid's head writer Yuya Takahashi and Toei does seem to deem these novels as cannon so yes this will happen, God has not forsaken you mortals. Like I said God Maximum Mighty X was his hedging of bets.

 As for the other title character of this movie Kujo finally gets to settle the score with Kuroto over what happened on Christmas 2017. Personally I thought getting the chance to kill him over and over again to develop Mighty Doctor X would have helped bleed that out but hey Kuroto is a megalomaniacal nut job who uses everyone and thing to his own agenda and he did kill him for that purpose so yeah we all wouldn't try to stop him, don't deny it. Aside from that he finally came to terms with what happened to Jungo and moved past that with the Bugster cure but not a whole lot of development for him, plenty of fight scenes and character moments but development wise he got his fair share in the main series so I can't honestly complain.

 In summation the Another Ending Trilogy was pretty much ok, it tied up some loose ends, gave us more of the God Dan Kuroto (a bit too much, seriously who came up with that scene?!) We also know that the team still have a long way to go in ridding the world of the Bugster virus but aren't going to compromise their values or friends to make that happen. All and all a good note to close Ex-Aid on before it potentially gets flushed down the toilet with Zi-o. But we still have one more adventure to go on with Ex-Aid as next time we have a fond farewell to the Heisei era of Kamen Rider and a proper team up with Ex-Aid and Build with Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final.

Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.

Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai.