April 4th marked the 50th anniversary of Kamen Rider and a lot of news dropped. Most of it was toy related, but there were several major projects and releases announced that fall more into this blogs forte. I wanted to do a post on the day, but I was busy with other projects and I wanted some time to gather my thoughts on the announcements. So this is a bit late to the party, but I've had a good 2 weeks to process everything.
Bare with me because I have some thoughts about the first two.
Fuuto PI
No thanks.
I usually don't like being that blatant or unmitigated from the get go, but I wanna get the negative out first and this is dumb (to me) for a number of reasons.
For those that don't know, this is an adaptation of the Futo PI Manga, which is a sequel to Kamen Rider W. Now I don't believe I've ever talked about this before, but Kamen Rider W is one of my favorite Rider series. It's an incredibly well written entry that incorporated a lot of the story elements, themes, and visuals that were absent within the franchise for a while. You have meta elements such as Kamen Rider Skull inspiring W in much the same way Kamen Rider originally started out as a Skull Man adaptation. Accel in the series fills a role very similar to Riderman where his obsession for vengeance causes him to be somewhat antagonistic to the main hero. And you have a return to form of Kamen Rider as this mythic local hero, mixed in with just a touch of pulp noir elements as the man who loves and defends his city. All of these ideas blend wonderfully.
The head writer, Riku Sanjo, is capable of weaving a great narrative with fantastic characters and he understands how to incorporate and reinterpret staples of a franchise along with originality and a bit of meta commentary.
Futo PI, which is still written by Riku Sanjo, is a piece of shit. Which brings me to the main problem with Riku Sanjo and Futo PI. As much as I love a lot of his work, the man has a massive problem whenever he returns to a previous body of work. He has what I can only describe as development amnesia. Every time he has returned to work on something he once headed, it's like the reset button has been pressed because none of the characters act right. Instead of the characters being an extension or continuation of when we last saw them, they act like they did upon their original introduction. Development is tossed right out the window it's extremely bad in Futo PI. The term character assassination is used too lightly, but that's a pretty apt description of how bad Shotaro and Philip's chemistry is. If you've seen W and know all that they went through and then seen how the act in the manga, it's almost outright offensive. The press release stating that there is "No disconnect from the original show and manga" is the most hilarious pile of bullshit I've seen lately. No offense to anyone working on the anime, but I have no interest in this given how atrocious the source is. I simply do not care.
I also have to question the intelligence of bringing this over when W itself is not available (officially) aside from the first two episodes. I mean the obvious answer is they know plenty of people have seen it, but don't want to acknowledge how. Still, you'd expect maybe an announcement of some sort to rectify that issue, but there wasn't one. 10th anniversary is this year and would've been a good time to do something like that.
I guess on the plus side, if you've never seen W, the character stuff wouldn't be as egregious. You just have the problem of callbacks, various lore, and events being alluded to...
Man, I really wish we could have gotten a Spirits anime instead.
Kamen Rider Black Sun.
I....still don't know what to make of this. When I ended the Black review by saying that the franchise needed something to find it's roots again the way that Black did, I meant something like how Kuuga did by taking familiar elements and making something, well, new.
I'm not against reboots and remakes in a general sense. I'm a big fan of the Hammer films and that's pretty much nothing but remakes and reinterpretations with a lot of guys named Paul. However, the majority of remakes are often not that great because it's a tricky balance. It's either so different that you have to question if it's just banking on the name, or it's so similar you have to wonder what the point of a remake was. Granted, there's also a lot of nuance that can change that. A great example of this working and also not is John Carpenter's The Thing, and The Thing(2011).
Which as I mentioned in the review there are things even in Black that could have been done better. A better focus on Nobuhiko and Kotaro's relationship prior to series' events would have been nice, I also admittedly miss some of the horror elements that were present in the first two episodes. But I don't know if that's really worth a remake.
At first glance this just feels like they really wanted something to recapture that same magic that happened the first time around, the same way big Hollywood production companies do the exact same thing without any understanding of why something worked in the first place. This is why successful movies are more often remade than badly executed sound ideas.
To me, it would make far more sense to do something in the style of Black, something with elements and ideas influenced by it but still a new series rather than trying to pump a dry well. Or at least maybe do an adaptation of the Manga since that would be more unique than remaking the tv story, the latter of which seems to be the intent.
I just don't know. This could turn out really interesting, there's some great talent behind it from Kazuya Shiraishi as the director, who is mainly known for his highly praised Yakuza films. I am intrigued, but also cautious.
This was confirmed to be getting an international release, so that should be interesting if nothing else. This is also a series and it's going to be along the lines of Amazons in that it's not geared towards gimmicks and was confirmed for a more adult audience. Admittedly, I do like the idea of a darker series that can do more mature things with a stronger focus on story, but I'm also not a big fan of Amazons' idea of mature. Kinda hoping this at least isn't that try-hard edgy and ugly looking. At the very least it can't be anymore embarrassing than Tetsuo Kurata's recent actions.
Kamen Rider Zero-One and Kamen Rider Ryuki.
Now this was something of a pleasant surprise. Zero-One was something I expected, but not Ryuki. I'm not sure why they skipped Agito-
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| Oh right. |
But Ryuki is having its 20th anniversary in 2022, so that works out. Hopefully, unlike Kuuga, it will be encoded correctly so it doesn't look like ass.
Another surprise is that Kamen Rider Zero-One is getting a Bluray release, the first Bluray for a Kamen Rider series in NA and the first physical release since V3. That's a BIG deal. It also drives me a little nuts because I know they're going to be watching the sales like a hawk and that's going to determine if we get more. I hope other people will eat it up because it's a big deal and I'd like '71 and Kuuga on Bluray. Personally, 01 doesn't appeal to me in that same way, but I'm really happy for all the people I know that are, and new releases are always welcomed news.
Shin Kamen Rider.
So this was the big one. Rumors were circulating since the trademark filing about a month or so ago. All jokes about Anno doing all the Shin Tokusatu movies (or poor Kamen Rider Shin) aside, I'm really looking forward to this, and I realize how weird that sounds given my thoughts on Black Sun.
There is pretty much zero info on this aside from the fact that it's been in development for a whopping six years. That's a goddamn miracle it stayed silent right up until the trademark. Other than that, there's the poster with a very traditional Ichigo looking Rider dressed like Ryoma Nagare. But yeahhh, not a lot to go off of, just a lotta pure speculation. Is the Rider having to put together a suit like Ishinomori originally planed with Kamen Rider Shin? Can they not revert back to a human guise and are forced to pull a Raphael? Is this an Ichigo Story, a manga adaptation, an amalgamation like Masaki Wachi's novels, an original rider? We don't know. Hell, it could even be Shin's son. My money's on a modern retelling with significant divergences from any of the prior sources, aside from man made into cybernetic bug monster.
But despite this being the one we know the least about, it's also the one I'm most interested in because, as obnoxious as this sounds, it's because of Hideki Anno's attachment. Given his work, especially Shin Godzilla, I feel he could delve deep into a lot of the more philosophical and political elements of Kamen Rider.
I think of some of the scenes in the Manga where they examine contemporary society and that biggest threat isn't Shocker, but politicians that aren't even affiliated with the organization but just happen to hold the same ideals and were voted in either by complete fools or a system rigged in their favor.
I also think about how one of the core ideals when writing the original '71 series was making sure Riders were less about the vague concept of justice but "human freedom" as was the preferred term amongst the writers. After all, justice is something that is ill-defined and is easily used to justify atrocities. Seeing if Anno does anything of that nature interests me greatly and I'm really excited to see what comes of it.
This is getting an international release just like Black Sun, which is wild. Again, there's no details but I'm hoping this gets picked up for a limited theatrical release like Shin Godzilla did. Goddamn, I could see a Kamen Rider film in theaters, that is crazy.
Well that's about all the big announcements that weren't merchandise related. I don't have much to add to that area, as I'm very selective about what I purchase and I haven't done a toy review in years. But that CSM Typhoon looks pretty damn nice...probably gonna be out of my price range.
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