#I will probably read the OG Kamen rider manga at some point even if I feel that’s not the most recommended place

[no1ryomafan]

I swear I’m probably a huge outliners in a lot of groups because I’m going through the mega man to mecha to toku pipeline which is a normal pipeline to go through but the way I got finally invested into each of them was utterly bizarre like:

<I got into mega man only because I had a brief sonic phase and found the crossover comic it had which was good despite how Archie is (mainly for sonics half, mm Archie p good)

<after getting through basically the majority of the mega man series my friend-now bf-recommended getter to me but started me off with arma despite how the fandom collectively agrees that’s the worse starting place (I disagree strongly but I somewhat understand I just don’t think we should gatekeep someone’s way of getting into something)

<after I tried like 3 other mechas and was only super into one of them next to getter which didn’t have a fandom-Jeeg-I low key realized “yeah mechs are cool but I prefer robots with sentience” and my second getter induced brain rot moot recommends me kikaider which I finally got back too and it just feels so mega man core (I picked a obscure toku made by the guy who made KAMEN RIDER over KAMEN RIDER bc I’m okay with live action but have trouble doing live action shows)

This literally saids so much about me lmao.

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Ghost Movies and Specials

It's very amusing that I'm covering a horror movie here, but that isn't a part of the Ghost series.

It is time to (kinda) close the book on the Ghost season.

I gotta be honest, I wasn't looking forward to doing this, and I was both very disappointed and also very surprise. It was a fun journey, with a few questionable choices, but still fun nonetheless.

But before I get to the works that belong under this umbrella, we'll dive into something a bit different at first...

Kamen Rider: THE FIRST & Kamen Rider: THE NEXT

So, while looking at the list of Ghost's movies I saw that Kamen Rider 1 was on the list and that it was also technically part of the canon. I debated if I should watch it or not since, after all, my knowledge of the OG Kamen Rider is pretty much below basic and I was very afraid I would be missing in a lot of stuff. I was well aware I wouldn't be able to watch the actual show right now and I didn't want to read the wiki so I was about to give up on the idea when I looked at my notes and I saw that Kamen Rider THE FIRST and THE NEXT were a thing, and I thought this would fit in perfectly with the amount of time I have right now. I knew THE FIRST was a remake/adaptation of the original TV show and the manga and THE NEXT was its sequel so this would probably give me enough context to watch Kamen Rider 1.

And I wish I had done some more research before watching these movies because I feel like watching THE NEXT was a mistake.

Like, while I can't attest how truthful to the source material THE FIRST is, it was pretty much one of those compilation movies. The impression I had was that they choose the most crucial moments in a "The Best of" format and just glued that together and sold it as a movie. Which was not really a problem because it was pretty much a very solid movie, despite the cuts that leave a lot of gaps between each point. It lacked a lot of information, like how Hayato got to Shocker, and it kinda wasted time with the plotline of the kids from the hospital that didn't get a proper payoff, but it was still an entertaining movie. I love the action scenes, I'm not a specialist in this matter but it was really refreshing seeing a fight scene that was pretty much all done with practical stunts and very little CGI. This movie made me really curious to watch the original show, I know this is not exactly what I'll get whenever I watch it, but it left the "I want more" taste in my mouth.

THE NEXT on the other hand, while it was more of a "film" rather than a "compilation", it was also less of a Rider movie, they had riders on it, but it felt like they weren't the main focus. The feeling I had while watching it was that the producers either read the Helter Skelter manga, or watched Perfect Blue, or they saw one of those conspiracy theories of artists who don't seem to age that died and were replaced and wanted to make a horror movie that would deal in with the cruelty of the entertainment world, but they got denied and were put in to make the sequel of THE FIRST without wanting it, so they picked their original idea and shoved Kamen Rider into it as a secondary element that feels like it doesn't belong in that movie, and in the end, it fails at both. Admittedly, the horror portion was pretty good, I would be interested in watching it. It was the rider portion that was a letdown, it was pretty much just some random action, and while watching that girl fighting with a chainsaw was cool as hell there wasn't much background stuff to justify all of that and put some meaning on it. And there's also the terrible final scene with that awful CGI fire that was cringy as hell. If you want some advice, skip this one, it's not worth it.

Kamen Rider Ghost: Legendary! Riders' Souls!

Because I was left with the feeling that I got no useful information after watching THE NEXT, I decided to do something that I never do that is watch the web specials they release for each movie in the hopes that I would have enough context to watch Kamen Rider 1 without a problem. And well... I didn't expect them to be so pointless. Like, they have enough content to be its own TV movie and it's all just to explain how they got the Rider Eyecons, AND THAT'S IN THE MOVIE FOR LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!! And like, these form changes are so useless that if they had taken that out of the movie it wouldn't make a difference!!! I swear to god, why do they still think this kind of stuff is cool? UGH

I don't have much to say because this was pretty much just a boss rush, but I have to say this. PLEASE STOP BRINGING FINAL BOSSES BACK, they're final bosses for a reason goddammit, they're not cannon fodder! When you bring a final boss back anytime you have a chance it just loses the cool effect it could have. Please, Kamen Rider, stop, we get it, you love your own franchise, you don't need to keep doing this circle jerk all the time when you wanna do something cool that serves as an homage to your own history.

Kamen Rider 1

Complains aside, finally the actual first Ghost movie, in the Ghost Movies and Specials post.

And this was a great movie, probably my favorite thing that came out of Ghost. This movie is exciting, it has things for both old and new fans, the plot is pretty decent, the action is a lot of fun, and the emotional beats work very well. I felt in love with Takeshi after this movie, he's such a cool guy, and I really like the actor, it was always a joy seeing him on the screen, his whole thing with Mayu was great, it was very endearing, and when Takeshi dies I really felt it, and the only reason why I'm okay with them bringing him back is that I like him so much and I didn't want to see him die. If THE FIRST made me want to watch the original series, seeing Takeshi in this movie made me want that even more.

I expected the Ghost cast to be the low point of this movie, and while my biggest complaint is about a thing related to the Ghost lore, I overall liked seeing Takeru tag along with Takeshi. To the surprise of a total of 0 people, Makoto was useless again, but honestly, his participation in this movie is so minor it doesn't even bother me. I also like that the villains of the movie were Shocker and Nova Shocker and not that white-suit guy from the specials. Having both Shockers there fighting not only the riders but also each other earned a lot of points with me, I particularly love how Nova Shocker decided to do their thing by embracing capitalism and becoming a corporation because corporative people are the scariest and I love when they make villains based on that.

But I think what I like the most of this movie is that brings up to discussion a theme that I always thought the show should've tackled on TV that is the importance of life, and all that Love&Peace talk about how we're all connected, and that we're connected to nature, that is connected to the world, and yadda yadda yadda. Yes, it's a pretty old speech and everything, but it's one of the subjects that match the most with what I believe is the premise of this show, and while I love that this is a part of this movie, it's pretty sad that none of this bleeds out to the TV show.

And talking about things that are pretty sad, the element I liked the least was the thing that Mayu had a very powerful Eyecon that has been dormant inside her. I understand this is a Ghost movie and they wanna use their gimmick, but they could've used Takeru's gimmick of going full ghost mode and start fo follow Mayu while invisible instead of making the final villain just another MOTW. I honestly think the conflict between Shocker and Nova Shocker was enough to make everything they wanted to do, on the scale they envisioned, without having to add anything related to the villains of this season.

Regardless of the complaints, this is worth watching, for sure, and I wish I hadn't wasted my time with THE NEXT and the specials because I wish I could've met this movie way sooner. XD

Ghost: The 100 Eyecons and Ghost's Fateful Moment

This movie... was a choice. I feel like I have nothing to say about this movie, it was empty, it was pretty much a copy of the Wizard and the OOO's movies merged together, there were a lot of depiction of historical figures that would probably leave some people turning on their graves, they tried to make not just one but TWO familiar dramas and both of them failed in being interesting or having a good pay off at the end, and if all of that wasn't bad enough, guess what? Takeru died again! And was "revived" once more! Yay! I swear, this movie is so frustrating, I just wanna forget it exists.

Well... at least the new Napoleon and Darwin forms looked good I guess.

The Legend of Hero Alain

Now, what wasn't a frustration was Alain's special series! I absolutely love being able to see different points of view of the same story, and being able to see that from the perspective of who became my favorite among the riders of this season was a true delight. I do think episode 4 was a bit useless and if they wanted to make an epilogue they could've done something better, but the other 3 episodes are pretty good.

In particular episodes 2 and 3, that are from the time around his redemption arc, were very touching and a huge part of that is obviously from the presence of the best character of this show, the #1 takoyaki lady, Fumi-san, who once again was here giving her wisdom and passing down some of the messages the TV show tried to pass but that it failed completely. And even though I knew they would eventually hit a point where they would talk about her death, I was still hit by the feels like if they were a truck and I cried.

If I have to say two things that I don't like about these specials it would be that "Human Life Course" Takeru, Akari, and Onari had in episode 3, that was just ridiculous. And I'm not the biggest fan of having this thing of Alain and Fumi having a story that goes way back than what we saw in the show. But honestly, even with these problems, this is one of my favorite media that came out of Ghost.

Kamen Rider Ghost RE:BIRTH: Kamen Rider Specter

Last, and deservedly the least, is Specter's movie. And talk about a bad movie,

You would think that at least on his own movie Makoto would be important, play a big role, but even though he defeated the big bad in the end, he actually did nothing that couldn't have been done for another character. Heck, if you think about it, the real hero at the end of the day was Onari because it was sneaking around and stealing that gem that solved the main problem about clearing the sky atmosphere in the end. All Makoto did here was take a dumb decision after the other and is dreadful to watch.

I think the biggest problem of this movie is that it depends on us believing in feelings developed between two characters that know each other for less than three days and one of those characters is framed by the movie SINCE THE BEGINNING as a maniac villain. And our pay off of this is to believe Makoto forgive the guy who was conducting crazy experiments and that threatened to kill his beloved sister because he considered her a failure. Thanks, I hate it!

Oh yeah and we had power-ups for Necrom and Specter that came out of nowhere and we just have to buy it. At least Spector's new form looks pretty cool, despite me not buying the "sin" motif, I would like to have an opinion on Necrom's form, but it happened on a shitty rain scene and I couldn't distinguish any memorable feature while watching it.

All in all, this movie was another disappointment.

Well, that's it for Ghost. I wish I could have something good to say to sendoff this series, but I honestly don't so I'll just wrap-up here after all this post is already long enough. What are your thoughts on these? Have you watched any of them recently? Let me know in the comments down below. Stay healthy, stay safe, never stop resisting, thank you so much for reading, and until the next time. Bye~

[gffa]

Name ten favourite characters from ten different things (books, tv, film, etc.) then tag ten people

Tagged by @thewillowbends.  These lists are always hard, but that’s kind of the fun of them!  And that’s why we cheat and sometimes have lots of ties because no you can’t make me choose. 1.  Thor from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe - I am a sucker for a character who has their shit together but can still be human and face ridiculously traumatic experiences and come through them whole because they had a rock solid foundation to begin with.  From being thrown out of Asgard, made mortal, and taking that chance to suck it up and make himself better that he did that himself to the loss of pretty much his entire family and most of his people and his sense of purpose, the thing I love about Thor is that he keeps getting back up.  That kind of fortitude is even more appealing that the ridiculously hot lightning powers. 2.  Tsukino Usagi from Sailor Moon - I always loved her in the ‘90s anime, but reading the manga skyrocketted her into this special untouchable place in my heart.  The beginning of her journey is a girl who is so fragile that she would kill herself if she didn’t have the emotional support around her, who had to take step after step forward to find her inner strength, who wasn’t weak or terrible for her fragility, but instead her story was worth telling for it, that the point she started out as was just as valuable as the place she ended up, where she could be the one to stand up to save her friends and get them back herself, that journey was worth telling.  I LOVE HER TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. 3.  Thranduil and Maedhros from Tolkien’s Legendarium - It was really hard to choose, because I love a lot of the characters (and I feel badly leaving Thingol and Maglor off the list and I will fight a bitch for Galadriel and Elrond and listen Glorfindel is pure joy and also the internet is too mean to Elwing and I kind of want alllll the Melkor and Manwe fic because sobs they’re brothers shut up you can’t make me not have feelings about that, but also trashbag Melkor/Sauron and--) but those are the two I usually wind up wanting to know their pov in a fic I’m reading or have them around when shit’s going down because I want to see what they’ll do or I just miss them the most when they’re not there. 4.  Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars - If you asked me to pick between them, I don’t know that I could.  Yeah, sure, I love Obi-Wan ridiculously, but if you give me five minutes, I’m pretty much always going to drift back to talking about Anakin and his issues instead.  I’m not sure I can even boil them down into a nutshell about why I like them so much, they’re the kind of characters that I love so intensely and with such big, sweeping thoughts, that I’d have to write a whole essay.  But my best attempt:  Anakin’s being both dumbass and genius at the same time, being charming and magnetic while also being a bag of garbage at the same time, who had such good in him but was also an absolute monster, who I desperately want to be happy, but I also struggle to forgive him sometimes and that’s saying a lot for a fictional character, he’s brilliant enough to truly carry an entire Saga about him.  And Obi-Wan is the bedrock of all goodness in that galaxy, he could be obnoxious at times and he didn’t always see Anakin clearly, but he always cared and he remained good and hopeful, he continued to serve the galaxy, no matter what it threw at him, and even forgave Anakin in the end, because he always rose above.  That’s it, that’s my shit right there. 5.  Inoue Orihime from Bleach - ORIHIME WAS MY GIRL FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, her unwavering kindness and care, her desire to be soft in a world (and, frankly, fandom) that wanted her to be hard and to fight everything, when she didn’t want to fight, she wanted to heal, she wanted to have fun and be weird, she wanted everyone to be happy, all of that made me love her.  Her loopiness is an absolute delight, but what I loved so much about her is that Orihime had the powers/abilities to be quite possibly the most OG of the entire cast, she could reject reality itself, and she never once wanted to use it to beat anyone up or to destroy anything, she wanted to make friends with her fairies and she wanted to help people.  That girl refused to let the world make her anything less than kind and caring and sweet.  She was THE BEST. 6.  Hara Akiha and Umeda Hokuto from Hanazakari no Kimitachi e/Hana-Kimi - Sometimes we all fall in love with those minor characters and they just fucking consume us.  A lot of it came from that they were both hot, they were both hilarious, and so they were just really fun, but what really got me was that I genuinely loved everything Nakajo did with Umeda’s character.  There weren’t a lot of gay characters in shoujo manga that weren’t complete comedic relief, where their sexuality was the joke.  Yes, Umeda was often a humorous character (all of the cast was) but he firmly was completely uninterested in high school kids, he liked adult men, and his advice to Mizuki may have been crabby as hell, but it was genuine and good.  His sexuality wasn’t the punchline of his character.  Then there was Akiha, who was also comedic, but his bisexuality (another rare thing to find in manga!) had nothing to do with the humor of his character, all of it was in the way he chased after Umeda.  He was a genuine suitor (and, reading the post-manga character interviews, apparently they got together, OMG MY HEART) and the kiss they shared was treated just as seriously as any straight kiss would have been.  That meant a lot to me, even though I’d have loved the characters just because they were so interesting and Umeda’s struggle to get over the guy who never cared for him and to let himself be vulnerable with someone that he could actually care about, was so great. 7.  Yuki Eiri from Gravitation - I can’t begrudge anyone for giving this show a lot of shit (and I definitely am going with anime!Yuki here, rather than manga!Yuki) or dismissing it as being god-awful, because it probably was pretty cringeworthy.  But Yuki got under my skin because he was one of the first characters I resonated with where his depression was real and it was ugly.  He could be cruel to people around him, he pushed them away, not just half-heartedly, but genuinely, and he couldn’t stand being vulnerable, because it touched on all the terrible places that had been damaged by what Kitazawa had done to him.  And he couldn’t just be magically fixed by Tohma’s devotion or Shuuichi’s unwavering amounts of love poured into him.  He couldn’t just be fixed with a hug or one good crying session.  He was damaged and it was going to be a hell of a long hike back up to anything even a little bit normal.  Especially back at that time, I felt like depression and trauma were never given any real weight, then along comes this ridiculous BL series that just refused to make Yuki anything less that genuinely damaged and it hit all these places in wee me that was struggling through my own depression that couldn’t just be cured with some hugs and people telling me they loved me.

8.  Hashiba Touma from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers - I’m not sure I could even say why this character got under my skin the way he did, other than that there was definitely a group of us who were SUPER into the show and it was fun to make a playground for ourselves, and Touma just really got to me.  The brilliant character who didn’t always know how to relate to others, but who cared very deeply about them, who gravitated to those who were better at social interaction than he was, who were better able to connect to people than he was, that he found this group where he really belonged, that just really touched wee me’s heart. 9.  Tendou Souji from Kamen Rider Kabuto - THIS OBNOXIOUS HOT MESS I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.  It was hard not to put Kagami on the list as well, because so much of what I love about Tendou is illustrated through his relationship with Kagami (whom I also love on his own), but I think I keep coming back to that I love his issues the most.  He’s the best at everything and so it puts distance between him and everyone else, all the more so because he’s so obnoxious about it and doesn’t slow down for anyone else to catch up, but the thing is that there’s a very caring heart underneath all that.  He loves his sisters, he loves Kagami, he even kind of tolerates the rest of their weird gang, and trying to find that difficult line of his superiority over the others versus that he wants them to catch up to him in his own way, all while being the most condescending dick ever, is absolute joy. 10.  Relena Darlian from Gundam Wing - I had a difficult path to liking Relena, because so much of fandom boiled her down to either being a creepy stalker who got in the way of Heero/Duo or they only ever wrote her in romantic pairing stuff with Heero, neither of which really encouraged me to like her.  But, as time went on and I rewatched the series a couple of times, I realized there’s so much more to her.  She’s a character who has to walk an impossible line between both of the legacies that weigh on her, the birth family that she never knew but maybe she could help bring peace to the world by taking up that name, by trying to bring back the Sanq Kingdom that promoted absolute pacifism and peace.  Yet, ultimately, for all that her relationship with Zechs is really important and she was the heir to that kingdom, she chose to be Relena Darlian.  She choose to try to bring peace to the world by standing up on her own as a politician, not a figurehead queen of the world.  The struggle to figure that out, who she wants to be and how she wants to achieve it, to go from a sheltered young girl at the start of the series to someone who has seen how terrible war is, is far more interesting than either of those first options for me! And I’ll tag @forcearama (and if I couldn’t put Obi-Wan as all ten entries, neither can you!) @belldreams @subskywalker @cacchieressa @bpdanakins @glompcat @writegowrite @fireflyfish @evaceratops @amarielah and anyone else who wants to do it that I’m not sure I feel quite like I’m able to try peer pressuring you into it.  ♥  I love seeing these from anyone who wants to do them, I’m just never sure if I’m allowed to go HEY YOU DO THIS THING.  orz