#kamen rider reiwa the first generation

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

Heisei/Reiwa Kamen Rider Bike Riding Time research

Hello there! Does anyone remember from a little while back when this image was going around?

For a while, at least in fan communities I frequented; this was quite infamous for showing just how sharp a decline Kamen Rider's namesake had become in the last few years, with the absolute nadir of the Heisei 20th anniversary Kamen Rider using his bike for a total of 47 seconds (and also, on the other end; just how much Kuuga would not get off his bike)

Obviously, it's been a few years since Saber now; and I've found myself wondering from time to time exactly how the Riders since then have fared, especially since both Geats and Gotchard have garnered a reputation of sorts for putting a bit more emphasis on the bikes and feeling like they have more screentime than your Zero-Ones and your Sabers.

So! I went looking and found the source. This extremely dedicated Japanese poster called Yamashita Radio who of course I will be basing the majority of this on, including his rules and his counting. And when I say 'dedicated' I mean that at one point he lost all his data so he just counted Kuuga through Saber all over again. MAD respect for this man! I highly recommend a full readthrough of this 5-part post at one point because it's very impressive and interesting stuff in my opinion

One other interesting point is that that chart there? That's main rider only; and also includes any riding they did as civilians. There is a separate chart for all motorbike riding in the show as a whole; including other riders, including monsters, including even just random civilians! For posterity, I think it's important to post that chart for comparison with the main rider one -- I've colour coded here so that red is Heisei 1 (Kuuga-Decade), green is Heisei 2 (W-Zi-O) and yellow is Reiwa (Zero-One onwards). Main rider only on the left, all biking on the right.

Up front there are some absolutely fascinating observations to make here - Zero-One had the least bike scenes of any show! Brand new era of Kamen Rider! - but I think I've talked about the past enough. With all this said and what I feel is a very important plug to make, let's get into the meat of this -- how do Revice, Geats and Gotchard compare to previous shows?

Rules

... okay, yeah, sure; let's quickly establish a baseline first. As I'm going off of Yamashita's work, I'm also going by all his rules; it's a good thing I agree with all of them because I kinda didn't want to completely redo the count of every season!

TV Show ONLY! No movies, no TTFC specials, no HBVs, no V-Cinema, none of it. The main reason given is that, uh, Paradise Lost has a 100+ bike scene near the start so that's too much of an advantage -- fair enough! Personally I also think it's more interesting, because movies generally have more budget and allowances for bike scenes so those tend to be the same. Maybe a separate count would still be interesting, but I think including movies would flatten out the times too much and make the data pretty uninteresting

No openings! Agito has too much of an advantage

Non-transformed states count the same as transformed states. Godai riding a bike is the same as Kuuga riding a bike.

All motorcycles are treated equally! Mopeds and even CG scenes and bikes are allowed

Other vehicles such as cars, trains and even bicycles and hoverbikes are excluded. Two big exceptions are made for Drive and Revice as they do not have a main motorbike otherwise, but this does exclude things like Gaim's Dandeliner, many of the Oni in Hibiki's transport vehicles, Den-O's Den-Liner, Gotchard's Steamliner and Madwheel and Decade's Agito Slider

Transformations of the bike still count as long as it's being ridden. The Boostriker turns into fox mode while you're riding it? That's fair game

Flashbacks and other repeat footage ("previously on" segments etc) don't count of course. But in cases where it's clearly stock footage but it's still a new event, like the many Ryuki Rideshooter scenes, that's still counted

Count from the moment the bike is straddled to the moment the bike is gotten off, and everything in between. Scenes where the bike isn't technically visible - such as close-ups of the rider's face, or cutting to another character's reaction - are still counted if it's all the same scene

Revice

3m21s (2m23s for Revi only)

Oh lucky me, this was actually done for me! Yamashita made a small update after Revice finished to add this. I just went over and double checked it.

At 3m21s, Revice is at this point the series with the 2nd least amount of bike riding; above Zero-One and below Zi-O. For Revi alone he's in 3rd least; above Zero-One and below Saber. Happy 50th anniversary!

An interesting note here is that Ikki never rides Vice Ptera untransformed -- concerns over the actor's safety, maybe? Daiji also pulls in 58 seconds for the show on his own motorbike, but abandons it completely after episode 13; only bringing it back for the summer movie (which is also the only place he rode it as Live). Interestingly, the 12 seconds he rides it with Sakura in episode 13 is the only time he uses it in the show after becoming a Rider. The skateboarding scene in episode 7 for Jackal Form goes on for over a minute, but unfortunately can't count for this...

I think most people expected Revice to place quite low, though. So let's move on to a show I think a lot of people expect to place higher.

Geats

4m05s (3m45s for Geats only)

I keep repeating it, but this is a show where it seemed a lot of people got the impression of the bike having more importance than before. I think there's a lot of aspects that come together into that -- the bike being tied to a specific 'special' item that's even part of the main rider's main form, the upgrade forms going off of that, and the bike being used in prominent scenes including in the first episode. Geats even arrives on it in his Revice summer movie cameo!

But ultimately if you look at riding time, Geats ends up in 3rd place for overall bike time; above Revice and below Zi-O, while for main rider only Ace ends up in 5th last; above Saber and below Decade. As such he ends up being the main Reiwa Rider to use his bike the most.

This is where I started splitting main rider and untransformed rider in my personal tracking charts, just for fun -- I actually couldn't do that for Revice because as said Ikki never rides anything untransformed except his bicycle. Until episode 11 Ace actually just slightly edged out Geats for having more bike time which was enjoyable to see.

A very interesting thing happens in regards to the Boostriker's transformed state. I decided not to include finishers involving it unless the Rider is specifically riding it -- and the one and only one to do so was Buffa in episode 6, accounting for every single second he rode the machine. He had a penchant for using the buckles' weapons in ways he wasn't supposed to, and he kept up that rule even when the 'weapon' was a bike.

Geats spends a decent amount of time in the final episode sitting on his bike while talking to Regad and the other Riders, and that really saved the show's overall times.

Gotchard

5m09s (2m32s for Gotchard alone)

According to production blogs, Gotchard had a stated aim of using the bike more. Unfortunately it seems this didn't manifest itself in a very major way... but I think we did see more interesting uses of it! Spanner has his own bike (that like Daiji, he never rides transformed!), there's a version of Golddash from the future, other characters including Golddash itself ride rather than Hotaro at multiple points!

For 'others', the 3 seconds in Episode 2 is when Minato rolls up to deliver Golddash to Hotaro personally. Episode 9's 5 seconds have Renge (with Sabimaru in the back) riding it to deliver Hotaro's cards to him in Kyoto.

Spanner shockingly saved the series' overall time here in a similar way to final episode Ace, by sitting on his for an extended period of time during his conversation with Lachesis at the start of episode 47.

While it's not a very long scene nor did it change anything for the rankings, the bike scene in the final episode that just aired is notable for an extremely rare instance of a Rider Machine being ridden by a Kamen Rider's final form. To my knowledge this has previously only been done by Agito, Den-O and Revice (the latter in a movie). Fittingly for a show where part of the direction was inspired by Agito, both Agito and Gotchard do this Final Form bike scene in their final episodes.

And now, for the final count...

Gotchard ended up in 21st for overall bike time between Zi-O and Saber, but this was largely due to other characters; so Hotaro alone ended up in 22nd between Revice and Saber.

Overall we're now 5 shows in instead of 2, we can indeed see a very large dropoff in the Reiwa Era -- including Zi-O, the most recent 6 shows are all at the bottom of the list. This is especially notable when The next most recent series, Build, had 12m31s; almost double that of Saber's -- and this wasn't uncommon, with Ghost and Ex-Aid sharing similar times.

This was the main thrust of my research... but what say we go on a little addendum? Because when I mentioned Yamashita updated his post to include Revice in 2022, there was... one other series he saw fit to do a count for. One that was only halfway through, but nonetheless saw an impressive amount of bike riding time. He only got halfway, but what say I finish the job out of pure interest?

It is "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers"

The extremely normal 2022 entry into the Super Sentai series has a number of bike scenes. Some you may expect from Don Momotaro riding his CGI Enyarideon on his Palanquin for much of the first cour. Some of you might say that CGI shouldn't count, it's easy enough to animate together a scene than deal with road laws and such -- but does Kijibrother not count? Does Inubrother not count? Do none of the mech scenes count? It's a festival, people. Let's enjoy it.

Even aside from the CGI, Yamashita noted halfway through the show; that can't quite account for everything else. Sonoi has a bike he rides in multiple episodes, every time with a wheelie. Inuzuka twice within 4 episodes steals a bike and almost runs people over with it, as is perfectly fine for a hero. Don Kaito shows up with his own motorbike to promote his new book, which you should buy. For a show where it's not even in the name and for recent Sentai, there's an awful lot of riding going on.

Yamashita in his post speculates that part of this is Inoue's own habits -- as a man whose Toku experience largely consists of regularly writing for Kamen Rider in the 00s, it's natural to expect he would be inclined to write something like "Inubrother escapes the scene on a motorcycle..." as if it was second nature; as if that's nothing special for a modern show.

And I would be inclined to believe that... as such a habit is something that would likely get ironed out after a while; and sure enough, while bike scenes are frequent for the first half of the show, they disappear entirely from episode 23 to 43. It is at this point in my own count I thought we would simply never see a large bike scene from the show again, and the sheer fun of counting up Donbrothers would be lost.

And then... he appeared.

My saviour from the future.

With a full uninterrupted 1 minute 15 second bike scene

I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I remembered the future episode but I had completely forgotten this was a part of it. When I started timing this episode I was leaving the house fairly shortly and I figured like the past 20 episodes this would be easy enough to count, and I was utterly bewildered. I should never have disbelieved for a moment.

With all that said... where does Donbrothers end up in full?

7m21s (4m23s for Don Momotaro alone)

This overwhelming record easily puts both Donbrothers and Don Momotaro in 20th place of their respective charts; beating all Reiwa Riders and Zi-O -- with Don Momotaro even coming close to dethroning Kamen Rider Decade's riding time!

This is where we stand, my companions. In an era where Kamen Rider's biking time is lower than ever before and shows no sign of significant recovery, Donbrothers swoops in to steal its glory. Never lose faith. The festival never ends

[mirai-e-jump]

Animage October 2024 Issue Kamen Rider Gavv ft. Chinen Hidekazu & Sugihara Teruaki (translations below)

Publication: September 10, 2024

The Strange Sweets Kamen Rider

The 6th Reiwa Kamen Rider is the first ever to use a sweets motif! The cast and staff talk about the behind the scenes of the birth of the new hero who fascinates us with a gap between poppin visuals and its heavy filling!!

Having passed out due to hunger, Shouma, who comes from another world, was saved by a human boy named Hiroi Hajime. Shouma was in a difficult situation when he confronts the Granute, a monster who wants to kill Hajime, but when he "sets & eats" the familiar like creatures called Gochizo in the mouth on his stomach, he transforms into Kamen Rider Gavv and crushes the Granute. This was the beginning of Shouma's battle to protect humans.

The latest entry in the Kamen Rider series, "Kamen Rider Gavv" only just started in September. Despite the poppin imagery and visuals of sweets as its motif, this is a hard and serious drama that depicts the lonely battle of a young man named Shouma, who hides a grand past and mystery behind him.

This production features Takebe Naomi-san as the Producer, Sugihara-san as the pilot Director who determines the direction of the work, Komura Junko-san as Screenwriter, and Fujita Satoshi-san as Action Director, all of whom have worked on the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai series. In particular, Sugihara-san and Komura-san are the pair that gained attention for their work in "Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger" and the fans are expressing their expectations.

The story of a fierce battle between the sweets Kamen Rider and the Granute monsters has only just begun, so don't miss a moment of the birth of a new Kamen Rider legend! _

Chinen Hidekazu (Shouma)

The first transformation born from an extreme situation

-Supported by dependable friends and the Director-

"Please tell us your impression of the Kamen Rider series."

Chinen: For me, I've admired Kamen Riders since I was a child, and I love them so much that they're the first thing that comes to mind when people ask, "Who's your hero?" I've lived my whole life dreaming of becoming a Kamen Rider, so I was really happy when I was chosen to be Shouma.

"Are there any works that you find particularly memorable?"

Chinen: It's hard to pick a single work from my generation since I'm so attached to all of them, but……I think "Kamen Rider OOO" might be the one I was particularly enthusiastic about when watching. The dialogue between Hino Eiji and Ankh was interesting, and even as a child the ending made me think, so including its theme song, it's my favorite work. Lately however, I've been super into "Kamen Rider Den-O" (laughs). I'm watching it from the perspective of learning why it became so popular, but I also like Den-O because of Satoh Takeru's (who plays Nogami Ryotaro) amazing performance in which he plays multiple different personalities.

"What kind of person do you feel Shouma is?"

Chinen: I read the script so much that it felt like I was watching myself, as I thought that Shouma was so similar to me. We're very similar in the way that we're abit out of the loop, but also curious and get into the things that interest us. I was glued to the TV when I was a child, and I'd become so engrossed when watching it, that I couldn't even listen to what my mother was saying. However, I feel like I'm far removed from him in terms of his guts and inner strength, his desire to save people even at the risk of his own life, and his ability to fight the enemy. Playing the role of Shouma gives me energy and makes me aspire to be like him.

"We think another feature of this production is that right now, Shouma doesn't have a fixed place to stay, and that he comes into contact with a variety of people wherever he goes."

Chinen: I think alot of people are curious to see what happens next, as so far in Gavv, the story continues to be dominated by Shouma's easygoingness and the fact that we don't know what he's thinking. He seems to have a connection with Sachika-san, who he met in episode 2, so what happens to them in the future is a big point to watch out for!

"Please tell us your impressions of Sachika and the person who plays her, Miyabe Nozomi-san."

Chinen: Miyabe-san is a very refined person, so when we first met at script reading, I was shocked and said, "This person's gonna be a gyaru?!" (laughs). One of the things I like about Miyabe-san is that her mannerisms show the quality of her upbringing, but the more we talked, she really started to look like a gyaru, and I felt that performing together with her was amazing. Sachika-san leaves a strong impression of being a gyaru, but on the inside, she's a stable girl who's able to understand the feelings of others. Seeing her say with a refreshing smile, "I think it's good for everyone to be happy," Shouma respects her and thinks, "She's such a wonderful person" and "I want to be like her," almost like she's the embodiment of peace. When I read the script, I always feel supported and say, "Sachika-san, thank you."

"Shouma's brother sister like relationship with her is also very interesting."

Chinen: Director Sugihara Teruaki said to me, "It's like a dog and his owner" (laughs). Still, I think that Sachika-san's all encompassing kindness, and Shouma's simple mindedness are a great combination, and we're also playing the roles with confidence.

"He's yet to interact with Shouma, but we think the role Hanto plays will also be another highlight to look forward to."

Chinen: In some ways, Hanto is also easygoing, but he's the compassionate, hot blooded type, and he too lives by carrying something on his back. I hope you'll look forward to seeing how Shouma and Hanto, who are completely different types of people, interact with each other and what they'll think of each other in their first meeting. Hino Yusuke-kun, who plays Hanto, is the mood maker who makes the set feel relaxed, which is a gap between him and Hanto, but I feel that we're similar in our passion for the production and performance, and the way we put our all into something. To me, Hino-kun is a rival but also like a reliable big brother, and we often consult with each other and visit each other's houses (laughs).

"What were your impressions of Director Sugihara, who also directed the first two episodes as the pilot Director?"

Chinen: As I had no experience in acting, Director Sugihara is a respected teacher who taught me how to perform from the ground up, including how to read the script, and he's like a father figure from Tokyo. He understands each actor's personality and gives them advice accordingly, and he's an amazing person who draws out our potential, so every time I'm on set, I feel happy to film under Director Sugihara. He's a Director I really love.

"Before filming, it seems that you and the Director practiced vocalization together."

Chinen: Yes, even before I could act, my voice wouldn't come out (laughs). I'm really grateful that he took time out of his busy schedule to watch me one on one, and it was an important turning point that led to something changing in me. I want to grow so that people will feel that I'll have changed over the coming year, and one of my goals is to give an inspiring performance that'll be recognized by Director Sugihara with, "You gave it your all."

-Aiming to be as cool as Nawata-san-

"Kamen Rider Gavv, who Shouma transforms into, has a motif based on gummies and other sweets."

Chinen: When I saw the illustration depicted in the proposal, I thought it was incredibly simple, however, my opinion changed when I saw it in person. The armor on the chest and shoulders have a gradient so that it shines beautifully when light hits it, and there's a playful gimmick where a squishy dent will form when it's pressed, so a bunch of detail has been carefully put into it. I'm now so attached to it, that I can't think of anyone else but Gavv. Personally, what I want you to pay attention to the most are the feet. The feet are actually clawed, and this slightly animal like aspect is an important element of the show, so I'd be happy if you make sure to pay attention to the feet as well.

"What's your impression of Nawata Yuya-san, Gavv's Suit Actor?"

Chinen: Nawata-san is an actor who I shape Shouma together with, and he's an indispensable person to me, as I'm able to talk to him about problems that I can't talk about with the other cast members or the Director. He also taught me about acting, like how to create the mood and how to read the script. I'm grateful to Nawata-san's action, as I think Gavv's appeal has tripled, and I feel like the show itself has also become more brilliant.

"Does that also get you enthusiastic about the post transformation dub recording?"

Chinen: That's right. The recording process is more difficult than normal acting because you have to use only your voice to express your emotions and fight scenes in accordance with the footage. In episodes 1 and 2, I had to rerecord so many times that I lost the strength in my voice, and it took twice as long as the planned time (bitter smile). As well as the performances of my seniors in the Kamen Rider series, I also studied the game "Street Fighter" based on the advice of Director Sugihara, and now I feel like I'm getting by. I'll work more diligently to make Nawata-san's performance 120% more appealing with my voice performance, and to become a Shouma who's just as cool after his transformation into Gavv.

"One of the real thrills of the Kamen Rider series are the transformation scenes, but how did you create the pose?"

Chinen: The transformation pose was decided through a discussion between myself, Action Director Fujita Satoshi, Director Sugihara, and Nawata-san. It's a movement that involves rotating your arm, but the final version, which we created after discussing the angles and timing with everyone to make sure it looked cool and appealing, is the transformation pose used in episode 2. Depending on the story, he could transform quickly, so I hope people watch the way he changes based on the situation.

"In the episodes up to this point, the action leading up to the first transformation in the first episode is a scene that can't be ignored when talking about Shouma. There was some action involving wires, and we were also impressed by his performance as he was gradually being cornered by the Granute."

Chinen: That scene was prepared weeks before the shoot, as Director Sugihara and Action Director Fujita came up with a really cool direction. The scene where Shouma is beaten was especially important to give depth to the reason for his transformation, as it took two days to film. In the end, it was in the most extreme situation I had ever experienced in my life, my performance came out unconsciously, and I was complemented with, "Your facial expressions were very good." I could've never done it on my own, the scene was made possible by the advice of Director Sugihara and Nawata-san, who worked beside me, and by all the staff members who created an environment that allowed me to concentrate on my performance.

"It makes us want to go back and pay attention to the expressions on your face. Finally, please tell us your goals throughout filming of Kamen Rider Gavv."

Chinen: I'd like to learn alot about action from Action Director Fujita, Nawata-san and everyone else on the Action Team, and I'd like to improve my acting skills. I've never been in an environment where I could spend an entire year with people who are so good at captivating others, and I don't think it'll ever happen again in the future. I hope to make full use of this experience so that in the next year, I can be an actor who can do it all, from acting to action and recording, so I'll do my best to do what's in front me!

Director Sugihara Teruaki

The vibrant world Shouma comes across

-A dark story with colorful visuals-

"When did you first hear that you'd be the pilot Director?"

Sugihara: I'm pretty sure it was around last Fall, when I was working on the drama, "Tokyo MPD: From Zero to Hero," I received a phone call from Producer Takebe Naomi-san who said, "I'd like to meet and talk with you at once." I heard from a separate matter that Takebe-san would be in charge of the next Kamen Rider, and at the time, I thought I was going to be the second Director, but when I met her, she said, "You're the pilot Director." (laughs).

"At the stage when Director Sugihara joined, how much of the content in the show was decided on?"

Sugihara: Aside from the sweets and monsters motif, we'd yet to decide on the content of the story and the personalities and relationships of the characters. In the beginning, we were a small group consisting of the Producer team's Takebe-san and Takishima Minami-san, Screenwriter Komura Junko-san, and myself. Our three parties worked out the content by sharing ideas from our respective perspectives.

"What specific ideas did Director Sugihara have in mind? Personally, we felt that the visuals of the characters, including their costumes, incorporated the Director's ideas."

Sugihara: You can assume that I'm basically in charge of visual aspects like the impression and fashion. For Shouma's fashion in particular, during the rather early stages, I'd draw an illustration and say, "How about something like this?," and I'd have them look at it while I created his character.

"Not just Shouma's clothes, but also the interior of Hapipare is rich in color, so much so that it's unusual for the Kamen Rider series."

Sugihara: I told artist Fukuzawa Katsuhiro that I wanted to make the visuals as bright and pop as much as possible. Kamen Rider Gavv itself isn't meant to be a continuation of the "ism" seen in the first generation of Kamen Rider, but it includes themes like family conflict and Shouma's sad separation from his mother, so the content is heavy. Because of this, we made the impression of the colors vivid, and were careful to not make them too dark. Moreover, being in the human world for the first time, Shouma's a kid who's impressed by everything he sees, so I was conscious of the world captured from Shouma's point of view and to use rather flashy colors. Conversely, the Granute World and Stomach Family use muted colors, or to just say it outright, they have dirty colors.

"What do you value in your expression of Shouma, the main character?"

Sugihara: I wanted to depict Shouma as a pure kid, someone who suddenly comes to the human world and finds everything he sees as fresh. On the inside, he's not much different from Hajime, who he first meets in the human world, in fact, he's much more of a child than that kid. So he ponders over what he's been told, hurt by the casual mention of "monster" and afraid of hurting others, he's unable to be together with someone else, so he leaves Hajime and Sachika and goes elsewhere. However, I didn't want to make it too dark, so it was hard to depict (laughs). While he carries a dark side, I want him to be a kid who's always smiling when he's with someone, even if he has to force himself to smile.

"This Shouma is beautifully embodied by Chinen Hidekazu-san."

Sugihara: The best thing about Chinen-kun is that he looks great on camera. That's the kind of talent an actor has. Also, the expressions on his face when he eats are really good. Even though he's eating food he usually sees all the time, he eats it like it's a delicacy, looking as if he's eating something he's never seen before and is impressed. In that sense, I think he was the right choice to play Shouma. Still, since this is roughly his first performance, he had to start from a place where he couldn't express his emotions properly, and to begin with, he couldn't even vocalize. I had Chinen-kun stand on one end of Toei's rooftop, and I stood on the opposite end and had him deliver his lines. I gave him relentless acting instruction from the very beginning (laughs). Filming started earlier than usual, so we've already shot several episodes, and I feel that he can now stand proudly in front of the camera as Shouma. With each episode his performance and facial expressions are getting better and better. I have high expectations for his growth over the next year.

-Dedicated action that make the most of the motif-

"We felt that the vibes of Gavv's everyday scenes were different from that of previous Kamen Rider series, but was there anything you were conscious of in your direction?"

Sugihara: In my mind, I had a bright, pop like feeling, but during filming, Chinen-kun……it was important to me how to capture Shouma and the human world from his point of view. I may have only been thinking, "How can I get a good shot of him?"

"In that sense, it's interesting to think that the entire production is being pulled along by Shouma and Chinen-san."

Sugihara: That's right. This is especially true for the first episode, as the story unfolds from Shouma's point of view, so I was conscious of the fact that I wanted to bring the viewers perspective as close as possible to Shouma's.

"Despite the battle scenes also having a fancy sweets motif, from the very first episode, we were taken back by the intense physical battle depicted between Gavv and the Granute."

Sugihara: I'm pretty sure it was Action Director Fujita Satoshi who put out the idea of a serious fistfight at a container warehouse, and with sword fighting in a narrow space. We specified the colors and placement of the containers, and asked the people on location to arrange them accordingly. From there, Fujita and I talked in detail about the composition of the action, and we put it together by discussing the angles while adding in our own ideas as we filmed on site.

"We heard that you and Fujita-san worked closely together to create this."

Sugihara: I also like action quite abit, so I tell Fujita various things like, "Do this sort of thing." Naturally, Fujita has alot of things he wants to do as well, so the two of us are working together to come up with ideas for action sequences and angles.

"Including Gavv's own actions, the way he fights while "eating" the Gochizo is unique."

Sugihara: It was decided in advance that the transformation items Gochizo would appear alot like that of "Pikmin" and "Minions," so I thought it'd be better to use alot of them. Because of that, when Gavv takes damage, his armor breaks and he'll eat the Gochizo one after another……we're calling it "follow up sweets," and I think it'd be interesting to keep changing sweets and repair them as he fights.

"The standard Poppingummy Form has flexible armor, while Zakuzakuchips Form's sword weapon can easily break depending on how it's used, and the use of sweets as a motif was also visually enjoyable."

Sugihara: Inspiration for the action comes from discussions that are almost like casual conversations. I thought about how things like thin baked snacks such as potato chips might be weak to side attacks (laughs). Also, unlike other Kamen Riders, we don't use bullet impacts on Gavv when we depict him being hit (mechanism that detonates gunpowder that's attached to the performer). In his setup, the armor is derived from sweets generated by his own body, so we tried to create the effect of small bead like things flying around him. During filming, we've been throwing beads into the air from the side of the camera. In that sense, it may have a new visual feel.

"What scenes from episodes 1 and 2 were particularly powerful?"

Sugihara: In terms of taking the most time, I'd say it was before the transformation in the first episode. When I was thinking about Shouma's human image, Takebe-san said, "I don't want him to be a hero who fights just because he has powers." You don't fight just because you have the power to become a Kamen Rider, there's a will to fight, and that's where the power comes in. I wanted to create an image of a hero who's able to transform into Gavv because it's Shouma. Since the time of the script meeting, we had talked about how we wanted to portray a different kind of strength from that of the everyday Shouma, who keeps going despite being beaten up by someone he can't even stand up to. On set, Chinen-kun and I worked together to find out why Shouma was feeling that way, and we worked on his facial expressions and gestures one by one, and I was quite persistent throughout filming. We were supposed to film the transformation scene in one day, but we took too long and didn't get to the transformation, so I had to apologize to the staff (laughs).

"Finally, please tell us your enthusiasm for the future."

Sugihara: Honestly, I have no idea how Kamen Rider Gavv will conclude a year from now, but I want to make a show that'll make people who watched it think, "Gavv was interesting." For this reason, I'd also like to delve deeper into Shouma and Hanto, and Sachika and the others characters, and to make each of them appealing. I'm sure that Komura-san will come up with some great developments (laughs), and for my part, I hope that I can take advantage of that, and as the pilot Director for the first time in a long time, to create images that people watching in their living rooms have never seen before.

[theaterchemy2]

The lack of a winter Kamen Rider crossover movie has got me thinking that we don’t really need a Gavv x Gotchard crossover.

Gotchard’s story ended in a way that makes it difficult to create an epilogue that can also cross over into Gavv’s currently ongoing narrative. Bias for Gotchard aside, the story ending with Houtaro and Rinne’s graduation ends up creating a bookend for Gotchard’s story as a whole. Things can happen in between the TV show finale and the VCinema, but unless Hasegawa and the writing team are expecting to ass-pull a threat that was on par or worse than Geryon is unlikely. And even then, how would that connect to Gavv’s narrative? They just killed Sheeta, and there hasn’t really been a narrative break that you could slot the crossover into. Jeep’s out for revenge, and Nylev’s conspiring with Suga about something. I guess you could have Rango or Glotta doing something, but usually the movie’s there to feature a celebrity guest. Like the only thing I could see being a hook for Gavv is Lage9 becoming Vram in a post-credits scene.

The continuity snarl just makes all the recent winter movie lineups just so… off. In Revice x Saber, Touma had already given his sword back to the Sword of Logos, but now he has it again? And Geats x Revice makes no sense from a timeline perspective. Somehow the Igarashis had a fourth kid in the three months since the end of Revice, okay, a bit of a leap, but okay. Then the villains of the Revice side of the story are… what exactly? They’re… aliens. They’re not even demons? You know, the whole motif of Revice? Of ALL the reasons to have Ikki resurrect Vice and become Revice again, it’s ALIENS?! Not like a Giff cultist leftover? Hell, you could even use Orteca as the villain and have him actually matter! But nah. ALIENS! And they’re just working for the villain of the Geats side of the story, Colus, a former Game Master of the DGP. Colus’s inclusion in the movie makes way more sense than just ALIENS. Oh, and Keiwa also has an inner demon. This won’t matter until the last arc of Geats, but… LOOK! KEIWA WITH AN EARRING! Oh, and Michinaga’s not dead, but he was supposed to be dead in the Jyama Gardens… weren’t the DGP on a manhunt for Ace? Wasn’t Giroli fired as Game Master? Oh, Michinaga’s dead again. Bye bye, Tinkywinky~

Honestly, the winter movies really took a narrative dive when they stopped using the Movie Wars format with Ghost x Drive. Drive’s main story ended with Mr. Belt sealing himself away and all Roimudes eliminated. And both VCinemas feel narratively satisfying, Chase’s story being a side story that fits in with Drive’s timeline, and the Heart/Mach story acting as the epilogue after Shinnosuke’s retired from being a Rider and Gou’s making plans to resurrect Chase (and possibly Heart, Brain, and Medic). But then for the Ghost crossover, the Roimude commanders and Chase are resurrected as a part of a butterfly effect only to disappear once more when the time travel un-travels, ON TOP OF Mr. Belt waking himself up for the final fight only to go back to sleep. That’s also not accounting for Heisei Generations 1, where Gaim crashes into the sealed Drive Pit to wake up Mr. Belt AGAIN just so we can have the five Riders fighting together. Narratively, having Drive the Rider show up in a crossover where he’s not a summon makes no sense and is unsatisfying.

Speaking of unsatisfying, Reiwa the First Generation. OH BOY MORE TIME TRAVEL! Oma Zi-O Sougo reset the timeline as well as his and his friends’ powers, so now he, Geiz, and Tsukuyomi are all normal teens. But wait, no, we need their original personalities for the crossover! Oh, and the Zi-O villain is… a Super Time Jacker Swartz had left over from before he died. Sure. The changes in the timeline make sense because Another Zero-One, but then after the final fight between Sougo and Aruto (???), the Zi-O trio are back to being ordinary high schoolers without powers? And they get their powers back for the Geiz VCinema and whatever the hell Inoue was cooking for the Decade VS Zi-O specials.

OH WAIT, HEISEI GENERATIONS FOREVER! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! HOW MANY TIMELINES ARE THERE NOW?!

The recent Sentai crossover VCinexts, too. What is happening? The last Sentai crossover movie that I actually enjoyed was probably Kiramager VS Ryusoulger, only because the story makes sense. It’s set after Ryusoulger’s ending, but during the events of Kiramager, and each character being present works with how the former ended and how the latter’s narrative worked. Okay. Cool. Surely they can keep that up for the rest of the Reiwa era, right?

Zenkaiger VS Kiramager: I thought that Zenkaiger established that each Sentai had their own world? But now the Kiramagers are just here? Oh, and why are all the Sentai Reds from Gokaiger up to Ryusoulger here? (RIP to Shishi Red’s suit).

Donbrothers VS Zenkaiger: Okay, Tarou’s done being the leader because he lost his memories- no, wait, he’s back. And Jirou being leader now makes sense, i guess- why is he a dick now? Didn’t his two personalities work things out? Oh, they killed Sonoi… No, it’s okay, it’s fine, I’m FINE WITH THIS! And now Zocks is the main antagonist, no, wait, why is there a Wald? DIdn’t all the Tojiru Gears get destroyed? At least we got Stacey and Hakaiser in the roll call…

King-Ohger VS Donbrothers: Uh huh. The Donbrothers are just… on Terra. No space travel or anything. At least they resolved Sonoi’s unsatisfying death- IT’S GII!

King-Ohger VS Kyoryuger: So… they reset the world of King-Ohger to put Gira in evil clothing. And Daigo just happened to be there when Jeramie was finishing his retelling of the main King-Ohger narrative so he can pull the Gaburimix Shooter out of nowhere to restore the kings’ memories. I think King-Ohger in Space made more sense- wait, why is Tsurugi here? Wasn’t Kyuranger in another universe from the main Sentai world? Oh hey, Kingranger’s here, cool.

Hell, any time the Gokaigers have appeared after the end of the TV show in 2012 with all the Ranger Keys again just… doesn’t make sense? Did they make time to go and collect all the keys one by one? How did they do that in Go-Busters VS Gokaiger? It makes more sense in Strongest Battle, since we see Akaranger lending Marvelous his key, but then in Ten Gokaiger, how does the government have the keys from the Go-Busters to Kiramager teams if they’ve been fighting all these other threats?

Back to the main point, I don’t really see any way that a Gavv x Gotchard could conceivably work, and part of me is relieved that we won’t. You can’t bring back the Sisters, because then what was the point of their deaths? There’s no way there’s another evil alchemist that no one knew about, since the Alchemist Union is basically rebuilt without the three stooges from the main story. And with how the Stomach company is set up, there’s no way Rango is hiding another unknown sibling or family member to act as the main antagonist. Not when the former is willing to throw out his own siblings if they’re not working hard enough. (I can see Dente going “Oh, yeah. Them. I forgot about them for a hot minute. Anyway, they’re SUPER evil, be careful Shouma. Want a potato chip?”)

Taka from Kotetsu Toys Japan made a good point about the Outsiders event - the impact of certain characters showing up in the miniseries or in contexts that don’t make narrative sense lessens the actions that happen to them in their home series. What was the point of Fuwa’s death (?) if Horobi’s back? Why did Evolt choose now of all times to return? Desast is back, but so is Brain? Wasn’t he still being restored by Gou? Why’s the Orphenoc King there? GODDAMNIT GENM’S BACK AGAIN?!

[asknarashikari]

I'm currently watching the Fourze summer movie, and oh my god, do I already love it. I'm like 60% of the way through. But wtf was the budget because the fight scenes go crazy. Like just against the Zodiacs who show up in the first half to delay the KRC from getting aboard their ship, you have Gentaro using every single switch. He's using them in combo and even using them in tandem with his power-up forms. It like genuinely reminded me of how versatile Gentaro's fighting style and abilities are. The fighting choreography for this is insanely good. Like even the out of suit fights were clean. Ryusei was doing his thing, and it looked so cool. All and all I love this movie so far

You have Koichi Sakamoto to thank for the fight scenes. He was the main director for Fourze and its movies, and he was a former stuntman and fight choreographer/director. He's done work for all the Big 3 toku shows (Sentai, Rider and Ultraman) as well as for Power Rangers. So yeah, he knows his stuff. I like his action choreography a lot, even if he's a bit gratuitous with them sometimes.

I do think he's edged out by Kazuya Kamihoriuchi though, since imo he does action scenes and dramatic scenes equally well. He's done so much stuff I adore: the debut episodes for Kento/Espada, Ren/Kenzan, Reika/Sabela and Keiwa/Tycoon Ninja, Heisei Generations Final (arguably the best of the HeiGen trilogy), Be the One, Trio of Deep Sin (the best V Cinema in Reiwa so far), and the absolute gut punch that was episode 47 of Kamen Rider Build.

[kirider]

Ankh kamen rider ooos

First impression: Well. You know how it is when your first meeting with Ankh is the Heisei Generation movie. Tragic Gay Bird

Impression now: Annoying Gay Bird (affectionate)

Favorite moment: The first time he sees TaJaDor (ough my heart); literally every time Eiji goes berserk and Ankh brings him back through The Power Of Love (And This Weird Codependent Relationship We Have), when Eiji Ankh and Hina are all holding their hands together

Idea for a story: Mmmh do I have an Ankh story? I have a "riders help revive Ankh but it's with the reiwa riders (mainly gotchard)", but that's more about Ankh than with Ankh

Unpopular opinion: Eh all things considered I am pretty neutral towards Ankh? I don't have any strong opinions about him

Favorite relationship: Ankh and Eiji of course bc I'm a simple guy :P but I also really like his relationship with Hina, the whole "possessing her brother" thing

Favorite headcanon: literally every time someone gives him birb behaviour. Please keep doing that I love it so much

[pleuvoire]

anyway. anyway. gotchard thoughts! well there's not much to say other than i like it :) starting the ep i was immediately reminded that all reiwa rider just inherently feels a bit overcrowded to me in its general presentation and eventfulness (and extensive cgi use) but despite that i really liked the vibes, like i said it felt like a return to heisei 2 rider as well as also feeling a lot like the sentai of that same era. it definitely feels like a lighter more laid-back approach in contrast to geats, and in a way i am extremely reminded of how den-o followed on the heels of kabuto. (the episode itself also made me go "oh this reminds me of den-o" at multiple points as well as "oh this reminds me of ooo" which is a good sign. well a lot of the den-o similarity is just the fact that there's a train but still.) i felt like the first episode being pretty much just about the main guy getting his powers and being like "whoa! i'm kamen ridering now!" (and the way next ep is going to be about him adjusting to it and learning all the lore) reminded me of eiji, takeru, even aruto, just that general era, in a way that makes me think.... dare i say...... we are so fucking back?

well, you never know. i can't help remember that this time last year i was recording an amazing first impression of geats, and then that gradually became less and less fun for me. (though i still remember geats fondly...! mostly.....! but i did suffer disappointments and frustrations throughout.) so! i am remembering to temper my optimism here, anything could happen. but if nothing else i am looking forward to the next episode!!! and enjoying the vibes!!! and who knows maybe if gotchard keeps its lighter laid-back approach it will avoid sliding into the overcomplexity trap that plagued geats and also kinda reiwa rider in general!!!! so basically i am excited :) i liked this episode, it was fun and engaging, and i'm looking forward to the next one!!! houtarou is so cute and the suit has grown on me massively!!! and we got word from toei there would be fewer riders in this one and there's electric guitar in the opening again!!!! for now at least, we are so fucking back!!! that's my verdict :)

[pinkprettycure]

What's your Kamen Rider seasons recommendations?

OOO, Fourze, Den-O and Kuuga. Fourze is my fave.

Kuuga is what I'm watching now and I absolutely adore it so far as well. Also Gotchard is running right now and I really like it so far, I generally recommend whatever is currently airing so ppl can experience it with everyone together but it does mean I cant full recommend it. But the high school setting reminds me of Fourze a lot and I love Hopper1 sm

Also Build is a pretty beloved season, it's good it's not my personal fave but it is a very very solid season, people love it for a very good reason.

Ex-Aid is not very good lol but I love it. Ex Aid, Zero One, and Geats are by the same head writer, he likes writing about gamers i suppose. I'm his biggest fan but other ppl really rllllyyy hate his shows lmaoo theyre. not tha best but theyre fun.

Zi-O was one of my faves as well but its an anniversary season and a send off into the Reiwa era so its got a lot more references to past seasons. first episodes are weaker but it gets really fun as it goes along

[guster-animations]

Kamen Rider Revice Finale Commemoration Producers’ Symposium: Translated

this one fucking sucked. gotchard’s symposium was 3x longer and took less time to get through than this. this is entirely taku mochizuki’s fault and i will forever hold a grudge against him

^ my reaction to the last paragraph in act 2 ^ (i didn’t actually use machine translation that much)

as if i needed another reason to hate him when he’s A Legitimately Shitty Person

TOKU TRANSLATION MASTERPOST HERE

this was made for the henshindex wiki project, join today!

Kamen Rider Revice TV Series Ending Commemoration Toei Producer Team Special Symposium

“Kamen Rider Revice” is the third entry in the Kamen Rider series since the Reiwa era began. This work, with the two thematic pillars of “devils” and “family”, broadcast its fiftieth and final episode on August 28th. The baton will be passed over to a new program, “Kamen Rider Geats”, starting in September.

For the Kamen Riders of the Reiwa era, there are strong enemies that are different from Shocker or Foundation X. As we all know, it’s “coronavirus”. All of us in the filming staff, and thus the people in the cast, are releasing not only all 50 episodes of the TV series but also the movies and the series of many spin-off dramas on TTFC, all while battling this troublesome opponent.

The Kamen Rider series is a “television program” at its core, but even more so, its components are in part influenced by the various societal conditions (not just COVID) of the time as well. In addition, plans and assumptions were changed as those effects progressed in tandem with the broadcast. It can be said that’s a characteristic of a “four-cour (one-year) drama”, which are hard to come by nowadays.

In summary, what kind of journey has “Kamen Rider Revice” taken to reach this single goal of “TV series completion”? And, just after having conducted the interview, a “Toei Producer Team Special Symposium” will be distributed like the years before with super-hot timing!

Attendees

Taku Mochizuki (Chief Producer)

Has been involved with Toei tokusatsu works as an assistant producer since “Kamen Rider W” (2009). Was promoted to producer during the making of “Kamen Rider Gaim” (2013). Later, he worked as chief producer for the first time in “Uchu Sentai Kyuranger” (2017). Other important works he’s been in charge of include “Detective ZERO” (2019), “Mashin Sentai Kiramager” (2020), and “Ten Gokaiger” (2021).

Ryosuke Momose (Assistant Producer)

After being involved in all sorts of event planning and production tasks with Toei’s business promotion department, he was transferred into the TV planning department in June of 2019. Following “Kamen Rider Zero-One” (2019), he also participated in this work as an assistant producer. Other than that, he served as producer for the Amazon original “GAME OF SPY”, which was distributed worldwide starting on August 1st, 2022. A guest character called “Ryunosuke Momose” (played by Akiyoshi Nakao) appears in “Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations” (2021).

Chika Chikamatsu (Assistant Producer) Applied for Toei’s “Tokusatsu Program Producer Recruitment”, and joined the company in 2019. “Kamen Rider Zero-One” (assistant producer) is the first work she was in charge of. She has worked as assistant producer in “Ten Gokaiger”, “Kamen Rider OOO 10th: The Core Medals of Destiny”, and others.

Interviewer

TTFC (Toei Tokusatsu Fan Book Department)

Act 1: It Ended, But It Isn’t Over?!

TTFC: You’ve successfully wrapped up filming of the TV series, and you’re drawing nearer to completion, but you’re still very busy. Thank you very much for sparing your time with all that going on. To put it bluntly, how are you all feeling about it right now…?

Mochizuki: Well… it still doesn’t feel like it’s ended at all (Laughs).

Momose: I feel the same way (Laughs).

Mochizuki: Though, as work on the TV show itself ends, I do feel different… a sense of liberation. Because we were releasing episodes almost every week, we had to make it to the end without causing trouble… “trouble” in this case meaning a delay in the release schedule, but it’s normal to worry about stuff regarding that. Anyway, we have managed to safely release all 50 episodes. It’s difficult to say what exactly qualifies as “safety”, but I’m more or less relieved.

TTFC: By the way, it’s the first to have “50 episodes” as a TV series since “Kamen Rider Ghost” (2015). The normal year is generally 49 episodes. “Kamen Rider Zero-One” (2019) also had a 51-week release schedule (!), but that was when they had to do compilation episodes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, when you say it “doesn’t feel like it’s ended”, you mean that the work and planning is still happening.

Momose: That’s right. To talk about the things that have already been announced, there is the “Final Stage & Program Cast Talk Show”, going on in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka from September until October. We’re preparing for the winter movie as well. After that is the V-Cinext, and then TTFC’s “Farm-fresh Theater” episode 2 is being announced. As for anything else… well, there are still things I can’t say.

TTFC: I see.

Mochizuki: The sequence of plans I just stated are events that have become certain “traditions”. For the other projects, though, I am incredibly thankful that people wanted to do things with “Kamen Rider Revice” even after it ended. We can never stop moving or take a break, but there are things that give us a “scream of joy”.

TTFC: We’ve released three works for “Revice” on TTFC only: “Revice Legacy: Kamen Rider Vail”, “Birth of Chimera”, and “Kamen Rider Jeanne & Aguilera with Girls Remix”. All of them were huge successes thanks to you.

Mochizuki: Thank you very much! “Birth of Chimera” originated as a proposal from Director Sakamoto, and the gap between its beginning and the release was fairly small (Laughs).

TTFC: “Girls Remix” was actually filmed before “Birth of Chimera”. “Birth of Chimera” was a really unexpected project, but the characters who were charming even in the original story of “Movie - Kamen Rider Revice: Battle Familia” were depicted more deeply, and that was very good. The other two works are that way too, but it’s just such an extravagant spin-off work.

Mochizuki: “Kamen Rider Revice” was already an irregularity to begin with in that we had to shoot the winter movie, even if it was a short film, before the show was broadcast (Laughs). From when it was formally decided at the start of spring, we started auditions, geared up for a lot of problems, and moved it forward at a quick pace. We started filming with no time to breathe. Then the winter movie (“Beyond Generations”) immediately came along. “Kamen Rider Revice: The Mystery” for TELASA, “Televi-kun Hyper Battle DVD” with Shogakukan, that was filmed for Toei Video’s Blu-ray Collection, and “DEAR GAGA” where Hiromi Kadota and his mother starred… It was a stafe of affairs where some other work other than the TV series was usually happening. Luckily, each work got a positive reception, and we really felt like the cast and the work was growing in popularity. But even so, we were careful to not bring forth clusters.

Momose: Just last year, from the point “Revice” began filming until the beginning of fall, the so-called “fifth wave” came. The Delta strain appeared, and in Tokyo alone there were close to 6,000 people reporting to hospitals at many times. If we’re just talking about the amount of people, it was much more than when I was doing “Zero-One”. However, their movement won’t stop, even if a state of emergency is declared. It’s obvious, but the risk of infection itself will rise.

Mochizuki: The proportion of the population that is hospitalized is dramatically different from the beginning, so no matter how careful you are to protect yourself, there’s no way to entirely prevent infection. So, in order to prevent impact on filming and the program itself, we prepared many countermeasures for any possible outbreak of infection. As a result, we still made it here somehow even though many things happened… We’ve made it to the finale. We made it through the days where the schedules and scenes were modified, and didn’t stop long filming sessions. That’s thanks to the staff, cast and themselves knowing that they’re irreplaceable and living their lives with pride. Of course, it isn’t completely over yet, so I still can’t relax, but I’m glad just to be free from worrying about having to check every morning for reports that “so-and-so isn’t feeling well” or “this person has a fever” (Laughs).

Momose: Speaking of, the cast has also been saying “it doesn’t feel like it’s over at all”. We had the campaign for “Battle Familia”, and preparations for the “Final Stage & Program Talk Show”… If you also include shooting the winter movie and the stage show after that, there are still “Revice”-related things going on constantly at least within this year. Even though we say it’s “one year long”, Kamen Rider is really a year-and-a-half thing (Laughs). It was probably a very intense year and a half for them too.

Mochizuki: What was a little different of a situation from the previous work, “Kamen Rider Saber”, is the state of emergency being declared while “Saber” was being planned out, and they feared the worst, asking, “Honestly, how do we film this while we can’t film?”. They gathered plans while trying to avoid as many risks as humanly possible, and got through it wonderfully and passed the baton over to Revice. On the other hand, in “Revice’s” situation, we predicted that the situation would be at least somewhat better than during “Saber”, and were moving along thinking that at some point we might return to how things were filmed before COVID. I think it was naïve of us to have that idea.

TTFC: But that’s because you—and the experts, and most of the world—thought that way at the time. Besides, if there were too many restraints anyway, it would be really hard to film…

Mochizuki: That’s true. So we started out with more degrees of freedom than “Saber” did, but then we ran into the so-called “fifth wave”. When that happened, we couldn’t do anything besides adjust what we could in the next few episodes’ scripts. For example, we actually wanted to do more “world-fixing Rider” guest episodes in the second half of the season too, like episode 5 where Kikuo Hayashita was appearing and episode 6 where Kudo (played by Gamon Kaai) made his first appearance. However, with filming efficiency in the COVID-19 pandemic being much worse than usual for a long time, we ended up wasting time and money, and couldn’t get them to come back as a regular no matter what. Nevertheless, we intended to keep writing stories that included guest actors after that as much as we could.

TTFC: The impact of episodes like with Kuuki Kaidan (episodes 22 and 23), or the “voice actor festival” episodes (30 and 31) where Subaru Kimura [ew] and company appeared, was strong, so it kind of feels like there’s an impression that “there aren’t many guest episodes”. Outside of the third cour [set of 3 months/13 eps of the show], of course, there weren’t many guest characters that appeared.

Mochizuki: That area is an idea I (?) communicated my intent for after script-making. I intentionally made the number of “supports” (filming locations and situations) spoken of in the script very small. In summary, we aimed to optimize the filming by increasing the scenes that could be shot at the same location. Hanta (Kinoshita) showed understanding of those limitations, and it was very good that he always handled them ahead of time. For the script, every possible request comes from every possible direction, but he was extremely helpful for having the stance of “please say everything you want”. Personally, I just wish I could have changed the circumstances a little more so that he could perfectly demonstrate his style… For the cours other than the third one, from an early stage, we wanted to be able to switch to episodes with just the regular sets from “Happy Spa”, “Fenix”, and “Weekend” if the worst happened. It was really unfortunate for the shoots where a large-scale amount of people is needed, but it could have been necessary. Outside of the third cour, we ended up going in a slightly different direction than what we assumed. That’s why things like Director Akamichi’s speech scene in episode 35 were ones that we’d originally wanted to have more extras appear in, but we told Director (Hidenori) Ishida that it couldn’t be done, and he was able to create a feeling of scale in a different way.

TTFC: For us at TTFC, we’re also very sorry that we haven’t been able to do “extra recruitment” in these last few years. Like “Farm-fresh Theater”, we try to do different approaches (extras being involved virtually), but still… The many chances for our members to gather are precious times for us as well, so I think we would like to resume that whenever we can.

Mochizuki: Chikamatsu, remind me, at what point did you start helping with this work?

Chikamatsu: I was doing “The Core Medals of Destiny”, and started when that had finished filming. I was just a viewer until maybe episode 5 (Laughs). It was October fourth when I first came to a filming site.

Mochizuki: I remember that well (Laughs).

Chikamatsu: I think it felt to the cast members like I had come to the sets for “BeyoGene” [Beyond Generations] as much as possible (Laughs). What was impactful at the start was that at the “viewer” stage, when I talked with the storyboard artist Soa (Ito), I asked for all the spoilers that hadn’t been revealed yet (Laughs). It started with “This Daiji isn’t Daiji, he’s actually a demon called Kagero”, then “Commander Wakabayashi is already dead”, then “All of the Happy Spa’s regulars are spies”… There were also other plans that got changed afterwards, but I knew hidden secrets in many ways, and that was shocking. I was like, “What I’m seeing right now is all a lie!” (Laughs). I started there, and then began attending hon-uchi (preparatory meetings for scriptwriting) with the one for episodes 17 and 18, which were broadcast at the beginning of the year. I was first credited as an assistant producer in episode 13.

Act 2: Each Way of Living and Way of Conveying Emotions

TTFC: In this round-table discussion, you’re trying to talk about “things that changed from the original plan as the show progressed” as much as you can, but how did that turn out in “Revice”?

Mochizuki: I’m continuing what we talked about before, but as the outline of Weekend after their original participation, we wanted to progress it as “a three-party war” a little more. There’s Fenix which aims to realize peace against the threat called Giff, Weekend which seeks freedom, and Ikki, who lies somewhere between. That’s what is supposed to be shown, but there were parts of the depiction that we were forced to give up on because of limitations with the budget and schedule. Furthermore, we should have made it more apparent that Weekend was a resistance organization, but… that would be poor timing because of the war happening in the real world. [likely the Ukraine-Russia war, but it’s not specified] The action also needed to have more consideration put into it about how much we should depict themes of war in a TV show. It was really hard to decide whether the characters will choose peace, or gain freedom after they’ve won. Of course, we always wanted to do the best we could, but that was a tough decision to make.

Momose: On Kinoshita’s part, making interesting “plot twists” is something he’s especially good at, and he was trying to make use of that to the best of his ability. Like (Mako) Komaki’s character in the Kuuki Kaidan episodes we were just talking about, and Subaru in the voice actor episode.

Mochizuki: Kinoshita’s style fits very well with two-episode arcs— to speak of the old days, a “Kamen Rider W”-like format with basically a detective-drama-esque “case” style. On the other hand, episodes with a hero’s first transformation or a power-up are difficult to fit into that. And there are also situations where it’s good to depict a hero’s coolness in a straightforward way. Still, in Revice, we intentionally did things in ways that reversed the audience’s expectations, or disturbed the traditions that “If it’s going this way, it’ll always end up that way”. The moments where we make you think that Tamaki will transform and then Hana Natsuki transforms, or where Ikki takes Giffard Rex away while it’s being developed, are obvious ones.

TTFC: It was also surprising when Giff was defeated in episode 46.

Mochizuki: This was also the plan from the start; we adjusted many episodes after the final episode count was decided, but at least we didn’t make any big changes. Giff is more of a direct threat than indirect… like a nuclear weapon in the real world, it’s a being with a certain deterrence. Towards that, I wanted to show the parts of how humanity and the Igarashi family handles that. Since they ultimately decided to “defeat” him, after that it’s the question of how humanity’s future will progress. I was thinking that it’s important as a hero to decide “how” you’ll defeat Giff, but that itself is also a different story, and that is not the peak of “Revice’s” story. That’s why the last four episodes… episodes 47 to 50 were actually one thing we “wanted to do”.

Momose: I like “The Boys” (2019-ongoing), which is distributed on Amazon Prime. Heroes with a lot of different views appear there, and I thought it was good that each character’s turmoil and anguish was depicted. I also felt that interest in “Revice”, especially its last four episodes.

Mochizuki: What was established at the foundation of “Revice” was a “conversation with oneself” in the form of a devil, so naturally it became a drama which shows each character’s “way of life”. For example, Hiromi is consistently “an average man who fights fiercely”, and for Aguilera/Hana Natsuki, her theme goes from from “finding where you belong and yourself” to “atonement”. It’s a child-oriented show at its core, so we obviously pour energy into the parts where the heroes fight in cool ways and defeat enemies, but on the other hand, we want to convey something that isn’t just that.

Chikamatsu: I think that was truly stuck with until the end. Mochizuki, you made sure to properly communicate with the cast at all times. The cast members also took the messages in the script in their own ways, and always strived to express them. I felt how good that openness was, even from my own standpoint.

Mochizuki: They knew about everything in the general outline, including the idea of having a story between Ikki and Vice at the very end. As for things that got changed… one of those is the number of Kamen Riders in the show. Kamen Riders Aguilera, Destream, and Juuga weren’t in the plan at the beginning (Laughs).

TTFC: Were those additions due to the popularity of the characters?

Mochizuki: That’s a factor. Unpredictability is part of the appeal of a long-running work that is broadcast over the course of a year, and it’s good that they became developments that properly “support” the main characters. We also thoroughly discussed whether each character would live or die, but ultimately none of them died besides Orteca. I think that this point is different from where you just decide “they’ll keep appearing if they’re popular”, and also reversely, we’re not just “prioritizing the circumstances of the play and making them leave”… It’s the result of us looking at the whole story one time, and having the story go in the way that it’s organically moving. I wonder even now how it would develop if we decided to disrupt that path and have someone die. We didn’t want to make it feel like “anything goes”, though, so Hiromi’s transformation after returning to the war front was squeezed into episode 44, the same one where Daiji is stopped. Hiromi fights in the movie “Battle Familia” and the spin-off “Birth of Chimera” as well, but he doesn’t transform. Now, there are opinions that we’re doing Sakura and Hana, the girls team, because people want that. But we’d always aimed to properly make a drama that depicts a relationship between a good and an evil heroine from the start, so I don’t believe it was changed very much.

TTFC: I feel it depends on the impact and timing, or maybe the impressions of the cast’s acting, for the episodes where a given character is focused on.

Mochizuki: The way we write the screenplays is naturally to first polish the themes and structure of each cour, but in the Kamen Rider series, the normal way of doing it is to have “two-episode arcs” and have one director shoot two episodes at the same time. That itself is a system that hasn’t changed in the past, but of course during the COVID pandemic we had to increase the efficiency of filming due to schedule and budget constraints. So we properly decided the themes and central characters of the two-episode arcs more precisely than usual, and tried to make it in a way where each arc finishes production before the next one starts. I personally prefer this approach and I’m good at it, but this way of doing it has a high affinity for “guest episodes” that are two-episode arcs, and inversely, it’s difficult to balance while you’re also progressing the plot. Perhaps some viewers may have had an impression that the continuity was broken in some episodes because we made it this way. At any rate, this method also has dilemmas where it couldn’t be controlled to one’s own liking if we weren’t moving along the shoot smoothly. I would like to learn from this experience and grow from it in the future.

Act 3: The Cast’s Overflowing Zeal, and the Meaning Hidden Between the Lines

TTFC: Speaking of characters’ stories, I think you should talk about the charm of all of the people in the “acting department” of “Revice”. Speaking frankly, there was a balanced range of ages, and each person’s characteristics were different. It’s a happy blend of people, and it felt like an incredible team.

Mochizuki: That’s right. One theme of “Revice” was “family”, so firstly, we’ll start with the lovely duo of Shigeyuki Totsugi [Genta Igarashi] and Kurara Emi [Yukimi Igarashi] for the Igarashi family, and (Kazuya) Tanabe [Commander Wakabayashi] for Fenix, and Jun Hashimoto [Akaishi] and Sayaka Fujioka [Akemi Mikoshiba] after that. Along with (Toshihiro) Yashiba [Hikaru’s “dad”] in Weekend, it was important that the big places were all tied together by experienced actors. I regret that we couldn’t do an episode where Buusan (Shozo Irabu) got a lot of things to do… It might have been sudden for the viewers who don’t watch “Kamen Rider Vail”, so I tearfully gave up on it (Laughs).

Momose: But Buusan’s actor (Yutaka) Saigou was also good. He got cooler with each episode.

Mochizuki: I think that for the young cast members, throughout the year, it wasn’t a simple script to follow whatsoever. Because it’s unpleasant for the characters to explain their essential feelings and changes in all sorts of lines. Naturally, the minimum amount of exposition is essential, but at the start, many of them thought that this was a work with excessive amounts of explanation. So, Kinoshita intentionally left more blank space in his writing style for Revice. For the cast, they were thinking about how they in their own way could fill in the “between-the-lines” parts which weren’t written in the script. The people who excellently personified that were all of the veteran actors. I think that the young people were encouraged by closely watching the lines they created. It became a good experience for (Wataru) Hyuga [Daiji/Kagero], who had many chances to work with Jun Hashimoto in the middle part of the series, and others.

Momose: Even just playing Daiji and Kagero who are so different was challenging, but I think it was great that Hyuga seemed to enjoy taking up that challenge. Maeda [Kentaro Maeda, Ikki’s actor] became gradually more dependable, and more of a “leader”, without even knowing it. I think a characteristic of all the male members is actively working on communication—not only with Mochizuki, but also myself and all the directors. The female members are a little different. It seems like the female cast members often consulted with each other. But for Imoto [Ayaka Imoto, played Sakura] and Asakura [Yui Asakura, played Hana/Aguilera, new stage name is Hikari Kabashima], they delved into their own characters with their own individual approaches. People like Asakura aren’t the type to be very open about things like that, but when I listened to her answers in an interview, I understood that she’s deeply thinking about her acting more than I can imagine. It was interesting that she showed the differences between her personality and her role.

TTFC: I definitely felt that in interviews too. That everyone was very sincerely tackling their roles with their own stances.

Mochizuki: Personally, even looking back on the works that I participated in as an assistant producer, I’m the type to actively communicate with cast members. I guess being close in age at the time factored into that, but I tried to be someone who’s simply “easy to talk to”. Even after becoming a chief producer, I’m trying to not let that part of me change. I think that has good results and that the filming sets of “Revice” were comfortable, but of course that alone isn’t enough, so it’s natural to also have to be strict. I also say it when I say it, but normally, all of the directors are firm about the places where they should clean up. And, like I said just now, the adult cast members were always serious. If you see the attitude they use with their acting work, their feelings should immediately become clear. So I always thought that I shouldn’t prepare scripts that everyone’s feelings are involved in. In that sense, I think they were useful.

TTFC: Things like the end of episode 40 were one conclusion. I wondered how this could be shown on a Sunday morning… (Laughs).

Mochizuki: Jun Hashimoto wrote about it in his personal blog, so eager fans already know what happened at the filming set, but… (Laughs). I was also there that day too, but at the start, Ushijima’s actor Yashiba [Toshihiro Yashiba, Hikaru’s “dad”] kept his distance from Hashimoto and only thought about the parts closely relevant to himself. Furthermore, as said earlier, Yashiba already wanted to co-star with Hashimoto, so this was the day where his deepest wish came true. So, Yashiba was already very enthusiastic, and although he made different movements in that scene’s performance than in the tests, it was more like his body decided to “move on its own”. In short, he got in the zone. But because Hashimoto’s suit was covered in sticky blood, we already couldn’t turn back… from there, it’s what you all saw, a duel between Hashimoto and Yashiba as fellow actors. While we couldn’t redo the take, the two of them gave a great performance, and it became that scene. Akaishi plopping himself down at the end was also an ad-lib… and then his foot fell asleep.

Momose: No one else could’ve acted the scene that way but Hashimoto and Yashiba. They made it an incredible moment.

TTFC: By the way, it’s weird for me to ask this right now, but how did the name “Weekend” originate?

Mochizuki: It was Hanta’s idea for a name, which we then adopted. I believe it’s from the mental image of people who were normally working adults or students on weekdays, but gather and operate mainly on weekends, since it’s an organization mostly made up of regular citizens. Something like “weekend spies”, I guess. The Ushijima household isn’t a real family, but he wanted to have a little more time to focus on them. It was already talked about, but we wanted to make the scale and strength of Weekend as a large organization more apparent, and there was a blueprint related to that which the Ushijima family depicted. However, as much as we should’ve depicted that, the war in the last part of the story becomes a gruesome drama. No matter how it turned out, the organization would always be mentally associated with “war”, so it became a bit more difficult given the world events happening at the beginning of the year.

TTFC: The regular characters of George Karizaki and Hiromi Kadota are also ones that draw attention to themselves.

Mochizuki: (Noritaka) Hamao [George’s actor] became a facilitator within the young cast members. I think he himself had a great power to understand and imagine his role, but he also paid attention to the people around him and could take care of them. That also meant that he gets very frustrated if one mistake is made, but the great thing is that he can change how he interacts with the others in a positive way. He can also play the leading role with Maeda, and he subtly changes his attitude when he talks with him, or the female actors like Imoto or Asakura. So the two of them trusted him too. When Hamao went to his absolute limits, (Junya) Komatsu [Hiromi’s actor] would quickly follow up. Their exquisite relationship was also hood for the team. Komatsu plays the role of the “ura-mawashi” [guy who makes sure everyone has a chance to speak], as they call it in talk shows (Laughs).

Act 4: Many Devils, Everyone’s Good Points

TTFC: I’d like to ask about “Revice’s” themes of “devils” and “family”. I had the impression that you had a fair amount of freedom when coming up with the “devils” in “Revice”, and weren’t held back by any preexisting conceptions. I also found incredibly interesting representations in the script for the V-Cinext, which I’ve read ahead of time, but when I see the “devils” in the TV series it’s based on, I really feel like I get it.

Mochizuki: The devils depicted in “Revice” aren’t beings who possess humans externally; they’re beings who originally exist within someone and then materialize externally. In short, a projection of oneself. So the humans’ personalities and development are clearly reflected in their devils. The ways their own devils developed, their motives, and their visual styles should be linked to the characters themselves. The Igarashi siblings Ikki, Daiji and Sakura are very different from each other, and this is what makes them unique in their own ways. Daiji’s devil Kagero is probably the easiest concept to understand. Kagero formed inside Daiji from the trauma he was repressing. For Sakura, it’s even more so related to trauma. Lovekov is a weak little creature symbolic of her “real self” that she was unconsciously concealing. So with Sakura, letting Lovekov be visible is also a moment of growth in itself. She was able to face her weakness and overcome it. But what was different in Sakura and Lovekov’s relationship compared to Ikki and Vice, or Daiji and Kagero, is that you couldn’t say they were equals. Ikki and Daiji depicted growth by communicating with their devils, but in Lovekov’s case, she couldn’t have that “conversation”, and that’s connected to how the Invincible Jeanne arc near the end was depicted. In this, Lovekov, as something that only exists for Sakura to protect, disappeared. Daiji and Kagero seem to have a “lifelong contract”, according to their lines in the finale, (Laughs) but Lovekov is, frankly speaking, a being close to an imaginary friend, so there might be a future where she disappears one day as Sakura grows up. It’s only a matter of time before she naturally separates from Lovekov as she gradually becomes a more normal person… That’ll probably be depicted in a later spin-off (Laughs).

TTFC: So maybe there’ll be a day where she’s become an adult and a mother, and they reunite at an unexpected moment…

Mochizuki: Protecting someone important to you… I want her to appear in a cool way like Yukimi’s devil. Well, in Yukimi’s case, it was less like a devil and more like an angel (Laughs).

TTFC: But the preconceived notion of the word “devil” will follow it around regardless… It’s cliché, but I think I had to unlearn my previous idea of a devil when I tried to understand the “devils” in the world of “Revice”.

Mochizuki: That’s right. Of course there are alternatives to the word “devil”, and I think that’s supported by what seems like coinage of “Giff-(blanks)” in the world of “Revice”. However, part of the premise was that the protagonist signs a contract with a devil and the two of them become Kamen Riders together. That in itself was “Revice’s” unique trait which hadn’t been in the Kamen Rider series up to now, so for Ikki and Vice’s relationship, it’s made clear at an early stage… specifically episode 2. We wanted kids to think these two were “interesting” or “I like them”, so we had Ikki reject Vice as a partner ahead of time as to not contort their relationship. Of course, there were also things that pushed it along as a thrilling relationship where they’re always vigilant, like Eiji Hino and Ankh in “Kamen Rider OOO” (2010). Because no matter what you say, Vice is a “devil”. Not knowing when they could get hung in their sleep… that’s interesting in its own way. But we can’t portray Vice as trying to eat humans or always betray them after he’s become a Kamen Rider, and in the end we can’t distort his “motive”. That’s a big difference between Ankh, who isn’t a Kamen Rider, and him. There weren’t intentions to try and make him very similar to his great senior.

TTFC: Which is precisely why parts of Daiji and Kagero resemble them so strongly.

Mochizuki: In the Kamen Rider series, the age range of our audience is actually very spread out. With Ikki and Vice, and afterwards Jeanne, we tried to have it appeal to kids first and foremost. On the other hand, we had the goal to make it enjoyable to adults as well, with the drama of Fenix members like Daiji and Kagero, and also Karizaki and Hiromi. Ikki and Vice don’t usually have serious fights with each other, but Ikki and Daiji having a serious “brotherly conflict” is also something that chased a certain reality. We decided at a fairly early stage that Ikki and Daiji would talk in episodes 3 and 4 after Ikki and Vice’s relationship was created in episodes 1 and 2, but for Daiji and Kagero, we expected the span between Evil’s emergence and Live’s creation to take about five or six episodes. Because of various circumstances, it was stretched out for ten episodes.

TTFC: Speaking of Daiji and Kagero, the Live vs. Evil fight in episode 26 directed by Hidenori Ishida, and the birth of Holy Live afterwards, was just too fiery. I thought that was the last time Kagero would be seen…

Mochizuki: Schedule-wise for toy sales too, that was set as the goal for Daiji and Kagero’s relationship. I had that belief as well, until we wrote the script. As we thought about “Revice’s” foundation of “having a dialogue with the devil inside yourself” while re-examining the developments that would happen in the endgame, we began thinking about if it was good for Daiji’s goal to be without a companion. We discussed it with Bandai, and created another arc for him in the final part of the show. I also conveyed that to Director Ishida, and he understood my reasoning. Holy Live’s debut became a very amazing portrayal, and I’m extremely grateful to the director for that.

Chikamatsu: I cried during episode 26. However, when doing script meetings for planning episodes far ahead of time, we agreed that the goal for Daiji certainly wasn’t that.

Mochizuki: A part that we thought pretty hard about was when Daiji would return to the Igarashi family after joining Director Akaishi’s side.

Chikamatsu: Kagero’s return and EviltyLive’s creation is the true end goal of Daiji’s story. The road to that point was long, but it was a necessary stroke to make.

Mochizuki: Speaking of catharsis in the story, I think it would have been beautiful for Daiji to return when Genta became Destream in episode 42. But when I thought about it realistically, I realized that this would be not quite right. It’s not easy for Daiji to make that decision to simply return because the actions that his father takes in only 30 seconds. Not even Ikki or Genta can save him, but it damaged Daiji’s heart, and it steadily grows more unstable… Hiromi has good parts (Laughs). [???] It’s a three-part arc in pretty long strokes.

Chikamatsu: I think it should’ve been Hiromi. It’s a drama, so you can just say “this is what’ll happen here”, but we all try to think about “is this really good as it is?”, and that’s why episode 44 turned out that way. Hyuga kept getting a heavy amount of lines at that time, and that was always difficult for him, but he did his best to meet our expectations.

Mochizuki: Even in the middle section of the show, he was burdened with especially important parts, but he did persevere, and Daiji became yet another unique character in a long line of so-called “secondary Riders”.

TTFC: How did Karizaki’s arc in episodes 47 and 48 come about?Although it does connect to Ikki and Vice’s final fight (episodes 49 and 50; the final episode).

Chikamatsu: That’s the episode where everyone saved Kari-chan instead of the other way around.

Mochizuki: For Karizaki, even Hiromi, who cared for him the most and was closest to him, couldn’t get through to him. So even though Ikki’s about to lose his memories, he meddles and helps Karizaki. Karizaki holds the moral duty of completely erasing the threat of Giff’s genes, and defies the Igarashi Family, but his true motive was to get revenge against his father. Against that, Ikki gives him the information that “Masumi Karizaki loved his son”, questions Karizaki’s thoughts once again, and brings out his true feelings in an all-out battle. This stance of “questioning” is valuable. Ikki, without forcing him to come to a conclusion, simply meddled to the bitter end. In the end, through the help of the “nosiest guy in Japan”, Karizaki “guided” himself to the conclusion of confronting his father’s feelings. Please appreciate the performance that Maeda and Hamao put on for this episode. I think that Hamao especially showed his love for George Karizaki and “Revice” in a wonderful form.

Act 5: Grief of Separation, An Honorable End to a Nosy Hero

TTFC: And now for the finale, episodes 49 and 50. In this, for Ikki to take back his important memories, Vice does something very profound. Could you talk about how you decided that Ikki would gradually lose his memories due to the contract?

Mochizuki: I actually wasn’t that interested in the idea at first. Previously, I was in charge of the work “Detective ZERO”, which Ikki Sawamura starred in. The premise of his character Detective Tokiya is that he remembers the necessary things for his daily life outside of work, but he ends up losing all of his memories related to being a detective. This is actually called “selective amnesia” in real life, but if it’s depicted in a drama, it’s extremely difficult to draw the line. As the story goes on, you can’t fully decide if they’ll forget or remember this in a specific situation. And for someone who makes the show and decides on that, it’s really difficult to figure out whether you’ll make it apparent to the viewers each time. It’s an interesting idea, at least in movies and one-shot dramas, but in my personal experience, it hasn’t been a very good fit for a serial drama. Of course it’s fiction, so it’s good in itself if we make plot points that fit the story, but I thought it would be difficult to continually use that concept throughout a show, and had concerns about using it. However, after we talked about the climax of Ikki and Vice’s story, I had the opinion that I want the characters to be “tied down” as a reason for conflict, and decided that I wanted to keep it in.

TTFC: Previously, there was a puzzling depiction at the end of the first movie that was made to feel like a dark omen. The meaning of that moment was revealed much later on.

Mochizuki: I guess we could have given frequent hints from the start, but that would have been too in-your-face (Laughs). We discussed together when and how we’d start hinting at it. As a result, the terms of the contract between Ikki and Vice were first discussed in episode 25, and the phenomenon of the disappearing memories is concretely depicted in Jiko’s (Koji Ikeyama’s) arc in episodes 30 and 31. However, Karizaki seeing Ikki disappear from a photo in the compilation episode just before then (episode 29)— that was put there to get viewers to remember the plot point, but I regret that it was more confusing instead…

TTFC: Ikki isn’t “forgotten”; it feels close to actual amnesia for he himself to “forget”.

Mochizuki: It’s certainly sad for Ikki to forget because everyone else forgets about him, and it’s a useful plot point specifically because it’s this kind of work of art, but when you go that way, it’s very reminiscent of a previous character in “Kamen Rider Den-O” (2007) named Yuto Sakurai. I knew about Rider when that was airing, even though I hadn’t joined Toei yet, so I assumed there would be a lot of other people who would remember that too.

(Footnote: Yuto Sakurai (Kamen Rider Zeronos) was a character who has memories disappear every time he uses cards to transform. Yuto’s memories and the memories of people who know him were both erased with every transformation, but in the story, the sadness of “being forgotten” was more prominent.)

TTFC: Kentaro Maeda’s acting of Ikki forgetting his family was impressive.

Mochizuki: The way Ikki himself forgets about everyone felt very much like Ikki and “Revice”. Although Japan’s biggest meddler had elevated his nosiness, saved a lot of people, and is close to saving the world, the price he pays for that is to forget everything about his family, the most precious thing in his life. However, everyone remembers everything about Ikki and the things he’s done for them, so they try to return the favor somehow for the “meddler” who’s given so much to them. At the end of the end, he is helped because of his companions’ “nosiness”. When that conclusion was seen, I felt Ikki being established as another protagonist in the Kamen Rider series with a wonderful identity. Looking back on all of it, we didn’t explain everything well, and could have done some things better. For us, we weren’t following the past successes and templates, and we chose to challenge ourselves by making something new rather than having a solid basis, so we chose this path ourselves. I’m full of thanks for the staff and cast members who carried the same feelings as I did.

TTFC: And in the final episode, there’s a super-big surprise guest…

Mochizuki: The unexpected arrival of King Kazu… We got the athlete Kazuyoshi Miura to make an appearance.

TTFC: It’s established as Ikki’s yearning to be a pro soccer player. You can validate the posters, signatures, and various merchandise on the set of the “Happy Spa”, and him coming here in person was the implementation of that so-called “foreshadowing”… (Laughs). [they used a slang term for “foreshadowing being followed up on” but there’s not really an equivalent in English]

Momose: When we established Ikki as a former soccer player at the first stage, we began talking about who would be a good target for his admiration, and wanted to have it be a legend among legends if possible. So Toei’s offices had a good connection with Yokohama FC, which the player Kazuyoshi Miura belonged to at the time. We presented it to them, and asked them to help with the design for the posters and such. I’m happy that Kazuyoshi Miura excitedly agreed to make this appearance as well.

Mochizuki: Momose is someone who can keep trying at something over and over again without hesitation (Laughs). We’re in our mid-thirties, so in our experience and intuition. we felt like giving up before starting the negotiations, because we thought, “it’ll probably be to difficult”. But Momose isn’t like that. He says, “We can do it!”, and dives right into it. And then if I do anything, he says, “It’s been approved!” (Laughs).

Momose: (Laughs). But in hindsight, we began working on the movie rather suddenly, and there were a lot of difficulties when that was started up.

Mochizuki: It can be said for any TV series at that time, but you were heroic. From a producer’s standpoint, there’s no point where there’s not a work being produced and you can flip your switch to “off”. The day that our work will broadcast approaches every week. Of course all the staff is working on it, and they’re still people and can’t work all the time, so they make sure to rest, but if something happens even on a break day, we have to deal with it as soon as we can. Even as an AP, you’re still looking at it as someone who has say over your range of work, so if we don’t keep contact, filming will completely stop. If we continue that, the filming staff will lose trust in us. The period of “starting up” something we’re trying out for the staff. Like, should we follow these guys for the whole year? However, this is a period where we can’t work more on “improving work practices”. Making a tokusatsu series has always been rigorous, so even though we were already working gradually on improvements before COVID, but due to the pandemic, things started changing more quickly as a whole. I think you can say this about the industry as a whole. The optimization and shortening of filming as a way to prevent disease spread are components of that, and that has improved work practices just as much as it’s prevented infection.

TTFC: But still, it’s the same up to the filming. In a weekly-airing series, you can’t change the fact that goods are delivered throughout the year…

Mochizuki: That’s true. And if anything, that increased this year (Laughs), but for this, I thought that people especially needed it in the unique circumstances of the Coronavirus pandemic. We had a sense of purpose from this, and we didn’t slow down. It’s evidence that people are dependent on the potential of the Kamen Rider series in the midst of the trouble everywhere. Moreover, we’ve seen many individuals leave the industry in these last few years. Not to mention the entry-level and middle-ranking staff members who came in here pursuing their dreams, and even the veterans who have continuously made a living here— all kinds of people have tearfully resigned because the work wasn’t making enough to live off of anymore. That’s frustrating. There isn’t much I can do, but I create things as a producer, and in short create jobs, so I felt like I could give them at least a little bit of hope. However, with that situation at hand, we can’t get many people to join the company, and if that’s the case, we’ll inevitably need to pick up the pace. Each individual can’t so anything besides increase the density of what they get done every day and hour. It became an era where we can’t choose either quality or quantity anymore, and both are needed at the same time. That’s difficult, but at the present moment, we’re just continuing to work hard. In the midst of thar, the staff members, directors, and cast showed their fullest capabilities and continued to give their best performance, and I am full of gratitude for them. I think there were a lot of difficulties, but when it was time to wrap up filming and everyone could unanimously say, “It was a fun year”, that made me truly happy.

Chikamatsu: I’m different from Mochizuki and Momose, and I’m now almost a step ahead of you in my work on “Revice”. I joined after it had already started production, and I hadn’t figured out how much I could contribute to, but when everyone greeted and thanked me, especially the offices of cast members, I felt like I had been of some use to them, and I was filled with happiness and sadness at the same time. It’s the second work I’ve been very involved with since “Zero-One”, and I feel like my attachment to it grew with each episode. There are things about the end result of the show that I can’t say anything objective about, but I’m happy I could be a part of this.

Mochizuki: Could you talk about “Farm-fresh Theater”?

Chikamatsu: Oh, right (Laughs). I previously wrote the original story book “From 2017 / Record of Seven Days” which is a pack-in extra with “Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations”, and this time I’m in charge of the script for episode 2 of “Farm-fresh Theater”. Up to now, the original cast members in “Farm-fresh Theater” only gave voice performances, but this is the first time that (Claud) Hachijoin appeared as Tsuyoshi Tamaki, so definitely please watch it on TTFC.

TTFC: It’s been eagerly planned to broadcast for the last 11 months of production.

Mochizuki: I touched on it at the start, but one-shot spin-offs are wonderfully different in nature from the rest of the work, and that was fun. “Kamen Rider Revice: The Mystery”, being distributed with TelAsa, is a work that dared to be a mystery in “Revice”, as the name implies. It will be released on Blu-ray and DVD in November from Toei Video, so please watch that too.

TTFC: “Dear Gaga”, the Blu-ray Collection pack-in drama directed by Director Satoshi Morota, was also amazing. The Igarashi family is depicted in the TV series, but this is about the Kadota family that Hiromi grew up in. There isn’t any “transformation” or “action”, but it was unmistakably a “hero story”.

Mochizuki: I think, at the point that this symposium will be released, episode 3 of “Kamen Rider Jeanne & Aguilera with Girls Remix” still won’t be out (it will be available on September 11th, 2022), so please look forward to that too. This work is Director (Koichi) Sakamoto’s greatest desire (Laughs).

TTFC: I think that getting ten heroines from different generations (including the active duty ones) to appear, eleven if you count Hiroe Igeta appearing in voice only, was truly an amazing feat that will go down in Kamen Rider history. I was present for the filming of episode 3’s final scene, and an incredible miracle was occurring. It’s deeply moving to think that episode 3 will be released before long. Speaking of lineages of Toei works, Ayane as Electro-Wave Human Black Tackle became “mother-daughter two-generation Ishinomori heroines” with Etsuko Shihomi/Bijinder [Kikaider 01 (1973) character], and I want that point to also strongly appeal to people.

Mochizuki: We put all of our effort into making the TV series, movies, and spin-offs. I’m thankful to the many people who watched “Revice” for doing so, regardless of what opinions they have. And the story of “Revice” definitely has yet to continue in all sorts of ways, so please keep supporting us from now on!

[thedungeonofbaddecisions]

LIVE NOW TO WATCH KAMEN RIDER REIWA: THE FIRST GENERATION

[littleeyesofpallas]

gaah watching the trailers for Anno's Shin Kamen Rider just reminds me how much I used to love the first two generations of Kamen Rider, and the Reiwa look and feel just totally alienated me. I should go back and rewatch some older series

[kawaiilizzie]

Listen guys, Kento probably has one of the most tragic stories of the Reiwa Kamen Riders.

It all goes back to his loving father Hayato aka the first Kamen Rider Calibur, who was manipulated by a higher power to betray his friends to obtain the Almighty Book, which contained everything about the world to humanity's knowledge, to save the world. This and the fact that his father was struck down afterwards has left Kento wishing for a way to redeem his father's legacy, which causes him to be trapped in his father's Seiken, Kurayami, after a fierce battle to protect Touma and the others for several months.

When he does return, we find out that the Kurayami has been showing Kento dark futures where a ritual involving the Seiken and Wonder Ride Books leads to the destruction of both the real world and the magical Wonder World, Touma disappearing or him and everyone else dying being a reoccurring event in these visions, all of which seemingly because of the Seiken 'betraying' their wielders, which when united, can create a new Seiken or destroy both worlds altogether. Heartbroken and in despair of the possibility of losing his friends, especially his childhood friends Touma and Luna, Kento inherits his father's powers as Calibur to seal the Seiken and essentially prevent the futures he saw from occurring along with keeping Touma from disappearing forever.

Luckily, Touma outright stopping the ritual in the visions made Kento realize that the future can be changed and after a heart-to-heart with his father, who had become the assistant to Wonder World's guardian Tassel, rejoins his friends and becomes Espada once more.

Seeing this character arc play out was one of the most emotional parts of Saber and probably Kamen Rider in general. Let's show the Swordsman of Thunder some support, vote Kento!

Sara:

Kento:

[punchrecipe]

[windy-tsubasa]

"Found you."

*Do not repost

[jade-lop]

Re-watching Horobi and Jin’s scene in ReiGen, I noticed Horobi only hit the human rebels who shot at him with the flat of his sword, and Jin’s shot was more of a playful warning than an intent to harm.

Weird, considering their mission was to eradicate humans.

[veemo4]

Kamen Rider Reiwa The First Generation

This was a pretty decent movie all things considered, I haven’t watched ZI-O and likely never will, but I did heavily enjoy it for the Zero-One focus! It was really nice!

2023 Media Thread (Re-do to add a Read More Link)

Spark The Electric Jester 3:

Man I was holding off on spoilers for MONTHS until the holidays when I could get this game, and I only beat it in the beginning of the year and well…HOLY SHIT I didn’t know I needed existentialism in my funny little platformer- Gameplay is INSANELY solid, like honestly some of my favorite platforming controls I have ever used! Music is top notch as well!

Nier Automata: The End of YoRHa Edition:

Holy fuck how did I manage to avoid spoilers for this game for YEARS??? That ending was beautiful~ (Yes I did do all the main endings)

Chrono Trigger: I should preface this by saying I did modify this game a tiiiiny bit to have PS4 button prompts and fixing the Classic filter. Other than that, I can see why it’s a lot of people’s favorite RPG! Short enough in case you wanna replay it, and the foundation of the NG+ system definitely helps incentivize replays! Can’t wait to play Chrono Cross!

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII:

I binged both FFXIII and FFXIII-2 during October and November of last year, but took a short break to avoid burnout. And well, yeah this game was neat! I will admit though that since there’s no way to REWIND time like in Majora’s Mask that I got INSANELY stressed out but that didn’t take away from the sweet release of seeing these characters I love finally get their well-deserved happy ending :)

Mega Man Zero:

I put this one off and on throughout like 2 years because I just wasn’t good at it, but it taught me a VERY good lesson in perseverance! Really excited to play Zero 2!

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion: ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK ;w; Story was pretty…alright for the most part, but I couldn’t feel attached to any of the original characters :/ Honestly my eyes were on Zack just…being real with what’s going on. I may not feel bad for when people he cares about dies, but I can EASILY emphasize with him because I know that HE knows them. Knows them more than we ever will know. Also the gameplay and music are fucking stellar.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes:

I should preface all of this by saying I don’t remember what order I beat all of these in lmao. Anyways my route was Golden Wildfire and the story for it is such an improvement over its equivalent in Three Houses!!! I love Shez so much as a protagonist even if his outfit is a tiny bit dumb.

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

Man I really wanted to like this. And like, music and area wise I loved it! But the story feels…It just doesn’t feel like the finality for all we’ve done so far. I could not care at all for Meteion because they spend approximately like 20 or 30 minutes making us meet them and then throwing us IMMEDIATELY into the angst like, no. This isn’t even a case of “Well I don’t care but I can understand why others do” NO THE GAME MAKES YOUR WOL FEEL BAD AS WELL, MEANING YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO CARE! NO! I DON’T! I was able to at least pretend a little bit to roleplay as needed but man. At least Footfalls and the post-endwalker dungeon themes kick ass though. (Warrior of Light’s name for me is M’bahlon Tia)

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe

SO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE I love kirby games sm and this is no exception. REALLY loved how hard the Magolor Epilogue got at certain points though that was great.

Fire Emblem Awakening

I CAN SEE WHY THIS SAVED THE FRANCHISE WHEN IT CAME OUT!! It’s a REALLY good game! I went with the default male Robin settings since that’s what’s in Smash Bros. And man just, everything about this game is AMAZING!!! Sadly cannot see myself replaying it anytime. I could just load my endgame save and grind out support conversations with other characters or do that…new game plus thing I think it was?

Another Eden: The Cat Beyond Time and Space: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer

I did this event initially back when it came out (and in fact is the main reason why I played the game in the first place) But I got horrible units and died super often, and revived every chance I got. But losing my save data and getting a better unit HEAVILY boosted my chances of getting through the event and man, it was a lot of fun! I love seeing tiny mona :3 JUST LOOK AT HOW SMOL HE IS AAAAAAAAA

Mighty Gunvolt Burst:

I had a lot of fun with this one! I used one of the DLC characters (I think they’re the Zero character from Mighty Number 9 but) it’s a great romp!

EDIT: ALSO SHOULD MENTION IT FUCKING OWO’D ME

Final Fantasy XV

“Walk tall…my friends.” I got this game YEARS ago but haven’t truly delved into it recently. And well… That ending got to me. It really did. The gameplay took me so long to get used to (especially since I had been more used to the more refined gameplay of Final Fantasy 7 Remake 3 years prior) Music is amazing, love the characters! I just wish the other episodes were finished and weren’t just put in a novel :/

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

HOLY FUCK THIS GAME WAS SO COOL. I always heard like, right, about how good this game was but I figured it was just nostalgia talking for people. NOPE. As someone who’s first paper mario game was super (never beat it, I was a really stupid child) and then played Sticker Star (Again, very stupid child but also that game is bullshit because everything is so obtuse and it sucks) But this? This was a big breath of fresh air. I am so excited to go back and play 64 and Super!!!

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Honestly? Way better than I was expecting. You can FEEL nintendo had a strangle-hold on the movie’s production though from how Chris Pratt in the final movie actually fucking voice acts somewhat (it’s a start), there’s no bad Illumination tropes, Peach is a dragoon, Toad and Bowser easily steal the show, and just, ALL THE REFERENCES WOW. EVEN THE NEWER THINGS. I didn’t see any Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi references though which makes me sad. I hope that if there’s a sequel it’s actually better and doesn’t fall into any traps movie sequels usually do, maybe even say if the other kingdoms from Mario Odyssey are in this universe (and maybe Isle Defino) The movie definitely could have used an extra 20 minutes spread throughout to add more to the main group dynamic.

Mega Man Zero 2

OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO MUCH BETTER BALANCE-WISE HOLY SHIT Cyber-elves requirements to be leveled up were MASSIVELY lowered and the enemy AI isn’t as overly aggressive! Loved the music too, especially Departure and the ending theme which was adapted for the song Clover! Can’t wait to do Zero 3!

WARE WA MESSIAH NARI! HAHAHA!

Mega Man Zero 3 was really good, but either I am getting way too good at these games or they are getting easier haha. Loved the music and gameplay though, and how Cyber Elves were handled here is absolutely the best they have ever been! If there’s any game in this series I am gonna replay, it’s Zero 3 without a doubt! On to Mega Man Zero 4, the last of the GBA era.

Mega Man Zero 4

I finally did it. I beat the entire Mega Man Zero series. While I do not agree with how the parts and cyber elf system were handled, It was not a bad experience by any means! It felt nice following Zero’s character arc throughout these games. I’m maybe gonna take a break before I tackle Mega Man ZX, but hey, I feel like that game’s gonna be fun! It’s the only one I actually OWN on its original hardware after all! :D

Sonic and the Black Knight

This was a fun distraction for a few hours! I had a lot of fun with this! Granted the second King Arthur fight took me an hour but besides that it was a quick and good romp! Probably has one of the best final boss themes in a sonic game I’ve ever heard! :D

The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past

Pretty fun game all things considered, but I didn’t like how punishing some of the design philosophies were in the end parts of the game. Music’s great though! Maybe I’ll revisit it one day, but not anytime soon. Still, can’t say I disliked my experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Where…do I even begin with this?…It was…genuinely amazing. I was waiting for a sequel to Breath of the Wild for years, and during my high school years I was wondering how they would even follow it up! Doing a sequel to an open-world game is harder than a lot of other genres.      But yet….they did it. They somehow did it. Those 6 years of development time more than paid off. It felt…amazing to run around a changed Hyrule from the last game. The mechanics were amazing, and the character development was really cool! The new rune abilities are dope!!!    BUT THE MUSIC MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM THE MUSIC OH THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD THE ENDING MUSIC MADE ME ACTUALLY CRY AHHHHHHHH PLAY THIS GAME PLAY IT NOW

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

And here we are! Finally got around to this! It was a really dope game! Loved the combat and music! I even did most of the bonus content and the Ultimate Cup Z, but I kept dying at the final phase of the final boss of that so I just gave up lol, it’s purely bonus content anyways lol. But honestly I loved this game! Can’t wait for the next mainline kirby game!

The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

FINALLY GOT AROUND TO PLAYING THIS ONE! I owned this on real hardware since its release date but never got far. I finally got around to it with the motivation of beating Tears of the Kingdom, and I gotta say, it’s pretty good! Not exactly like, absolutely top tier game that everyone MUST play but, it’s decent! Bosses are a big sour point though. Music was pretty decent, though the final dungeon theme is a bore. Only other current Zelda games I gotta beat are the 2D/Top-Down ones, so maybe I’ll do one of those next! Possibly either Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks.

Pokémon Scarlet

HOLY SHIT THAT ENDING SEQUENCE WAS ACTUALLY COOL AS HELL!!! Like yeah, the game has its decent chunk of technical issues but, holy shit….those last two hours of the main story are phenomenal. TOBY FOX CONTINUES TO BE THE GOAT THE MUSIC HE COMPOSED IS AMAZING! I love how easier it is to capture pokemon compared to Sword and Shield as well. I do like Dynamax raids more as a multiplayer component, but I much prefer the Tera mechanic in terms of PVP. I stlll need to do the post game before the dlc comes out later this year, but all I really got is just the refights against the gym leaders and all that jazz. There’s also the Needle thingies I gotta pull out and the wall things I gotta investigate in order to get the other legendaries, but all I really care about is finishing the core of the main story, I got other games to get to lol. Probably thinking of either Paper Mario or Chrono Cross next haha.

Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final: Build & Ex-Aid with Legend Riders

Okay so context: my friend @arcadiusdragoneyes​ is showing me and @darkspine576​ Kamen Rider Build since it’s one of his favorites and he wanted to indoctrinate introduce us into Kamen Rider AND IT’S FUCKING WORKING. I only know one part of this crossover, but I think it did a good job of giving across the feel of the other Kamen Rider series very well! Kamen Rider Build is so extra I love it. Can’t wait to finish Kamen Rider Build!

[andoryuanzuru]

RISING UTOPIA! ROCKING  T H E  E N D!

Art trade, requested by @PHC_32 of the Father son fight in Kamen Rider: Reiwa The First Generation

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