#the transformation from gonna kill the world to lame dad is precious

[halfamask]

Best thing about the Boruto series hands down is that we get to see Sasuke “part of the cycle of hatred, got traumatized by and killed his brother and definitely suffered in the hands of Orochimaru to do it, threatened to kill all five kage and destroy the hidden leaf, reincarnation of the grandson of god” Uchiha get told by his teenage daughter that he’s lame. And threaten to toss Kakashi in the river for laughing at him about it. I normally hate fillers but Boruto ones are a glaring exception I fear.

[katsuragitakumi]

Thoughts on New World Grease (1/2)

This is the last festival!

 Well, the last V-Cinema is here! And it’s become the top-grossing KR V-Cinema so far, so maybe it’d be a bit of an understatement to say it was well-received in the Japanese fandom. 

After Cross-Z got mixed reviews, there were fans concerned about the Grease V-Cinema: would Kazumin get a new love interest? (Keep in mind that Kazumin/Misora as a ship has a bigger following there than in the Western fandom) Would Sento play a very passive part and be depressed at home? Would the crows get the screen time they deserve?? Would Grease Blizzard be back?

Toei seems to have paid attention to what fans wanted, and I think this movie feels much more Build-like to me than Cross-Z or even Be The One ever did. Kazumin/Misora is a thing -more about that in the next post-, Sento is in a good mood, gets to transform and does stuff other than mope around, the Crows are adorable as usual and Grease Blizzard gets to shine.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the movie for the most part. The action, the comedy, the characters… everything was very good! It’s definitely one of my favorite KR V-Cinemas so far. Is it perfect? No. While I don’t think it has as many issues as Cross-Z -which was enjoyable nonetheless-, there are a couple of things that have bothered me. And let’s say one of them was especially bad. But still, I had a blast watching this movie, and I think it understood what made Build so special to many of us. I saw someone say that while Cross-Z showed the bad side of Build, Grease showed its good side. While I don’t necessarily agree (I don’t think Cross-Z was garbage, and some things Grease does are questionable at best), I do believe Grease was an honest attempt to please the fanbase. As someone else put it, “it’s a love song for Build and its fans”. That’s more like it, yes.

What I did like:

The characters got to do stuff! I’m especially happy for Sento and Sawa, whose roles in Cross-Z were… disappointing, to say the least. Here we’ve got Sento at his best, living a happy life, transforming and trolling his good ol’ pal Kazumin. Sawa gets to rescue Gentoku, repeat her shady line (“it’s better if you don’t know about it”) and this time around, fortunately, she wasn’t knocked out for any reason.

Shinobu acknowledges Sento as his other son!!! I wish there was at least a lil mention to Mrs. Katsuragi, but I’m happy with what we’ve got. Now I can easily imagine her, Shinobu, Katsuragi and Sento enjoying their sweet eggrolls together.

That conversation between Katsuragi and Banjou! When I read the spoilers in late August, I think this was one of the scenes I wanted the watch the most. “It’s not a weapon if a hero uses it. It’s hope”, says Katsuragi. Banjou and Sawa smile at him, and he smiles back. He finally acknowledges Banjou and everyone else as true heroes who fight for love and peace :’)

Massugu (the kid from the Grease HBV who made a brief cameo in the series) is back! I love how in the show he said something like “we were saved by a purple Kamen R*der!” and now he just says “a green monster has appeared!”.

While I’m sad that Gentoku and Kazumin hardly interacted at all (they were treated as a duo in the show, in Be The One, in Cross-Z and in Heigen Forever), I loved it when Kazumin called him and understood that Gentoku had been kidnapped because he called him “Grease” instead of “potato” lol

THE JOKES. The comedy was great in this movie, but I especially appreciated something that’s extremely mutocore: the jokes that turn out to be plot relevant. In this case, Kazumin is so heartbroken when Misora rejects him that he and his friends go on a trip to a deserted island (their preferred means of transportation: a raft), and they can transform because… they bathed themselves in a very special onsen! It’s so stupid. I love it. Now, that’s the kind of silly stuff I actually like, not Cross-Z’s strange “Banjou’s gonna explode” thing. In a way, Misora saved the world by rejecting Kazumin. A legend.

There were many gags I loved and I can’t choose a single one. I think I’m going to have lots of fun giffing this movie, although some of those scenes aren’t very gif-friendly (like when the crows are cheering on Kazumin, and Aoba goes “YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”). Sento trolling Kazumin (“misoramisoramisoramisoramisora”) was great, or Sento forgetting about Utsumi, who was inside a capsule, or the shabby map Sento drew for Kazumin… God, Sento was the MVP.

Misora calling the crows “the three idiots” ALL THE TIME. I loved her interactions with them. When Aoba is trying to protect her, when she refuses to let go of Akaba’s hand… And I’m glad Isurugi was mentioned (she was buying a present for him), although it makes me sad that we didn’t get to see Misora and her dad in the New World after the finale. I bet Isurugi and the crows would have been a very fun combo.

Also, I’m glad Kiba’s acute sense of smell wasn’t forgotten, or Aoba’s reaction when he saw Metal Build :’) Or Kiba’s and Aoba’s roasting Kazumin, as usual (“he’s so bad at lying!” and “he can’t do anything without us…”). Akaba was a sweetie. I love every single one of them.

Utsumi’s “EVERYTHING FOR NANBA INDUSTR… no… FOR PEOPLE!”. That’s my boy right there!!!!!!!!  

THE ACTION SCENES! Now, I’ve always had a soft spot for Grease as a rider because I love his fighting style, and he got to shine as much as he deserved in this movie. Dunno how to feel about the DBZ fight at the end (when he and the Bad Guy were flying around), but his scenes as Grease Blizzard -my true love- were amazing. Perfect Kingdom was cool though, and that scene where all the riders transform together was very sweet.

Kazumin was VERY cool. While I’m :/ about some stuff he did (more about that in the next post), he does know how to deliver cool lines. “You’ve always been alone, haven’t you?” or “I’ve got something I want to protect. You don’t. That’s it”. YOOOOOOOO. Or his speech about what a Kam*n R*der is. He and the crows were very, very fun.

SENTO AND BANJOU WERE SO FUN TOO! Loved the scene where Sento says he’s glad the Katsuragis made up, and Banjou gets all “:’)” while looking at his smile.

I’m surprised (except not really) that in a movie where TWO new het ships become canon, there’s no mention whatsoever of Yui, Banjou’s love interest in Cross-Z. Now, Build has been consistent about bringing up randos now and then (here we’ve got Massugu, for instance, but in the show nearly every rando has been mentioned again at some point), so I think it’s worth pointing out the so-called “Cross-Z erasure”. Especially in this context. Which leads me to…

What’s with the Kazumin+Misora and Sento+Banjou similarities in this movie? lol Maybe I should write a separate post to not make this post even longer.

“You know, he’s a dumb and lame idol otaku, but he’ll fight to create a future for his friends, for everyone. Because he’s a hero”. Awww, Misora (see the point above). Felt bad when she started crying as soon as she spotted Grease Blizzard. She’s precious…

I laughed when the Bad Guy killed The Other Bad Guy. This movie wasn’t very violent compared to other V-Cinemas, let alone ROGUE. And although we see how the Bad Guy gets tortured, it’s much more tame than Yui getting burned alive in Cross-Z. And I’m glad we didn’t get a gratuitously violent scene where the bad guy tortures Misora.

I actually appreciate the Bad Guy, whose name as you can see I don’t even remember. Is he great? Nah. But what I want in these movies is to see the characters I already know doing stuff, not for some rando to steal the spotlight. Bonus points because he wasn’t an alien. He did work with Shinobu, but he doesn’t retcon the plot like the guys from Be the One did, and they don’t bring back Evolt like Cross-Z did. He was just there doing his stuff and I respect him for that.

I’m probably missing some more stuff, but yeah this movie was very, very enjoyable to me. I’ll talk about the stuff I did NOT like in the next post!

(Second part)