Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai Shocker DC Movie Review

To those wondering how did All Riders ended up sandwiched between Amazon’s World and World of Rider War (Which I will review the Special Edition), here’s the explanation. Remember Den-O’s World, the Kabuto backdrop was already dropped when Sieg appeared and showed the map to Tsukasa and co. same case with All Riders, the backdrop for World of Rider War was dropped when this movie takes place. Plus, official media states that it take place between those series and we can’t argue that much with official media! With no further ado, here is the review of All Riders DC!

Why I chose the Director’s Cut to be reviewed and not the theatrical version? There are contents coming to the DC that are relevant to the characteristics of our group. Plus, the DC of the film is easy to follow for those who forgot some details of the series and to those who never watched Decade… unless you are one of those people who only watched Decade because of the BLACK x BLACK RX Arc!

Note: I will italicize relevant contents added in the DC.

Tsukasa arrives in a different world and all his pictures are normal! By normal, it is not Photoshopped! Kiva-la remembered a photo similar to what Tsukasa is wearing (Remember the photo posted by Eijiro back in BLACK RX’s World?), Tsukasa feels the key and he thinks he knows where it fits. Along with Natsumi and Yusuke, they explored the new world. The world seems familiar to him, every nook and cranny. They arrived in the house and at first, he has doubts if he will open the door, after being convinced by Natsumi that it might be the key about his past, he opens the door and hears music from somewhere. It is a music being played by his sister, Sayo and she was explained about the situation of his brother that he has amnesia and they travelling in various Rider Worlds, helping Riders in various worlds as they try to help Tsukasa regain his memories.

Her butler, Tsukikage appeared and explained why Tsukasa travelled the worlds. After the clips of the world merging was seen, Tsukasa seems to remember and orders Tsukikage to gather all the Riders and start a tournament. Three days later, it began and at the end, Decade, Kuuga and Diend (WTF?!) being part of the final three versus BLACK, V3 and Super-1. At the end, Decade win and a castle beneath the arena rose.

Dai Shocker has risen up and Eijiro senses that something weird has happened and rushed to the scene. We met Ambassador Hell (Since that is the name most fans used) and Eijiro appeared. After being pushed away by Hell, he then revealed his true identity, he is Shocker’s master kaijin creator, Doctor Shinigami!

We are then introduced to their Great Leader, Tsukasa Kadoya who explains to us the purpose of his journey. He travelled to defeat the Riders so that he can create bridges to connect the worlds and save them and since they are saved, they will invade the worlds to create a perfect new world. Evil, yes. Fool proof? Almost since Tsukasa lost his Decadriver, along with it losing his memories. Tsukasa throws them out of the palace like he didn’t care about their relationship before.

The two went to Tsukasa’s old home in which we learned that Sayo knew about it for a long time and his butler is no other than Shadow Moon! Yusuke protected Natsumi and she ran away. At the end, Shadow Moon and Sayo, which is known by members of Dai Shocker as Priestess Bishium of Kamen Rider BLACK fame evicted Tsukasa out of the position as Great Leader. We then learned that Tsukasa is just a tool for them to create bridges around the worlds and it doesn’t stop the merging of the worlds.

Now without his organization, will his old friends still accept him? Dai Shocker’s world conquest begins can the Riders save the worlds now that they are defeated?

On to the review, even though all the Riders are part in this film, this is Decade’s show. Heck, why is Decade’s name on top of the film? Anyways, the film much focuses more on Tsukasa’s character. As Tsukasa, as the Great Leader and as the brother who left her sister in her nest.

As Tsukasa, he is the man who has no memory of his past and seeing that his pictures are normal-normal, it seems that this might be his real world. One of the things I noticed in the Director’s Cut is that it added additional layers in Tsukasa’s character. Unlike in most world’s that he is over confident of himself, it is rare to see him doubt. And yes, in the DC, we learned that he has doubts if after opening the door, he will learn some answers about his past.

As the Great Leader, his job is to subdue the Riders to stop the merging of the worlds and form bridges to connect those worlds and later, invade them. As seen in his tenure in the film as the Great Leader, he is cold and manipulative. After his memories returned, he never tells his friends about it because it is part of his grand scheme. Aside from that, he being defected by his own men in the position simply means that he was maybe, given the responsibility as the Great Leader. And that guy who gave it has quite an amount of trust to him and being pulled out of that responsibility made gave him that he failed the one who gave him the responsibility and lost everything that he has even if he tried his best to reclaim what he have lost.

And as the brother who has just returned to his nest, he is someone who has her sister, thinking that he left because he doesn’t care about her. Tsukasa needs to prove to his sister that he cares about her, that she can walk with her own feet and she can leave the bird’s nest as her own.

Since I started talking about Sayo, I will talk about her. Sayo is Tsukasa’s sister and his brother has just returned after his journey. Sayo, based on what is established thinks that his brother has forgotten about her and now thinks that his butler, Tsukikage cares more about her. Because of this, she becomes Priestess Bishium, one of Gorgom’s High Priest back in Kamen Rider BLACK, much trapped to the shadow of her butler, Shadow Moon. She is a likable character but as a BLACK fan, I am disappointed that they ditched Bishium’s mask, which is the charm to her character.

AU Shadow Moon, Tsukikage is pure evil, unlike the original Shadow Moon. Manipulative and scheming that he was able to turn his Great Leader’s sister into his own ally. Even with that, I am not that happy with this Shadow Moon, this Shadow Moon lacked backbone as the main villain. The reason why the original Shadow Moon was loved by fans because he is the sure fate of most Riders created by the bad guys if he wasn’t able to escape their base. Plus, add the fact that the original Shadow Moon still has his own memories except that he thinks that the person that he once treated as his own brother is now his rival to the position of Creation King, the title of the Leader of Gorgom. What makes it disappointing is the fact that W easily beat him because he doesn’t know much about him!

One of the biggest questions that are bothering fans is how W easily beat Shadow Moon if Decade and Rising Ultimate Kuuga had a hard time beating him. My answer is based on Shadow Moon’s expression, like I said he doesn’t know much about him. Second, he appeared out of nowhere, hence the element of surprise and lastly, Philip did some research on him before they beat him up.

Rising Ultimate Kuuga is probably one of the most senseless forms I have ever seen. If you watched Kuuga, Yusuke Godai died before he acquired the Rising forms! Did Onodera died when Bishium is firing him with the Earth Stone? Nope. Granted that the Earth Stone unlocked the Arcle’s untapped potential, based on what I remembered, Godai had a hard time controlling his Ultimate form and he only used it once against Daguva, then why the hell Onodera was able to wield such strong power without exerting much effort after the spell was broke?! And one thing, the design for the Rising Ultimate form is butt ugly due to the amount of gold seen in the armor.

AU Joji Yuki aka Gacktman/RiderGackt/AU Riderman is once a Dai Shocker scientist who defected the group and according to extended material, created the Decadriver and Diendriver. It still bothers me in what way he defected Dai Shocker. Knowing that he created those Drivers, maybe he was the one responsible in creating the K-Touch and he hide it to Tsukasa due to its power. That is the only explanation on why he defected the group and got his arm cut by Tsukasa (It is given considering his actions and the origin story of the original Riderman!).

The fight scenes of the film were really good. Asides that it fulfills some of the fans dream matches, the final battle scene of the film was really good, especially when Rider 1, Rider 2 and V3 entered in the scene with their motorcycles FLYING out from the dimension wall while their comrades are walking in slow motion! The group fights of each Rider cell in the final battle stand out. Add the fact that the first one which involves Rider 1, Rider 2, Kabby and BLACK RX fought Garangaranda and the second one involves Decade, Diend and Momo using the FFR’ed Blade (Poor Kenzaki), Faiz (Poor Takumi) and Kiva (Poor Wataru) to defeat Ikadevil! The weakness of the climatic battle is that not all Riders in the theatrical version were given the chance to shine, good thing that in the DC, some of the Riders that they never highlighted were given the chance to shine. Another weakness that I can see in the individual battles is that there are only a few Riders whom we can see them use their special moves.

The only bothered me is that BLACK RX was defeated by Decade... same case with Amazon and the other Riders later. My theory? Since they knew about Tsukasa is the Great Leader, they decided to purposely defeat in the tournament so that Tsukasa will have his memories back and hopefully, will learn the error of his ways and defeat Dai Shocker in the process.

About the Riders that appeared in the film, I can say less J and BLACK, all of them are the real ones. As pointed by the miraculous appearance of Agito reverting into Shouichi! As he mentioned when he leave that this is only the beginning of his journey. Based on what the Riders did, they first forget that Tsukasa is the Destroyer of Worlds, Decade and his actions of befriending the AU Riders instead of killing them in order to defeat a greater enemy, Dai Shocker.

Extra Scene!

About the story, even if you don’t have background knowledge about the show, you can easily follow the film, especially the Director’s Cut version. The bits added in the film such as the clips of the worlds merging and Natsumi finding the Decadriver back in episode 1 felt like it was added for the sake of those who never watched the series! For the plot, they tried to revive the classic Kamen Rider origin story, bad guys created the good guy… and it worked. The plot itself is a regular TV arc except they added something to spice it up: fan service. Even though they never had most of the original actors back, but just seeing them in action once again was fun to watch.

The remake versions of Doctor Shinigami and Ambassador Hell were fun to watch and because of this, I am much more interested on watching the original Kamen Rider series. My only problem with the remake versions is that General Jark was ignored in the entire film! So after he was pissed with cockroaches back in SD Kamen Rider (In which he destroyed the Shocker based twice just to kill a single roach), he only speaks once (Which sounds like the original Jark) and was easily killed by Decade without him going Midora!

Our Great Leader, ladies and gentlemen before Gackt slaps his face!

The only thing that bothered me is the Great Leader position. It felt that this position is more of a rank and not the classic the bad guy behind the bad guy and the one who laughs at the end in most series saying that the Riders haven’t defeated him yet. Heck, after reading Igadevil’s tribute to the Great Leader, I was surprised that he is responsible in all the organizations! Just a theory about why the Great Leader title felt more like a rank in Dai Shocker, maybe because the original Great Leader is now called, Greater Leader! Yeah, that could be it and right now he is laughing at the Rider secretly because they only killed one of his stand-ins and he will back in the 40th anniversary show.

The only question that this film has left unanswered is when did Tsukasa joined Dai Shocker and who recruited him and how he ended up being Great Leader still bothers me right now. If they will explain it in some extended material, to be exact a film, it might fill in some holes that it left in the story.

As for the acting, the actors went out of their classic TV episode acting. You can feel the emotions expressed by the actors as they acted their parts. It was highlighted at the scene in which after Tsukasa was kicked out by Shadow Moon, he returns to the studio and Natsumi is having doubts if she can still trust Tsukasa. What makes it memorable is the fact that it is raining outside and Natsumi doesn’t want him to enter the studio.

Overall, the film is probably one of the best Heisei Kamen Rider films to date in terms of the quality of effects and the intensity of the story. The actors gave their all for this film and the amount of love given to the franchise with all the Riders appearing at the near end at the film was one of the best things that this film offered. The only weakness the film has is that it left some questions regarding on how Tsukasa ended up being the Great Leader and how Dai Shocker was formed but it is fine if you are just an old fan and just want to see how the franchise evolved through all these years.

Tsukasa and co. opens a new backdrop that we never know at the end of the film. According to Eijiro’s reaction, it is the World of Rider War. Decade’s journey ends with the prophecy of the Destroyer of Worlds being fulfilled. Next up, the final TV series arc, World of Rider War, the prologue to Decade’s Final Story in which we will see fulfill his mission as the Destroyer of Worlds.

Since this is the Director's Cut, I will place some screenshots that I loved coming from the film!

Now you know why he cooperated!

Sayo enters the magic wardrobe to Narnia!

Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works Movie Review

Fate/stay Night Unlimited Blade Works was based on the Unlimited Blade Works route of the original Fate/stay Night visual novel. It was released in Japanese theaters in January 23, 2010 and Studio DEEN who was also responsible in the original series’ animation is back for this film.

It has been 10 years since the previous Holy Grail War and the people of Fuyuki City are commemorating the lives of those people who died in a catastrophe unknown to them.

So basically, to those who watched the original series, the first few minutes of the film are those from Fate/stay night, except it is compressed for a few minutes to fill in the Unlimited Blade Works route coming from the visual novel source.

For the uninitiated, The Holy Grail War is a war in which seven magi will summon a Servant, which are embodiments of various Legendary Heroes and are divided in seven job classes. These Servants accompanies their respective Master in spiritual form that can be summoned if the Master will face another Master. Whoever wins the war will be the owner of the Holy Grail can use its power to grant any wish.

Aside from that, there are minor changes that followed in this route. Aside that Lancer has more screen time, Shinji; the first Master who was defeated in this series has a bigger role in this one.

This film focuses more on Archer (To those who are not familiar with the series, Unlimited Blade Works is his strongest move), Rin’s Servant and his unknown quest, which will remain unknown because it is one of the vital points in film that if I will spoil it to you, you might get pissed. For him to fulfill his personal mission, he changes allegiances if he finds it weak in some point that in one point in the film, he betrays his Master, Rin Tohsaka for another Servant, Caster because she has Saber, one of the strongest Servants around in her side.

The film also focuses on Shirou Emiya who witnesses the battle between Lancer and Archer and accidentally summons the Servant, Saber. To come into an end and try to save everyone so that the catastrophe that happened back when he was still a kid will not happen again. Will he and Rin able to stop this War?

On to the review, one of the biggest mysteries surrounding Archer back in the first series is his identity. No one knows who he is or who was he based upon. To those who don’t know, the Servants are based on a well-known historic or legendary personality. For example, the winner of the previous War, Gilgamesh an Archer class Servant was based on an Iraqi legend about a certain well, Gilgamesh! Also, Saber was based on King Arthur, hence her weapon is a sword called Excalibur.

The original series hints his identity for quite a while and most of those hints are carried in this retelling of the series which like I said, takes a different route. If I will spoil it to you, it would ruin the fun in watching the film… if you read the Wikipedia spoilers; I think you know who is Archer!

Speaking of Archer, one of the major improvements that I see in him in this film is that aside that him being a jerk and all has been improved, he finally! I repeat, finally, uses some arrows! Technically, it is a sword that he shoots in his bow, but still, he still shoots Berserker with it!

More on Archer, if I remember correctly, we never learn the purpose why he cooperates with Rin since a servant can betray his master if he or she feels like it, adding much to the mystery of this character. Most of the Servants have a chance to see their past to be exact, the Servants that were given proper focus in their back story was Caster and Saber while the rest were given good back stories but it was not elaborated that much. From all the Servants, only Archer’s back story was not given, until this film came along. Aside that we learned which legendary or historical figure was he based upon; we learned his purpose on why he was appeared in the current Holy Grail War.

Since this is an Archer focused film, some characters were practically ignored during the duration of the film. Aside from Rider being eliminated earlier (Well, she was eliminated here in a different way), Saber, who was one of the main focus in the original series was literally, thrown out in the sidelines. Asides that she never participated much in the battles, she was later become Caster’s Servant thanks to her Noble Phantasm, Rule Breaker. Another Servant and Master who was given less screen time and importance were Illya and Berserker.

Since Saber went on the sidelines, some characters, to be exact, Lancer were given a good spotlight. Seriously, in the original series, he is one of the characters that I want to see in the show! But, he only appeared quite briefly and as far I remember, I don’t remember much about Lancer being in the series at all. In this film, aside that he aides Shirou and Rin, he actually was given quite good amount of screen time and good amount of fight scenes! Most of my favorite parts in this film is when Lancer is involved in it. The part of the film that gave Lancer a good explanation point in his character is at the last few scenes before his death… and he was not that dead yet!

Like I mentioned earlier, the earlier parts of the film is like the original TV series except that it was compressed for it to give more space on the new material. To begin with there are some scenes that felt like they were directly lifted from the TV series! The one on top is the similar shot that came from the original TV series in which Shirou first met Saber.

One of the things that I noticed in the film is the upgrade in terms of gore. Deaths here are bloodier compared to the original TV series. Aside that we saw Gilgamesh remove someone’s organs, this series has good blood physics to begin with that in some point, the blood splatter look liked it was exaggerated for the sake of gore fans to be happy. No wonder it was released as a movie and not as a TV special!

One of the main highlights of the film is the battle between Shirou and Archer. Two characters who has the opposite ideals yet they have something in common in which they tried to ignore. Their fight was one of the best fights that I have watched in this film. The fight was a fight between their own personal beliefs about saving people. Shirou is a person who will do everything to save everyone. While Archer is someone who is the complete opposite of Shirou’s ideals about saving everyone and justifies to Shirou that you cannot save everyone.

The animation for the film has the same quality like that of the TV series except it was given some upgrades. Studio DEEN did a good job for the animation asides that they increased the amount of gore and turn most of the bloody fights of the film into a splatter show… which is both disappointing and a good thing. Disappointing because most of the deaths became quite exaggerated, good because as a fan of gore, I love seeing fountains of blood coming out from the victim and it aggravates the strength of the Servant who killed its respective victim.

The only thing that is disappointing in the film is the chant for Archer’s Unlimited Blade Works was shortened into a single phrase, “I am the bone of my sword” and that is it. His infamous chant about his body being made of steel and the rest of it is only found at the beginning of the film… and the fact the Shinji has a significant role in this film alongside with Gilgamesh redesigned overall appearance. Seriously, I prefer him wear his gold armor than his civilian clothes in battle!

Overall, Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works is one anime film you can enjoy whether or not you are fan of the series or not, especially if you are an Archer fan, you will definitely enjoy this one. Hey, there is a reason why the film is called Unlimited Blade Works right?

The overall theme of the film is choosing your own fate and the ability to save everyone. Archer is right, you cannot save everyone but Shirou keeps on pushing his ideals that he can save everyone if he can do it or he have the power. The theme about fate, I will let you figure it out because it is one of the vital points of the film along with Archer’s identity. The only hint I can give you is that Shirou is living with the ideals of the man who saved his life.