Kamen Rider Movie Review: Reiwa the First Generation

Kamen Rider: Reiwa the First Generation [2019]

I kept putting reviewing this movie off for the longest time, and hey, what do you know, the show's over and I haven't even done it. So let's sit down and talk about Kamen Rider Zero-One: Reiwa the First Generation as I rewatch it.

[Obligatory spoiler warning for Kamen Rider Zi-O, where I will be talking all about the ending of that show. Not that the review would make sense to anyone who have not watched Zi-O... these crossover shows are pretty terrible at being an 'intro' to the previous season's show]

First of all, this show is a crossover with Kamen Rider Zi-O, itself a pretty hard show to build up a crossover with. I like Zi-O, but it's a pretty flawed show whose priority is certainly revolving more around the cameos from previous seasons more than to actually tell a properly coherent story. And I was genuinely 100% surprised that Zi-O actually ended with something resembling a proper conclusion. But hey, a crossover movie is sort of obligatory at this point, and ever since Decade, it's been an expectation that at least one of the movies be an actual tie-in with the plotline in the show. In Zero-One's case, this movie explores the backstory behind Aruto's father a lot.

And the movie opens with Aruto's dad asking him what his dream is -- Young Aruto's dream, of course, is to make Soreo laugh for real, something that's impossible since he's a robot. Then we have Daybreak, the terrible-CGI explosion, and Soreo's death... all things we know from the show.

Aruto then wakes up and goes off to work. You know it's a movie because the Rise-Hopper bike shows up since the movies always make it a point to show off that they have the budget to show off the elusive motorcycles. And... and I'm not sure at what point that every other Kamen Rider tie-in movie has to have at least one that's an alternate-universe world, but Aruto quickly is baffled as he finds himself that there are a lot of Humagears in the streets, there are Humagear children... and he isn't the president of Hiden. We get Mamoru and Shesta and all the other Humagears in Hiden Intelligence angry and wanting to arrest the human criminal. Enter the villain that's more tied to Zero-One's lore, the humagear president Will. He transforms into Another Zero-One, fights Aruto in his Rising Hopper form (the grasshopper bursts out of the ground) but, as usual where Zi-O's Another Rider enemies are concerned, Another Zero-One absolutely outclasses Aruto.

As much as they might perhaps not be used perfectly in the show, I am a huge, huge fan of the Zi-O Another-Riders as a monster concept. Another Zero-One isn't the best-looking Another Rider out there, but he's a pretty cool monstrous-bug-man version of the base Zero-One form.

Simultaneously, we get the Zi-O cast in their supposed 'brand-new' timeline where they are all just civilian kids going to school with no idea that they just fought in a multiversal war over the timeline of twenty different Kamen Rider continuities. Continuity in Kamen Rider shows have always been of the 'handwave' variety, they're all in separate continuities except when crossover magic happens and suddenly Fuuto City and Zawame City are a motorbike ride away... but between Build and Zi-O, they now at least make it a bit of a nod that, hey, the crossovers don't make real sense so they might as well as nod and go 'alternate Earth heroes meet each other'.

Anyway, the Zi-O cast are high school students, and Sougo is still delusional in wanting to be a king. Geiz is a sports freak, and Tsukuyomi asks them the very abnormal question of 'hey, what happens if the human race goes extinct?' They sneak into class and turns out that they got stranded in the same 'Humagears have taken over the world' bad future, and we get an actually pretty fun scene of Sougo, Geiz and Tsukuyomi fighting in a school building in school uniforms against a lot of berserk Humagear students and teachers. The Kamen Rider franchise in general have, in nearly all of its recent shows, never really showed the characters fight out-of-costume and I do admit seeing these actors do some fun stunts (even if it's nothing too over-the-top, Geiz notwithstanding) is certainly pretty neat. Thanks to the power of plot necessity, Woz shows up with his magic scarf whisking everyone away. Again, because of plot necessity, Woz gives everyone their Ridewatches back and they regain their memories and their fancy costumes.

Anyway, that's when the title shows up. Conflict, alternate history, Terminator, Flashpoint, Age of Apocalypse, you know the drill. While the Zi-O cast are mostly okay beyond the ominous line of 'a new generation, the first rider will be born' in Woz's book (which doesn't really make sense in-universe); Aruto gets summarily beaten by Will and had his driver stolen.

Aruto's attempt to escape gets stopped by angry Humagears who turn into the Kuehne and Berotha Magias... but then Aruto gets saved by resistance fighters Fuwa and Yua on a jeep with motherfucking machine-guns. This scene is actually also pretty cool, with Yua driving a jeep and Fuwa shooting at the Magia who chase them on motorbikes. There is a hilarious bit of Aruto doing his over-the-top panicking as bullet casings fly around him, and a pretty cool slow-motion fight of Fuwa shooting one of the Magia off of the jeep as it drives through a fireball. Yua also gets a cool scene with a jeep-spin leading to a Magia headshot.

Aruto gets brought up to the resistance, because all robot-ruled dystopian futures must have a resistance. Izu is there as the only Humagear, and is apparently their source of intel. She also gets bullied by a particularly assholish kid. For no real reason (Woz and company deal with timey-wimey business on a daily basis), somehow Zea and Izu are aware of rifts in history, among them Aruto. Also among the resistance members and an actually nice running gag is the fact that Fukuzoe and Yamashita are part of the resistance and are super-duper supportive of President Korenosuke's dream.

Then we go straight to more action. Horobi and Jin, dressed up in swanky non-hobo outfits (Jin has a hat!) show up at the head of a giant Magia army. Yua is sniping them in a scene straight out of the Resident Evil movies. We get a pretty cool transformation scene of 'Bullet!' and 'Dash!' and... I'm not going to lie, it's pretty damn badass. Yua's transformation pose with the bullet zipping around her is particularly awesome, and we get a pretty cool fight moving up and down the resistance warehouse as the two Shotriser guys transform. Horobi, meanwhile, cuts a bullet in two with his katana and they, too, transform. We get a fun scene of Vulcan fighting Horobi and Valkyrie fighting Jin, and the fights are cool even if they are pretty short before Will shows up, turns into Another Zero-One, and unleashes a bug-wing-shaped energy blast that takes out the random humans.

It's all despair-mode as Aruto can't do anything and just watch as the humans get beaten back, but a random mysterious figure in a cloak tosses a Force Riser to Aruto. (It's obviously Soreo but let's pretend they make an effort to disguise his voice and costume). With the Force Riser, Aruto can forcibly open the Rising Hopper Key and transform into a Zero-One themed version of the Metsubojinrai.net suit, Zerozero-One... which is actually kind of a stupid sounding name and it's a bit of a pain to type. Despite being a movie exclusive form, this is explicitly a weaker, lesser form and 001 gets beaten up by Another Zero-One, blocking a slash with his shoulder to catch Izu. You know this is a movie, because Aruto's actually bleeding -- even if we only see the dark blood on the ground. It's the darkest hour, with Aruto bleeding, Izu about to be killed, Jin about to feather-storm the AIMS duo dead... and then we get the absolutely hilarious TIME MAZINNNN sound as the Zi-O cast show up. Geiz's Time Mazine drives off Jin and Horobi (this is another reality, they clearly have never fought giant robots in this one) while Tsukuyomi abuses her time-stop powers... but only for exposition. Can't end the movie too fast, after all. Sougo, Tsukuyomi and Woz make some exposition and basically earn Aruto's trust, and... y'know what? This one actually is fast enough that it didn't bog the movie down, while simultaneously long enough to be believable that Aruto would take all this alternate-dimension time-travel stuff in stride. Also, obviously a Time Jacker is involved.

After a bit of a check with Izu (who somehow knows when history changed), the Zi-O cast takes Aruto -- and none of the rest of the Zero-One cast -- to 2007. Hiden Korenosuke is showing off the Humagears to the world, and promising that a network would allow the Humagears to be connected, obviously talking about the lead-up to the Ark being launched into orbit.

And in 2007, we get to see Will as the lowly assistant to Korenosuke, essentially being the counterpart of Izu for Korenosuke. Will is actually confused, asking about wages for Humagears and about the happiness and welfare of his fellow robots,  but the vice presidents sort of laugh it off while Korenosuke just talks about how dependable Will is.

As our heroes arrive from 2019, we get the hilarious scene of Geiz jumping around and making weird karate-chop poses at everyone like a goddamn moron. Geiz is fun. They eventually make their way to a Hiden facility where the robot revolution has begun. Sougo tries to be a responsible time-lord by saying that interfering with history that's supposed to take place is dangerous... but Kamen Rider Zi-O as a show have always ignored real history in favour of helping people anyway, so we get a pretty cool corridor fight with Zerozero-One, Zi-O, Geiz and Woz against a bunch of berserk Humagears. It's actually pretty dang cool and I'm just reminded of how hilariously hammy the FINISH TIME voices for the Zi-O belts are.


We then get a glorious blue streak, and it's the arrival of Kamen Rider Ichi-gata (meaning "type one") and he's obviously a riff on Kamen Rider #1 done in the style of Zero-One. The colours, the little red neck-piece aura that looks like Ichigo's muffler... it's pretty damn cool. Ichigata beats up Aruto, who recognizes the voice as his robo-dad. And... we get a bit of honestly somewhat confusing exposition and catch-up. Aruto immediately reveals to Soreo that he's from the future, Soreo tells them that he wants to make humans happy, that he's also finding the cause of the berserk Humagears (otherwise known as 'god damn it Gai') but Soreo's also working with Will. Will, on the other hand, wants to put Soreo as the new Hiden Intelligence successor because he holds the Hiden name. Soreo is making a bunch of weapons and weapons designs, because they need power to make humagears happy, and Aruto is absolutely angry to find out that his dad is actually making weapons and stuff. We get a pretty cool scene for Sougo, telling Aruto that he has to accept the past, even if it's a hard truth.

Aruto also realizes that the driving force behind Soreo's desire for Humagear happiness is his own childish talk about how he wanted humagears to smile earnestly. Sougo, again, gives yet another speech about how they can't change the past, but they can change their own future.

While all of this is going on, the Ark's A.I. have developed hostile attitudes towards humans (god damn it Gai)... and the satellite launches itself, having grown sentient! And it can't be stopped! Everybody panic! Even Will and Soreo are confused by the fact that the Ark has decided for human extinction. Soreo, not wanting humans to die, gets angry and buggers off to stop the satellite launch because he's a goddamn Kamen Rider.

And so far, all of this is basically what happened in the real history of Kamen Rider Zero-One, save for Soreo being visited by a bunch of time-travelling millennials. Here is where the Time Jacker, a woman in white called Finis, shows up. Finis tells Will that in the original timeline, Soreo blows up the Ark with a bomb, sinking the Ark and causing the Daybreak incident... and Finis ends up giving Will the Another Zero-One ridewatch in order to change history. Pretty cool.

This leads to a three-way fight as Soreo plans to blow up the Ark in order to make a world where his son can be happy. Will wants to stop Soreo. And we get the absolutely badass transformation for Ichigata, complete with a Takeshi Hongo pose and a giant swirling smoky cyclone rising into the sky. That is badass. The music is also pretty great here, and the generally awesome zippy-zip of Kamen Rider Ichigata's movements is pretty awesome. Ichigata fighting Another Zero-One is just utterly badass, and the aforementioned red muffler effect is very fun. Aruto, of course, joins in the fight, but not before him genuinely looking impressed as he sees his robo-dad fight this monster.

The Zi-O cast, meanwhile, finally meets Finis and her super-long cape. Finis wants to stop the creation of Ohma Zi-O (and somehow interfering with Zero-One's story... will do that?) and tells them that she has access to Kamen Rider Ichigo's powers and transforms into Another Ichigo. And... uh... it's a Kamen Rider whose waist is fused into a giant bike and also there are giant claws and hilarious CGI involved. I'm not even mad, Another Ichigo looks so utterly dumb. I love it. As Finis rampages around claiming to be the 'peak of origin', Sougo combines with his posse and transforms into Zi-O Trinity to fight. But a giant-bike-sideswipe knocks poor Zi-O Trinity around.

Meanwhile, in the fight without a giant CGI monster, Ichigata's upload to stop the Ark from launching into space is interrupted by Will, and the Ark subsequently hacks Ichigata and mind-controls him to fight Aruto. And Ichigata... basically goes through a bit of a tough-love-dad moment here where he actually agrees in fighting Aruto, telling Aruto that he needs to surpass Soreo to make his dreams come true. Okay, but you're also beating up your kid. I get the idea here, but I don't think the execution is done that well. Another Ichigo arrives and puts the kibosh to this fight, quite literally running Aruto over with his big chunky CGI wheels.

Will also somehow goes all the way to Korenosuke's office, beating up the vice president duo. Korenosuke defends the two from Will, giving a speech about how the employees are the company... then Will snaps Korenosuke's neck. This scene is actually kind of great, with Fukuzoe clearly distraught and very nearly charging in to his death if Yamashita wasn't holding him back.

The Zi-O crew save Aruto and punch Another Ichigo with their Time Mazines, and drag Aruto back to 2019 because it's too late to change the time alteration (except they've done it many times before in their own series but okay). The good guys all escape on Zi-O's Time Mazine, while Finis looms over the broken Geiz Time Mazine left behind. Foreshadowing!

And we return back to 2019, the dystopian future with resistance members and stuff, and apparently in the time that Aruto has been hanging around with the Zi-O cast, the resistance got absolutely fucked, and Izu had given herself over to Will's army to save the kid that was an asshole to her earlier in the movie. The time travel stuff has been pretty great, but this is where the movie randomly introduces a Humagear stockholder storyline in 2019 and I felt like this bit was shoehorned in without any real buildup or any real sense other than giving Aruto's 'president' deal some mileage. Will basically tells the stockholders about traitors, terrorists and wants to execute Izu publicly, Aruto shows up, and then has a bit of a debate with Will. The word 'dream' in this debate restores Izu's memories, Izu ends up talking about her own dreams while an instrumental cover of RealxEyez plays... and Shesta suddenly decides to support them and end up wanting to put Aruto as the president, leading to random Humagears in the stockholders discussing this and wanting to be buddies with humans.

And you know what? This works for the Zero-One themes. Unfortunately, the movie has really been selling the idea that the bad-future 2019 is basically a dystopia ruled by Will and the Humagears that will go on a beep-beep rampage at the sight of humans, so this whole boardroom scene felt like it doesn't quite belong in the movie.

And then we get another plot twist. Soreo is alive in 2019 (of course, he gave Aruto the Force Riser) and he's the major shareholder, and the emergency motion to replace Will with Aruto wouldn't pass unless he votes.... and it's all under the same idea of how Aruto 'needs to surpass Soreo' to be happy. A nice sentiment, for sure, but it's completely undercut by all the time-destruction around them. Will and the Ark takes over random humagears, turning them into magia, and we get Aruto, Izu and Shesta running around as they get chased by Another Zero-One, Horobi, Jin and a bunch of Magia. And then the Resistance shows up! They all came to save Izu, who they see as one of their own. That's actually a pretty nice moment.

And then we get the Zi-O squad showing up to help out. Tsukuyomi is fighting, karate-chopping random Magia and abusing her time-stop powers to make Magia shoot each other. But clearly the most entertaining fighter here is Woz, whose entrance to this scene is strangling a random mook with his fucking scarf and dragging his struggling body behind him. At one point, Woz also bitch-slaps a Magia with a book. Woz ends up fighting Jin, and he uses his fucking book to block Jin's bullets, dance around Jin, traps Jin's handgun with the book and forces a misfire. That's such a hilarious scene and such a hilarious usage of Jin's scarf and book. It's nice to know that the production team finds Woz's whole ensemble as memetic as the fandom does.

Meanwhile, Aruto and Soreo face each other and we get Rising Hopper vs. Rocking Hopper. The others also transform, and we get Woz fighting Jin, Geiz fighting Horobi, and Tsukuyomi taking potshots at the two Metsubojinrai peeps. Meanwhile, Fuwa and Yua get yet another very cool spinning camera transformation as they fight off against Another Zero-One. We get a cool shot here of the Shotriser duo charging through the swarm of locusts that Will summons. Sougo, meanwhile, meets Finis on the top of a random building. Finis rants about how the Kamen Riders draw their power from the powers of evil (something that Amandum from Wizard also points out) and we get Zi-O transforming into his Zi-O II form to fight Another Ichigo.

As much as the 'surpass me' motivation is kind of flimsy, I did find the Zero-One vs. Ichigata fight in a town square (is it where Zi-O's finale takes place?) to be pretty cool. We get a very cool Rocking Spark/Rising Dystopia clash as the two of them zip through a corridor with columns that I feel is actually one of the best showcases of super-speed. The camera angles and Ichigata's muffler help a lot, too. We get a genuinely great usage of "I'm the only one who can stop you" catchphrase, and amazing shot of Ichigata unleashing his glowing aura before he unleashes the ROCKING THE END, the best weirdly-syntaxed-English attack name I've heard.

Again, I still think that the motivation for Soreo to want to force Aruto to surpass him by pretending to be hacked so Aruto would be forced to kill him is a bit iffy, but the scene with the two of them having a manly man clash and Aruto holding Soreo's dying body is great. It's just great. I can kind of forgive some questionable character motivations since the scene is pretty great. Soreo's parting words to Aruto, how he needs to realize that he shouldn't define himself as anyone's successor but just as his own man... that's pretty great. Also, Shesta informs us that since Soreo died, the majority vote passes and Aruto's the president... not that it matters because it never really comes up ever again in the movie.

The rest of the fights are kind of wrapped up. Tsukuyomi does a little Dragon Ball thing, gathers up Geiz and Woz's respective finishes, combines them and attacks the Metsuboys before the three of them do a triple kick and blow up Jin and Horobi (who don't die, they just slink away). Meanwhile, Valkyrie and Vulcan get a very, very cool background music as they zip around Another Zero-One (who's honestly kind of rendered irrelevant in the third act) and they state their catchphrases at around this period in the show. The simultaneous take-down is pretty great, with Vulcan's ghost-wolves holding Will in place as Valkyrie zips around and leaves a bunch of energy orbs that slowly expand and blow up. The music is really cool, too.

Unfortunately, while Aruto taking out Soreo is easily the emotional highlight of the movie, we still have a huge CGI monster to kill. And... Finis is kind of just reduced to a rampaging monster. She combines with Geiz's Time Mazine and grows a bunch of bug legs, becoming Another New Ichigo (bug legs are cool and are a lot less goofy than a bike centaur).

Oh, and also, the vice presidents and the resistance gets Satellite Zea in the orbit in kind of a random background plot event, causing Aruto's Zero-One driver to be authorized again? Anyway, Aruto joins the big fight against the giant angry bug, using his father's Rocking Hopper to activate his weapon. That's nice. There is some random handwave about how if they can blow up Geiz's Time Mazine, history will turn to normal... which is basically writer shorthand for 'we need to end the movie with the bad guy blowing up'. And then Sougo finally pulls out Grand Zi-O, absolutely confusing Aruto that someone had a far, far more elaborate transformation than his giant grasshopper buddy. (All Aruto has to show is Biting Shark, poor lad)

And this is a Zi-O movie, and while none of the other riders really do anything much here beyond showing up and helping to deliver a kick or two, we get a neat last hurrah of the Heisei twenty showing up to slash and stab and kick, while Aruto runs around Another Ichigo's huge body and uses his various early-show animal forms to stab and freeze and burn Finis. After a bunch of one-liners are exchanged, Aruto and Sougo see that the blade from Aruto's first Rocking Hopper strike is still stuck in Finis's body, and with a rising impact time break, they do a combined kick, push the blade through and blow up the giant CGI monster.

And because of timey-wimey stuff, everything is restored to how it was for the Zero-One world, and the Rocking Hopper key disappears from Aruto's hand. History will return to normal... except for Aruto and Izu who are connected to the satellite? But why? Why is the satellite time-ripple-proof? Whatever the case, we get a bit of Sougo wanting to wipe out Aruto's memory... even though he's never really done so for any other riders in his show, and it's just really an excuse for the movie to end with the shot of Aruto and Sougo about to punch each other.

Since status quo is god, though, obviously Sougo (who has a final form and everything) wins the fight and wipes Aruto's memory before... uh... they revert back to their 'we're back to civilians attending school' bit? And Izu is implied to actually remember the events of the movie? Okay, then.

Overall? It's actually one of the more enjoyable Kamen Rider movies, although as always with anything that's a crossover trying to incorporate two series' worth of history... it is a bit messy and comes off as more than a bit of a fanfic. Honestly, juggling the cast, juggling the clear story that they wanted to focus on (Aruto and Soreo) and two villains that the writers don't really care for (Will and Finis) really made the movie suffer, and the third act particularly ends up suffering from this. It's still fun, though, and if nothing else the movie has some of the hands-down best action scenes in Kamen Rider that I've seen lately.

Random Notes:

• Continuity point: This movie takes place between episode 9 and 10 of Kamen Rider Zero-One, due to the lack of Shining Hopper among Aruto's forms.
• Aruto's long speech to protect Izu does have him say that protecting the dreams of humans and humagears "is [his] Zero One!" which is a bit of a forced way to incorporate Zero One into dialogue, but okay. 
• Is, was, as, and now will. All secretary Humagears must have names that are English tenses. 
• Nobody really mentions it, but I'm still utterly baffled at the idea that Hiden Soreo is somehow given the 'right' to succession while Humagear wages and welfare are still being debated. 
• A lot of the random background resistance members would later show up as actual side-characters in the episodes produced after this movie aired. Some of them portrayed random generic background characters like a judge in the lawyer episode, but some notable ones include Teruo (the jealous boyfriend who became the Penguin Raider), as well as Ono and Ito (known better to me as the AIMS Crab Bros). The Crab Bros suit also show up as part of the Magia armies here, a lot earlier than they did in the show. 
• Speaking of reusing things in the show, Zero-Zero-One's black CGI grasshopper buddy transforms with a bunch of black locusts swarming around him, similar to Metal Cluster Hopper. 
• Fuwa's catchphrase is still more or less the same ("I will crush you!") but Yua telling Will that he's nothing but a tool will get basically turned upside-down in the show. 
• The Gimmick Watch: (Which would've sounded a lot better for Zi-O, really)
• Zerozero-One: "Rising Hopper! A Jump to the sky turns into a rider kick. Break Down."
• Zerozero-One's finisher is  "Rising Dystopia!" and "Rising Utopia!"
• Ichigata: "Cyclone rise! Rocking Hopper! Type One."
• Ichigata's finishers are "Rocking Spark!" and "ROCKING THE END!"
• Zero-One using the Ichigata key: "Rocking Kaban Strike!"
• Geiz's weird neck-brace thing will always be funny to me. Geiz being a little scared at the sight of the CGI scorpion and falcon is also hilarious. 
• Tsukuyomi misses out on the second act's action scenes because she was running around collecting information, but it's nice that she gets her fair share of action scenes in the first and third acts. It's certainly more than what she got in her show. 
• Regarding the Metsubojinrai boys transforming, Woz says something along the lines of 'your birth is no occasion for me to rejoice.' No iwae for the Mestuboys, alas. 
• Finis's super-long cape is ridiculous and I love the costume department for it. 
• I do find it kind of hilarious how Sougo's acting like he's the mature one here telling Aruto that he has to accept the past and everything considering how many times in his own series and movies that Sougo's mucked with the past. 
• The credits show a bunch of interesting scenes play out -- Horobi and Jin watching humans; Fukuzoe doing a HENNNSHA pose (Yamashita and Shesta are not impressed); Fuwa and Yua eating at the cafeteria and Fuwa talking about how he had a dream that he became a Humagear (foreshadowing again!); high school Sougo talking about 'words on someone's face'; and Aruto talking about name cards. 
• Thouser gets a cameo as a post-credits scene, and I thought the movie did a great job at showing Gai's corruption of Ark that's certainly happening off-screen while also making it a complication in the Korenosuke/Soreo/Will storyline. 
• It's a crossover movie, so don't think too hard about it, but Finis somehow has the Zero-One Ridewatch and Ichigo Ridewatch without interfering with their origin stories. 
• Among other things, you can make a drinking game out of a Kamen Rider movie for things like 'oh, they show blood!' and 'oh, they show the elusive main rider bike actually being ridden a lot!'