Movie Digest
The Kamen rider is a Japanese series based on the concept by Shotaro Ishinomori. The world-building in this series is set in the fantasy genre in which the world humans occupy collided with the wonder world or rather known as the fairy realm. This movie’s release from the series now shows that the Book of ruin and along with it bacht the mysterious immortal swordsman is out in the open. For the human world as well as the fairy realm this incident spells disaster. As soon as the Book of Ruin is released both worlds disappear. The sword of Logos then takes it upon his shoulder to challenge the immortal swordsman bacht.
The Feel Good Part
This movie’s release is one of the shortest running times of the whole Kamen Rider series. The movie particularly uses the Big bad trope. A trope wherein there is an ultimate Villain for all the Heroes to defeat. This movie is released for Kamen rider Saber and tries to compress all the elements of an important arc in the Kamen rider series. The plot is not too difficult to understand despite being part of a huge series. Almost immediately we get to see the fight against Bacht, the immortal swordsmen with the Kamen Rider Saber alongside his allies. This is where the movie banks. Its use of the Big bad trope allows for the viewers to be reeled into watching the series. The series has a very diverse cast, but even then, with just a basic understanding of the whole plot, this movie can also be watched as a standalone.
The Disappointing Factor
The movie has a very short runtime, especially compared to the standard runtime normal movies tend to have. The Big bad trope used in this movie albeit helps newbie viewers to understand it as a standalone, for fans of the franchise this would be a disappointment. The movie does nothing except introduce Bacht as a villain. The villain has to be defeated by the Kamen rider Saber and his allies. They are fighting the villain in order to stop him from annihilating the Human and the Wonder world. The movie’s release and production were affected by the pandemic; hence the quality of its content is a bit unappreciable. The villain Bacht follows all the conventional convictions we see in villains normally. Bacht claims that he wants to destroy the world because he believes power breeds conflict. They have also followed the same with regard to the hero. We don’t see any new dimension in this trope.
In-Depth Analysis
The movie has some good ideas and does justice in implementing them with the time strain it has. The characters resolve and strength to keep humanity afloat as well as the flashy fight scenes were worth watching it. Touma does get a new upgrade in this movie, however it feels forced and does not have the same feeling the previous upgrades gave. With the shirt run time the movie felt as if it compressed a whole lot of details together but at the same time produced this as an afterthought. Considering Toei, one of the best animation production companies in the industry that is involved with One-piece and Sailor Moon this movie was a bit underwhelming.
Overall Opinion
For newbie viewers of the fantasy trope and superhero genre, this movie will not do much justice to hold your interest as it follows an extremely popular conventional method in its storytelling. There is rarely an effort made to bring out something new in this movie. For the fanbase that has been following the series religiously, if you skip this movie and watch the episodes after there won’t be much you will be missing. Bacht the villain does have a backstory as to why he wants to annihilate the human world. But his backstory is emphasized only in the later episode. So, you may want to watch out for that. This would be a good watch to introduce someone to the Kamen Rider Series. There feels a lack of substance in the storytelling. There is no depth in it and it could be partly blamed on the pandemic. Even then Toei has constantly and consistently produced films with better content than this.
