Kamen Rider Decade - Episode 53 "The Endless Story"

[Wing Saber]

I'm surprised that it took four years to figure out how to use Tsukasa, post-Decade. To where he would show up without taking the spotlight. Especially when he told Haruto that there's no absolute justice. But the Riders fight for humanity's freedom.

 

[Janitor Joker]

I'm surprised to see so much positivity about these two episodes. Aside from the fanservice, I thought they were absolutely awful. The plot is disjointed as hell, the action wasn't anything special and the writing was below average for a fanfiction. But yeah, it was cool to see some of the old riders, I guess?

Yeah the special kind of sucks, it was awful that I never want to see another work from Sho Aikawa again. So all over the place, horrible action, dumb ideas, bad writing, it was just awful. :/

 

[Wing Saber]

All I can say is that Sho Aikawa has learned a lot from Decade. Especially if you want to have an AR version of the main character, you also got to include the original as well. As for the giant monster battle, I'm impressed that they were able to keep it under wraps. Altogether, the last two episodes' execution lived up to it's promise.

 

[NeonZ]

I don't get the outright hate that some people seem to have regarding the plot of these two episodes. I can see some people disliking the inconsistent tone, like the changes of location in the first part and especially Amadam's behavior in general, but the story itself integrated a core theme for the franchise, rather than just bringing the Riders to fight. Considering how there were only two episodes to set up and play out this whole story, I thought that was a pretty decent concept. Hate for the action is even more baffling to me though, especially considering this second episode, but whatever.

Yeah you can probably ignore all the scenes with Tsukasa and the special would more or less be the same even if Decade's lines were just done by a voice over.

I don't think you can ignore his scenes, considering how his apparent betrayal, bringing back the Rider Ring and then revealing that he wasn't being controlled are pretty important scenes for the flow of the episode. If you skipped those scenes, well, it'd be obvious you were skipping scenes. It's just that there's nothing in that role that specifically needed Tsukasa to be the one doing those things.

 

[Shynilyte]

I'm surprised that it took four years to figure out how to use Tsukasa, post-Decade. To where he would show up without taking the spotlight.

I think the only reason he didn't take the spotlight is because this is still technically a Wizard episode, so Wizard is still "guy who's name is in the title".

It's just that there's nothing in that role that specifically needed Tsukasa to be the one doing those things.

Pretty sure that's what Dark Kabuto meant by "the special would more or less be the same even if Decade's lines were just done by a voice over".

 

[RossoEagleBurst]

So, young Haruto was obviously going to turn into a Phantom, I wonder what Koyomi was turning into? I kind of like the idea of her as an Orphnoch. :loltongue:

Both will become Shocker mooks. :laugh:

 

[Frankie Elric]

Excerpts from the Glorio Blog's review of episode 53:
I don’t want to write about this episode. I want to forget it ever happened. Kamen Rider Wizard was the very incarnation of not very good, but it never deserved a disaster like this one. Last week was only the tip of the iceberg, with its confusing, idiotic plot, eye-cancerous direction and overall laziness. This episode was the nec plus ultra of abysmal, a bloated cash grab lacking the most basic elements of sensible screenwriting. When at the very end, this nightmare even tries to tamper with the laws of the entire franchise, it quickly reveals itself to be an insult, not only to the Rider legacy, but to its target audience as well. Even kids can tell this episode is an ugly, heartless mess.

The list just goes on, from terrifyingly amateurish directing (check Beast’s transformation scene; the camera is so close to his face, it actually has to zoom out and in again to show his full transformation) straight out of a high school video project, over criminal abuse of other Riders (Decade has no reason to be here, Beast gets defeated in five seconds and Gaim pops up as a convenient deus ex machina twice in a row) and an atrocious villain, to numerous contradictions and continuity errors, resulting in a plot almost as over-saturated and incomprehensible as this sentence.
Seriously, someone tell me how the hell everyone ended up on a bridge after the credits, Amadam suddenly changed clothes and Haruto somehow ‘betrayed’ the kids? Did Haruto even save the kids from becoming monsters? Is Amadam really responsible for the creation of Core Medals, Gaia Memories and the like? If the alternate world is an afterlife for monsters defeated by Kamen Riders, why do children turn into monsters? Why are there even children? Who is Amadam? How did he get here? Do the Rider rings summon the actual Riders, or alternate universe counterparts? Why did Tsukasa ally with Amadam, and then suddenly double cross him? When did Haruto learn to travel between dimensions? Why the hell did he give his Infinity ring, his most powerful weapon, to a kid? Who wrote this farce?

 

[ooo5]

I thought this was a nice, fun, special. You could go over and nitpick every plot detail, but for what it was, a highlight of the Hesei Riders and a tribute to Rider in general, I thought it was good.

So all the Heisei Monster groups owe their origin to a wizard? I don't know how I feel about linking the mythologies of various other Riders to Wizard's, especially considering the quality of the show, but it's an interesting concept. And I like how Amadam empathized how he created the Kamen Riders since he created monsters, what with how integrally connected a Rider and his monster group tend to be.

Now this was a real return for Tsukasa. Not any of that crazy good/evil switcheroo from Superhero Taisen, just Tsukasa at his best and being a Kamen Rider passing through. I got goosebumps when I heard the old Decade OST during his lecture to Amadam! God did I miss those.

Having all the Heisei Riders back, even if they were voiced by people trying to do impressions of the original actors, was nice. Gentaro was the worst out of the lot of them though. They at least acted relatively in character. Still, I'm left wondering why it's easier to get past Riders to come back and voice their characters in a game then it is for a cameo in a special...

All the Ultimate Forms doing Rider Kicks was awesome, even if it was weird seeing some of the Ultimate Forms with Rider Kicks (King Form, Liner Form, Armed.) A slew of Rider Kicks is the perfect way to cap off a final fight for a Rider Special! Even if the main villain wasn't actually finished with a Rider Kick :sweat:

Can Toei just settle on one Ultimae Form for Den-O? First it's Liner Form, then its Super Climax Form, and now we're back to Liner Form... :redface2: At least here we had OOO use Putotyra but his Ultimate Form was still Super Tatoba.

While a bit obvious, the reveal of the boy's name was handled nicely.

I like what we've seen of Gaim so far. Kota looks to have a lot more personality as a Rider than I expected and that's good to see. I liked that he learned to call himself "Kamen Rider Gaim" from Wizard, which echoes how it happened for Wizard in his cameo in Fourze's Summer Movie.

 

[NeonZ]

Is Amadam really responsible for the creation of Core Medals, Gaia Memories and the like?

So all the Heisei Monster groups owe their origin to a wizard? I don't know how I feel about linking the mythologies of various other Riders to Wizard's, especially considering the quality of the show, but it's an interesting concept. And I like how Amadam empathized how he created the Kamen Riders since he created monsters, what with how integrally connected a Rider and his monster group tend to be.

I was wondering from where this was even coming from, considering how it was mentioned in another post too, but I just noticed that Tv Nihon's version of the episode was out. Anyway, I believe their translation of some of Amadam's dialogue in the battle changes the meaning of his words.

In Tv Nihon's episode, Amadam's lines are
"That's why your powers are also ours!
"The source of the 13' Kamen Riders powers... is the Cross of Fire within me."

I think the way they translated that line changes a lot of the meaning there. For comparison, here are OT's

"That is why your powers will become mine!"
"And the source of you 13 Riders, the Cross of Fire, is within my grasp!"

In TVN's, he's claiming that he's the source of the 13 Riders' powers, the Cross of Fire. In OT's, he's just saying that saying that he's obtaining that Cross of Fire now by stealing their power (because both of their powers come from the same source).

I do believe OT's translations are more accurate here. Regarding the first line, the original Japanese sentence uses "tonaru", which means "to become". He isn't saying that their power is his, he's saying that their power will become his. Regarding the second line, the original statement didn't separate "source of" from "the Cross of Fire" like Tv Nihon did.

13人の仮面ライダーの力の源クロス・オブ・ファイヤーが私の中にある。
"The source of the power of the 13 Kamen Riders, the Cross of Fire, is in my body."

So, Overtime's seems like the correct one there to me. Amadam never claims to be the original source of Riders and monsters' power. He wanted to obtain the Cross of Fire by stealing the powers of the Riders. He could do that because his power was like theirs, and came from the same source, but that doesn't mean he was the Cross of Fire itself.

On the other hand, Overtime's translation attempts to imply that the Kuuga receiving the FFR here is Onodera (With a "not again!" line), which seems wrong and wasn't implied in the original dialogue. Tv Nihon went with a generic "This is..." which is much more appropriate.

Who is Amadam? How did he get here?

He's an Ancient Wizard who was sealed in that magic stone for his crimes. Episode 53 even shows him using the Rider rings. He wanted to obtain the "Cross of Fire", which is apparently the original source of the powers of all Riders and monsters, and also wanted to break free from that world and send the monsters back to Earth to have his vengeance.

He let the kids escape with the rings, but forced them to fight, exactly to see if they could open a portal to outside with the Rider Rings, that he could use for his plans afterwards. After they did just that, he captured the kids and rings and tried to force them to open the portal again to break free with the monsters and have his revenge against the world.

 

[Ice Ixa]

I quit Wizard right before the All Dragon/Phoenix arc. It was just such a terrible show. I got my hopes up hearing about these and decided to give them a shot. I wish I hadn't.

I imagine this is better than ****, it was indeed better than Den-OOO, but...what? Who ok'd this crap? The writing stopped making sense, this whole "Cross of Fire" thing is like an insult, trying to rewrite histories of the franchise, the way it was all shot made me go "What the ****?" multiple times during part 1.

I just...my faith has been so shaken with Toei. Gaim has to purge this evil.