Cast your mind back to December, when episode 15 ended with the clearly evil Licht Kugimiya and X-Wizard looking ominously at our cast from a bush. Whatever happened with that? Well, now that the BluRay is out, we can finally find out!
Compared to my other movie reviews, we are going to do things a little differently. Unlike those other movies I made a guess as to the plot of this movie, based on nothing but pre-release information. We are going to do a light recap then break down what I called back before the movie came out.
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Recap
This movie can be split into three parts pretty neatly. Part One: The Chemy X Game, Part Two: The Nightmare Game and Part 3… the part where everyone punches GeatsKiller.
Part One
The X-Wizard Chemy turns Buffa, Na-go and Tycoon into Chemies. Ace, while caught in the spells blast, was unaffected. Instead a mysterious Geats Chemy appears. X-Wizard tasks the Gotchard gang and Ace to capture the unsubdueable Level X Chemies, EXceedfighter, Lixion, X Fortress, BeetlX and Xeggdrasil with the promise that, after they do, Buffa, Na-go and Tycoon will be turned back. Instead, though, X-Wizard traps them in a dreamworld. The Geats Chemy breaks Hotaro out and along with Ace they free everyone. X-Wizard then explains that they were lonely and just wanted to play with people.
Part Two
Kugimiya shows up and reveals that he’s evil and has been manipulating X-Wizard. He then fully betrays X-Wizard, forcing it to combine with him to become the Wizard Malgam. Using this new found power, he puts the world to sleep and into a nightmare dream world. Ace, Hotaro, Buffa and Spanner transform to battle him while everyone else retreats. When she was in the dreamworld, Rinne spoke to her Dad. When Mr. Minato brings out the Sun and Unicon Chemy Cards to give them a supposed edge over the Wizard Malgam, this gives Rinne the idea to enter the nightmare dreamworld and ask her Dad directly how to use them. She does this and he gives her the power to transform into Kamen Rider Majade! Yes, this is where the form debuted. Rinne uses her base form’s purifying properties to shut down the Wizard Malgam’s magic and make quick work of it. Rinne’s Dad pulls a tuxedo mask, seemingly having been real this whole time, despite them talking in the dream world and leaves. Dad of the year, this one.
The Part Where Everyone Punches GeatsKiller
Turned back to normal, Kugimiya explains his backstory. He’s actually a Desire Grand Prix player from ancient Rome that Ace didn’t kill when he beat him and he’s been pissed for 2000 years over it. He has done all of this to try and get revenge on Ace, who doesn’t really remember him. Kugimiya, with his own alchemy, recaptures X-Wizard from Hotaro, transforming into the Wizard Malgam again. He then pulls an Evolt and opens a magic black hole over a populated area absorbing them for more power. Finally, just as he goes to absorb Ace, the Geats Chemy dives in the way, taking a fatal blow, and is absorbed, turning the Wizard Malgam into GeatsKiller. Hotaro and Ace transform to fight it, during which EXceedfighter, Lixion, X Fortress, BeetlX and Xeggdrasil resonate with Hotaro’s will to save X-Wizard. He combines the Chemies to form the X-Assemble card, allowing Hotaro transform into Kamen Rider Star Gotchard. Alongside Ace, they make short work of GeatsKiller.
As the movie ends, Kugimiya is arrested and the dying Geats Chemy reveals it’s actually Ace’s long dead childhood pet dog, Konstantine (whom I assume is named after the historical Constantine, though I was crying too much at this point to care). Kon’s ghost has been watching Ace all this time and shielded from the Chemification spell, just happy to see his favourite human again. Our heroes part ways, victorious, as the credits roll.
The Part Where I See What I Got Right
Back in my pre-release coverage of the film, I made a prediction as to the plot and then adjusted it slightly when Acekiller was revealed. Putting it all together, my prediction was thus:
Someone, the real movie villain, is working with X-Wizard to cause the game; probably someone from the future who wants to stop Ace now that he’s a god. X-Wizard turns civilians as well as Tycoon, Na-go and Buffa into Chemies and, this is just my guess, they also try to also do so to Ace but it instead makes him mortal again, with his god powers being nerfed to allow for to hang out with the Gotchard gang and get the cute Geats Chemy. To save everyone, Ace and the Gotchard gang must team up and complete X-Wizard’s game, catching five other Level X Chemies in the process. The real villain will likely betray X-Wizard, probably turning into an X-Wizard Malgam, absorbing Ace’s god powers which would have taken the form of the Geats Chemy they would turn into GeatsKiller. Gotchard will take them out with the movie form with Ace’s help. Hopefully, like in a lot of the winter movies, there will be a post credit tease for some new Kamen Rider showing up in the new year in Gotchard.
Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was pretty spot on! That is, other than there being a post credit scene, depowering Ace and the real villain being from the future (which if Yuya Takahashi hadn’t just been supervising the script, you know he would have been) and why they want to attack Ace (though, I was right about the villain having a focus on him). Don’t worry, I wont hang on this all smug for too long… Let’s just get back to the review, shall we?
The Good, The Bad and The Conclusion
I gloss over it in the recap but all of the fights are amazing. There’s tonnes of intercast interactions to enjoy; Spanner and Buffa capturing LiXion, for example, was great. Just seeing these guys bounce off each other is more than worth the price of admission / disk.
Honestly, the only part of this movie I disliked was that it feels like Rinne’s Rider debut was just to give an excuse to pause the fight just long enough for Kugimiya to give us his backstory. I feel like there could have been a better way to work that in that didn’t feel somewhat redundant, since he just turns back into the Wizard Malgam moments after Rinne hits him out of that form.
This movie was really fun. Well worth taking the time to watch and, yes, Hololive’s Shirakami Fubuki, who played Kon the Geats Chemy, did a great job and I cried at that backstory reveal. Just a great time. Can’t wait to see more cinematic adventures from the Gotchard gang!
What did you think? Did you enjoy the movie? Did you also love Ace’s snack after he learned Kugimiya’s backstory? Let me know in the comments below. As always, I’ve been Ethan: Writer, reviewer and DGP alchemy games winner for The Toku Source and I’ll see you next time!
