Recap

The Rainbow Line arrives in Zawame City as the ToQgers infect a show that’s actually good with their own special brand of awfulness.

Aqua’s Thoughts

A crossover is usually only as strong as the sum of its parts, which makes the hour-long agony that was Ressha Sentai ToQger vs Kamen Rider Gaim prove that ToQger‘s hypothetical mathematical value should be somewhere in the negative. Maybe as some sort of compensation for their diminished role in the upcoming Super Hero Wars movie, this special is more ToQger than Gaim, with a lot of the half-assed humour and dorky plotting lifted straight from that show’s handbook. Despite arriving in the rather glum dystopia of Zawame City, Light, Tokatti, Mio, Hikari and Kagura make little to no effort to fit their happy-go-lucky behaviour to Gaim‘s much more distinctive and unique vibe, resulting in the television equivalent of trying to mix water and oil. Both casts seem to exist on their own little plane of existence without ever truly merging together — aided in part by heroes of the two franchises hardly ever fighting together. There is a bit of novelty to be found in seeing how the characters react to each other’s worlds, but like last year’s Wizard crossover special, the result feels awfully phoned in.

From ToQger, lousy writing and lame jokes are to be expected, but the sad part is that such a tremendous show as Gaim has to suffer for it. Mai is reduced to a bumbling damsel in distress who can’t stay out of trouble for five seconds, and quickly catches the same virus Mio and Kagura are suffering from, constantly being shoved aside to go do something cute while the boys do all the fighting and strategizing. Kouta gets it even worse, pulling off a feat so ridiculously out-of-character you wonder if the writer of this show has ever even watched a single episode of Gaim. Having Mai kidnapped by the ToQgers, forcing her to leave the city, goes against everything the two of them ever stood for: saving their city from Yggdrasil and the Invess, not running away like Alternate Mai tries to make them. It’s their entire motivation! Besides, it’s not like there isn’t someone else in the Gaim cast who would totally come up with a self-righteous, degrading backstab such as this one, no, Mitchy? In fact, his brother Takatora is the only Gaim character who gets to remain relatively in character, thankfully leading to his ten seconds of screen time being by far the most entertaining bit of the episode.

The same cannot be said for the other cameos, however. Kamen Rider Decade‘s Narutaki appears for no reason whatsoever and even the Showa Riders’ surprise appearance feels disturbingly obligatory. While it’s always cool to see these guys fighting the good fight, their battle with Kamen Rider Wars villain Fifteen was just an blatant movie advert, stripped of any sort of context, drama or even ability to rouse anyone but the most excitable of toku geeks. It’s an oddly fitting metaphor for the entire special: out-of-context jokes so bad they need to be explained, manufactured drama created by making beloved characters break character and a large serving of wasted crossover potential. Just like your average episode of ToQger, there is simply nothing here that makes this 40-minute-long non-event worth sitting through, unless you have a desperate craving for childish jokes about numbers and female characters being treated like dirt. If there’s anything this special did right, it’s fuelling our excitement for Gaim to properly continue even more. Without a bunch of spandex-wearing menchildren this time, thank you very much.

Zigg’s Thoughts

Toei have a bad habit of anchoring their big crossovers on the flimsiest of plots and trusting that the cool factor will carry the day. This barely ever works, since there’s only so long the novelty can sustain you, and that time period is usually 5-10 minutes at the most. It proves to be the case once again here, but this special commits a much greater crime – it actually damages the two shows, stalling any momentum ToQger was trying to build and and completely failing to understand the way the Gaim characters work.

It’s the writing which really makes this a painful experience, as the other aspects are sound if uninspiring. The action is decent and the basic premise has some potential.  But the script sins are myriad and often too glaring to be ignored. Without a doubt the very worst aspect of this special is Kouta ‘tricking’ Mai into escaping with the ToQgers. It’s shockingly out of character for him, for her, and flies in the face of everything we know about their relationship. She’s made to look weak and gullible, and he’s made to look like a manipulative sexist jerk. On the ToQger side Right is once again so dominant that he shoves the others into the background, except perhaps for the increasingly grating Kagura, who furthers her sickly girly-girl/woman child persona here to ill effect.

The show is further hurt by the growing, and eventually confirmed, suspicion that this is all really a lame setup for the crossover movie. The net result of this is we get villains out of nowhere, who have no real motivation and offer no catharsis when they’re defeated because we didn’t even care about what they were doing anyway. I suppose the three original Riders showing up is sort of cool, but the tease is so blatant and their role so perfunctory it’s hard to muster much more than a shrug.

Really that sort of sums up this special. It’s not funny or wacky enough to be an out and out comedy, it’s so shockingly written that it never had a chance as a drama, and there are no stakes and nothing at risk, so it barely even works as a straight action story. It’s basically a fifty minute advert with some crude characterisation slathered over the top, and an uncomfortable;e reminder of just how nakedly commercial the genre can be. It adds nothing to either show and doesn’t have the spectacle to stand alone. Sadly (but predictably) this isn’t worth your time.

 Random Observations.

• Undoubtedly the best laugh (and best scene in general) is Takatora’s blissful ignorance of the earth-shattering battle going on right behind him.
• Though he shows up for literally just thirty seconds, I loved Narutaki’s brief cameo, completely with mac-wearing hand puppet. At this point he’s become such a walking enigma anyway having him show up here was a nice non-sequiteur. For those of you who aren’t familair with the character, check out Kamen Rider Decade.
• Though our regular ToQger team Over-time handled subbing on this one, Gaim‘s crew over at Aesir Subs did put together an April Fool’s track that’s way more entertaining than the real thing, particularly if you’re pretty deep into the toku culture.