Wait...why are the Riders fighting again? Preliminary thoughts on "Kamen Rider War"

Oh, Shinichiro Shirakura. You really are a one-trick pony aren't you? For those who are uninformed, Shinichiro Shirakura is one of Toei's longtime content producers. He served as head producer on several Heisei Kamen Rider TV shows including Kamen Rider Agito, Kamen Rider Kabuto and Kamen Rider Decade. Since Decade finished with Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider: W & Decade Movie War 2010, he's kept only to producing movies including OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go, Kamen Riders, Kamen Rider x Super Sentai: Super Hero War and last year's Kamen Rider x Super Sentai x Space Sheriffs: Super Hero War Z. Notice a pattern with those last few movies? That's right, ever since Kamen Rider Decade The Movie: All Riders vs. Dai Shocker was such a runaway success (it remains to date the highest grossing Kamen Rider movie ever), Shirakura has been obsessed with the idea of a bunch of superheroes getting together and fighting among each other for little to no reason whatsoever before joining forces to take on a big baddie.

His writer of choice for these massive headaches disguised as crossovers is usually Shoji Yonemura, whom I've made very clear in the past I am not a big fan of. Yonemura obviously has a vast knowledge of the material, we can see this in the Net Movies he writes, but he's one of the laziest writers alive. He relies on cheap and meaningless fanservice to appease franchise faithfuls, writes the same plot over and over, and doesn't know how to work with characters he's given. Yonemura is fine in small doses (the aforementioned Net Movies, his episodes of Kamen Rider Den-O) but give him his own show or movie (with the exception of All Riders vs. Dai Shocker, which I liked) and you're in for a hell of a mess.

So that brings us to the newest collaboration between the two: the upcoming crossover film Heisei Riders Vs. Showa Riders: Kamen Rider War feat. Super Sentai.

A Personal Milestone Approaches

Greetings, everyone. I've been watching tokusatsu for as long as I can remember, but it's only been since 2006 that I've been serious about watching tokusatsu series from start to finish. Now, in less than 10 years, I'm about to approach my 50th finished tokusatsu series.