A review of director Hideaki Anno's film "Shin Kamen Rider": "Staring at the same star."

The original "Kamen Rider" is about Takeshi Hongo, who is forced to undergo unwanted modification surgery,
and his struggle to fight against Shocker, the evil secret society that modified him, and the modified humans they create,
but the state of the world has changed completely between 1971 and 2023.
The appearance of the world has changed completely between 1971 and 2023.

At the end of the 20th century, destructive cult groups appeared in reality,
kidnapping, imprisoning, and murdering people who were disadvantageous to them,
spreading poison in the subway, the main artery of the metropolitan area,
and killing and injuring many people under the guise of "salvation,"
making the conventional Shocker method of contaminating dams with poison
so that tap water could no longer be drunk with peace of mind,
or kidnapping and imprisoning people to cause "mysterious disappearance" cases
to create social anxiety, no longer a laughing matter.

The "evil secret society" feared being the target of criticism,
and the depiction of the Sentai hero's commander meditating and levitating
naturally became a subject of self-regulation.
After all, this is an imitation of the "founder" of a destructive cult group.

Since entering the 21st century, hero stories have shifted
from fighting secret societies that create social anxiety,
to stories where people who each hold their own justice
believe in their own justice and criticize the justice of others as they fight.

In terms of Rider, the opponent has changed from a monster to another Rider,
and Riders have come to fight each other to push through their own principles and claims.

I, for one, wonder, "Why do Riders fight each other?"
but I also think that "justice is not one thing" is a contemporary theme.

What used to be the specialty of enemy organizations, internal violence,
has now become something where allies of justice destroy each other.

Reflecting such social conditions, the monsters in this work called
"Shocker" Augments are positioned as unhappy people who prioritize the pursuit of "personal happiness" above all else,
and are depicted as a group of egoists who do not care at all about the misfortune of others if it means they can be happy.
Therefore, Hongo in this work is designed as a person who prioritizes the happiness of others over his own happiness,
and even when his father, a police officer, was stabbed to death by a random killer when he was young,

he does not hate the killer, but rather vows while crying to live like his father and die like his father.

Although he is clear-headed and has excellent athletic ability, he cannot get a job because he is socially awkward,
and his hobbies are only things he can do alone, such as motorcycles, solo camping, and studying, setting him up as a gloomy person who cannot socialize and therefore cannot call others by their first names, and can never close the distance to become intimate on his own.
The fact that he is constantly trembling like a Chihuahua and his voice is always high-pitched is
definitely not because "Sosuke Ikematsu, who plays Hongo, is a bad actor,"

but because Ikematsu has been "acting socially awkward" from the moment he appeared.
After losing his wife to a tragic death, Dr. Midorikawa became obsessed with "Shocker"
and researched "humans who do not die," and because humans are at the pinnacle of evolution among vertebrates and insects among invertebrates,
he became imbued with the "Shocker" philosophy that insect humans should be the true pinnacle of evolution on Earth, and he is depicted as a crazy doctor who is truly worthy of "Shocker," pushing his "gospel" by convincing himself that updating poor Hongo-kun into an insect human is the greatest happiness for him.

The doctor's face, full of joy, when he saw Hongo, who had transformed into Kamen Rider No. 1, the Grasshopper Aug,
eloquently tells us,
"Now his inner problems are solved."
For Hongo, he was kidnapped and imprisoned, and when he woke up,

he had been transformed into a "Strange Grasshopper Man," and on top of that,
he was forced to listen to a poor parody song from a crazy doctor that sounds like the theme song of Kenshi Yonezu's "Shin Ultraman",
saying, "I responded strongly (because you) wanted (power)," and he should want to scream, "Don't mess with me!"
but he cannot get angry because he is socially awkward.

Just like Shinji Ikari, his way of life is to say yes to great unreasonableness and show a submissive attitude.
Hongo ends up acting with Dr. Midorikawa's daughter, Ruriko, but

his way of dealing with women is like touching a sore spot,
and he is the "safest man in the world" who never lets anything happen even when he sleeps next to her on a futon.
Looking at Hongo like this,
he might be the "ideal otaku" that we tried to become but couldn't.

A man who only has the desire to become a hero
and wears fingerless gloves,
but because he is socially awkward, he still can't do anything today, staring at the sunset
and chanting, "Asunaro, asunaro, tomorrow I will become."

Even though such a "tomorrow" will never come for eternity.

When asked by Ruriko's brother, Ichiro, "Did you sleep with my sister?" he changes his expression and says,
"She and I are not in that kind of relationship!
What exists between us is not love, but trust."
He says it in the rapid-fire speech peculiar to otaku and virgins.

Otaku have a strangely clean side despite being lecherous at heart...
...the depiction of cleanliness is too realistic.

In the first place, there's no way you, a socially awkward person, could build "trust."
...While thinking that, I hope you can build trust...
...Hongo is a man you can't help but support.

Hayato Ichimonji (Tasuku Emoto) is the "ideal otaku friend" who fully affirms and accepts such a hopeless Hongo and says, "Let's talk casually."
If it were Eva, he would be Kaworu.
Ichimonji's design philosophy is exactly "angel."
It makes me cry to think that a friend who would say such things probably never appeared in Hongo's life until now.
I listened to "'Shin Kamen Rider' All Night Nippon," and in the original concept, the theme song of the original "Kamen Rider" was planned to be sung by Ikematsu for the first verse, Emoto for the second verse, and both of them for the third verse, and they had recorded up to the second verse.
I wish they had at least included it in the complete collection.
Regarding the filming of this work, I watched NHK's "Document 'Shin Kamen Rider'," and what director Anno was particular about was "gritty action," and he hated fight choreography, calling it "setup."

"I don't want to see setup, I want to see a fight to the death."

From the perspective of action director Tabuchi, fight choreography is built to ensure that action actors
do not get injured, and if you say you don't need fight choreography, then there is no meaning in my existence.

Action actors have work (action) at other sites starting tomorrow, not just "Shin Kamen Rider",
and if they get injured and cause a hole in the schedule, they will lose their credibility and work.

It's easy for the director to say, "I want to see a fight to the death," but
I could never say,
"I don't care if you get injured, so fight to the death."

Don't mess with me! I'm taking the staff home!

For director Anno, it would be a problem if they went home, so
he bows his head and apologizes to action director Tabuchi...
...the tension of the strained filming site is conveyed.

In the end, in special effects works, the director cannot look down on the action director
and has no choice but to say "OK," but
director Anno resists desperately, so they naturally clash.

In the battle with the "last enemy," director Anno
"I really want to see a gritty fight, I want to see a fight to the death"
and finally insists,
"Actors are professionals, so let's leave it to them,"
and an abnormal situation occurs where the three lead actors, Sosuke Ikematsu, Tasuku Emoto, and Mirai Moriyama, sit in a circle and discuss the acting plan for the final battle.
But you know.

Stage actor Mirai Moriyama,
does not think this situation is "abnormal" at all,
and it is a daily occurrence for a stage director to suddenly say something unreasonable like
"Get naked, paint your whole body with greasepaint, and walk through the streets of Shinjuku,"
and if the director says "fight to the death," then it is the actor's job to fight to the death,
why are you all panicking, he coldly watches the commotion on the site.

The director should be a tyrant on the site, and there is no need to bow his head to an action director every time; there is no need for two captains on the site, he says coldly.
Ikematsu tries to understand the true intention of the director's request

and felt like he saw the light, saying "I understood the true intention!"
but in an instant,
the scene he filmed, which he thought had been approved by the director, is completely cut,
and he is thrown into the darkness of the abyss.

It is as if Shinji (the son) wants to understand Gendo (the father) but is pushed away.
Eventually, he becomes jaded, thinking, 'We're just going to redo this anyway, right?'
This is my own opinion, but I suspect Moriyama-san did not look favorably upon that attitude from Ikematsu-san.

I believe that when Ikematsu-san took the attitude of,
'Ehh~ I'm 30 years old~''Am I really going to play Kamen Rider at 30 years old~'Moriyama-san must have been boiling with anger beneath his composed face, thinking,'Even if you are a withered old man, once you've accepted the offer, you play Kamen Rider, you idiot.'

Moriyama-san, in order to fully embody his role and play the older brother showing an example to his 'incompetent younger brother',
took the script, which only said 'the pupa decomposes, undergoes metamorphosis, and becomes a butterfly,' and performed it with the idea that a newly metamorphosed butterfly should be soft in both heart and body.
He acted out the softness of the body as a lack of defensive power,
and the softness of the heart as an 'older brother who can still be saved' because his heart is flexible enough to still listen to his younger brother (Hongo)'s desperate persuasion,

and because he can be saved, that very fact becomes the weakness of the 'final enemy',
demonstrating a masterstroke of reading ten steps ahead of 'what is written in the script' for the sake of his 'incompetent younger brothers'.
By interpreting himself not just as 'Ruriko's brother' but also as 'the brother of Hongo and Ichimonji' and 'the brother of all Augments = the ultimate Augment = the one who leads Shocker',

he showed an example to his 'incompetent younger brother' who was getting jaded because he 'didn't understand the director's true intentions,' and thus also became 'Sosuke Ikematsu's older brother'.
'Incompetent younger brother, look at me! Look at my acting!! Look at how I live!!!'

He was shouting that in his heart, of course.
In fact, I suspect Director Anno was also greatly helped by the presence of this 'everyone's big brother' in every sense.
Whether the 'final battle' became the 'gritty kill-or-be-killed fight' the director intended is something I would like everyone to judge for themselves.
Director Anno has a ruthlessness where he makes strict demands of action directors and actors, and if those standards aren't met, he simply gives up and has CG animation, which does whatever the director says, perform the role instead.
The Shocker Riders were initially filmed in live-action, but the swarm behavior of locusts couldn't be realized,

and in the end, it almost all became CG animation.

In short, the idea is that if Shinji is useless, you just have a dummy plug do it.
Even though he was supposed to be desperately pursuing 'what can be done in a live-action film',

he ended up running away to animation.
That's a 'don't run away' moment, isn't it, Director?
In the NHK documentary, I saw the backs of the 'people inside' the Shocker Riders walking together after a day of shooting,

and the heroic figures of these 'people inside,' with their varying heights and builds, showing signs of fatigue, are something that can never be depicted by CG animation.

It is true that the required role might be a swarm of locusts without individuality, but the 'people inside' have individuality.
I wonder why Director Anno couldn't grasp 'that'...
The reason suit actors put their bodies on the line and risk their lives to act is because they have the pride of 'I am participating in this work' and 'I made this work'.
It is definitely not so that it can be included as 'unused footage' in the bonus features of a disc.

This is the one point where I absolutely cannot defend Director Anno.

Director Anno says, 'The director's job is to make choices,' but at the root, he cannot trust people,
and the fact that he can only trust CG animation shows that there is a 'habitat space where only souls exist, connected to each other and understanding each other through telepathy' that the director carries within himself.

The despair in the name of 'hope' that the director carries—which Asuka once described as 'disgusting' and Ruriko in this film described as 'in short, it's hell'—
is, I think, a Sisyphus-like task for Director Anno, who cannot abandon the 'desire to connect with people' no matter how many times he is stoned and bleeds, being called 'you disgusting otaku!'

When I think about how the ending of this film differs from the habitat space, I think the difference is that in the former, those whose hearts have connected are 'staring at the same star,' whereas in the latter, you have to connect with people you don't even like.
The latter is, to quote Asuka, 'The only thing I absolutely hate is connecting with you!'
I went to see this film at a movie theater in Ikebukuro, but the audience was all old men with graying hair like me.
What supports 'Shin Kamen Rider' are the 'former boys' who had their hearts stirred by watching Rider 52 years ago.

If we die, there will be no one left to support the 'original Kamen Rider'.
This feeling of staring into the pitch-black darkness.

The content of 'Kamen Rider' will likely live on, but I simply cannot bring myself to cheer for 'modern-day Riders'.

I don't hear good things about 'Shin Kamen Rider,' and even in Shodai Hattori's 'Kuni-Kichi! Eiko-san,' it isn't praised.

There is a chorus of voices saying that 'Shin Godzilla' is not as highly regarded by Americans compared to 'Godzilla Minus One'.

Because 'society' doesn't value 'Shin Kamen Rider,' I don't value it either. Because 'America' doesn't value 'Shin Godzilla,' I don't value it either.

Heh.

Then where exactly are 'you'?
'My opinion is to just follow everyone else's opinion♪'
That is not an 'opinion' at all.

Isn't it important what 'you' think?
Are you saying that your way of life is to hide in the shadows of 'society' or 'America' and throw stones?
If you say 'Shin Godzilla' or 'Shin Kamen Rider' has flaws, that should be a conclusion derived from watching the film yourself and thinking about it yourself; stopping your thinking because 'everyone says so' is the same as Kars,
'I am a person like wood or stone who has stopped thinking.'

Isn't that the same as declaring that?

Good grief... these days, I am fed up with how many people there are who 'have no sense of self'.