[SPOILERS...for the new Den-o movie...and nothing much else...alas...]
Before talking about this week’s instalment of DCD, I feel obliged to at least mention Mei-chan no Shitsuji and its massive cast of former tokusatsu actors, not least of all being…
"Yankee Pose #39949597357939794"
…Sato Takeru (Nogami Ryotaro/Kamen Rider Den-o) himself.
As for DCD #14, well to put it mildly, it was something of a disappointment. Things started out well, with the welcome return of Momotaros and the amusement of the whole Momotaros/Tsukasa fusion, but this quickly became tiresome as the episode progressed into various different combinations of Den-o Imajin x DCD cast members.
Somewhere around 8 minutes in, it kind of dawned on me that what this episode was going to be was not so much a story in itself but a recap of the various different Imajin we could expect to see in the recently released Onigashima Battleship movie, which features a DCD segment set chronologically between this episode and #15.
Even cosplay!Natsumi, the brief return of Akiyama Rina and a section taking place in the setting of the predicted ‘Rider War’ couldn’t quite stop this from being one of the least impressive episodes of the series to date. There were no actual characters to speak of – just the visual cues of the Imajin – nor was there any kind of discernible storyline, it was just…24 minutes of omake. I was half wondering why the time-travelling ‘villain’ and his sentai-villain-reject henchmen looked slightly like an evil version of Zeronos but not enough for me to care *too* much.
All in all, something of a disappointment for one of the most popular Heisei series. Hopefully the next world will have more substance.
