Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden: Zangetsu / Baron (2015)

Not quite up to Gaim's high bar but not bad. Zangetsu good, Baron a bit odd.

*pulled from my LB review*

Bit of an oddity.

The Zangetsu half is a truncated but still good little supplement to contribute more to showing Taketora’s soft side in a small but tragic little tale about a bond he shared with his family servant ruined by the malicious side of the Yggdrasil foundation and a sins of the father kind of deal, while Taketora still tries to remain loyal to his beliefs in an ends justifies the means method. Taketora walks a similar path to his father with the corporation and everything, but knowing all the bad things he has to do for a greater peace so he believes, showing his true kindness but lamenting his actions for his goal. It’s a nice reaffirmation through both him and even Micchy a bit to show how they are sacrificing their own connections and self-respect for something bigger, as he probes his little brother about if he too could find it in himself to betray his friends to do what’s right, something Micchy believes he can do with a heavy heart. It’s more subdued and has a nice gravitas to it that works, even if it could all be more nuanced and expanded if not for the format.

Then you get to Baron’s half.

Basically a repeat of Toshiki Inoue’s tonally jarring doppelgänger episodes of Blade, Kaito runs into a look-a-like who forcibly switches places with him and shenanigans ensue before we learn Shapur, the doppelgänger, is the son of some big businessman who is trying to kill him off since he was illegitimate (?) and not a proper successor to the business. A side story for Kaito sounds very promising since he gets a bit overshadowed and takes a lot of Ls in the main series as things go on, but this story lacks some of the sensitivity of the first half for the central plot - it’s nice that it adds more to Kaito’s backstory about why he always yearns to be strong and ruthless, coming from an abusive childhood and everything, and obviously it shows the parallel with Shapur having his own bad dad figure and Kaito empathizing with him, the former in a way just a kinder, more naive and weaker version of Kaito himself, having come from similar poor parental relationships, but the core story feels awkward and cheap, the corniness doing a bit of disservice to Kaito’s angst and everything; the serious stuff is well-meaning, but it is drawn out by something that undermines it with its silliness, so it leaves a bit to be desired.

Decent little extra content for Gaim’s secondary characters, but both characters should’ve probably had their own dedicated V-Cinema to truly make the best of their extra backstory stuff and enrich their characterization further. Good, but not filling enough.

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