YMMV / Kamen Rider Ex-Aid

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The revelations about Taiga's past have caused viewers to interpret him as either a Jerkass Woobie or a self centered Sociopath whose entire reason for what he does including endangering innocent lives and trying to outright murder Ex-Aid amounts to either his ego being bruised or flat out jealousy that other people got the job that "should" have been his. His dialogue and actions provide evidence for both.
    • Kamen Rider Snipe: Episode Zero shows Taiga as kind hearted doctor not unlike Emu, tilting this more into the Jerkass Woobie territory. Losing everything hit him hard and indeed made him the man he is now as it came up in #20. It doesn't excuse his behavior as Hiiro's and Emu's arrival probably bruised his ego and made him try to get rid of them.
    • Did Taiga deliberately mock Emu's lack of courage in #20 or had he known that Emu will get up if kicked the proper way? Taiga does not deliberately mock people very often (and if, then Hiiro is his usual target) and this episode played his more sympathetic side in general so the interpretations is up to the viewer.
  • When talking about Emu, more specifically, the Bugster he has, one has to ask what the Bugster portion is. Is it Emu or M? Moments in the show provide proof for both of these theories being the case.
    • Turns out it's M, or more specifically, Parado.
  • Considering Kiriya's habit of lying, one has to wonder if him acting goofy and casual with everything he does is an act to mask how he feels about causing his friend's death. At times it almost feels forced when he laughs at other people. And when he comes back from death and reveals that he's working with Masamune completely out of free will, has he turned a new leaf and chosen to truly become evil? Or has he gone under despair of seeing Emu not having stopped the Bugster Virus and decided Masamune was the only hope of possibly stopping it? Is he a double agent that's working with Masamune to benefit the heroes? Was he truly reprogrammed by Masamune and restored by Emu and is just putting up a front with Emu for something else? With Kiriya, it's difficult to know what's true.
    • Turns out he hasn't changed at all and is doing it all to get the proto-Gashats back.
  • Did Nico pretend to have the game disease in #13 just to bother Taiga? Maybe it was so that she wanted to see whether he is as bad as he makes himself look like. His reaction gave her all the answers needed. And Nico claiming Taiga to be a softie afterwards would imply that. On the other hand, it doesn't fit Nico's usual immature behavior. Combination of both is most likely.
    • Nico also seems to display shades of Brilliant, but Lazy. She is a genius gamer, who makes 100 milion ¥ per year^*That's $902,796 USD. Almost a million dollars a year., yet she spends her time by goofing around and poking Taiga.
  • While it's hard to argue that Kuroto isn't a Jerkass and a monster, it's possible to wonder if he's a murderous narcissist because that was his original personality, or if he was somehow driven mad, possibly by the virus. If it was the second one, the state he's deteriorated to and his graphic death leave a little bit of Sympathy for the Devil.
    • One could argue that his twisted personality come from Masamune's neglect and general attitude, worsen by his mother's chronic illness. As #31 showed, the true intention of Kamen Rider Chronicle is to preserve all humans as data, just like what he did to his mother.
  • Parado's many conflicting actions and beliefs he says make it difficult to tell what he genuinely believes in and what's just lip service, making his morality and beliefs skewed at best and completely hollow at worst. Then again, he was the product of the mind of a 6-year old, and children don't usually have the most complex grasp on morality.
• Awesome Art: The cover artwork of the Rider Gashats is quite impressive, harking back to older video game cover designs while making each Gashat seem like it could be an actual game.
• Awesome Ego:
  • Kuroto Dan is a supremely egotistical and narcissistic character and all the more popular for it. The character's brilliance as well as how he hams it up to great levels with his delusions of godhood add a great amount of menace, fun, and even endearment to him.
  • Ren Amagasaki/Lovelica Bugster is extremely vain, but damn if he isn't a fun and charismatic presence.
  • Masamune Dan is Kuroto turned all the way up to eleven. He's such an egomaniac sociopath company president, that sees everything around him as products to sell. This even extends human and bugsters' lives. He's brought down slightly by the fact that he suffers from a case of Creative Sterility and can only copy what the heroes do while relying on the sheer power of Kamen Rider Cronus. The other advantages he has are usually by sheer chance ^*Reset or through petty cheating ^*Hoarding all the energy items for himself in a folder. The "ego" part shines through regardless as no matter how hard he gets blown out, he'll still claim he's got the upper hand.
• Base-Breaking Character: Kuroto Dan, post resurrection is this. Originally one of the Ensemble Dark Horse until he landed to this for being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad. While some enjoy the nature of his Hazy-Feel Turn and hamminess, others feel that he was flanderized into a screaming caricature of his former self whose only purpose to create new power-ups for the protagonists.
• Broken Base:
  • As is par for the course, when the first details about this series came to light, complaints arose. Most of the negativity was in response to Ex-Aid's suit design: Ex-Aid's Anime Hair, a neon color scheme, eyes that look like they came straight from an SD Gundam model kit and the Super-Deformed Level 1 forms. Those that aren't just badmouthing the design see it as an attempt to make the show more kid friendly, comparing it to similar attempts by the Metal Heroes series (B-Robo Kabutack and Tetsuwan Tantei Robotack) that led to the death of the franchise. The other side argues that regardless of content, Kamen Rider has always been marketed towards children and more lighthearted, "weirder" installments like Kamen Rider Den-O and Kamen Rider Fourze didn't negatively impact the franchise's survival. Especially not Den-O. Of course, this is a full bait and switch just like Kamen Rider Gaim, that was about fruits and street dancing before transitioning into its much darker and mature story (which still had fruits, but way less street dancing).
  • Fan reaction to the writers killing off Kiriya is divisive at best. Some fans supported their decision, as his character arc has already finished, while some other fans thought they did it too early. A third camp felt that they killed off the wrong character. There's yet another camp, mainly of Japanese parents, who felt that his death was at a very poorly timed episode since was aired on Christmas.
  • Much like in Double, the resurrection of Poppy and Parado in the show's final episode has been met with mixed results by fans. Some say that bringing them back undermines the show's messages about mortality, while others don't have an issue with it due to them inevitably having to be brought back due to them showing up in True Ending, which takes place after the series finale. To be fair, they're video game characters...
• Character Perception Evolution: If you go searching for posts online that were made while the first half of Ex-Aid was airing, particularly after the Burgermon episode, you may be surprised at how many people there were outright hating Kuroto and decrying him as the most evil Kamen Rider villain. This being before he was revived, got substantially more over-the-top hammy and less serious, and became a more redeemable character. Nowadays, Kuroto is a character who fans love, or at the very least Love to Hate.
• Character Rerailment: After Kuroto's resurrection, as he helps the heroes his insanity is increasingly flanderized and Played for Laughs, no one taking him as a serious threat anymore. He was hilarious... but he was hardly the same guy, to the point that there are plenty of fan theories about what his use of Dangerous Zombie or his death and resurrection as a Bugster might've done to his mind. Then comes the "Another Ending" post-season film series, where we find out that the trilogy's events are all Kuroto's doing - he never stopped being his early-season self and acted more cartoonish to get the heroes to let their guard down, and he'd always planned to return to business as usual once Masamune was dealt with. During the trilogy, he's back to being his earlier self.
• Crack Pairing: A few fans have started shipping Hiiro with Touma despite these two having never met and very unlikely to ever meet. This is because Hiiro's and Touma's actors have starred together in the BL series Senpai, This Can't Be Love!
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Kamen Rider Genm. He certainly makes an impression with his strength, creepy theme music, and the mystery surrounding him. The reveal of his identity actually enhanced this image, as Kuroto Dan turns out to be a creepy genius psycho even when not being Genm. The debut of his terrifyingly awesome Zombie Gamer form further solidify this image.
  • Parado. An Enigmatic Minion who is rarely seen without a smile on his face, loves games and playing around, even with his supposed enemies. He also have no problem doing things that would be actually detrimental to his supposed allies' plan because he finds said things to be interesting. Pretty much nobody can tell what he is actually thinking, whether it's his allies or is enemies. He always exudes a very creepy aura around him anytime he appears. He's also a very dangerous and powerful villain who is eventually given the power to become Kamen Rider Para-DX.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Kuroto dying of exhaustion in #41. Usually, this would be rather disturbing (and in Japan it qualifies as Ripped from the Headlines), but since Kuroto does so 12 times in a row (2 onscreen) and comes back refreshed every time he revives, it's just hilarious.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Parado. He admits that his motive is revenge, wants to punish and commit genocide on humanity in a Yoko Taro styled spectacle fighter with humans as the mooks with Kamen Rider Chronicle, and if a Bugster doesn't agree with his revenge, he will strangle and threaten them. But people treat him as a misunderstood Anti-Villain who just wants to play with Emu and try to justify his crimes which equal Dan's in scale. While he does get redemption and join the heroes, it's less about him being misunderstood and more so out of Emu having to teach him that what he's doing is horrible and that he can't play with and murder humans who only have one life.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Burgermon appeared in one episode. It was a very memorable episode.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Taiga is not exactly evil, just a greedy and selfish jerk, but him doing things such as throwing money at his problems to make them go away or playing dirty to make sure things are in his favor as much as possible and looking pretty awesome while doing it, makes him very popular among the fanbase. #8 makes him a bit more unambiguously evil...but also introduces his freaking awesome Level 3 form.
  • Genm is also very popular for his mysterious aura and general badassery. The reveal of him being Kuroto only helped his popularity, with his psychotic true colors making him scarier for some. And now, we have his awesome and terrifying Zombie Gamer Form, easily one of the most awesome and best-designed forms in the series.
  • Parado. Not only is he as mysterious as Genm with a strangely disturbing cheerfulness, his Rider form was designed to be better than everyone else's and it shows.
  • In Brave's DVD Special, Takeshi Asakura/Kamen Rider Ouja makes a return. He's just as big of a bastard as ever and fans love him in all his psychotic glory.
  • Masamune Dan is even worse than his son, and is egotistical enough to claim himself as the true cause of events that transpired, seeing everyone as a byproduct of his company. But as Kamen Rider Cronus, he's undoubtedly one of the coolest-looking riders in the series, and when he claims to be the rule of the world itself with his ability to bend time to his will, you've got very little reason to disagree with him.
  • Kagenari Nagumo/Kamen Rider Fuma, from the True Ending movie.
• Fandom Rivalry: Gains a friendly rival in the form of Sword Art Online due to the similarities between their respective characters, though Ex-Aid has more comedic moments and handles the gaming themes slightly better than SAO did.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Parado's obsession with Emu, and things like him smiling when he sees Emu returning to his old self, has some fans shipping them. Although it enters Screw Yourself territory when it's revealed that Parado is Emu's Bugster. And from #40 onwards, they are no longer foes.
  • Kiriya/Kuroto became more well-known after they were both revived as Bugsters.
• Fanon: Some fans theorized that Parado's outfit design was made by Emu, because Emu designed him as the antagonist of the Mighty Brothers XX game.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Due to the series having multiple endings depending on where you decide to stop watching it, some fans pretend that the series has ended at #45, or at most extend to the True Ending and/or Heisei Generations Final movies, rather than accepting the Another Ending trilogy, where Kuroto becomes a villain again and seemingly dies for good at the end.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • In the Japanese fandom, Emu/Kiriya is the most popular couple. There are hundreds of doujinshi for it, and the fan-artists didn't seem to be put off by Kiriya's death. Kiriya's resurrection and the fact that he only fakes his Face–Heel Turn and has been on Emu's side all along makes this pairing even stronger on the Japanese side.
  • After the end of the series, Emu/Parado became one of the most popular pairings. It helps that they have become friends for real since #40 after Parado’s Heel–Face Turn, and they are literally each other’s other half.
  • Taiga/Nico is also well-liked due to their funny interactions that become more and more heartwarming as time goes on.
• Fountain of Memes: Kuroto Dan. The combination of being incredibly hammy along with his god complex and all of the funny, exaggerated facial expressions and actions that he made throughout the series not only made him this, but it also made him a fan-favorite and arguably one of the most memetic characters in the entire franchise.
• Franchise Original Sin: Ex-Aid is generally seen as the best of the three Kamen Rider shows Yuya Takahashi has written, but that doesn't mean the issues those shows are criticized for aren't present in Ex-Aid, albeit with more justification.
  • A Nice Guy character getting development that makes him become colder and pull a Face–Heel Turn can be seen playing out with both Emu, who inflicts mental trauma on Parado by making him experience death, and Hiiro, who defects to join the Big Bad's side midway through. The difference being that with Emu, making Parado experience how bad death is was the only way to get him to understand his actions were wrong, as he'd already rejected previous offers to turn good, and if nothing else was shown to be an effective strategy. Meanwhile, in the case of Hiiro, while he did betray his friends it was only because Masamune used Saki, who Hiiro had spent the entire show hoping to save, to blackmail him, and the moment Masamune demanded that he do something irreversible and murder one of his friends, Hiiro outright refused.
  • A villain who does terrible things yet gets let off for their crimes can be seen with both Parado and Kuroto Dan. Unlike in the cases of Horobi, Gai Amatsu, Michinaga Azuma and Daichi Isuzu though, Parado genuinely did not understand the full consequences of his actions, being a video game character who believes Death Is Cheap, and upon being made to experience firsthand how bad death is, Parado is left traumatized and broken, makes a tearful apology to Emu for what he did and vows to do everything he can to atone for his crimes. With Kuroto, the heroes only team up with him because they didn't have any other options, with him being one of the few who understood how Kamen Rider Chronicle worked. It's made clear in the end that despite him helping the protagonists, Kuroto hasn't actually redeemed, and he immediately goes back to being villainous once the dust has cleared. Ironically, he still does more to amend his crimes than Gai, even if he does go a bit far with it.
• Friendly Fandoms: Fans of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Danganronpa enjoyed watching Ex-Aid for the same reason as the above Sword Art Online. They even affectionately compared Emu to Chiaki.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Hiiro's habit of eating sweets becomes this when #6 reveals that it is his way of remembering the promise he made to his girlfriend before she fully succumbed to her Bugster infection.
  • Taiga's reactions to the ghosts in the haunted house attraction are pretty damn hilarious since nobody expected for someone like him to be scared of ghosts. As Kamen Rider Snipe Episode 0 reveals, he and his friend Maki fought over the Gamer Driver and the result was Maki dying to Game Disease and stress from Taiga's actions. The reactions were likely less about Taiga being a wimp and more about him being reminded that he killed someone and the possibility they want revenge.
  • Kuroto being joyful for becoming an "immortal" reminds some fans that Kenzaki went insane after living 300 years as an immortal in the novel adaptation of Kamen Rider Blade.
  • One of the aesops established in Kamen Rider Ghost was that even if someone dies, they will live on through the people they influenced, their memories and ambitions. Well, Parado claimed to carry on the wish of Kuroto Dan and finish Kamen Rider Chronicle. The fact that the man in question is one of the most despicable villains in the franchise and Parado killed him himself puts quit the nasty twist on the otherwise heartwarming aesop.
    • Gets even worse when you learn that Kuroto Dan's goal was actually to revive his mother. Parado isn't carrying on Kuroto's wish so much as he is twisting it maliciously.
  • Parado is pretty good at invoking this. He gets another example in #26, where he calls people out on hypocritically creating video game characters only to have someone they could beat up. Wreck-It Ralph is a Disney movie about Designated Villain arguing against his role in the story. Basically, Parado is a twisted version of Ralph, who went to settle the debt with his creator instead of trying to prove himself as a hero.
  • Speaking of Parado, #29 has a serious case due to The Reveal. Parado is "M". This also makes his desire to play with Nico again in the flashback harsher since he most certainly meant it in a degrading way.
  • For the Complete Monster that he was originally, it kind of hits hard when Masamune was easily offed by his own son in an alternate timeline where the events of Ex-Aid never happened and it was Kuroto who became the monster.
  • This also seemed to be the case in Another Ending beforehand, showing how even someone like him truly loved his wife enough to simply accept her death, and how Kuroto is still a lesser monster, maybe one that he feels he created.
  • Kuroto's plan in Another Ending ends up somewhat resembling unleashing a virus on people to create a pandemic. Based on the timeline, Another Ending takes place in 2020. A real life pandemic of a novel Coronavirus occurred in real life that same year. Whoops.
    • It became even worse when in August 2020, Hiroki Iijima (Emu) came down with COVID-19. And in November that same year, Shouma Kai (Parado) got hit with the virus. Thankfully, both made full recoveries in the end.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • #15 has Nico steal Taiga's Gamer Driver and Bang Bang Shooting Gashat to fight Emu, but she fails to transform and contracts game disease instead. In the Ex-Aid final stageshow, we finally get a Kamen Rider Nico Snipe.
  • At the end of 2017, the World Health Organization announced that gaming disorder would be recognized as an official mental disorder in 2018, meaning that Game Disease technically exists.
  • #27's title has "Love & Peace" as the designated English words. Cue Ex-Aid's successor, Kamen Rider Build, also using that phrase extensively as its own Arc Words.
• I Am Not Shazam: The riders are easily labeled, but the forms are often mislabeled by fans as either the Gashat names or just the Rider names for Level 2. Form names tend to have a word taken from the base Gashat the rider uses to transform (Action for Ex-Aid and Genm, Quest for Brave, Shooting for Snipe, and Bike for Kiriya) with the word "Gamer", followed by the level of said form. If a supplemental Gashat is added, a word from said Gashat's name is prefixed. For example, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid is the rider himself. His "chibi" form is called Action Gamer Level 1. His "regular" form is called Action Gamer Level 2. When he uses Gekitotsu Robots, he is called Robot Action Gamer Level 3. When he uses Shakariki Sports, he is called Sports Action Gamer Level 3. When he uses Ju Ju Burger, he is called Burger Action Gamer Level 4. When he uses Dragon Knight Hunter Z, he is called Hunter Action Gamer Level 5. When he uses Mighty Bros. XX, the chibi form is called Double Action Gamer X and the split regular forms are called Double Action Gamer XX-L and XX-R. Maximum Gamer Level 99 and Muteki Gamer avoid this naming convention. It's about as complicated for everyone who gets several forms, and it's not hard to understand why the vast majority of the fandom just uses the Gashat's name instead.
• I Knew It!:
  • Lots of people immediately jumped to the conclusion that Ren was the Bugster from Tokimeki Crisis after he used his reprogramming powers on Poppy.
  • There were plenty of fans who thought Parado was actually part of Emu as an Enemy Without.
  • Many fans managed to guess that Masamune Dan was Kamen Rider Cronus and would be the true villain.
  • The fact that Kuroto will be revived later, because a mad programmer like that must have some kind of contingency plan, and the actor doesn't receive flowers after being seemingly killed on #23.
  • Since Kiriya was revived without any brainwashing on his part and his whisper to Emu before he was punched was never heard, many fans guessed that Kiriya hasn't turned evil at all and was letting Emu in on a secret plan.
• Iron Woobie: Emu is a pretty nice guy considering that among the various things in his life, has been abandoned by his father, infected and hated by the man he idolized as a little kid, ended up being kidnapped and experimented on to create stronger Bugsters, had a friend die in his arms, nearly vanished and went into a Heroic BSoD because of when M took over, had to witness various people die, got stabbed in the gut by someone he thought was an ally, gotten beaten to near death by a Serial Killer, learned that all along he was possessed by a monster who'll kill everyone if he doesn't play along and saw both of his best friends betray him to join Masamune's side. You'd think that he'd try to at least ask for a hug, but he simply goes on for the sake of everyone else.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Hiiro is indifferent to other people and generally dismissive and cold. He's also still struggling with blaming himself for his girlfriend's death; then, after he's started to connect with the rest of the characters, that very guilt is manipulated by Masamune, which drives him to the point of betraying his friends—which just makes him hate himself even more. Despite his apparent mean personality, the guy is actually a mess of self-loathing.
  • Taiga's an angry, smug jerk who's not an easy person to talk to with how unlikable he can be. He wasn't always like this. Back then, he was a kind doctor who had everything, from intelligence, respect, friends, and allies. But when his friend tried to become Kamen Rider Snipe and ended up going into ICU, he took up the mantle instead to protect everybody. It instead ruined his life, resulting in him losing his friends, allies, and respect. With the knowledge that he let one of his patients die to the Bugster Virus, he lost his license and was left with his intelligence, money, and a crippling feeling of self-loathing for the rest of his life with no hope of redemption other than being hated. While the stuff he's done can't be excused because of it, it goes a long way to show how screwed up he is.
• Love to Hate:
  • After #8, Taiga is this for quite a few people. His selfishness and smugness combined with his cool factor make it quite easy to feel this way.
  • Kuroto is a smug, sadistic, and ridiculously hammy bastard at least before becoming a Bugster who's done some of the absolute worst actions in the series, and the urge to see one of the heroes punch him in the face is perfectly natural with his tendency to mock them while he's in range to do so. It makes him quite the fan favorite.
  • Ren Amagasaki/Lovelica Bugster is so ridiculously despicable and full of himself, but his hamminess and charisma make him less hateable and just utterly hilarious.
• Memetic Mutation: See this page for examples.
• Moe: Burgermon's overall goofiness and attempts to go away so he doesn't hurt anybody just made him endearing to the eyes of fans. It also makes Kuroto's murder of him all the more heartless.
• Moral Event Horizon: See this page for examples.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • LEVEL UP! heard whenever a Rider is about to assume a higher Level form.
  • CRITICAL STRIKE! heard when a Rider delivers a powerful blow.
    • PERFECT!, the sound that is heard whenever the Finishing Move of the Riders is about to destroy a Bugster.
    • And after the Bugster is destroyed and the patient cured, GAME CLEAR!
  • The Gashat Gear Dual's voice. Gashat Gear Dual Beta as well, despite the grammatical mistakes.
  • Hearing the Hyper Muteki Gashat activate despite Cronus' attempts to stop Ex-Aid's Super Mode Transformation Sequence.
• Narm: The sheer number of villains with God Complexes that the series throws at the viewer. It's startling and unsettling with Kuroto. It starts feeling like a bit of a rehash with Masamune, and by the time you see that Johnny Maxima's website declares its corporate philosophy as "I AM GOD" and hear him bellow that as Gamedeus Machina you probably won't be able to derive any meaning from that combination of words at all.
• Never Live It Down: Ever since the Christmas episode where Kiriya died, Christmas will always have a reputation as a grim holiday among Kamen Rider fans, with people often joking about a series that's currently airing by saying X character from it is going to die in the Christmas episode.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Nico Saiba was originally a scrappy in the eyes of fans during her introduction in the series for being a bratty Gamer Chick who wants Taiga to beat Emu as a revenge from being defeated by him in a gaming tournament as a kid. However, fans began to warm up on her due to her decent Character Development as well as her act of being Taiga's Morality Pet.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ruka Matsuda was in one of the Kamen Rider Ghost Hyper Battle DVDs.
  • Shouma Machii was in #3 of Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger.
• Spoiled by the Format: Unlike most Kamen Rider shows, it averts in the same way that Kamen Rider W did it. All of the sounds and lights (and thus batteries) are in the Gashat collectibles like Gaia Memories. The Gamer Driver doesn't have electronics like the W Driver, only prongs and pins that triggers the inserted Gashat's buttons to make specific sounds when doing various driver-related actions. So unless you have a toy catalog that is normally out of the public eye^note though this stuff usually gets leaked all over the place, you won't know what surprises they have in store.
• Strawman Has a Point: Hiiro's insistence to treat the patients like procedures rather than as human beings has some legit backing. A common mistake among surgeons is getting emotionally invested, which Hiiro knows all too well. Also, because his line of work involves treating patients who are infected by Bugsters, he can easily save them by killing them. In this case, it's more that Hiiro's way of doing things are influenced by his own experiences and his medical specialization. As a surgeon, his main concern is curing the patient by operating on them. On the other hand, Emu as a pediatrician, needs to connect with his patient emotionally as a part of his job. Thanks to Hiiro's Character Development, he eventually starts to see that Emu's method have some weight to it, even if he still prefers to distance himself emotionally.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The little jingle when Shakariki Sports activates sounds strangely similar to the first few notes of "Walk This Way".
  • The first few notes of the jingle when Mighty Brothers XX activates sounds just a little too much like a sped-up version of "Go Go Power Rangers".
  • For a moment, the theme Real Game has some notes similar to The World
• The Un-Twist: Emu has game disease. Pretty much everyone called that one, even those who had not seen the crossover.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Not so much a character, but Brave's Taddle Legacy arrived with little fanfare and showed very few of its abilities, though it's somewhat justified, since it showed up in the show's final arc and the plot couldn't make a lot of room to focus on it.
    • Before that, Taddle Fantasy is seen being able to summon his own minions, and is capable of various spells from RPGs including a Dispel and being able to defend against certain attacks. Due to his inexperience with anything over Level 5, it quickly becomes a Deadly Upgrade beyond his sword attacks. However, he never uses it for anything but sword attacks, even when he has been shown to be capable of using it and in "Another Ending" when he's not using Taddle Legacy.
  • Kamen Rider Poppy. She debuted in #26 and kicked some major butt. The amount of times this form got used, including specials? Seven. There is an in-universe explanation for why Asuna doesn't use the form very often, but still. Not helped by how the Another Ending movie she co-stars on focused more on Parado and not her.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: At the end of #23, Emu gets ahold of the Giri Giri Chambara Gashat after Kuroto is killed off by Parado. Yet we never see Ex-Aid Chambara Gamer. To be fair, it's worth noting that there's been cases of this happening before (Den-O Vega Form, Gaim Jimber Melon Arms), but it's rather irritating since a), Emu had the gashat for this form for the rest of the show, whereas in those cases, the opportunity wasn't present for very long, and b), he continued to use level 3 forms after obtaining Maximum Mighty X.
• Tough Act to Follow: Easily the most well-received of the three seasons Yuya Takahashi has written for Rider. By contrast, both Zero-One and Geats were much more sharply criticized along with being accused of recycling tropes from Ex-Aid.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • From True Ending, Kagenari Nagumo. He joins Machina Vision and becomes Kamen Rider Fuma so he can carry out Johnny Maxima's plan while using it to put everyone in an "eternal heaven" virtual reality where they are all happy, specifically wanting his daughter to experience the life that her chronic illness prevented her from enjoying. Kagenari is supposed to come off as an Anti-Villain and Well-Intentioned Extremist like Ren Aoi before him, except there are a few problems with that. Namely, there is never any explanation provided in the movie script itself as to why he was absent in his daughter's life for so long, which can make his desire to help her with her illness a little hard to swallow if he couldn't even be there for her when she was going through it. Additionally, he antagonizes the main characters who are actually trying to treat her illness and succeed despite his interference. Also, while his words to Emu claim he has concern for her wellbeing, his plan to save her involves meeting her for the first time in her life just so he can get her even more sick with game disease, seemingly without allowing anyone in the real world to continue aiding her ill body since they're all stuck with her in the VR. This is somewhat mitigated by the end of the movie, when he leaves Machina Vision and heeds Emu's words about being there to support his daughter in her recovery, which does help, but up until then he comes off as a deadbeat dad making excuses for abandoning his family for seemingly no reason.
  • In #25, there’s a scene where Parado permanently kills off 5 Ride-Players. This scene is meant to be horrifying and showing off how serious Parado is as the new Big Bad, and indeed it is. However, the 5 victims were shown beforehand to be Jerkasses to the Doctor Riders as a whole and Emu in particular, and even forcefully took away Emu’s Driver and Gashat. Therefore, it becomes a bit harder to sympathize with them.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Kuroto Dan's absolutely hog-wild personality earned him a strong following among a segment of the fandom, and has secured him not only a return performance as Another OOO in an arc of Kamen Rider Zi-O but also an untransformed Figuarts, which is a rare occurrence to say the least. In-Universe however, he's considered by most if not all who encounter him to be an obnoxious and difficult to work with moron. It says something that Ryuga, yes that Ryuga, thinks he's a complete idiot. Similarly, The only reason Sougo "joins" him in the aforementioned arc to get an idea of how not to be a good ruler.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The special effects in this series are very well done, especially compared to the lower-budget-than-usual effects of its predecessor.
  • Not to mention that their cartoonier style (like the 90s grafitti power lines or the HIT!, PERFECT!, etc effects) make the inherent Toei low budget much less jarring and distracting.
  • Both of the opening credits is a prime example. Both are easily among the most effects-heavy opening in the franchise and they truly nailed it, as the two openings is just a wonder to watch.
  • Some battle scenes are done with very good choreography and special effects, for example: Emu and Kuroto tag team vs Parado on #31, Emu and Hiiro vs Cronus on #38, or Emu and Parado vs Cronus on 40. Generally, all battles that involve Cronus will have good special effects.
  • True Ending kicks the effects up a few notches, with even greater choreography and encounters, with special mention going to Hyper Muteki vs Gamedeus Machina, switching between a first-person view and destruction on an enormous scale, making it feel like a real Final Boss of a video game.
• The Woobie:
  • Kiriya doesn't get it easy early on. His friend committed suicide upon learning from him of his infection, resulting in him lying out of horror and guilt for most of his life, chances to ally with others are broken with the actions of the villains, and when they're healed, he's killed and left as data with other victims thanks to the delusions of a madman. He ends up killed and revived multiple times, with it eventually seeming to stick before having to face down Kuroto again, once again finding himself beaten down in a fight with someone with the power of a god. He eventually finds a way to beat him, but it's just barely enough before he's killed in a mutual kill between the man he's hated for so long. By the time he's revived for good in the end, you're almost relieved it's over for him.
  • Burgermon doesn't fall too far behind. He ended up attacked on sight for being a Bugster before he could get away, sees the patient he infected as his father who he needs to protect (Thankfully, the feeling is mutual), and when he believes that he'll kill the patient if he sticks around for too long, he tries (and fails) to be evil and get himself killed. All this happened when he just wanted some burgers and to make his creator happy. And once his creator's cured and Burgermon is complete without having to kill anyone, he gets killed by Genm because he wasn't part of a game Kuroto created, telling his creator to make more games and sacrificing himself in the process.

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