Kamen Rider: General Thread

If you mean an evil virus taking over the planet with a robot army? I think Skynet beat them to it. I also don't get Venjix vibes from the Ark or even HAL 9000, I get vibes of XANA from Code Lyoko due to how silent the Ark is and it's dedication to wiping out life. But XANA killed out of having a higher priority of Asimov's third law than Asimov's first law. But this is not the Code Lyoko chatroom.

I meant somehow secretly turning a huge amount of people into cyborgs without them realizing or something like that.

Edited by Blueace on Mar 4th 2020 at 10:09:32 AM

My bad. I totally misunderstood what you were saying then.

Now I just want Code Lyoko season 6. And I liked Evolution.

Speaking of technological themed shows, something that pissed me off about some Kamen Rider fans is that there are people who consider Dragon Knight to be awful simply because the Transformation Call is called "Kamen Rider"....when both Ex Aid and Zero One have "Kamen Rider" in their transformation jingles. Hypocrites.

That sounds pretty dumb. Although if they want to use another call, what would you use?

I guess Let's Ride would fit, but Kamen Rider works perfectly fine. Actually, now that I think about Agito and Dragon Knight's openings kinda hae a similar tone (towards the end in Agito's case) telling the viewer to come along with them and get on for the ride. No wonder I like them both.

Another though popped into my head. You know what Rider people over hate: Makoto. His Worf Effect didn't really get bad until the end, and he had reasonable character development throughout the show.

Not to be pushy but, can KR followers here try to complete the old KR tropes too besides the new KR series?

That is 29 series at about 50 episodes each. It's not a small endeavour.

I think the original series is about twice as long.

Not to mention all the ZC Es that need to be reworded and add context.

It could be also about completing the pages like in Characters, Awesome, Funny, Tear Jerker, etc. part.

I am watching some but I am not fluent on the hundreds of tropes that could go into into many episodes of many series.

I'm only familiar with most of the Heisei series (Ryuki, parts of Faiz and everything Kabuto onwards). Anything Showa is out of my field. At best I can fix up the Kabuto ones but don't hold your breath.

All right, so I've been hearing a lot about this series for over a decade. Specifically, in my country, Kamen Rider is what Jojos Bizarre Adventure in the west, in that it's very well known through memes. In particular, the ones from Kamen Rider Blade. You know the ones.

Anyhow, I decided to actually start to watch this series and where should I begin with? First of all, I don't know jack so, therefore, don't really care much about Showa or Heisei distinction, although seems like the only ones people talk about at all here (as in, my country) are Heisei ones. Also, I'm willing to suffer through bad or slow beginning or the middle, as long as the ending is good. Although not necessarily a requirement, having a happy ending will also help (I am willing to settle with Bittersweet Ending too).

The one that I'm most aware of is Ryuuki and that sounds pretty darn interesting at all, but that also sound like Neon Genesis Evangelion, in that it's not the kind of show you want to be introduced to a genre through. Or is it? I dunno. So far, at least in the online communities of my country, the most recommended gateway show is Kamen Rider Double. The designs aside, apparently Ex-Aid is pretty well received too. Hm.

Any other gateway entry?

A common answer is that it really doesn't matter which one I start with...as long as it isn't Ghost. Hoo boy, a lot of people seem to hate that one.

Edited by dRoy on Mar 8th 2020 at 11:11:57 PM

Pretty much all the Kamen Rider series are standalone, so you can start at most points without missing much. Out of the series I've watched, I think Fourze and Build could also be a good start.

Ryuki is the Holy Grail War with Riders, so if that concept interests you, go ahead. Pretty dark, though.

Edited by Blueace on Mar 8th 2020 at 11:16:43 AM

You might want to wait about watching Ryuki until you get your feet wet with a different Rider since design wise it is kinda of a genre shock to say? It was made at a time when the idea of Riders being the main roadblock wasn't something that was really done yet. However, if you like the suite designs and really are interested it does have it's strengths and it did bring in quite a few ideas into the Rider forumla which could make for a interesting start. -shrug-

As for Showa, it isn't for everyone. It can be extremely cheesy since it's trying to sell you these epic battles between hero and monster with the budget of a ham sandwich and at a time where CGI didn't exist. It's a legacy show though that started it all so I think any Rider fan owns it to themselves to at least give it a watch at some point.

Personally I got into the series with Drive and got hooked really hard with Zero-One and OOO, which are all Riders that I can recommend. Drive has a slow start since they do a lot of Mo TW plots that are mainly made to feature the next gimmick item but I found it fun throughout all the same, OOO is a great mix of Rider story elements (drama, action, and comedy) and has a pretty fun gimmick, and Zero-One is the current airing Rider and the first of a new era which gives it a fresh factor. Really the only series I can't recommend you explore is Decade and Zi-O since they are anniversary stories. W is a good option for sure and if you like video games Ex-Aid is a no brainer.

Edited by LightToAll on Mar 8th 2020 at 10:41:08 AM

Den-O, OOO, Fourze and Build are good starting points. Double and Gaim if you really want to start really high. Kabuto isn't too bad either, although at parts it gets weird after the whole "Iron Chef" episodes. Drive is good. Ex-Aid is okay. Ryuki isn't really as Eva as you think but it's still screwy and not a particularly good one to start but one you should pick up at some point. Kiva isn't too bad but it's Toshiki Inoue post-Faiz so lower expectations, communication issues and a whole lot of bath scenes.

I wouldn't really start with either Decade or Zi-O because, as anniversary series, they reference past riders a lot, though I have a whole of grievances with Zi-O that I find pretty disappointing in the end.

I won't say much about Ghost that hasn't been said to death. And Wizard kind of averaged out in the sense that it's not particularly remarkable and dragged on for like far too long before it actually got anywhere.

If all else, go with the current rider with Zero-One.

Edited by terumokou on Mar 8th 2020 at 7:48:20 AM

I've only seen Kamen Rider Black and Kamen Rider Black RX (the only two series to have the main character as two separate riders, RX being an upgrade of Black) for Showa, but I liked them. You could start there, as you don't need to know too much history to understand it, even though the previous riders show up near the end of RX.

Kuuga and Agito are the beginning of the Heisei, so for that part of the franchise, it might help to start there.

Kuuga has a different feel from the later series, while Agito begins a lot of the concepts that will become common later on in the Heisei era.

Word of warning: Double, OOO's, Fourze and Wizard are all (supposed to be) sharing a universe, though in practice, each one is still stand alone. Gaim and all series following are supposed to be the same, but this is followed to an even lesser extent than the first four.

Hell, Build taking place in a universe completely different from the series that preceded it is actually a plot element.

Den-O might be a good choice. I haven't watched it myself, but it's apparently a pretty solid series, though it gets milked pretty hard later on.

Just avoid the crossover movies until you have seen a couple of the series involved.

Hmm, interesting. All right, duly noted. Thanks for all the input, folks!

Well OK, if you can fix Kabuto ones, go ahead. There are more than 1 person in this site who can fix the other ones. Remember I didn't talk specifically about the Recap part with all episode, but like also the Awesome, Funny, Characters, etc. page.

Also, all Heisei movies are non serial movies (with the exception of the Den-O movies apparently) up until Double. From that point on, the movies take place at some point in the series timeline....

....speaking of, do they not do Spring Movies anymore for Kamen Rider. We haven't heard anything about one for Zero One...but then again, I don't think Build or Zi-O had Spring movies either now that I think about it.

Guess I never noticed.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Mar 8th 2020 at 10:09:48 AM

It kind of didn't help that the Spring Movies were more hit or miss. I really liked Let's Go Kamen Rider even if the ending doesn't make much sense with OOO's plot. Super Hero Taisen was okayish but it was less Fourze and Go-busters and more Decade and Gokaiger with Hina, Joe and Don and more of the Den Liner crew. The second one was too forgettable for me to give any sort of crap about it. I like Kamen Rider Taisen though the "feat. Super Sentai" part is too shoehorned for my liking. SHT GP was okay too. Kamen Rider 1 you can pretty much take out Ghost and nothing about the movie changed one bit. Also helped that Hiroshi Fujioka was involved in the script rather than just let Inoue do it all to himself. Chou Super Hero Taisen was pretty meh but Goriders before it was pretty damn good.

Edited by terumokou on Mar 8th 2020 at 11:14:38 AM

Episode 26 is subbed and I think i've figured out what's going on with Aruto and Naki. My theory is that Naki was reactivated because of Fuwa's Assault Wolf stunt, so it's created a chain effect where Isamu's desires to defy human limits motivated Naki and the Ark to invent the Raiders, and use Isamu's anger as the impeteus for human improves. It'd explain why most Zetsuriser users end up pretty tired like how Assault Wolf drained Fuwa at the start.

Thus Jin's statement to Fuwa and Horobi's extension are technically correct. Fuwa may have motivated himself, but he also motivated the villains.

And I won't get into spoilers, but I do like Jin's new motivation. Use w__ch as__n instead of kiss_s_an though. Way less spoilers and problems.

So I still have the theory that Yua is not human, but I've refined it:

Yua and Gai aren't human...but they aren't Huma-Gears either. They are instead a different type of android that Aruto's grandfather invented before hand. Gai was made first, and after learning all he could, funded ZAIA to help his creator (hence his lack of aging). However, something about Gai was off. My guess is that he's supposedly perfect. After all, he never changes his mind, never seems shaken by anything and even his power as Thouser has no ability to grow in strength. Aruto's grandfather caught on to this, and decided to build the Huma-Gears as evolving machines that could become better. Due to his belief in his own perfection, Gai took this very, very personally, hence his actions of corrupting the Ark, and his single minded war against all Huma-Gears. Yua was then created by Gai, likely with the caveat of always being loyal to him no matter what. However, she may not be as...unchanging as he is, considering her clear dissatisfaction with everything happening, but has zero ability to disobey him.

I feel like I've said some of this before. Either way, I like this theory.