2011-12 Kamen Rider: Fourze - Pictures in the First Post

MattComix said:

Okay I think I see where you're coming from with that. Basically the kind of thing where having to balance the need to be a Rider and basic aspects of his/her regular life is a much more pointed part of the drama?

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Yes, like that. Lynxara mentioned the idea of a Rider who was married or had a family, that'd work too - maybe for a secondary Rider, since a few of them have got married in recent series. Or a college student, salaryman, the heir to a company, a professional sportsman, just some kind of responsibility. With the exception of Shotaro and Philip (who are basically self-employed, and whose job involves tracking down Dopants anyway) every single Rider since Kabuto has been some kind of drifter or loner who had few or no real commitments outside of being a Rider

lazycoconut said:

Yes, like that. Lynxara mentioned the idea of a Rider who was married or had a family, that'd work too - maybe for a secondary Rider, since a few of them have got married in recent series. Or a college student, salaryman, the heir to a company, a professional sportsman, just some kind of responsibility. With the exception of Shotaro and Philip (who are basically self-employed, and whose job involves tracking down Dopants anyway) every single Rider since Kabuto has been some kind of drifter or loner who had few or no real commitments outside of being a Rider

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I think it would be interesting if a Kamen Rider must protect his secret identity, like Spider-man, Batman, and Superman do, in order to protect the people he loves. That KR then must henshin in secrecy, without people seeing his real face, and he had to keep the Rider identity hidden from his family & friends as well. But when a villain discovered who he is and started making his personal life misery, then we'll be getting really interesting storyline.

FieryRed said:

I think it would be interesting if a Kamen Rider must protect his secret identity, like Spider-man, Batman, and Superman do, in order to protect the people he loves. That KR then must henshin in secrecy, without people seeing his real face, and he had to keep the Rider identity hidden from his family & friends as well. But when a villain discovered who he is and started making his personal life misery, then we'll be getting really interesting storyline.

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Sue from Glee as the villain.:laugh:

Igadevil said:

Is there any chance it could be Phose? As in Metamorphose (メタモルフォーゼ) That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the Katakana.

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That's the Toei naming scheme I've come to expect. Sengoku was not it.

MattComix said:

Well I agree in the sense that with Faiz and Inoue's writing in general a good 70-90% of the drama tends to hinge on people not actually saying what they need to say even though there's constant dialog.

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In Faiz, that induced such rage in me. Whole blocks of episodes screaming "Just sit down and talk! For three whole minutes! Please!"

Or "foes"?

Or...
Fo shooos!

There's a degree to which I very much enjoy how these shows are kind of easy on the secret ID thing most of the time with of course some exceptions where it is particularly relevant.

A lot of times people either just already know to begin with or that just because you see a dude transform doesn't mean you know his name or can even do a lot with that outside of just knowing what he looks like.

Or even that if anybody outside a core group of characters sees the henshin they are not automatically pre-disposed to blabbing it all over the place and exploiting it or even making a big deal out of it aside from just an initial reaction of "holy crap, that dude is Kamen Rider!" I think it's equally plausible that a human being would actually get it and respect the need for privacy of someone who just saved their freakin life.

But on the other hand as someone who has enjoyed superheroes their entire life and having grown up initially on American superheroes I do like a good secret I.D. scenario for a superhero including the most classic one of all the Superman/ClarkKent or the good ol' Peter Parker has to bail out of some important normal life situation to save the day but the poor guy looks like jackass because the people involved don't know that he's actually out there risking his life for everyone.

Kougami for principal.

I think W had a good balance between the people who knew who W was and those who didn't. So everyone that worked regularly with Shotaro and Philip knew they were the Rider, but it affected the plot when Kirihiko found out that Shotaro was one half of W. Something a little like that would be good for this series

lazycoconut said:

Yes, like that. Lynxara mentioned the idea of a Rider who was married or had a family, that'd work too - maybe for a secondary Rider, since a few of them have got married in recent series. Or a college student, salaryman, the heir to a company, a professional sportsman, just some kind of responsibility. With the exception of Shotaro and Philip (who are basically self-employed, and whose job involves tracking down Dopants anyway) every single Rider since Kabuto has been some kind of drifter or loner who had few or no real commitments outside of being a Rider

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The problem is generally, those situations start to fall apart rather quickly in most stories.

Realistically, it's not heroic if the hero chooses to keep his job over saving a life right now. At which point, you need to start coming up with reasons why a person's job either allows a lack of reliability and accountability, or some reason the character is retained despite their issues.

So you either put a character in a position that allows them to be out and about (see: Superman & Spider-Man being a part of news organizations) or you show them struggling to juggle the life only to minimize that conflict over time. (See: any hero with a normal job, Spider-Man being a teacher as a decent example) The third option is to ignore any repercussions of that double life altogether... like OOO's does currently. Eiji has a job, but Chiyoko doesn't seem to have any problems with her waiters up and leaving at any moment.

Ultimate Spider-Man, to use an example that most probably don't read, has reached a point where most of the supporting cast and the villains know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Because a logical person would eventually put two and two together. Hence the current 'Death of Spider-Man' arc, which will probably reset things to a more 'secret identity' status quo.

This is less of a problem in a finite series like Kamen Rider, I admit.