2013 Kamen Rider Gaimu - News/Rumors/Pictures

[LaZerwolfX]

I agree OOO had AMAZING writing, I'm just saying Wizard's could be better, and don't EVEN get me started on Fourze. With the whole Presenter thing showing right the **** out of NOWHERE!

I don't know if I'd say OOO' writing was "amazing". it was very good, but I tend to reserve "amazing" for W, Agito, the first half of Kabuto and a few others.

 

[TurboCharged]

Really haven't seen ALL that much of Double, but any show that can make me feel for the villain in signs the writing is pretty damn good.
Hopefully "Heisei 15" has some well developed villans, with an elaborate backstory that ties in with the hero. (a la OOO, & Kuuga)

 

[tigerblood]

I don't know if I'd say OOO' writing was "amazing". it was very good, but I tend to reserve "amazing" for W, Agito, the first half of Kabuto and a few others.

Is W's second half AMAZING? I'm half way through double and while I like it, my thoughts on it are not putting it at the level of amazing just yet. Please don't spoil anything for me about W, but would you say looking back, the first half was not nearly as good as the second half.

 

[LaZerwolfX]

I assume you mean Ankh? And if so, of course you did Ankh was the real main character in the series. And if you mean Maki then I mostly agree, while I did like Maki, he didn't really do too much for me beyond any other well written villain.

Is W's second half AMAZING? I'm half way through double and while I like it, my thoughts on it are not putting it at the level of amazing just yet. Please don't spoil anything for me about W, but would you say looking back, the first half was not nearly as good as the second half.

The first half of W is definitely better, but strongly believe that once the final upgrade arrives, almost every KR series loses quite a bit of its steam. That being said all things considered, W is still amazing overall.

 

[TurboCharged]

I assume you mean Ankh? And if so, of course you did Ankh was the real main character in the series. And if you mean Maki then I mostly agree, while I did like Maki, he didn't really do too much for me beyond any other well written villain.

I was kinda' talking about the Greeeds in general. I thought they were well written and were kinda sad to see them destroyed, and Maki trying to take advantage of them.

 

[Lynxara]

I honestly couldn't care less who produces the the next rider series, I just hope the writing/directing is better than how it is right now.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the boring stuff in Wizard originates with the producer. Specifically, I think Utsunomiya has some rigidly formulaic and restrictive ideas about how a hero should be presented and why children would find the shows interesting. He could get away with this in Shinkenger and Gokaiger, where he was paired up with extremely talented veteran writers who clearly worked hard to justify the things that, in retrospect, Utsunomiya probably wanted. Tsuyoshi Kida on Wizard is either not capable of working within Utsunomiya's constraints, or simply lacks the talent to produce more than a journeyman's copy of better writers' work. I'm honestly not sure yet. I feel like I'd almost have to see Kida write for a different producer to figure it out.

But this sort of thing is what I mean about the producer's influence over a show being decisive. A lot of things people associate with writing/acting are actually probably going to originate with the producer. Like, if you think the guy who plays Haruto is bland... well, he got cast because that's what the producer obviously wanted. If you think Kosuke is annoying and one-note, well, the producer probably told the writer exactly what kind of character he wanted. This is why who the producer is really matters. Even if Takebe is paired up with, I dunno, the risen ghost of Noboru Sugimura, Takebe would still have the final say over what said ghost could actually get written.

I feel like Takebe is the kind of producer whose poor inputs (or lack thereof) magnifies the flaws of any writer working with her..

To play devil's advocate for a sec, I'll note that we've never seen Takebe be chief producer for a writer at their peak in the genre. She's always worked with people like Inoue and Kobayashi who are super-veterans who've written tokusatsu for fifteen or twenty years. So it's hard to say if Takebe brings out the worst in a writer, or if she's just guilty of not being able to get good work out of a burnt-out writer who's already running out of ideas. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure if Kiva, OOO, or Go-Busters really would've been dramatically better in the hands of a different producer. More focused, perhaps, but the actual writing on those shows is probably as good as you were going to get from that particular writer at that particular time.

Takebe, like any producer, has her strong and weak points. Yes, she's flexible to the point of seeming spineless... on the other hand, she has a knack for zeroing in on what audiences like about a show, and trying to play that up. I think her Wizard would be a lot better than Utsunomiya's, for example, because she'd probably have started changing the planned plot based on what audiences actually liked. She would probably insist that White Wizard needs to be someone we've seen before, even if it didn't make a ton of sense, and I can't imagine her sticking with Gremlin as a major cornerstone of the plot the way Utsunomiya has. If anything, I think Takebe probably would've recognized how much people liked Phoenix and expanded his role accordingly.

Is W's second half AMAZING?

I would say W's second half was amazing, but I also thought the first half was pretty amazing. There's a command of tension, tone, and pacing in W that is absolutely rare in the Heisei Rider series. It's also a deliberately and intricately plotted series, in which virtually every two-part arc contributes something to advance one of the show's overall arcs. Character chemistry is carefully balanced, but the show also had the good sense to let the characters evolve with their performers.

That said, I think seeing W out of chronological sequence does the series a huge disservice. A lot of W's impact, much like Agito's, came from how utterly fresh and different it felt at the time. If you've already seen OOO and Fourze retread a lot of W's basic ideas, then you'll be wondering what the big deal is. Likewise, I've seen people go back to Agito from retread shows like Faiz and wonder what the big deal was, because it feels like something they've seen already.

 

[tigerblood]

I would say W's second half was amazing, but[HIDE] I also thought the first half was pretty amazing. There's a command of tension, tone, and pacing in W that is absolutely rare in the Heisei Rider series. It's also a deliberately and intricately plotted series, in which virtually every two-part arc contributes something to advance one of the show's overall arcs. Character chemistry is carefully balanced, but the show also had the good sense to let the characters evolve with their performers.[/HIDE]

That said, I think seeing W out of chronological sequence does the series a huge disservice. A lot of W's impact, much like Agito's, came from how utterly fresh and different it felt at the time. If you've already seen OOO and Fourze retread a lot of W's basic ideas, then you'll be wondering what the big deal is. Likewise, I've seen people go back to Agito from retread shows like Faiz and wonder what the big deal was, because it feels like something they've seen already.

Well, I guess that validates my instinct to watch everything in order, so that I can see the progression of the production. I think I will be "safe" regarding the "arc of production" if I watch OOO next (having seen Fourze and currently watching Wizard) and then go Kuuga to Decade. I hope seeing the first decade of Hesei Rider chronologically will help me see each show with the same freshness I seem to be missing with W. However, would you say that W may not be strong enough to stand on its on as great? As a person who enjoyed Fourze, which some have called "W Jr.," a great deal, it seems like seeing the two shows in this order should highlight the similarities and give me a greater appreciation for W's superior execution, but it hasn't. I see some parallels (Ryubei and Gamou, Shotaro and Gentaro, Terui and Ryusei, the concept oh further human evolution) but the other themes have not become clear to me just yet and perhaps I need to finish it before fairly comparing the two, but W has not yet surpassed Fourze in my estimation.

 

[Lynxara]

However, would you say that W may not be strong enough to stand on its on as great?

I'll be honest, I think W is pretty damn strong as a Rider series. I think the only shows produced in Heisei Rider that are pound-for-pound better in all creative respects are Kuuga and Agito. W was a series bursting with vitality, with new approaches to the material and a clear sense of internal logic to its proceedings.

That's not to say W is without flaws, and how much a flaw bugs you just depends on personal taste. Agito has some flaws that irritate the **** out of me, but I can still tell it's a great work despite that. Likewise, a lot of things that frustrate most people about Kuuga I can acknowledge as flaws, but I can't say they personally reduce my enjoyment of the series.

I see some parallels (Ryubei and Gamou, Shotaro and Gentaro, Terui and Ryusei, the concept oh further human evolution) but the other themes have not become clear to me just yet and perhaps I need to finish it before fairly comparing the two, but W has not yet surpassed Fourze in my estimation.

While Fourze and W are structurally near-identical, thematically they are not similar at all. Fourze's themes of redemption and friendship are bright and simple, reflecting the youth and energy of the protagonists. These are not characters who have yet failed themselves in any significant way, and their future teems with unbounded possibility.

They're a far cry from W's more melancholy themes of human inadequacy and the dependence that inadequacy creates. Where Fourze was forward-looking sci-fi, W is grounded in the bitterness of noir fiction, which stems from possibilities squandered. There's something of the disappointment that comes with leaving your youth behind there.

 

[Hell Kaiser Andy]

Looking back at W, it really shows something about what Sanjo can write when we look at Kyoryuger. People I know who watch Toku as well was baffled at finding out Kyoryuger is written by him.

 

[Smilodon]

I feel like Sanjo's good when it's his own work since he can construct everything top to bottom as he wants it. So W and Kyoryu are great so far and if he falls back on some of his previous tendencies it won't necessarily uncharacteristic as he did with Gen and co. on Fourze. I do agree with what Lynx said about how some of W's magic comes from the time it was seen. Watching it in real time back in 2010, W really was a great series because it was just that fresh and amazing. While it doesn't necessarily have that staying power that Kuuga and Agito did, I can remember pretty freshly how I felt watching such great Kamen Rider again.

I wonder what it would take to get Hasegawa Keiichi to pen his own Kamen Rider series. Looking at his own wikipedia page I don't see anything recent beyond Ultraman movies, but I wonder if Nexus has sorta Takatera'd him out of manning his own series ever again.

I do think OOO's writing is good considering how much Kobayashi had to change. The end product was pretty great in spite of all the changes it endured.