Yeah sorry all the new info was emerging just as I was going to bed and I couldn't be bothered to write them up there and then.
Zi-O's website (
www.tv-asahi.co.jp/zi-o/) went live with a bunch of details on it. First up, Zi-O will make an appearance in Build's summer movie 'Be The One', which is released on August 4th. Then there will be a
press conference that reveals Zi-O's cast on August 7th.
Ever since Gaim, the producer who has been in charge of the day-to-day running of production has been
Motoi Sasaki. He's listed as "chief producer" but I've seen suggestions that it's more of a management role.
The big incoming name is
Shinichiro Shirakura. He was a producer on eight of the first ten Heisei Rider series (he didn't work on Kuuga or Kiva). During that time he became infamous for his "my way or the highway" attitude. He also supposedly made some very dismissive comments about tokusatsu, essentially claiming that every show he hadn't worked on was "juvenile". Eventually he was promoted and ended up in a management role in charge of Toei's entire live action TV division, but came back to producing for Kamen Rider Amazons.
So the big question is whether Matoi and Shirakura will bang heads or not? Will one end up dominating?
The head writer is
Kento Shimoyama, who's only previous head writer job in toku was Ninninger, so in the grand scheme of things he's still quite low on the totem pole and a lot of people suspect that his role is just to turn the producers' ideas into shootable scripts.
The head director is
Ryuta Tasaki. He's a steady hand who was previously head director on Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Den-O, Kiva, Decade, W, OOO, Gaim and Drive.
The background music will be composed by
Toshihiko Sahashi, who previously worked on Kuuga, Agito, Hibiki and Den-O and more recently on Kyoryuger.
This is the series synopsis as translated by The Tokusatsu Network:
In the fall of 2018, a time machine appears before a hero born in the year 2000. The hero has always dreamed of becoming a king. A mysterious girl appears from the time machine, telling the hero “I come from the year 2068, a world without hope where the king of demons reigns supreme.” The girl has come from the future in a desperate effort to change her own time. The girl then gives the hero an ominous warning “You will become Kamen Rider Zi-O, King of Time, the demon destined to rule the world.” Can this really be the hero’s fate? This is the story of a Kamen Rider who would be king, who will fight to save the past, present, and future, encountering the various Heisei Kamen Riders throughout space-time.
So yeah, as many people have already commented, we have the return of a producer who worked on Den-O and Decade, and this synopsis sounds like Decade with time travel instead of dimension-hopping. Maybe it's already clear which producer will have the dominant vision?
The secondary Rider, Gates, was meant to come from 2068 so maybe Gates is the girl mentioned here? Though Shirakura is closely associated with 'the curse of the female Rider' so maybe don't get too attached if this proves to be the case.
Thank the gods it is only supposed to go until May-ish.
I've seen that going around quite a bit but I've never seen a source for it so other than "that's what Decade did" so I'm not sure why it's a thing?