Ore, Sanjou!
- Joined
- May 14, 2008
- Messages
- 5,268
With W, OOO, and now Fourze, I've noticed that this time in KR history which I like to call the 2nd Heisei Decade(decade as in 10 years, not Decade the rider), Toei has set up several traditions that have been followed through, and may well be through the rest of this decade. I can even list them:
-The series title is officially romanized as "Kamen Rider" rather than "Masked Rider"
-An over-arching gimmick for the entire series
-The series debuting in September rather than febuary(though Decade's shorter episode count caused this, not for the worse, mind you)
-A main rider who uses said gimmick in a numerical amount that increases by 1 each year and has a name related to that number
-A theme song with a female singer, something that, before W, had only happened with Ryuki, Blade, and Kabuto
-Said theme song is, in the style of the themes up to Agito, explicitly about the rider and the show, rather than being vaguely about the show's literary themes
-Villains who use tech similar to that of the rider's gimmick
-All riders use Henshin Belts that are referred to as "Drivers", a revival of term first used in Faiz(though this partially got it's start with Decade, but one should remember that DiEnd used a gun instead of a belt and there were many returning riders)
-The riders have small transforming robotic helpers used for tasks like communication and reconaissance
-a team-up movie with the past year's rider entitled a "Movie War"
-The next year's rider making his on-screen debut in the summer movie(also started by Decade, but that series was the end of the 1st decade and lead the way to the start of the 2nd)
I mention these because the first 10 Heisei series didn't have much in terms of traditions that connected them all together. the closest they got were a summer movie and at least one secondary rider, both of which started with Agito, and because of Hibiki, not even Henshin Belts and Rider Machines could connect them all
nobody knows for sure if these traditions will fully persist, but these things 3 years in a row does lead one to suspect that Toei may be trying to make Kamen Rider more standardized and streamlined
what do you guys and gals think?
-The series title is officially romanized as "Kamen Rider" rather than "Masked Rider"
-An over-arching gimmick for the entire series
-The series debuting in September rather than febuary(though Decade's shorter episode count caused this, not for the worse, mind you)
-A main rider who uses said gimmick in a numerical amount that increases by 1 each year and has a name related to that number
-A theme song with a female singer, something that, before W, had only happened with Ryuki, Blade, and Kabuto
-Said theme song is, in the style of the themes up to Agito, explicitly about the rider and the show, rather than being vaguely about the show's literary themes
-Villains who use tech similar to that of the rider's gimmick
-All riders use Henshin Belts that are referred to as "Drivers", a revival of term first used in Faiz(though this partially got it's start with Decade, but one should remember that DiEnd used a gun instead of a belt and there were many returning riders)
-The riders have small transforming robotic helpers used for tasks like communication and reconaissance
-a team-up movie with the past year's rider entitled a "Movie War"
-The next year's rider making his on-screen debut in the summer movie(also started by Decade, but that series was the end of the 1st decade and lead the way to the start of the 2nd)
I mention these because the first 10 Heisei series didn't have much in terms of traditions that connected them all together. the closest they got were a summer movie and at least one secondary rider, both of which started with Agito, and because of Hibiki, not even Henshin Belts and Rider Machines could connect them all
nobody knows for sure if these traditions will fully persist, but these things 3 years in a row does lead one to suspect that Toei may be trying to make Kamen Rider more standardized and streamlined
what do you guys and gals think?