Ore, Sanjou!
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May 14, 2008
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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?
 
Eye See You
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
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The belt gimmicks ala GaiaMemories, Medals, and now Switches which we all can thank Go-Onger for.
 
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-Villains who use tech similar to that of the rider's gimmick
IMO it should be reversed, and this happened in every Rider series since the first one. The Showa Riders are known for "cyborg who should be evil but betray the evil organization and become the hero of justice," and for the Heisei still have some "betrayal" although Kuuga and Hibiki not really like that:

- Agito fight the Overlord who originally have his (and every other humans) Agito power.
- Ryuki disagree with Shiro's Rider War and Ryuki's power is from Dragredder, a Mirror Monster, or basically from Shiro.
- Faiz and Smart Brain felt so much like Kamen Rider and Shocker, Faiz Gear and the other Gears originally was for the Orphnochs.
- Blade using the Undead powers.
- Kabuto and the other Rider's Zecters originally was for the Native Worms.
- Den-O using renegade Imagin's powers.
- Kiva was called "Armor of Kiva" in one episode, originally was for the Fangire King.
- Decade originally was from Dai-Shocker.
- The whole Philip from W vs. his family.
- OOO use Medals who originally was Greeed's.

Now only Fourze that still not clear, the red-eyed man could be related to Gentaro...
 
Ore, Sanjou!
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
5,268
IMO it should be reversed, and this happened in every Rider series since the first one. The Showa Riders are known for "cyborg who should be evil but betray the evil organization and become the hero of justice," and for the Heisei still have some "betrayal" although Kuuga and Hibiki not really like that:

- Agito fight the Overlord who originally have his (and every other humans) Agito power.
- Ryuki disagree with Shiro's Rider War and Ryuki's power is from Dragredder, a Mirror Monster, or basically from Shiro.
- Faiz and Smart Brain felt so much like Kamen Rider and Shocker, Faiz Gear and the other Gears originally was for the Orphnochs.
- Blade using the Undead powers.
- Kabuto and the other Rider's Zecters originally was for the Native Worms.
- Den-O using renegade Imagin's powers.
- Kiva was called "Armor of Kiva" in one episode, originally was for the Fangire King.
- Decade originally was from Dai-Shocker.
- The whole Philip from W vs. his family.
- OOO use Medals who originally was Greeed's.

Now only Fourze that still not clear, the red-eyed man could be related to Gentaro...

Note that I said "gimmick". By that, I mean Gaia Memories, O-Medals, and Astro Switches. In the past, you didn't see things like Fangires using Fuestles or Mirror Monsters usind Advent Cards. I'm much aware of how the riders always have parallels to the villains
 
Active Member
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Jun 15, 2008
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7,217
- Agito fight the Overlord who originally have his (and every other humans) Agito power.

The Man in White gave everyone the Seed of Agito. The Overlord wanted to get rid of the Agitos. The Agitos and Unknowns were similar in that they all had paranormal abilities.
 
二番目の翻訳者
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Mar 4, 2010
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I do agree, I feel like the New Decade series are trying to form a more cohesive "brand identity" than the earlier ones. Then again we'll see what happens with Fourze and whatever follows it... Hibiki is so strange because its producer wanted it to be the Amazon for the new era, so there's no way to know when another producer might come along wanting to break the mold.
 
Ore, Sanjou!
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
5,268
I do agree, I feel like the New Decade series are trying to form a more cohesive "brand identity" than the earlier ones. Then again we'll see what happens with Fourze and whatever follows it... Hibiki is so strange because its producer wanted it to be the Amazon for the new era, so there's no way to know when another producer might come along wanting to break the mold.

and then there's also the fact that Hibiki wasn't originally intended to be a Kamen Rider, making the series even more of a black sheep than Amazon was
 
Welcome
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Mar 5, 2011
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You forgot personal assistants.Although Phillip was half of W, he sometimes was more of an assistant-type character.Ankh and Kengo and examples of this.
 
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