Japanese people and.....Kissing

I've noticed that too. Well, it's more of a lack of love interests (All the tokusatsu I've seen is Kamen Rider Kuuga-Decade, ZO, and Shin so it may be different elsewhere) I just feel that these shows have crazy gadgets that shout commands in english, monsters that kill at least 3 people per episode, often very mature themes for family oriented programming and ridiculous battle with explosion every other second, why not have a love interest?
 

It's silly and detracts from the storyline? I think at the very least that romance in tokusatsu should have some relevance to the plot (like Red Mask having a personal reason to fight Tube, the redemption of Rio and Mele, etc.) When you have Nago and Megumi or Terui and Akiko or whoever suddenly hooking up for no reason other than "it's cute" ... I think it's rather a waste
 
I think Terui and Akiko did have a point actually. Besides the plot part that it drives in the Accel movie, it was part of showing Terui's softening as a person, and his willingness to let others back into his life after learning that Vengence wasn't the answer.

Decade i'm a bit on the fence about. I think on some level Natsumi and Tsubake had feelings for one an other, but it was never really expressed by either, other than they obviously loved each other as friends. So it didn't really need a romance, no.

And Kabuto only really had Tsurugi and Misaki, and they never really got anywhere near the true romance stage, and what little they had was right at the end.

That's all the Riders i have finished, so there may romances that fit in other shows i havent seen.
 

It probably comes down to demographics. The American thinking on how you make a show general audience is by adding elements that appeal to the four quarters of the basic demographic quadrant: (older men, younger men, older women, and younger women).

Older men like gritty realism, younger men like action, older women like family themes, younger women like romance. Those are the stereotypes, anyway. Look at your average high-grossing Hollywood movie and you can pick out the elements that appeal to each group.

Japan doesn't seem to use the same ideas about demographic groups on a marketing level. That in turn seems to impact the way market-driven shows like Kamen Rider are made. Romance is treated as a whole marketable element in itself in Japanese media and not one that's gender-specific.

Instead there's more of an idea that the core modern audience for Rider is little boys and their mothers. Sometimes other demographics tune in, too, but that's Toei's backbone. Neither demographic is thought to especially like love stories, so... not a lot of romance in Rider.
 
I gotta disagree with you on that, real life people doesn't need a reason to fall in love, there's no good reason for falling in love in real life. There's never going to be a "I'm in love because my life story plot will start moving." You fall in love simply because you fell in love. I don't see why shows have to have a reason to make it characters fall in love though. I think that if you don't dwell too deep into the whole romance aspect, it'll probably work. I was completely fine with Terui and Akiko hooking up, and it seems in character enough for Akiko to instantly go gaga over Terui.
 

Tokusatsu is not about romance, though (with a few exceptions: PGSM, Jetman, Magiranger etc.) It's an action genre and the heroes have way more to worry about than who they're crushing on. Plus, Sentai and Kamen Rider are aimed primarily at young boys, and at that age boys tend to still be in the stage of "Ugh! Girls have cooties!" They don't generally want to see romances. Kamen Rider has a slightly older audience than Sentai, so accordingly it has more romances. You may not consider it "realistic" that people could be living and fighting in close proximity and not be attracted to each other, but, well ... what's realistic about fighting twenty-foot-high monsters anyway?

I also think the less orthodox relationships in Kamen Rider are more interesting than the standard Main Rider/Main Girl stuff. Philip was obviously supposed to have something for Wakana, for instance. I think you could make a case for Date and Gotou being in a relationship (and I'm not a yaoi fangirl.) Tendou and Hiyori, and Taiga and Wataru were suspiciously "close" for siblings. Any of those are more interesting than the main heroine being presented as a stereotypical love interest and then getting together with one of the Riders. You could watch that anywhere. I rather liked Terui/Akiko, simply because Akiko didn't fit the mould of "simpering helpless girl who only exists as her boyfriend's emotional support." Airi/Yuuto in Den-O was rather boring, but at least it had the element of interest that Yuuto had reverted to his younger self and could no longer be sure of Airi's feelings for him.
 
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I can see where you're coming from, and I can't say I don't agree with you on that a show/movie that's meant for <such> should focus on <such>. But if the romance situations seems natural and is going that way, why not just let it happen? Using Akiko and Terui as examples, they hardly distracted the show's main objective and vibe. I guess what I really meant was that by throwing in a romance element into the story it doesn't always distracts it.
 
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