Kabuto's Second Half (everyone seems to hate it?)

NeonZ said:

The one big failure to me was just Dark Kabuto, which was probably tied to how he was used to fill a story which was mostly created due to problems with Hiyori's actress. Rewatching the episodes with Dark Kabuto, his scenes seem almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the script.

And, unlike the other Riders, he never stands on his own. He does have his own story (experimented by evil organization and using the powers that he received to them to fight against them... sounds familiar) but that gets put aside to focus on filling the hole of Hiyori's absence with pointless Tendo battles.

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Wow! I never knew that there was trouble with Yui Satonaka, though I did appreciate how the Dark Kabuto arc started, having a polar-opposite of Tendou (which was pretty much the same with Ryuga, though the other way around) which pretty much made me like Hiro Mizushima's acting. What I didn't like was the way they handled the arc eventually, which led to making Dark Kabuto looking like a kid, which is pretty understandable considering his personality and the way he grew up, but I think it could have been handled better to make Dark Kabuto a more awesome character.

It would have been clever if the Kabuto that Kagami and Co. was referring to in the early episodes (the one to which they were delivering the belt) was in fact Dark Kabuto, and the "Tendou Kabuto" that suddenly appears originated from GSL. But they end up contracting themselves over and over in Kabuto.

Black Fang said:

It would have been clever if the Kabuto that Kagami and Co. was referring to in the early episodes (the one to which they were delivering the belt) was in fact Dark Kabuto, and the "Tendou Kabuto" that suddenly appears originated from GSL. But they end up contracting themselves over and over in Kabuto.

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Not really sure, but after you brought it up, it might have been the case and the writers may have forgotten to put emphasis to it? Or probably since they knew there were 2 Tendous, and that the other one which they experimented on is definitely going to kick their asses, they had to give the power to the other one?

If you're referring to the second half that basically started when they turned Yaguruma into a "Hopper" and the Dark Kabuto introduction.......then yeah, I wasn't really a fan of that part of it either.

Granted, since I liked the current crop of characters at that point of the show........I decided to stick around and finish the series.

But yeah, I was still utterly confused about how Yagamura goes from being dumped by ZECT and finding the Kick Hopper Zector randomly out of nowhere.......as well as the other Hopper Zector for his "aibou."

Pretty much same as the Gatack Zecter, it's not like ZECT gave it to Kagami, the Zecters pretty much just choose whomever they want to give their power to depending on the personality of that person. So having the Hopper Zecters choose 2 people who're on the edge is somewhat logical. All they needed to do was explain that we have Zecters who choose emo people after establishing that Zecters base their options on the personality.

What's not established is how those Hopper Zecters came to be, but I guess either they just ran out of time or they just left it to our imagination. It's just too bad that the Hoppers didn't play a bigger role other than being a victim of the Native's final attack, since after seeing both former TheBee Zecter users have an awesome comeback just to be foiled by comedic writing is definitely a big waste of potential.

musashi03 said:

Pretty much same as the Gatack Zecter, it's not like ZECT gave it to Kagami, the Zecters pretty much just choose whomever they want to give their power to depending on the personality of that person. So having the Hopper Zecters choose 2 people who're on the edge is somewhat logical. All they needed to do was explain that we have Zecters who choose emo people after establishing that Zecters base their options on the personality.

What's not established is how those Hopper Zecters came to be, but I guess either they just ran out of time or they just left it to our imagination. It's just too bad that the Hoppers didn't play a bigger role other than being a victim of the Native's final attack, since after seeing both former TheBee Zecter users have an awesome comeback just to be foiled by comedic writing is definitely a big waste of potential.

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I was basically more concerned about that.........instead of "how the Zecters came to them."

The series basically established from the FIRST EPISODE that the Zecters choose their owner........considering the Kabuto Zecter basically "flicked off" Kagami and went straight to Tendou from the get-go.

So I basically assumed to that........but the origin of those Hopper Zecters would have made things feel a lot better (and the Dark Kabuto Zecter origin too.......but that's another whole situation in itself).

big_j_ny said:

I was basically more concerned about that.........instead of "how the Zecters came to them."

The series basically established from the FIRST EPISODE that the Zecters choose their owner........considering the Kabuto Zecter basically "flicked off" Kagami and went straight to Tendou from the get-go.

So I basically assumed to that........but the origin of those Hopper Zecters would have made things feel a lot better (and the Dark Kabuto Zecter origin too.......but that's another whole situation in itself).

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Oh, okay thanks for the clarification.

I guess it's just like Hyper Zecter, it came from a different place and time. Only if the writers focused on the Hoppers rather than Drake, then we probably would have an explanation, like the Hopper Zecter came from a world where everybody hates on everything, and that they found 2 people who hates more but in a different reality, which is the Kabuto series world. Or it could really be from hell... Who knows?

There lot of cool arcs to Kabuto like betrayal of thebee, rise of kickhopper, debut of Gattack, and more. The writers just long their direction then back on track and lost it again. Tsurugi as Scorpion worm could of been better without him turning lame after falling in love with Misaki. Sasword supposedly seem to be rival to Kabuto after Yaguruma, but didn't work out well. The Natives arc was weak and there should be more connection between it and the worms.

aniking_8 said:

Tsurugi as Scorpion worm could of been better without him turning lame after falling in love with Misaki.

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Hmmm... IIRC, the falling in love came first before the Scorpion worm reveal and that it pretty much made his death more emotional since love has been involved. Call me a sucker for love tragedies...

Kabuto "popped my cherry", so to speak, being the first Rider show I ever watched, and pretty much the first non-Godzilla Tokusatsu I watched as a post-teenager.

I won't beat around the bush: I fucking adore Kabuto, despite its pretty generous flaws. I maintain that Kabuto is the darkest and most suspenseful of the shows, with the possible exception of Kuuga, and it gives off a feeling that the only thing that can save the world from the Worm is the presence of ZECT and its Riders. I just don't get that doom-y feeling with any of the other shows (of course, sans Kuuga and probably Agito).

The problem with Kabuto, to beat a dead horse, is its second half. Granted it's been a couple of years since I watched it, but I feel it asked way more questions than it could hope to answer. Daisuke/Drake dropped off the radar, as did TheBee (TheBee is probably my personal 'biggest letdown' of the show ), the Hopper "Twins" weren't nearly as relevant as we were led to believe they'd be, and the entirety of Dark Kabuto's existence still makes me scratch my head. Was that ever resolved? *Shrug*

I feel Kabuto requires a little more suspension of disbelief than most other shows in the franchise. It's a great show, possibly my favourite of the bunch, you just have to grit your teeth and bear through the rougher second half and hope most of the questions filling your head are answered by the end.

Plus as an end note, Full Force is still one of the best used songs in franchise history. SO DAMN HEROIC :castlerock: