Kamen Rider Fourze: The Final Score

I give it an A. It looked great, I enjoyed the characters, and loved its messsage of friendship. Bonus points for pissing off so many entitled fanboys.

I'll give it a B.

I got interested in Fourze when it was already in its 40th episode, marathoned the earlier ones in quick succession, then waited patiently for the rest. Despite the less time I spent in being invested in the show, I must say that the characters grew on me - the KRC especially, even Kengo, Miu and Shun, to a lesser degree. They are a fun group to see on screen as a whole - I can feel a semblance of friendship among them, even if there was little to no time devoted in exploring relationships outside of Gentarou/random KRC member (for example, Ryusei and Miu - with the former not really thinking the latter's worth her position as the president in the group but this was never really addressed/brought up again).

The Horoscopes were an interesting bunch of villains, and it was a nice touch that not all of them can actually be called a villain in the truest sense of the word. Their designs were also superb, and I think Virgo will be one of my favorite designs for a long time. I would have liked for another Horoscopes Teacher to have stepped in after Sonoda was defeated, but.

Like many others have already said, it's the pacing that jars the show for me at times. Fourze definitely took its slow time in building up the characters and their relationships with Gentarou during the initial episodes until Aries had been defeated, then came the Kyoto arc which was like a breather before the show plunged into trying to address the remaining plot points.

Gentarou's friendship plug sometimes is a bit too cheesy at times, but that's who he is and mad props for sticking with it until the end. All in all, I greatly enjoyed Fourze and despite its setbacks, and its characters would be the ones I'll remember very fondly.

I'd rate KR Fourze with a "C" rating.

I never really liked any of Fourze's suit / belt design.

Meteor's design was awesome, I'm totally for it minus the whole 1 shoulder pad thing. When he started looking symmetrical with Meteor Storm, I was much happier.

I really did like the cast though, that's what saved me from being bored to death. The fights were interesting more often than not. I didn't like how they handled the Horroscope's introduction. At least they didn't trivialize the final boss. He was beating down Gentaro and Ryuusei until the final fight.

Most of the arcs were kind of all over the place, and the pacing did slow down mid way through. I wasn't a fan of how they treated Horroscope's as Monsters of the Week near the end. When they actually had Horroscope's as recurring threats that actually put up a fight and were winning, I found that interesting. Then they trivialized it.

I think these 2 part episode format's are really starting to drag down the entire Franchise. They need to go back to the Faiz / Blade days where they were individual eps within larger arcs.

lazycoconut said:

I give it an A. It looked great, I enjoyed the characters, and loved its messsage of friendship. Bonus points for pissing off so many entitled fanboys.

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But the girls in the show were either useless or annoying and got little development which you get upset with the Gokai Gals because they got either "shafted" or had to be helped by the guys.

Egallardo26 said:

But the girls in the show were either useless or annoying and got little development which you get upset with the Gokai Gals because they got either "shafted" or had to be helped by the guys.

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There's a difference between that happening to female rangers and it happening to supporting characters. The Kamen Rider club may show up every episode, but they are not supposed to be treated as important as a Rider/Ranger and I don't think we're every going to see a group of supporting cast members get developed or used in a significant way, and if you're going to hate a series for it you might as well hate almost every series for it.


I'll give the series an A- becuase it did a lot of things I like and I think its a very good series that just did things that don't fit some people's taste. I'm kinda surprised that there are people giving it Ds and Fs, but i can understand why they gave it the score they did.

Shirayuki said:

There's a difference between that happening to female rangers and it happening to supporting characters. The Kamen Rider club may show up every episode, but they are not supposed to be treated as important as a Rider/Ranger and I don't think we're every going to see a group of supporting cast members get developed or used in a significant way, and if you're going to hate a series for it you might as well hate almost every series for it.

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The girls in this series got a bit more focus than JK and Shun, who did even less. My main complaint with Gokaiger was that all the guys were shown to be able to fight their own battles, whereas Ahim broke down in tears and had to be helped by the whole team. In the case of Fourze, pretty much all the KRC had a major weakness and had to depend on the others at some point (even if it was just for one mini-arc i.e. Shun.) Yes, they weren't very well-rounded, but that's true of basically any character not named Gentaro or Ryuusei.

And, as I've said several times, I don't find Yuuki annoying. It's other people who seem to hate her for daring to have a voice.

Shirayuki said:

There's a difference between that happening to female rangers and it happening to supporting characters. The Kamen Rider club may show up every episode, but they are not supposed to be treated as important as a Rider/Ranger and I don't think we're every going to see a group of supporting cast members get developed or used in a significant way, and if you're going to hate a series for it you might as well hate almost every series for it.

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But with the other Rider shows (Kiva-onward) I've seen there's a difference.

Kiva: Both Megumi and Yuri had a lot of focus and actually fought They also used the Ixa system.

Decade: Useless until the end, but had focus and wasn't annoying.

W: The show didn't really center about the detective life, it was about the Sonazki family, Seako and Wakana both had development.

OOO: Hina had development, and Satonaka was able to hold her own in combat.

With Fourze, the show centered about friendship and the Kamen Rider Club, none of the members did a whole lot to actually sub stain that concept and females come off as either useless or annoying.

lazycoconut said:

~snip~

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There's a reason why Ahim needed to be helped by her friends, she felt broken and alone after seeing the monster that had burned her parents to death right in front of her eyes, because deep down she's still a princess, and still misses her parents. Miu and Tomoko felt nothing but love bait for Ryusei and Shun, JK seems to be the KRC member with the most development. And again with a show whose whole concept is based around friendship, you don't really see a whole lot of it with underdeveloped characters.

Egallardo26 said:

There's a reason why Ahim needed to be helped by her friends, she felt broken and alone after seeing the monster that had burned her parents to death right in front of her eyes, because deep down she's still a princess, and still misses her parents.

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That's the most stereotypical storyline imaginable for a princess. It grated on me, especially since her previous episodes had tried to show that being girly/polite/a princess didn't make her weak.

Egallardo26 said:

Miu and Tomoko felt nothing but love bait for Ryusei and Shun, JK seems to be the KRC member with the most development. And again with a show whose whole concept is based around friendship, you don't really see a whole lot of it with underdeveloped characters.

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Miu turned down Shun several times, by the end it was more like a running joke than anything else - hence the scene at the end with Wizard.

Kengo or Yuuki are easily more developed than JK, but JK got two mini-arcs focused on him, whereas Tomoko and Shun got one each. Miu got two as well, but the "prom" episodes didn't really develop her character as much as the Capricorn story did with JK.

lazycoconut said:

Kengo or Yuuki are easily more developed than JK, but JK got two mini-arcs focused on him, whereas Tomoko and Shun got one each. Miu got two as well, but the "prom" episodes didn't really develop her character as much as the Capricorn story did with JK.

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A part of me thinks that JK actually did develop more than Yuuki did. Whereas JK changed from being a seemingly heartless, user-friendly coward to someone who cherishes his friends and one who suddenly has gall to come up against Tatsugami, no matter how brief that moment is, Yuuki... basically remained the same all throughout the show. Or at least, that's how I see her.

pipermae said:

A part of me thinks that JK actually did develop more than Yuuki did. Whereas JK changed from being a seemingly heartless, user-friendly coward to someone who cherishes his friends and one who suddenly has gall to come up against Tatsugami, no matter how brief that moment is, Yuuki... basically remained the same all throughout the show. Or at least, that's how I see her.

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I see where you're coming from, yeah. But then Yuuki gets a lot more focus and is more important to the story than JK