Kamen Rider Fourze: The Final Score

[Wing Saber]

Even before Fourze aired, I had a feeling that this show was going to be comedic, mostly because of the tsunami last year. It was the same thing that happened with Car Rangers. However I enjoyed Fourze very much. In fact, I was laughing during Gentaro's first battle where the school wound up becoming collateral damage.

 

[Tokuboy]

It was an interesting show.

Sure, at times it became a bit too goofy but then something important would happen. The exposition isn't rushed, but the arcs could be paced better. It was certainly good enough for people to endlessly speculate about what Gamou was up to, or how the greater scheme of things looked.

As for its subtlety, or relative lack thereof, I feel it's a result of a guy like Nakashima in the writer's seat. Not to mention it was a "cheer-up series", mostly because of the recent disasters. But it nevertheless entertained people, even though it broke a lot of molds in Rider.

But at the same time it rehashes a LOT of plots from the previous series. In particular

Spoiler

Virgo/Tachibana/Emoto

is simply a gender-bent version of Shroud, but instead of a filial connection there is one of alliance. And Kengo might be a more masculine version of Philip, and perhaps it is no wonder that Shotaro and Gentaro got along very well in Megamax. Maybe it's Tsukada's influence, but mayhap Fourze needed a little bit more originality.

But besides all that it has a very nice expanded universe, and that was a thing that made understanding OOO's entire media confusing, to say the least. And for my grade... B+.

 

[SunGreen]

I can't wait to see the end of this show but I know it will be amazing!!

 

[NateRiver]

I think another problem that gets me in Fourze is the fights.Okay, look.We have:

1.Koichi Sakamoto
2.A base suit with a jetpack
3.40 weapons
4.Motorcycles

Wouldn't that be a recipe for success?

No.We had the occasional really cool Sakamoto fights and that's it.Koichi, one of the best if not the best toku director there is had 40 weapons, yet they barely got used.He was living every toku director's dream!What happened?In the beginning, they used a lot of switches, but towards the end where they finally completed 40 switches and had them all, they just started barely using them.Poor Hand Module got used like once in the test chamber.Instead of what could be the best choreographed fights in toku, we get "HEY I'M GONNA JUST SLASH YOU WITH MY SWORD AND NOT USE THE 80+ COMBINATIONS THAT I CAN MAKE WITH ALL MY SWITCH COMBOS IN COSMIC STATES!"

 

[NeonZ]

Poor Hand Module got used like once in the test chamber.Instead of what could be the best choreographed fights in toku, we get "HEY I'M GONNA JUST SLASH YOU WITH MY SWORD AND NOT USE THE 80+ COMBINATIONS THAT I CAN MAKE WITH ALL MY SWITCH COMBOS IN COSMIC STATES!"

I don't think the situation was bad in that sense. There were just too many possibilities, so, the specific one you were after weren't used, but, in addition to form changes, we also had...

-Standard Switches
-Meteor using Fourze's State switches
-Cosmic combining switches
-Cosmic combining Switches with Sword

At least one of those was used in every episode. Then, there's also how the movie featured all Switches being used individually, which I guess made the crew less worried about using them on tv.

 

[Toku Prime]

I don't think the situation was bad in that sense. There were just too many possibilities, so, the specific one you were after weren't used, but, in addition to form changes, we also had...

-Standard Switches
-Meteor using Fourze's State switches
-Cosmic combining switches
-Cosmic combining Switches with Sword

At least one of those was used in every episode. Then, there's also how the movie featured all Switches being used individually, which I guess made the crew less worried about using them on tv.

I have to agree with NateRiver in that sense. Fourze wasn't meant to be about forms, it was meant to be about using the modules, and there were a lot of episodes where he just changes form and uses it's default limit break, and very few episodes where they used interesting combinations of modules. Similarly with Cosmic, most of his fights had him put one of the form switches in the sword, and only a couple had him combining switches to come up with new attacks. There was a lot of potential there but I feel like they barely scratched the surface.

 

[Lynxara]

I'll give Fourze a B-. It never got quite bad enough to make me angry at its incompetence, but it definitely fell way short of its potential. The completely unique elements of the show weren't explored enough, and too much of it was simply a rehash of what Tsukada had already done with W. I do give the show credit for having a lot of unique elements, though, and I think if Nakashima had written more of the show himself, we would've gotten a better series overall.

 

[ZoddGuts]

New here. Anyways looks like there's clear like it or hate it for Fourze. Personally I liked it, while it didn't have the deepest story and not being very serious, I liked it because of the fun and likeable characters it had. Without them being that fun to watch, I would have hated this series. Overall it gets a solid B from me. I do with they have brought the plot in a bit earlier, but the "filler" episodes where at least fun to watch thanks due to the characters.

 

[Araki]

i give Fourze a C+. it wasnt terrible but it lost steam to the point where i wasnt caring most of the time. the last batch of episodes was satisfying tho'.

 

[Fantasy Leader]

I thought Fourze was a decent series. Not great, but not terrible. Shows like W, Kuuga, and Agito were much better. The show tended to go in waves with it's good eps and bad eps. I think the worst part of Fourze was it's eps 11-24 run, where things really stalled and got boring. But I will say Fourze had a rather likable cast of characters, which is sadly something that most Heisei Rider seasons lack. Thus, Fourze imo was actually less of a chore to watch compared to most Rider seasons. But once again, it's not quite good enough for me to call it a worthwhile addition to the franchise. So overall, I think Fourze is a decent show.

As for a letter grade, I think letter grades are a bit too "written in stone" if that makes sense. But I guess maybe a C or something?