Rewatching Kuuga: What Kamen Rider has lost

[KouAidou]

Ultraseven X was a late night series, though. I know in the case of Nexus, it was largely the early-morning timeslot that killed it.

When you think about it, it's pretty insane that they aired Kuuga and Agito at 8 AM on Sunday and got the ratings they did. I really wonder if they'll ever try to air something that dark in that timeslot again.

 

[KingRanger]

Ultraseven X was a late night series, though. I know in the case of Nexus, it was largely the early-morning timeslot that killed it.

When you think about it, it's pretty insane that they aired Kuuga and Agito at 8 AM on Sunday and got the ratings they did. I really wonder if they'll ever try to air something that dark in that timeslot again.

Nexus also failed because the Japanese fans thought it was way off the norm for UM. Why do you think Max was such a throw back to the original? I really don't see Agito or Kuuga as dark.

 

[Scissors]

The word "dark" is thrown around too much in the fandom.
I love Kuuga and Agito, but they were not more "mature" than other shows. Kuuga had some violence in it, but most of the time it was not shown on screen. We knew that the Grongi did horrible things to their victims, but we never actually saw it.
For example, the episodes with the Grongi that beheaded people. You would only see a necklace fall to the ground. We knew they got beheaded, but it was not shown directly.
Had they shown someone dropping their head with blood spraying all over, THEN I would call it "dark"

The same with Agito. It was not really "dark"
It just happened to have a story, where the viewer was required to think for himself. This made it seem more "mature"
The only "dark" thing I can remember in Agito, was when they actually showed a rotten corpse. THAT was pretty surprising.
Otherwise, it was just a normal KR show with a bit of mystery thrown into it.

Just because a show appeals to an older audience, it does not make it dark. Then you can might as well say that Hibiki was dark.
I have shown both Kuuga and Agito to my 29 year-old brother, who has been willing to sit through both shows to the end before making his final judgment, and he had the opinion that they were “kid shows that tried to take themselves too seriouslyâ€

Sometimes I feel that people in the toku fandom are so ashamed that they are watching a live-action kid-show, that they will scream “DARK! DARK! DARK!†as soon as they see someone bleed.
Kuuga and Agito were excellent because they had good and solid plotlines. They were creative and they had some very good actors, but they were in no way “darkâ€

 

[90210Girl]

Yeah, I just started watching Kuuga a year or two ago and didn't really make it that far. I'm on episode 5 o 6 and it was good to me but with keeping up with that and other toku plus american shows became a bit much for me.

NOTE: I intend to order Kuuga at some point in time.

 

[Tempest]

For example, the episodes with the Grongi that beheaded people. You would only see a necklace fall to the ground. We knew they got beheaded, but it was not shown directly.
Had they shown someone dropping their head with blood spraying all over, THEN I would call it "dark"

Your definition of "dark" seems to necessarily imply "graphic." I'm not sure why you're making this connection.

"Dark" is a pretty vague term, but I suspect that what people mean when they say "dark" is an atmosphere with tension and real danger, where events may have serious and painful consequences and where a heavy price is sometimes exacted in order for the hero to win.

In the Grongi example, whether we see a severed head flying or not, it doesn't change the fact that innocent civilians are explicitly stated to have died in a very gruesome way. For me, making the scene more graphic probably wouldn't have added to its emotional impact.

It is this emotional impact that I find often lacking in the more recent shows. I suspect that the tone of the shows has changed with the times, either in response to target demographic preferences or in response to parental pressure. A whole decade has passed since the Kuuga-Agito era, which is a fairly long time in the world of television scripting.

 

[Burkion]

Kuuga was fantastic. One of the single best of the new school Riders I've ever seen, and the one with the best story of all of Kamen Rider thus far.

However I didn't like it as much as I enjoyed it, if that makes any sense.

The theme of violence is wrong in the end was too under played with the final fight, which should have been ratcheted up in terms of brutality to meet it, and it just FELT like the final few episodes were kinda rushed with the time skips and jumps.

But it was a great show. There is no arguing that. Kuuga's design isn't my favorite, by a long shot, but it was fine.

 

[Solari]

I actually edited that out of my post since I thought it didn't need to be talked about.

Anyway...

Well, there are 2 types of "insertion" methods for me when it comes to henshin belts:

Type A: Ryuki (Advent Deck), Faiz (Faiz Phone), Kabuto (Kabuto Zecter), Kiva (Kivat)
Type B: Decade (Ganbaride Card), Double (Gaia Memories), OOO (Core Medals)

Type A is easily acceptable because a huge portion of the belt is the one being inserted. Type B is still acceptable, but you get the feel that it really is a merchandising technique because of the flexibility of the system (you can insert different Gaia Memories / Medals / Cards / etc.). Flexibility is good, though in some cases it kinda makes the image of the hero lost among all of the forms if you get what I mean. You might say that Kuuga had a lot of forms too, yet he had a simple henshin belt gimmick, well I'm factoring in the merchandising aspect so this is in the viewpoint of a consumer. The belt is easily the representation of the "Rider", so the flexibility by having a lot of possible external objects to insert to the belt does have an effect on the image of the belt. It's a very complicated topic, and I really don't want to dwell on it too much since those Type B belts aren't really that big of an issue. :sweat:

Again, I'm not saying it's bad, but we could sure use a traditional (simpler) henshin method every now-and-then. I'm just sayin~

You forgot Blade ...What type is Blade under?
The riders in Blade insert/slash their henshin cards in their devices.
Blade has that card game theme going on too
Poor blade - always getting overlooked.

 

[rudd]

nice,
where i can get kuuga complete episodes subbed?
would be better if in SD

 

[The 2nd Evil]

I've seen the first three episodes of fansubbed Kuuga on Veoh. Thought they were okay. Wanted to see more, but I couldn't find any others.

 

[Hercus3528]

MCS group has completed subbing kuuga.
You can get it here: http://midnightcrewsubs.blogspot.com/