Rider shows that do not fall apart in the second half (SPOILERS)

[Kiyomaro]

I've already watched almost all the rider shows now, except for a few. But one thing that really bugs me is that almost every show has a terrible second half or a rushed ending. For example: Faiz. Faiz is a great example of a terrible second half. To me, after Inui revealed that he was the wolf orphenoch, it fell apart. The following episodes worked, as it developed his character, but it seemed like as if the writers didn't know what to do next. They just kept rushing the story and seemed like as if they forgot the character development, Smart Brain seemed to have no direction whatsoever, and it seemed like there was action for the sake of action. The ending was rushed, many plot holes present, and the mysteries in the first half were not well explained.

Another example would be Kiva. Kiva was just so lost in its "plot" that I can cut 20 episodes and it would still have made sense. The checkmate four and the real king was just so pointless it didnt' leave any room for development. Nago's character was INCREDIBLY interesting and in the first half, and in the latter half, THE WRITERS FORGOT ABOUT HIM!! He was just there!!

And come on, let's not even mention Decade. It's whole story made no sense whatsoever. And any possible development is neglected

Anyways. sorry for the rant, but I just really hope that you guys can suggest other toku shows (I didn't touch on SS yet lol) that will leave me less disappointed. Well I guess the real reason behind such lackluster plot is maybe because higher ups do not want the shows to be too dark I guess. :\

Also, fingers crossed for Gaim not falling apart because it's the best rider show yet (not biased at all)

 

[TheLastBlade]

Thing about Tokusatsu is that I'm pretty mixed about it overall. First Kamen Rider I ever watched was 555. I liked it back when I was in High School, but even back then, I remembered that I skipped the majority of the episodes. When I watched it again.... I remembered why. Too bad, because it had one of the most interesting concepts for a henshin device. The other Kamen Rider show was Kabuto and I hated it since the beginning -_-

So yeah, I'm pretty jaded about everything regarding any forms of media. I used to be a sad sap that wanted to live in Japan. But now I just realized how stupid I was. I don't hate Japan or any other country, I hate my reason to wanting to go there. Nowadays, I just think shows like Anime, Reality Shows, Western cartoons, video games, and just about everything has the potential to suck.

 

[Khaiden]

With Faiz I'd say it's the fourth quarter rather than the second half. With Kiva it felt more like it lost itself for a while then came back with a vengeance.

IMO, the only ones that completely ''fall apart'' (or more accurately, completely change) are Super-1 and Hibiki.

 

[cypsiman2]

Kamen Rider Blade has almost the exact opposite problem; the start of the series is really rushed and way too fast paced and so it takes a good while for the show to even get its footing, but the latter half of the show is just so brilliantly well put together and executed that, at least for me, it more than makes up for the early problems.

 

[Scissors]

Faiz and Kiva were typical late-Inoue shows. So no surprise there. He used to be a great writer, but in later years he started to act more and more like a fanfic writer. He has all these great ideas, but has no idea how he is going to make them work out. If you notice both in Faiz and Kiva, he sets up a lot of little subplots, but he never gets the chance to finish them. So either he forgets them entirely, or he suddenly remembers them and somehow cram them into the ending.

With Deacde it was actually Toei and Bandai's fault that everything fell apart.
The writers actually had a plan for the show, and we were supposed to get a Heisei-only movie.
But then it was decided to turn it into a cash-cow, by bringing in the Showa Riders, which resulted in the second half of Decade being one big ad for the movie.
And due to the fact that the show was so short, the writers had no other choice than saying "Well... Ok. The final villain will be the leftovers from the movie then.."

But I would not say that all Rider shows are like that.
The Showa shows (minus Super-1) never felt rushed to me.
Neither did Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki, Blade, Den-O or W.

But anyway, if you want shows that are better at handling the ongoing plot, I would pick either Garo or any of the Ultraman series.
Even a show like Ultraman Nexus managed to have a decent ending despite getting cancelled. (Awesome show by the way. You should check it out)

 

[Dr Kain]

I have no issue with Kiva at all.

However, there are a lot of series that seem to fail in its last 10 episodes. Wizard, 555, and Kabuto being main culprits of this. I just do not understand how the Japanese thinking works, but from my perspective, you know your show is going to be a year long, you should already have your ending planned out well in advanced so you know where the show is going to go. We should not be having cop out endings, open endings, reset button endings, etc, for a 50ish episode series. We also should not have random organizations showing up at episode 42 and then be completely irrelevant and killed off by episode 46. It just doesn't make sense and wastes our time.

 

[Green Mario]

I got intrested with Kiva's middle portion but what was maintained already happened.

 

[Araki]

Agito is very consistent all the way thorugh it.
i think this issue happens a lot because new shows are rarely planned in advance enough due to time restraints.

 

[Captain Shark]

Ryuki comes to mind, they needed the other riders they made just for the movie and special instead of boring slice of life nonsense. I'd say Blade, but only the first 14 or 15 eps were any good before it tanked. Hibiki got bad from ep 32 onward. Kabuto and W were barely tolerable from the beginning. Den-O was good until the last 9. Decade fits this idea and even then it didn't start going bad until the sentai crossover.

 

[DaikaijuSokogeki!]

[insert obligatory Kamen Rider Kuuga gushing here]

Okay, seriously I would have to say Kuuga, Black, Ryuki, Blade and Den-O are the only Rider shows I've seen that don't suffer from a poor second half/iffy last few episodes. As cypsiman2 said, Blade actually gets BETTER in its 2nd half, and I feel the other Rider shows I mentioned are fairly consistent throughout.

As much as I love 555 and Fourze, I'll be the first to admit the last few episodes of both shows don't quite gel all that well thanks to various cop-outs, rushed character deaths, or a plot that suddenly goes into a breakneck speed.

However, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Amazon as a primary example of the inferior second half. When Toei stepped in to save the show, what they ended up doing was taking everything unique about Amazon and just made it boring.