Toy gimmicks and design

[PalleteRider]

I've been thinking lately about the gimmicks we've been having these couple of years - like Drive's toy cars for example.

Kuuga to Decade has the belts just being the sole means of transforming while post-Decade's belts has little collectibles to go with the belts. Do you think Bandai will try and switch up again? Also, don't you think Bandai should have some (or more like a lot) of restrains when wanting to market their toys? I mean in recent years, they've been forcing writers to churn out their toys that at times really ruin the pacing of the story the shows are trying to tell (Sentai included).

Thoughts?

 

[SentaiRiderFan]

Considering how many more toys Rider (and Sentai) sell now as opposed to 15 years ago, I don't think it's any surprise that they have gotten so aggressive in marketing them in the shows. Rider is a toy commercial (and thankfully, a good one), and I can live with that.

The problem is Bandai not seeming to realize just how little impact the toys themselves have on how successful the shows are. Case in point: Drive. After Gaim was a surprise monster hit (at least early on), someone at Bandai clearly thought "hey, if we sell toys based on something stupid, we'll make more money," giving absolutely no credit to how much work Toei puts into the shows. They also don't seem to understand the idea of "good idea, bad execution." That's why stuff like Wizard and Go-Busters failed.
(side note: I'm willing to bet that Gaim sold so well in part because of better ratings in syndication)

I can live with Bandai cramming all that stuff in there, Toei is clearly used to it at this point, and many of their writers (ESPECIALLY Riku Sanjo) are good at making them feel like a part of the show. I just wish Bandai would give proper credit where proper credit is due.

 

[raden238]

I don't think we are ever going to be get a new Rider belt that requires you to buy just one separate toy (usual the final form) to unlock new sounds. The last Rider belt that was complete was the Birth Driver. I think Toei and Bandai should limit the amount of toys the Rider uses in the show. Like with Drive, he hardly uses some of the shift cars except for the form change ones. By having less sounds programmed into the belt, it would be cheaper to buy as well. They should just market the toys that are most important. When people see that the Rider used this weapon the most, they would want to buy it more than a toy that appeared in only one episode. Thats how I see it. I would like to buy more Rider belts but they are just expensive and they don't give you enough to play with straight out of the box. I miss the good old days like Kuuga, Agito, Den-O and Kiva where the form changes are already bundled with the belt.

 

[kuroihikari]

According to some people here, Gaim didn't sell particularly better than other contemporary series. It's just on par with Wizard, both sales-wise, and rating-wise.

 

[Shynilyte]

I recall comments that Gaim's first quarter sold way better than Wizard's and the Arms Change toys becoming hard to get for a short while. Ratings were actually worse, though.

Anyway, one effect of toy design I don't like is that we won't get a monster and Rider looking similar Daguva and Ultimate Kuuga, (unless it's said monster's Rider form, or a Rider's monster form like Eiji Greed). This bugs me a little sense the hero and villains being related is a major theme for the franchise.

 

[Clocktower]

Drive actually seems like it was an attempt to change things up a bit. At least in that the belt itself looks much more like a classic Showa Riders and doesn't need anything inserted into it to function, it's very simple and sleek. Instead it has the wrist brace to scan the cars in, which I don't think it goes quite far enough away from the gimmicks, but you can at least tell it was something they were thinking about. And despite the shift cars being very obnoxious early on, they have toned their use down massively as the series has progressed, unlike in things like Gaim, where we only saw more and more different riders and forms as it went on.

 

[SentaiRiderFan]

^ I see where you're coming from with the Drive belt, but I have a couple qualms with it. First is the fact that the whole showa-style aspect to the belt is kinda ruined by the face and voice coming out of it (it doesn't look or feel like a turbine). Second, from the reviews I've seen (and re-watching some of the early fight scenes), the fact that he still has to turn the key on the belt to start it up causes more problems than it solves. That combined with the wrist brace also slows the action down even more than usual. But that's just me.

 

[CannibalS]

It doesn't even look that much like a "Showa-styled" belt except in very marginal ways.

 

[Clocktower]

^ I see where you're coming from with the Drive belt, but I have a couple qualms with it. First is the fact that the whole showa-style aspect to the belt is kinda ruined by the face and voice coming out of it (it doesn't look or feel like a turbine). Second, from the reviews I've seen (and re-watching some of the early fight scenes), the fact that he still has to turn the key on the belt to start it up causes more problems than it solves. That combined with the wrist brace also slows the action down even more than usual. But that's just me.

Turning the key on the belt is the only function that's actually on the belt itself though and it's little more than part of the henshin pose. The wheel spinning during the transformation was obviously a call back to the turbine effect too.

[JFC MOD EDIT] USE CLICKABLE THUMBNAILS OR JUST POST A DIRECT URL LINK WHEN YOU WANT TO SHARE A PIC THAT'S MORE THAN 1000 PIXELS WIDE AND/OR 1000 PIXELS TALL.

http://i.imgur.com/cGXqEjj.jpg

The point was that they made the belt itself is more traditional, while still keeping the toy gimmicks as an important selling point. We can argue about the success of that, but the intent is clearly there.

I don't particular like how the shift cars were handled, but they have become less intrusive as the show has gone on, which is the total opposite of how most modern shows have gone.

 

[dannad]

The use of toys and gimmicks do not really bother me. As long as they are used well in the show, I can live with KR being a merchandising vehicle. I am okay with gimmicks as long as they serve the show logic, as opposed to our real world logic.

Gimmick usage becomes the most jarring when the real world marketing affects the show, particularly this is when an enhancement shows up just in time to combat a new threat. This was most noticeably, for me, in Drive, where shift cars seems to show up, are used once or twice for a specific purpose, and then tossed aside. The need to showcase the shift cars feels very much like it's motivated by marketing. Although other shows did this as well, they handled it differently enough, in my opinion. For example, I understand Decade's cards because we are supposed to assume he can use the abilities of whatever rider came before him. We don't see him use cards that have not been set up, at some point or another. The way W handled it was good as well. In episode 1, we see the 3 memories inside Shotaro's jacket, and that was enough.