What are your issues with Gaim?

[toni2212]

This is my only complaints of Gaim despite being a fan of it: Kaito does need something as an in-between. The final fight had him using Mango against Jimber Lemon for god's sake. Keep in mind that Jimber Lemon is supposedly a higher level compared to an Arms Change. And after that he's already into his Overlord form while Kouta is still in Kachidoki with Kiwami to spare.

Yes, Baron Lemon Energy is a last minute addition with no change to his undersuit since it was only through Minato's persuasion that Ryouma gives a Genesis Driver to Kaito. Unlike Takatora that gets a new undersuit of Shin Zangetsu, Ryouma didn't bother to create a new undersuit for Baron since by that moment, he already dismissed Kaito's usefulness to his agenda and just giving the Genesis Driver to Kaito in order to see how much a Rider with a Genesis Driver's output can stand against an Overlord. But still, to see Baron Lemon Energy taken out of Kaito's disposal means the battle of him and Kouta will be less anti-climatic.

This makes me wonder why Urobuchi didn't want Kaito to have an upgrade except of his Overlord form despite claiming to be a fan of Ryuki. Even in Ryuki, Ren obtained the same Survive Card as Shinji, but Kaito didn't have anything as an in-between to rival Kachidoki.....heck, even Mango isn't supposed to be a rival to Jimber Arms. This makes the final battle seems to be a little unbalanced against Kaito.

 

[NeonZ]

Considering that Baron Lemon Energy was a late addition,yet Kaito being Kouta's final opponent is one thing that actually matches up with the "possible future" scene, I wonder how they originally planned for Kaito to even survive to the end without getting irrelevant. Maybe he was supposed to become an Overlord earlier, but they decided he needed something as an in-between point.

Well, if you look at the Overlord arc, Baron never had any individual victories outside of the movie tie in episode. I don't think getting stuck with Banana, Mango and Watermelon would have changed things.

This makes me wonder why Urobuchi didn't want Kaito to have an upgrade except of his Overlord form despite claiming to be a fan of Ryuki. Even in Ryuki, Ren obtained the same Survive Card as Shinji, but Kaito didn't have anything as an in-between to rival Kachidoki.....heck, even Mango isn't supposed to be a rival to Jimber Arms. This makes the final battle seems to be a little unbalanced against Kaito.

Kaito's weakness is what pushes him to becoming an Overlord though. If he had a Kachidoki level upgrade, he wouldn't be in a desperate situation against Ryoma (in fact, thinking about it, they forgot about his Watermelon there).

 

[toni2212]

Kaito's weakness is what pushes him to becoming an Overlord though. If he had a Kachidoki level upgrade, he wouldn't be in a desperate situation against Ryoma (in fact, thinking about it, they forgot about his Watermelon there).

Even if he had a Kachidoki-level upgrade (which can be assumed as Baron Lemon Energy), he would probably still in a desperate situation considering Duke is the strongest Genesis Rider with an upgraded Genesis Driver too. What really pushes him is his thirst of power, coupled with witnessing Kouta's Overlord strength against Redyue. The battle of Baron vs Duke could even happen in the same exact plot with Baron using Lemon Energy and Kaito still loses against Duke due to superior strength of Duke and Kaito will still eat the Helheim's fruit to obtain the same strength as Kouta's Overlord power.

I just wished Urobuchi kept Baron Lemon Energy though, the final battle seems to be unbalanced. Kaito needs to go into Overlord form when Kouta just put Kachidoki on since he knows Mango is not gonna be on par. And Kouta can still reserve Kiwami as a last resort.

 

[Liac0s]

Even if he had a Kachidoki-level upgrade (which can be assumed as Baron Lemon Energy), he would probably still in a desperate situation considering Duke is the strongest Genesis Rider with an upgraded Genesis Driver too. What really pushes him is his thirst of power, coupled with witnessing Kouta's Overlord strength against Redyue. The battle of Baron vs Duke could even happen in the same exact plot with Baron using Lemon Energy and Kaito still loses against Duke due to superior strength of Duke and Kaito will still eat the Helheim's fruit to obtain the same strength as Kouta's Overlord power.

I just wished Urobuchi kept Baron Lemon Energy though, the final battle seems to be unbalanced. Kaito needs to go into Overlord form when Kouta just put Kachidoki on since he knows Mango is not gonna be on par. And Kouta can still reserve Kiwami as a last resort.

Kachidoki Gaim was stronger than a Genesis Driver though. He was same-leveled with Zangetsu Shin (even though Takatora managed to do something against him), but that's only because Takatora was OP as hell. Ryouma wasn't strong at all. He could easily lose against Kachidoki even if he has an upgraded Driver, especially if Kouta would manage to avoid Ryouma's attacks. Remember that Ryouma is not a skillful soldier, so his attacks are pretty generic, even if they are stronger than anyone else's. I doubt Kachidoki could beat an Overlord, though. So Kouta would really need to get Kiwami.


As for what my issues are, the most huge one is obviously the limitation. I can actually see what Urobuchi had in mind, but heck... 47 episodes are way too few for it. Gaim had such a huge gimmick (to the point of having a lockseed that gives the arms of Gaim himself...) that if Toei decided to focus on the show more, while taking a break from SS, he could use all the budget to make Gaim a really great show. If KR took a break in Showa Era, SS can take a break now as well. Heck, they could improve ToQger so much in the meantime. And let's be honest... Gaim had a REALLY strong toy line. Just the Arms Change series by itself shows that the show was a really great opportunity to not only do well on toys but on the ratings as well. They would easily make each episode last 40 minutes, while keeping the same amount of episodes or making them even more. (Like 10 more episodes) That would help Urobuchi so much... And if they didn't waste CGI for pointless stuff, it would be such an even greater show. This was the weakness of Gaim. No time to showcase everything. So many stuff, like the disease, or the possibility of turning an Invess back to a normal being, went passed by just because of the time. Not to say that the story was perfect, but I can think of so many Hollywood superhero films that had a terrible story but were famous because of their CGI and what they were showcasing.

Also, I hoped they would use different arms from time to time, but well, I suppose this is another result of the restricted budget/time. I also didn't like the idea to make baron and kurokage into genesis riders without changing the pre-arms suits. The genesis riders have those steam-pipes or whatever they are on their helmets, and I believe the point of them is to transfer the liquid of the fruits to the head to provide power, but they just fk'd it up with baron and kurokage (but I REALLY liked the idea of those two being genesis riders, especially kurokage).

 

[Kamen Rider Extreme]

Well Kaito used Mango Arms because at this point in the story. That's his strongest Rider form now. :disappoin

I guess they had the character (Kaito) thinking that, if Micchy could use his will alone to stand-up against Kouta's Kiwami Arms. Then maybe he could do the same too. :hmm:

 

[kuroihikari]

Also, I will fight to the death against the "show, don't tell" rule that people apply to visual media. Just because it is a visual medium doesn't mean that we should completely discount the auditory and linguistic nature of communication. Films and movies are exceedingly versatile and exposition can be used to great effect to convey ideas.

That's a fallacy, and for me it makes the idea erroneous and preposterous. "Show don't tell" doesn't even close to discount the auditory and linguistic nature of communication. Movies just don't go silent and people stop talking when scenes are shown rather than explained. Rather, ignoring it nearly completely discounts the visual nature. You're reversing the situation.

Scenes that exist almost solely for exposition ruin the experience because they ignore the visual aspect. You can only have so much scenes with Sagara babbling about things with weird visual filters. That's why GoT for example uses filler fanservice to deliver its exposition. These shows seek to entertain, and sex entertains, while there is very little entertainment that can be had from characters talking about something else.

 

[Eldar]

That's exactly what happened. As soon as it was no longer necessary for the current plot/drama, it was ignored. "More pressing concerns" do not make that one cease to exist

It kinda does. From the microcosm of the characters who represent Yggdrasil, one of them had serious reservations about it (and genocide) and the others weren’t interested in saving anything and were just using Project Ark and the Scalar System to use Yggdrasil’s resources for their own agenda.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying everyone should stop and try to figure out how to stop it, I'm saying any non-Rider being near the fruits without eating them at all makes no sense.

Again what you are saying makes no sense. Mai for example ended up in Helheim twice and she didn’t eat any of the fruits despite not knowing what they were. So what you are saying is not necessarily true. It just seems the people who ate them were just unlucky bastards.

That's in-show logic. I'm talking about the potential wasted in not creating a brand new suit for the role altogether - say, a new nut that would do the exact same thing for example.

What potential? These guys were mooks who could be taken down by Kouta and Kaito untransformed. There was no potential unless you wanted another jobber which I think is just silly.

There were a few other moments in the series when characters got new/different Sengoku drivers but still ended up with the forms they had had previously.

This is false. Other than Zack and the mass produced Kurokages, all the others are DNA locked to their users. The prototype Sengoku Driveres can only be used by their original users. Unless you can cite an episode ##, what you are saying never happened.

... And...? That really doesn't address what I was saying.

It kinda does. Zangetsu is the prototype and the most special Sengoku Rider in Ryouma’s eyes since he undertook the project for Takatora, Gaim is a copy of him, which is why Kouta also gets a musou saber.

As I recall, Ryouma talked about "developing" the Energy Lock Seeds. On the other hand, when you just pick a fruit in Helheim, you get a Lock Seed if you're wearing a belt - "natural" may have been the wrong word, but the point was that Energy Lock Seeds clearly required more human intervention than the regular kind (and we never see anyone just pick one), therefore, I believe them being a part of Kiwami doesn't make sense based on what we observe of the different types of Lock Seeds.

You don’t seem to get that all the lockseeds were developed by Ryouma using a combination of human science and studying the biology/ecology of Helheim. The entire system was created by Ryouma including your “natural” lockseeds, it’s just they used the fruits as a starting material there. Kiwami just takes it further by being able to do all this using the power of the Golden Fruit.

And I don't think you understand the purpose of the thread. These are issues I take with the show and its execution of, things that I think could have been done better, etc., not things I'm looking for explanations for.

Less issues to me and more like wondering why didn’t Urobuchi read your mind and write Gaim according to your wishes.

There's nothing "wrong" with it, but it serves very little purpose and just serves to show the missed potential.

Again what potential? She was a flunky like Sid. Instead of wanting power for herself, she was doing it to see what someone who would get their hands on power do with it.

Her only goal was to push someone else's goal. At least Ryouma and Sid had goals of their own.

And Ryouma’s ultimate goal was weak in comparison to the glimpses of the man we see in the flashbacks in episode 27 who lamented that Takatora didn’t understand his goals or had the ambitions to rule the post-Helheim humanity and thus had to be killed. Then it turned out it’s only because Takatora wasn’t interested in creating more belts.

There was nothing of the sorts with Yoko. From the beginning all we saw was someone who clearly only had an interest and loyalty to Ryouma that was then transferred to Kaito. There was no depth to the character.

Rather than looking like Duke, my point is that the change should have been as significant as Zangetsu to Zangetsu Shin was. This "oh Ryouma programmed it that way lol" just seems like a convenient excuse to avoid keeping things consistent.

It’s because Ryouma did make it this way since he is the freaking creator of all the Genesis Drivers. Avoiding the site stats, in the show Baron Lemon is far weaker than Duke and usually fights on the same level as Ginba Lemon. So yes if you don’t buy Ryouma made it this way there is also the fact that an incomplete upgrade makes it weaker than regular Duke.

 

[Captain Shark]

Ignoring the fact this series broke tradition by getting rid of monsters of the week for no good reason:

"I am Helheim! I go through dimensions forcing others to evolve and I came from Earth!"

"Why didn't you start on Earth first? Why did you come back?"

"Uh...."

"And how can a natural Earth creature suddenly travel through dimensions?"


"Well uh"

A PERFECTLY GOOD TWIST RUINED! They really could not have had just twenty seconds of dialogue to come up with SOMETHING?

 

[Eldar]

But he isn't from Earth. We don't know where he is from. All we know is that he visited Earth before and evolved humanity from apes.

 

[billySEEDDecade]

Ignoring the fact this series broke tradition by getting rid of monsters of the week for no good reason:

"I am Helheim! I go through dimensions forcing others to evolve and I came from Earth!"

"Why didn't you start on Earth first? Why did you come back?"

"Uh...."

"And how can a natural Earth creature suddenly travel through dimensions?"


"Well uh"

A PERFECTLY GOOD TWIST RUINED! They really could not have had just twenty seconds of dialogue to come up with SOMETHING?

Actually, the reason is because of budget limitation in making new monster costumes, and they actually have a monster of the week, it just that the monsters are recycled over and over again.

I actually don't know what you're talking about. I don't remember Sagara ever saying that he originate from earth.