Worst Monster Groups in Tokusatsu

Old Toho series, after a cursory googling. Old, crappy Toho series, with the monsters in question being the neglected riffraff of the Godzilla franchise and worse.

Pretty bad actually.

Honestly, when you have monsters like Phantoms, sometimes I think it's better they don't have a goal. They're supposedly something that just naturally occurs in people, so in all likelihood, their goal was simply to create a Phantom population and be at the top of the food chain, and I think that's all they really need given the kind of monster they are. It's an element I really wish they had explored in Wizard, how a whole species is essentially trapped inside humans and can only exist by killing their host - there's so much with that concept alone that they just... totally did nothing with in favor of rehashing plot points from the past three shows with Koyomi.

Even so, I actually really like villains like this in concept, because throwing in convoluted plots or ones that don't make sense when you have something so simple really spoils it, I think. Unfortunately, Wizard kinda wasn't doing much with the concept anyway, but still. Though with that said, I think the Worms were a similar situation, so and I have no problems with them.

Shynilyte said:

I didn't like the Greeed, but it was mostly because they weren't all that interesting as characters. Or at least not interesting enough to have gotten so much screentime.

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Seriously? I love the Greeed, and I'd absolutely say they deserved it. They were half the show! :disappoin

Anyway, for me, I'd say the Horoscopes after the halfway point of Fourze. Building them up for the first half of the show only to turn them into monsters of the week was just a disappointment. I love their designs, but... Eh.

I REALLY dislike the Worms from Kamen Rider Kabuto.

Seriously, here's how it goes:

-Worms kill an innocent bystander and gains their appearance and memories.
-Worms tries to kill another person.
-When worms die, they act like they were the person killed and tries to be a very sad moment.

Seriously? I should feel bad for monsters that kill innocent people? Yeah, bite me.

Part of the thing with Worms is that they absorbed the memories of the people they copied too. They didn't go super in depth with this for the most part, but I think it was in some ways touching on the idea that people are their memories, so the Worms sort of had the people inside of them even after they killed them - it wasn't really done the best way it could have been, and only Sasword really did much with the idea, but I feel like it was a recurring idea enough for that to maybe have been what they had in mind.

Though I... don't think you were supposed to feel bad for the monsters so much as their victims and the people who knew them, to be honest. On the other hand, the Greeed are definitely the kind of villain you can feel bad for.

Kazari was always the same treacherous manipulative type, Gamel and Mezool had their imitation of a parent-child relationship for much of the show. I don't recall them ever changing much or getting the realization that there was more to them than I thought. In fact dialogue in later episode actively denied that they could be more. That probably worked in Uva's favor since he was mainly just a guy trying to survive.

The Horoscopes annoyed me with how vague their plans were, but I guess if we found out too early it would get boring outside of the endgame.

Lockon said:

OTOH, I don't like their designs. Uhuh, nope, they look like crap.

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The designs were great (creepy mummy faces!) They and the Greeds just weren't as sinister as they could or ought to have been. On the other hand, you are able to pity them in a way.

Shynilyte said:

Kazari was always the same treacherous manipulative type, Gamel and Mezool had their imitation of a parent-child relationship for much of the show. I don't recall them ever changing much or getting the realization that there was more to them than I thought. In fact dialogue in later episode actively denied that they could be more. That probably worked in Uva's favor since he was mainly just a guy trying to survive.

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That's sort of the whole idea - Ankh basically won the lottery as far as the Greeed were concerned in how he got a body and was able to experience sensations and all of that in a more natural way. They plot and scheme and all of that, sure, but consider that their end goal is simply to exist and be whole. But when it finally happens, they're so overloaded they lose it and just want more and more and more. I can't think of any other group in Kamen Rider that's really made me empathize for them like the Greeed have. Their simple desires and simplicity is depth in itself, because they don't have more than that base desire driving them to go on. It's sad, really.

Black Fang said:

The designs were great (creepy mummy faces!) They and the Greeds just weren't as sinister as they could or ought to have been. On the other hand, you are able to pity them in a way.

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I honestly don't think they were supposed to be sinister in the first place. Considering one of the "morals" of the show was that it was okay to have greed and desire (which would be pretty novel if it wasn't coming from a toy commercial), I think it adds up.

HurricaneDragon said:

Honestly, when you have monsters like Phantoms, sometimes I think it's better they don't have a goal. They're supposedly something that just naturally occurs in people, so in all likelihood, their goal was simply to create a Phantom population and be at the top of the food chain, and I think that's all they really need given the kind of monster they are. It's an element I really wish they had explored in Wizard, how a whole species is essentially trapped inside humans and can only exist by killing their host - there's so much with that concept alone that they just... totally did nothing with in favor of rehashing plot points from the past three shows with Koyomi.

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Although what you're saying there is a logical extension of the concept of phantoms, that's not what the Wizard tv series really tried to do. Every phantom in the show was created by Fueki's ritual, and none at all were created afterwards, with that fact being explicitly stated in the series. It doesn't seem like the script writer realized that a gate wouldn't need a phantom haunting them in order to fall into despair...

HurricaneDragon said:

Honestly, when you have monsters like Phantoms, sometimes I think it's better they don't have a goal. They're supposedly something that just naturally occurs in people, so in all likelihood, their goal was simply to create a Phantom population and be at the top of the food chain, and I think that's all they really need given the kind of monster they are.

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That sounds more like the miscellanious Horrors from Garo, honestly.

NeonZ said:

Although what you're saying there is a logical extension of the concept of phantoms, that's not what the Wizard tv series really tried to do. Every phantom in the show was created by Fueki's ritual, and none at all were created afterwards, with that fact being explicitly stated in the series. It doesn't seem like the script writer realized that a gate wouldn't need a phantom haunting them in order to fall into despair...

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Technically, from the perspective of the Phantoms in the series, their orders were to hunt down Gates and create more Phantoms from what we saw, right? And the end goal of Wiseman, from the perspective of Phantoms (I can't remember how much he was telling them when, but I'm pretty sure it was understood by them this was the goal), was to hold another ceremony that, as far as they knew, would lead to more Phantoms. It sounds like an aimless goal at first glance, but considering they're essentially a sentient species that's stuck in another species body until a trigger lets them out, it's an understandable motivation to have, I think.

What's more, none of the Phantoms were actually "created" by the ritual - unless I've had a drastic misunderstanding of Wizard for a couple of years now, they were already there from the beginning. What Fueki's ritual did was just bring them to the surface. We know Phantoms "inside" people are sentient creatures by looking at Dragon, and we can't forget that Chimera is proof of Phantoms before Fueki as well. It definitely is a poor showing of the show that we never had a Phantoms born from Gates just falling into despair normally, but Phantoms themselves were never described as something Fueki actually created, just something he influenced with his ritual. If they were, the whole concept of Gates (and in turn most of the show) wouldn't make sense, because he had nothing to do with those people beforehand. They just were unlucky and were born with Phantoms in them.

Obviously the show didn't take advantage of... pretty much all of these things (it's one of my biggest issues with anything in the franchise, just how much Wizard could have done with what it offered but didn't), I'm not denying it at all, but they were all elements presented at points, if nothing else.