Tokusatsu shows (Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, etc.)

[Pharaun]

Wizard is winding down and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. If anyone watched Fourze but wasn't sure about this I'd highly recommend it.

Spoiler: show

Seriously spoilery

Spoiler: show

I totally called Wiseman and the White Mage being the same person.

[Pharaun]

Since I know you all care sooo much about what I think, I'm updating my ranking list with Fourze and Wizard.

1. Kamen Rider Blade

Spoiler: show

While I wasn't entirely pleased with the way that it ended, the overall story was very well done. I liked that there was much more focus on the individual riders and what drives them, and the interactions between them. The way the people acted in this show felt real, well as real as KR gets anway, and it really elevated the show.

2. The first two thirds of Kamen Rider Hibiki

Spoiler: show

This show was such a change of pace for the franchise, and yes I know it's because it wasn't intended to be a KR show. That being said I loved the way it started out until executive meddling ruined it, but I'll talk more about that later. This is another character driven show, the driving force is the interactions between Hibiki and Asumu relationship that develops between them. The supporting characters are also well written and very interesting.

3. Kamen Rider Decade

Spoiler: show

I figure I'll get people disagreeing with me on this one, but Decade is a celebration of everything KR, and I love it for that. Sure the story gets pretty whack at the end and in the movies, but it's all just so much fun. Tsukasa is a loveable jerkass, helped by the fact that he has a couple of great foils in Natsumi and Yusuke. While I wouldn't recommend it as an entry series into the franchise it is a great watch after you've seen most of the others. Also, I'm still all sorts of mayad that it was 15ish episodes shorts than the other series, I wanted it to go longer.

4. Kamen Rider Double

Spoiler: show

This show ended up being much better than I thought it would. I really wasn't expecting much from the whole 2 people/1 Rider thing, but they made it work. It helped that Shotaro's half boiled-hard boiled detective gimmick worked for me, and that he was a very enjoyable lead. The story also came together nicely at the end and was a very satisfying conclusion.

5. Kamen Rider Fourze

Spoiler: show

While the premise, suit design, and high school setting had me lukewarm at the beggining they really pulled off an amazing show here. Gentaro's boundless enthusiasm was able to make those things into strengths. Friendship overcomes all obstacles and makes for a fantastic show. Kamen Rider Meteor as an ersatz Bruce Lee was fun as well.

6. Kamen Rider Agito

Spoiler: show

Agito did an amazing job of setting up a lot of the standards for the Heisei era, multiple riders and their interweaving story lines, great suit designs, etc. I liked that the rider involved were actually able to talk to each other and there wasn't a huge cluster fuck caused by people just not talking like we see in some other series. I would say that this is probably the best entry point for those not familiar with KR.

7. Kamen Rider Wizard

Spoiler: show

The suit designs for this show was awesome, honestly some of my favorite ones in all of Kamen Rider. I'm very glad that the show was also good, Haruto made a fantastic lead and his desire to protect everyone made for a good theme. I also liked that there were more than two riders even if most of them didn't get to do much.

8. Kamen Rider Den-O

Spoiler: show

I had such a hard time ranking this one. It's much more of a comedy than the other series which has it's pros and cons, and the story really took a long time to develop and was a little wtf~ish at points. That can be forgiven since the supporting cast was just so damn amazing, the imagin and the crew of the Denliner just make this show so much fun to watch. Obviously the series struck a cord with the Japanese public since they were making Den-O movies several years after the series ended.

9. Kamen Rider Ryuki

Spoiler: show

I really wanted to like this series more than I did, but it just had a few too many downsides to it. The cast was a little too crowded and many riders didn't get enough screen time to really flesh them out, but the ones that did were really well done. The ending was a total downer ending even after

Spoiler: show

Odin does his time warp and resets everything again.

Still it does have it's high points, Kitaoka and Asakura were great as "evil" riders for example. The show was just a little too ambitious and couldn't quite do everything it wanted too.

10. Kamen Rider OOO

Spoiler: show

If I was rating this on characters alone this would be my favorite series for one reason, CAKE BOSS! Seriously Kougami was fucking brilliant being completely over the top and a Large Ham in every scene he was in. Sadly there was more to this show than CAKE BOSS!, I had a hard time liking Hino as the main character, he's completely devoid of ambition or desire and an overall boring character. Before anyone complains, I know that was the point of his character to be the opposite of the Greeed who only have desires, but he was still boring. I also didn't care for the suit design and the idea of using the medals to create various combinations, it made for some seriously hideous looking costumes. Sadly not one of their better efforts.

11. Kamen Rider Kiva

Spoiler: show

Another show I wanted to like more than I did. The dual timeline was interesting, and it was nice seeing how events 20 years ago set up the story in the present, but it also made things a bit schizophrenic. It also didn't help that the characters in the present were all written pretty poorly, none of them really had a consistent characterization and it made it hard to identify with them. Which is really strange since most of the characters from the past were written very well and had consistent characterization, with Otoya, Yuri, and Jiro all being fun to watch. By the end they do manage to get things straightened out, but it was still frustrating.

12. Kamen Rider Kuuga

Spoiler: show

There was nothing really wrong with Kuuga, but nothing really that great about it either. I guess it did it's job since it led to the revival of the franchise, but it's pretty average overall.

13. Kamen Rider Faiz

Spoiler: show

I was expecting a lot more out of Faiz but ultimately came away quite disappointed. The whole plot was a giant cluster fuck of people never talking to each other when that could have solved soooooooooo many problem, ugh. The suit designs were pretty sweet, and the Smart Brain girl was cute so that helps. Also it's easy to tell that they were actually trying with this show unlike with the ones I ranked below it.

14. The last third of Hibiki

Spoiler: show

Executive meddling turned what was a fantastic show into utter shit in the space of about 3 episodes. For whatever reason they tried to retool this to be more like a traditional KR show and completely botched it. I hate watching these episodes because it's like watching some one you love die from cancer, aids, and alzheimer's all at the same time.

15. Kamen Rider Kabuto

Spoiler: show

God this show was a complete mess/flaming train wreck. The main character was unlikeable in the extreme, a complete jerkass/god mode sue with no redeeming features. The story was a muddled disaster that the writers couldn't get to focus on anything. The suit designs were ok, and Punch Hopper and Kick Hopper were p.cool, but other than that I can't think of anything I liked about the show. I honestly can't recommend that anyone watch this giant steaming turd of a show.

[darkepyon]

Gaim is ok so far; better than I thought it would be at first.

I'm curious as to what you thought of some of the Showa (pre-Kuuga) era riders. Black is still a favorite of mine though.

As for Decade, I still think Gokaiger did a better job of using the "abilities from previous shows" thing.

[Insanecyclone]

Yeah so Saban is going to skip Gobusters entirely and go with Kyoryuger by calling it "Dino Charge".

Mostly based on Gobusters initial low ratings it would appear. Deal is they can't skip a sentai season, but gobusters did terribly so they let them.

[Pharaun]

That's such horse shit, Gobusters was one of the best sentai seasons in a long time.

[Insanecyclone]

Yeah it's strange. Also Super Megaforce(Gokaiger) begins next week on Nick.

[Pharaun]

If they were going to let them skip anything the should have skipped goseiger and went straight to gokaiger

[Insanecyclone]

Well seems like Nick gave the episode out a week early online

http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/powe...l-episode.html








Bout what I expected. Best course of action is to not mention pre-zyu suits but hey could always have then be "legendary" rangers of other planets or some shit?

[darkepyon]

Well they did it before with Masked Rider back in the day, albeit very poorly.

Meanwhile, 2014 sentai is uh... trains.



OK, not really...

Spoiler: show

Still hideous though.

[Pharaun]

Honestly the Thomas one looks better, the official one is eye stabbingly bad

[darkepyon]

I almost got that thing for my nephew for Christmas one year since he was into Thomas. Their best execution of a train mecha IMO was GrandLiner from GoGo V. Even had a cool theme song to it. Travellion being a close second.

I thought Kyoryuger would suck, but its execution turned out better than I thought. Not the best, but certainly not the worst.

[Pharaun]

I've ended up liking Kyoryuger more than I thought I would. After the first 8 episodes or so it just seemed like they were playing it incredibly safe with the series. Even at the end it still feels super safe, but it ended up doing a few things I liked. I like the spirit Rangers and the fact that they actually went all the way to 10 members instead of the typical six.

[darkepyon]

Yeah and they got more screen time than Dekaranger's extra rangers. Bright, and Swan were one-offs and Gold only got maybe half a second of screen time in the movie.

[Insanecyclone]

those fucking body movements

[Insanecyclone]

oh my god

they actually used the dairanger footage

[Insanecyclone]

[Pharaun]

I'm trying to give ToQger a chance, but it's just not doing it for me. I doesn't help that whenever I watch an episode all I can think about is how it's Kamen Rider Den-O: The Sentai.

[Insanecyclone]

ACCEL- no wait, never mind.

[darkepyon]

Pretty radical departure from past shows since this one uses a car to get around in lieu of a motorcycle. Black RX had a car and a bike, but he still primarily used the latter IIRC. With a name like Tridoron, I'm guessing that car is some kind of triple-changer.

[Insanecyclone]