gimmicks being overdone in kr?
 

it seems like after kiva they started overdoing the gimmicks with cards, memories, medals, switchings, rings, lockseeds, and toy cars, i mean the only series i think the gimmicks werent so overdone was double, but after that it was toy after toy were it just wasnt fun anymore in my opinion.

i can understand it's about money and collecting but how it's done in the show i think they are really overdoing it. i miss those days where in kr black you didnt need a bunch of toys to have fun with the belt and with the show.

you just strap on the belt and enjoy yourself while watching kamen rider black. now and days, it's all about gimmicks plus buying more stuff to enjoy it and it's just not fun that way.

what are your thoughts about it?

I dig it, some times it is over done like in Gaim when they Henshin and like you hear the Henshin Arms Sound Line go over the lines such as... ORANGE ARMS/BANANA ARMS KNIGHT OF ON THE STAGE!! Stuff like that only really bugs me, for W it was all right, Decade I dig since it felt epic or cool in a sense, Drive is pretty cool to plus who doesn't like Machin Chaser Gun sound?

I know what you mean, but I don't have the same feeling about it.

I don't think I enjoy my Fourze Driver less because I just have 5 switches, to be honest. It really depends in what you want from the toy. I mean, I'd like to collect more, but I'm also fine with my basic stuff so far.

Of course it's a bit hard to collect all the stuff, especially if it is relatively exensive, like the Lock seeds, but on the other hand, you are not forced to buy everything. I just buy the stuff I like and than leave it at that.

Yes, there is a bunch of gimmicks but then again, it also gives you a wide variety of things you can do with the toy once you have them.

I like to view the first 9 years of the Heisei Rider era(Kuuga ~ Kiva) as a trial period.
Kamen Rider had a 11-year sabbatical after Black RX, and Toei was pretty much working from scratch when they did Kuuga.
And after 9 years, I like to assume that based on the accumulated data from toy sales, show ratings, internet and media feedback, etc. they ended up with what I like to call "phase 2" of the Heisei-era Kamen Rider franchise as a solution to better the franchise.
And so far it has done wonders for Bandai in terms of sales, and I noticed the overall complaints regarding the stories have subsided to a certain degree, which is good compared to the days when writers except Kobayashi were hated so much.

Regardless of whether it is overdone I think it is fine for now. But I would like to say that after we get our 20th rider and we hit Heisei Rider no.21, they should come up with another new set of rules to keep things fresh.

Yeah, the shift into Neo-Heisei is notable in this alone. It helps business, but I thoroughly believe you can take any gimmick & make it into a good story. However I can tell just from looking at what little I've seen of Gaim, Wizard, Drive & Fourze that those seasons are gonna have issues based on the fact that they have too much merchandise. Gaim especially as I thought we would have a rather even distribution of power due to the war feeling it gave but there was actually a lot of missed potential with Gaim's mechanics. Like each of the four main characters had access to both a Sengoku Driver & Genesis Core at multiple points in the show & only Kouta used Jimber Arms. Plus Wizard's numerous forms with hardly any differences between them was annoying as well as Fourze, & I'm sure eventually Drive, having more Astro Switches/Shift Cars than they know what to do with, resulting in many being forgotten. I enjoy gimmicks & toys as much as I can, they're lots of fun. Especially the ones I've seen KR utilize. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I feel the gimmicks need to be spread out across a good amount of the cast with proper use of the items of power from said cast instead of just having them act as extra Wizard Ring Holders or Shift Car Holders. Over-saturation can lead to ruin & while I don't think KR is quite at that point yet it's easy to get there from where they stand now.

I think there's a big difference in reaction to the gimmicks when they fit well in the story, or when the writer is compelled to throw them to our face.

I agree with you, I found out Gaim was ok in this regard, you know early where the lockseeds came from, new introductions were less frequent in the last 2/3rds. As there was many riders, it didn't feel they had too much forms/arms, aside from Kouta who is the flagship of the show.
I made a comment on Drive ep.5 thread that the shift cars annoy me (but the show is still good !).

You guys all realize that without gimmicks there is no Kamen Rider, right? The show, and Super Sentai, both exist for one reason. Toy Sales. And nothing pushes toys like a gimmick. Just look at the sales for the AC stuff if you want proof.

We're more than aware of that. We just wanna discuss thoughts & feeling about them. Like I said I enjoy good toys, but I feel as good as the sales are they could actually be a little better if done correctly in the show. It's not like Bandai & Toei really need to since they're content with what they're doing at the moment. But everyone likes to look at businesses like the greedy, villainous companies media portrays them as. And I think part of that is because some are. And if Bandai & Toei are then why not go for even more cash than they already make? Like I don't know stats or anything like that, but let's just say hypothetically Wizard Rings made about $5 million. If there weren't as many complaints about the merchandise being overstuffed or Haruto just stealing all the goodies for himself then maybe Wizard Rings could've pulled around $5 & 1/2 million. Maybe $6 million but I feel that's pushing it. You're always gonna get the core audiences' money (mostly children & adults from Japan but I believe they make good money overseas as well, just not nearly as much as the homeland) since KR has been such a consistent product from Kuuga onward. So if you avoid having as many missteps as possible with your show you can get that extra $500,000 or $1 million or however much from casual fans or people that don't buy the toys & just watch the show. But like I said they seem okay with what they got. I'm just confused as to why any business would be content with anything & why they wouldn't try to reach that possibly unnecessary extra cash. Perhaps there's just business stuff we don't know about. I would've guessed resources were scarce but given all the suits we got in Wizard & Gaim I think saying they don't have too much of a limit on resources is an okay guess. If that's not it then what? Maybe they're not as bad as people make all these companies out to be. I don't know. Sorry that I rambled like this, habit of mine. ^^;

Unless there is a major change in people's shopping habits otherwise the makers and sponsors will keep the old rules going.

Tell that to the Showa era.

That's like saying every Transformer on the shelves HAS to show up in the show, and if they don't appear, their toy will never be sold.

Fourze has 40 basic switches. They didn't need to shoehorn in every stupid ass switch just for the toy sale of one switch...

The Showa Era had far less to compete with comparatively with the Internet and everything that the Neo-Heisei Era has to deal with.

I think the Gimmicks are fine, especially when you get the awesome voice actors who make the sounds like Come On, Banana Arms, TaToBa, TaToBa, TaToBa, Cyclone, Joker, Kamen Ride, and so on and so forth. Hell I think if W was around now he would have had more than just 6 Gaia Memories in the beginning.

Also I adore the Shift Cars right now. I mean the gimmicks work because we all want to keep giving them our money lol.

Yeah, that can be annoying. But people are more likely to buy something if they see it being used in something they like. That's why there's so many things that don't make sense in shows like Fourze & Gaim to make sense. Wizard can defeat his enemies by distracting them with Smell.....only once or twice though. That leads to more people buying the Smell Ring & others like them rather than not showcasing it at all, but also messing up the show by stacking the deck with the characters having so much stuff that can really be trimmed down.

I'm fine with kamen rider gimmicks as they çurrently stand expect when they introduce something really useful and then forget about. Kiva is the worst example of this for me personally and I actually like Kiva alot.

they did it with double, i mean they released more gaia memories but they didnt cram them in the story, that's a good way of telling a story and not cramming merch all over it.

bandai can still make money without cramming merch into the story, it was successful with double like i said. it makes no difference anyway because it gets used once in the story and never gets used again and they still are making money.

I wish wecould get another peripheral gimmick like Candroids, Foodroids and PlaMonsters.

Well you cant compare the toylines they put out 30 years ago to a modern one. Not only were more children being born during that time so bandai could produce less and earn a good amount of money but there were also less toylines to compete with.

Just as an example. Gaim sold incredibly well (not as well as double or ooo but still) yet it was dethroned this year as japans leading toy brand. Rider held that title for the last six years but was outsold this year by bandais Yokai Watch toyline. Like Rider this Line is based heavily on a collectible gimmick.
Toys these days are so heavily based around gimmicks that unless Kids get tired of them we wont see them go away anytime soon.

That's a bit different. I don't think Bandai expected fans to enjoy the Legend Rider Memories as much as they did. You can see a notable gap from Decade-Drive in that so far, like you said, Double didn't show off stuff like that in the season. Whenever you make a continually changing show like KR you wanna make sure each year can develop its own identity in both media & merchandise. They do a good enough job of doing so & that shows most in Double. It truly felt like a separate thing from what KR had done the previous year. The toys from Decade sold based on nostalgia from the celebration. Bandai assumed people had their fix with Decade & didn't continue on with Legend Rider toys in the show. But the sales was a big tip-off to Bandai, letting them see people still riding the nostalgia train. So they fixed that with OOO onward. That's why so many of the previous Riders come back in movies & specials (Wizard's finale even). Gaia Memories have been selling up to include Wizard for God's sake. And the way they play catch-up with the Gaia Memories says, to me anyway, that they're making up for lost ground. Whatever number of sales they didn't get from advertising Double's Legend Rider Gaia Memories they're trying to get back with all these special new sets like the 2 Complete Selection Sets. You'll notice no other Neo-Heisei season's toys have been getting this treatment. Heck, Decade just now got it after Double did, 5 years after Decade's show had ended. So I think their business decisions as of late prove that Bandai doesn't wanna lose any amount of money they could make. No matter how small the differences are between the numbers of in-show vs out-of-show toys, they don't wanna have to sweep up whatever loose change is wondering around after the toyline's main run again.

Funny you mention that, Hasbro has canceled a lot of toys and even forced writers more then once to include characters that they didn’t had time to work on properly just so they can sell the toy. Tigerhawk is one prominent example for that, and if you watch the shows you can clearly tell which characters were just thrown in to sell the representing toy. So this method of thinking was always a thing.

That being said, I don’t mind the gimmicks with modern Kamen Riders. Yes, they are obviously designed to fabricate as many toys with a relatively low effort, but if they give me an awesome show I don’t mind it at all. Because no one forces me to buy re-decos of things that should represent other Riders. But if they do something awesome, I'm more then willing to buy re-decos.
*COUGH* Yomotsuheguri *COUGH*

Everyone says that ever since Double, it's been nothing but gimmicks... Personally, I felt OOO was a hell of a lot less gimmicky than Double. All of the transformation items were directly relevant to the plot. Even the majority of the candroids made some logical sense within the story.

i guess i have a problem with perfection when it comes to gimmicks because i want the toys to work accurately with the show, guess that cant happen.

To be more specific Heisei riders were gimmicky since Ryuki. It's just that after Decade and W that the gimmicks became more focused towards collectible gimmicks.

Perhaps all that is just a test drive somehow.

Hmm, what specifically would be the test drive? The past gimmicks or the current ones?

The past ones. Like the fuestles from Kiva or the cards from Ryuki or Blade.

I'm gonna look at it from the perspective of the 'artistic vision' of Toku, if you want to call it that. Since its inception, Kamen Rider and Toku in general have been about the spectacular aspect of it. You know how Power Rangers was received in the US, no doubt; it was such a unique phenomenon to have a live-action fighting show like it that it blew up, and over time it saturated because it was having trouble offering much more than that. I think I can say without offending anyone too much that clever writing and deep plots are mostly lost in shows like this.
So the big spectacle aspect. Kamen Rider Black fans in the late 80s probably looked at the cheesy jump cuts and flips that Ichigo did as silly-looking, and kids nowadays more than likely see the same stuff that Black fans saw as showy and spectacular as silly-looking pre-CGI effects. And in 10 years, who won't be laughing at how bad Suika Arms looks?
For a show whose entire purpose is to be flashy and cool to keep surviving, it has to keep up with what looks flashy and cool with the time period. So I'd say that the gimmicks do a good job of keeping Toku set aside from the hordes of action and mecha anime available to kids now. I think they're added on top of the unique aspects of live-action... action, not detracting from it. That's what keeps Kamen Rider fresh, unique, and away from stagnation like a lot of Super Sentai shows seem to struggle with.

Talking about writing stuff in just so they can be sold. That Problem was much bigger in the first decade. Zectmizer,Powered IXA, Boron Booster etc. all just useless crap that showed up without explanation then got used once or twice and never showed up again.

Shows like OOO,Fourze and Gaim might have more toys but atleast we actually get explanations why they are in the show.

*slow clap*

i dont mind gimmicks it's just how it's done on the show, i mean if you look at gaim, the lockseeds did serve a purpose like everytime a new lockseed was used, it was effective like destroying a monster and not just pulling a toy and it's ineffective, that's where i dont like them just throwing new toys for nothing like drive.

the loud music toy gimmick, I it's for kids, but at one point it become annoying and ruining the mood of the scenes, if you watch wizard, you'll see the problem,,
Haruto is having a moment with the Villain then you heard "Shabadoobie touch henshin" in loop.

and the complex way for them to work for the rider,,
I mean look at drive, how long did it take for him to transform, if I'm a MOTW, I'll blew his head off before he finished transforming.

I want a guy in a regular power suit. not like birth. like G3.

also, I want more of the guys who DON'T use powers that the other characters use. I want more guys who are just normal people who use what they can get and can hold their own. we haven't had that for a long time. and the closest i can think of is IXA.

But you forget that Nago was powered by Buttons


and justice

It's something I'd love not to be reminded of. That whole button stuff was weird as hell.