Something that I've figured out is that, for a lot of places, religion plays a very big part in sexual matters. Shintoism, one of the two main religions of Japan, is very lax about sexuality compared to a lot of other religions so, as a culture, they've got no real reason to be against sexual content as much as other places.

Well, that's probably because Shinto isn't really a religion, at least as most would understand it. It's more of... it's difficult to describe, because, while, yes, it is primarily a methodology of interacting with the supernatural, it doesn't really concern itself with morality or the hereafter.

It's kind of a secular religion, if that makes any sense. Basically, take Steve Irwin's attitude towards nature and apply it to super-nature. That'll give you a rough idea about what I mean.

Religion is religion. As Wikipedia makes it easy to understand without needing multiple paragraphs because I talk in circles, "Religion is any cultural system of worship, including designated behaviors and practices, world views, texts, places, ethics, or organizations, that relate humanity to the supernatural or transcendental."

The key part of that whole statement is the "Or." Not all religions need to include similar themes to be classified as "Religion."
It doesn't need to share any similarities to what is commonly practiced in English speaking nations to qualify as a religion.
Also, Shintoism is pretty spiritual.

There's the key bit though. Shinto isn't about worship. There are offerings and such, but it's not about deferring to a higher power. It's about getting the local spirits to play nice or leave you alone.

It's like leaving bread and honey out for the brownies vs. a burnt offering to Apollo. The former is not worship, the latter is. Shinto is about the former, not the latter.

Spirituality does not equal religion. Theology and mythology are one of my nerd fields, not my strongest, but it is.

Speaking as a Pagan, it's all the same, Leaving an offering is leaving an offering. Worship doesn''t have to be kneeling and gorveling. Giving an offering and being respectful is still religious. QUit trying to nitpick and separate.

It's not nitpicking, it's pointing out fundamental differences that are one of the primary reasons why the religious landscape of Japan is so freaking weird compared to the rest of the world.

Mind, I have... things to say about what passes for Paganism in this day and age, but, as I said, rules.

It's not really a fundamental difference.
However, I care so little that I'll just agree because it's not a topic that interests me.

I mean, by that logic those guys should just do that every crossover and be done with it : P

Honestly, they should but then what would we do for the rest of the movie?

Well, there's a reason why every Taisen picks about 4 or 5 characters to carry the film, and have the rest just fight off cannon fodder :lol

Ryuki was that bad ?

Hibiki and his oni band will taiko no tatsujin the life out of him. :lolol

Cool idea. Lock him in an empty world and throw away the key.

Or they could just bloody let Beast eat him. Granted, Beast would require quite the final form boost to match a sun-returned Phoenix, hypothetically, but come on.

It would make Chimera so happy.

Hmm...it seems the key of Phoenix's revival ability is from his Mana in his remain dust. If Beast's Chimera absorb Phoenix's Mana, probably Phoenix cannot revive himself.

In other words, Phoenix can revive himself as long his Mana is still exist.

Phoenix really remind me to Azald Legacy from Zyuohger.

Add Mr.J from 555, Reiji from Kabuto, Brajira from Goseiger and Long from Gekiranger to the list of villains that can be revive multiple times. However, Long is immortal.

Ryuki? Bad?


Ryuki is probably in my Top 5 favorite Rider series ever, although it's been dethroned by Gaim, Ex-Aid (for now) and Amazonz as my absolute favorite.

I don't think so either. It has its flaws but overall it's a great show.


I think I'll leave Amazons out of my ranking, but I would rank it fairly high if I would include it. And Ex-Aid? I haven't thought about it before but that one is going to make it into my top three for sure. Such a great show.

I don't think so. I like the show a fair bit,and the arcs in general are pretty exciting.

Has its problems, but the main one is the ending, but I've heard some people interpret it in a much more meta way that makes the ending more satisfying and conclusive.

Ryuki was / is fantastic. It's a bit dated on the CGI tip but the story is really engaging and the concept is great.

Yeah Ryuki is a nice show. It has some issues (some of which are quite BIG), but it's easily my favorite Rider by Kobayashi.

I am love Ryuki too. My best things about Ryuki is each Rider has their own plan and they are kill each other in battle royal fight.

I am really want next Rider after Ex-Aid will be has battle royal fights between Riders.

Ryuki DID nearly get the franchise offed due to being so different from the formula iirc. Though that's when Toei also started targeting mothers of the kids in their audiences

Speaking of Ryuki, I wonder, is the Episode Final movie the canon ending, not the one in the series?

I mean, in that movie, Ouja, Femme and Ryuga died and stayed dead, Zolda quitted the war, Ryuki and Knight are the only riders left, rushed in to destroy the horde of Hydragoons before their last fight to end the war.

And as we see, Ryuki can still access his rider form in many canon movies after, Ouja is "revived" in Brave's spinoff, bla bla bla...

Speaking of Brave's Spinoff, Did Foundation X revive Ouja as a Necro-Over? because his death looks like one's.

If I remember correctly, the movie was made as the team predicted the show would get cancelled and wouldn't be able to finish it's run, so it's left as a conclusion just in case. I think it's both, unlike Ex-Aid's upcoming movie which is the canon ending and the show itself will compliment it after it's done or something

Yeah, the explanation is that the movie is the ending but the series will actually be enriched or change it's meaning or something if you watch it? I dunno, sounds more ambitious than Toei are probably capable of.

The Episode Final and 13 Riders special are previous versions of the Rider War that were erased with the Time Vent card. The series ending is the true, final end of the Ryuki story. That's the standard explanation for how the film and special fit into the series chronology.

That's how I always saw it. Episode Final and the 13 Riders Special were previous timelines that Kanzaki wasn't happy with since Ryuki wouldn't ever obey the rules of the Rider War.


As far as the actual ending of the show goes, I'm once again torn. At first, it seems like a huge cop out to erase everything that happened through the show and especially because it resets the friendship between Shinji and Ren but at the same time, it's an ending that actually makes sense in the context of the show.

Regardless, it somehow doesn't stop Ryuki from showing up in crossovers occasionally. In my head canon, all succeeding Rider shows are following the continuity of Episode Final and not the last 15 episodes of the show. It makes sense. In that continuity, Shinji still has his powers and isn't dead, Asakura is dead which explains the need to resurrect him in the Brave special, and Kitaoka isn't outright stated to have died of his disease like in the show and can technically still become Zolda, which also explains his recent reappearance in Ex-Aid, unless there's some sort of alternate explanation in that movie.

In my head canon, Ryuki still shows up in crossovers because $$$. :p

I can't wait to see new Kamen Rider Series announcement in end of May or around June.

Maybe this time Toei's creative team already found a new theme for next Kamen Rider series.

More rumors should start popping pretty soon right? When was Ex-Aid leaked again? I can't remember.

Best ensemble cast in the Heisei/Neo-Heisei Era in your guys' opinion?

Pre-Decade it's probably Kabuto for me. Ryuki had the better characters overall (and a glorious trio), but I felt like some of the 13 Riders were more cannon fodder than anything else. With Kabuto I feel like most, if not all Riders had an everlasting impact on the course of the story and stuck around to the end.

Post-Decade I'd go with Ex-Aid. Gaim is my favorite show of the era (duh) but I feel like as an ensemble cast it had its weaknesses because some characters heavily outshined others.

Drive had a good ensemble cast too since Shinnosuke, Gou and Chase were equally important and interesting throughout the show, but I think Ex-Aid takes it. Mostly because in the sense of a hospital drama the focus shifts from one doctor to the next but they still have relevance as a team.

And it's one of the few shows were I would include the bad guys in the ensemble cast as well since the show was very good with handling Genm and Parad so far. Granted, past shows could do that too, Ryuki did a great job with Asakura IMO, but in Ex-Aid I really feel like the whole package matters more than pushing a single hero.

And of course I like plenty more casts of other shows, but most of them only have two (or less) Riders so speaking of an ensemble cast isn't very realistic IMO.

Ex-Aid cast is still a bit small compare to Gaim and Kabuto. Gaim actually got more character developments early on because they ditch the biweekly guest format entirely. The only series with consecutive good guest of the week are W and Fourze because the guests are also the motw. Ex-Aid started pretty slow and the toys spamming is too obvious, but it handle it a lot better than Ghost. I felt like Ex-Aid need to bring in some minor supporting characters to increase the stakes and help the heroes when needed like a lot of pre-Decade riders(minus Den-o) and Gaim.

For the Heisei era, it's gotta be Blade for me. All of the Riders just play so well off of each other.

Neo-Heisei, definitely Ex-Aid. I still can't decide on a favorite Rider because everybody shines.

Can anyone point to me to a list of essential Black episodes? I don't have a good stomach for filler, and that series is supposed to have a lot of it despite its stellar reputation.

That's because there's less than 5 episodes of filler in Blade. I'm sticking to Gaim and W for now, but maybe Ex-aid can surpass them in the 2nd half.

IIRC, Ex-Aid has exactly the same number of actual Riders as Kabuto, when accounting for the fact that TheBee was used by multiple users who all went on to become different Riders (outside of Mishima). Outside of the Riders, I can't think of anybody else that'd you consider a part of Kabuto's core cast outside of Hiyori, who fails to be a character so much as a plot device (as female supporting characters in Rider tend to be most of the time, unfortunately).

Even still though, more isn't always better. I absolutely love Gaim, but some characters got completely sidelined as the plot decided they were no longer relevant. Oren and Jonouchi would often disappear for chunks of the show, Yoko and Sid pretty much existed solely to be punching bags for the middle portion of the show before Yoko essentially became the Kamen Rider equivalent of a golddigger (her best moments as a character IMO were in the Gorider mini-series).

With Kabuto, I'd have to disagree with Kiwami as I felt some characters were, once again, sidelined. Pretty much every Rider outside of Gatack was established as some sort of rival to Tendou, but then once that didn't pan out so well for them, they were either demoted to comedy relief (Tsurugi), disappeared from the show entirely (Daisuke) or went off and had some weird emo phase (both of the Hopper brothers).

Ex-Aid has done a pretty damn good job of keeping ALL characters relevant to the plot, even when they aren't physically present. The only character I can think of who isn't important is Hiiro's dad, and it's arguable if he can even be considered a part of the main cast anymore.

I feel that Ex-Aid does a great job of combining the two-episode format with ongoing plot developments. Nothing really feels like filler in it IMO - even the Burgermon episode was essential :lol.

If there is one advantage Gaim has over it is that it has more universal themes. Kouta, Baron and Micchy were characters to whose struggles I could relate to an extent; I guess you can relate to Ex-Aid's characters if you are a doctor and/or an avid gamer?

You could say that, though I feel that while the show is about doctors, the overall theme is moreso about death itself, learning to accept that death is inevitable, even when you're somebody whose job is to literally prevent it. Funny enough, I feel like this is something Ghost should have handled but death was treated like a temporary condition in that show. But let me not rant about Ghost right now :lol