Lol it's like in Kuuga where all the ULs are massive hipsters and probably instagram their murder to put it on Tumblr later.

I think a big reason I love Haruto is circumstance. Haruto is in many senses very similar to Kyoryuger's King, I dunno whether that is on purpose. But whereas King is literally invincible in every aspect to the points of such boredom I once fell into a coma watching that show, Haruto is still flawed. Not flawed enough to fail at being a hero but flawed enough to be convinced of him as a human and to make his triumphs worthwhile.

He's quiet and serious and that is what makes his rare comedy moments so fun and his emotional moments all the more powerful. Rather than say Beast who is basically the opposite of Haruto in every way and it hurts.

I really think people confused Haruto's 'bland' for just the fact that he is a Toku character who for once doesn't spend the entire episode shouting into the camera.

Except it's not.
Look at Double's Shotaro, who isn't necessarily "Quiet", but he's not a fireball of energy, constantly screaming and chewing the scenery. He's one of the most beloved main Riders.

My disdain from Haruto is that he's yet to have a substantial character arc. He's always reactionary. His brief attempt to find Wiseman notwithstanding. He's never failed. He's never changed. He's never grown. It feels that far too many episodes feature Haruto just sitting around waiting for someone to cry wolf while Rinko and Shunpei run around the city.

How is his "I want to help people" any different from any other rider? Kotaro, Hongo, the second dude (sorry, don't remember his name currently), etc, all just wanted to help everyone and everything. I fail to see why it is a flaw of Haruto and not anyone else. Haruto is probably much closer to the Showa riders than any of the Heisei riders.

I absolutely love Black. It is one of my favorite shows and Black is my favorite rider. However, Kotaro never changed after the first two episodes of the series. Yes, he was badass, as he could kick ass, but sometimes, he was a bright as coal. He would do some of the dumbest crap imaginable. Fall for the most obvious of traps. He pretty much had only had two emotions, smiling and pouting.

Talking about W to me is kinda pointless because I've not seen it in its entirety.

But in terms of Haruto - I do agree to some extent, Wizard is a slow show and both Kyoryuger and Wizard feel extremely censored for Japanese Originals so he is fairly boxed in by those shackles. But with so little space to move around in, I think he does a lot more with that than all the haters want to admit. And from my experience with the franchise, pretty much all complaints you are having with him can go to any number of Riders.

For example Kabuto may as well have been a cardboard cut out since he was perfect and invincible in every aspect and didn't know what growing was.

Kuuga is forced to wait to be told where the villains are so thousands of people have died under his watch and so on and so forth.

I'm just saying that you lumping everyone who dislikes Haruto together because "Haruto isn't screaming and yelling" isn't an entirely accurate statement.

As for other Riders, outside of Tendou (Kabuto), Gentaro (Fourze) and Tsukasa (Decade), I feel that most every other Rider I've seen has gone through an important character arc by this point (Ep. 38) and has changed since their episode one appearance in some significant manner or grown from how they initially acted. Haruto has come close, but he just seems to revert back before episode's end.
(Note: I've yet to watch or complete Kuuga, Agito, Faiz, and Hibiki)

I am starting to appreciate the subtleties of Haruto's character, but sitting on a couch with a thousand yard stare isn't subtle. It's just not doing anything.

:lol You could not be more wrong.

Haruto's blandness comes form the fact that he's bland. Sometimes a rug is just a rug and not concealing a dead body.

Granted I'll take bland over grating or awful anyday. Just saying, we've had better main riders, which to me means that he should be less not-there.

Also Matrix, Agito had undergone a character change by this point as well. Problem is he was still a terrible character.

Like I say, I don't deny the pacing issues of Wizard. Basically every character gets a significant arc and then reverts back to how they were before. Haruto, Beast, Shunpei etc etc and that is a problem with the show itself not so much the characters.

But I appreciate all that Haruto does, in all its subtle ways, when it seems so much is up against him, stopping him from being a great character. And is the best main Rider I've experience out of the shows I've watched: Kabuto, Kiva and Kuuga.

I agree with every word of this, especially the last paragraph.

I still think that's an unfair assessment.
Haruto might just be a character in the wrong show.
But declaring everyone who doesn't like him confused because "He's not screaming" is grounds to call Tendou and Wataru the best Toku heroes we've ever gotten.

That isn't actually what I said at all though, Matrix. And if you didn't understand the wry humour in that comment...then I feel sorry for you.

Haruto is a subtle, layered character rather than flat and loud. He is a rarity in this genre and I can see why people would find him alienating and even hard to like because he is so different while still staying within a familiar mould.

Feel free to feel sorry for me.

What subtleties are there to Haruto? What depths are there to his character? Please, spell it all out in plain English, because I'm obviously missing something. What makes a man with a thousand yard stare and constant dull expression across his face "layered?"

Everything.

His past, is his past, and he doesn't feel the need to detail it out in length to everyone he ever meets. He's had a shit time of it in the past but knows that the important thing is saving everyone else now - to make sure that that never happens to anyone again. He takes crazy gambles, like actually using his Phantoms power, but he is all about saving everyone he can however he can. Something he is actually shown trying to do more so than say Godai. He keeps his problems to himself and the only pleasures he takes for himself are simple ones like a relaxing doughnut.

He has an incredibly wry sense of humour, something we share and it's rare for Toku to have comedy other than goofball, I find the way he sees the world very amusing and his off hand comments never fail to both catch me off guard and make me laugh. It's funny that a musical wizard such as himself seems so very grounded even still.

And most importantly, everyone knows his convictions and he doesn't need to spell it out. His friends trust him utterly and immediately because that is just the person he is. No bold claims, no drama, he just has a job and he gets it done because that is the right thing to do. I dig that, I dig that because it isn't told in such a mundane and boring fashion like in say Kabuto or Kyoryuger.

I wouldn't say it's universal, but I've heard a decent amount of talk about how Haruto doesn't feel like a main Rider and I think it's because a lot of people came in with W, OOO, and Fourze, where the leads are varying degrees of goofy and loud. Haruto is a much calmer and more collected lead than anyone we've seen since Hibiki and I think it's throwing people who are newer to the show and expect the more broadly comedic leads.

On the subject of my other show, Kuuga, I just watched episode 25.

MCS don't translate text nor Grongi so I literally spent the first half of the episode almost with absolutely no idea what was was going on. From what I did understand though...so is that it then, Kuuga is now going to largely repeat huge chunks of what it has already done but with slightly upgraded versions of the forms? Wow...

Suicidal children though yeah, just what I want from my Toku! To be fair to the show it does tell some beautiful stories they just feel a little out of place for the genre this is.

If I remember correctly, you're right on the cusp of one of the more brutal and important moments in the show's run. Is this the porcupine Grongi arc?

Nope right now he's fighting some bird man with blow darts that cause heart attacks.

See, nothing yopu said there is particularly wrong, but rather you're making it sound like more than it is.

I would agree that he handles his past well if it weren't for the fact that he doesn't seem tortured by it in any meager sense. If we got more of a sense of his inner struggle it'd seem more important and more of a service to him as a charatcer when he doesn't bring it up. Instead we get one explanation, one brief bit with him talking to his Phantom and that's it. We never see him hurt from his past, even if it's just between him and the audience. He doesn't need to play his sob story to everyone he meets, but we the audience should feel his pain more than we do, which is not at all. That way it's more impressive when we see him bury it or cope with it. As for his "no bold claims" thing, well, that's not really a good thing. He should be bold, he should have a drive, he should have a personal goal. In fact, he does, he even says that he burdens everyone's hopes for their sake. That is a bold claim, and I don't know why you'd say he doesn't why it doesn't help your arguement and isn't even true.

And I can't see this sense of humour anywhere, but I'm also only on episode 14 I think. But for fourteen episodes he hasn't had any sense of wit or wry sense of humour. He's just had generic hero comments with no sense of originality or unique spin. In fact, he shows little emotion, never getting angry or sad or being a human being. He's too serious to be believable.

Like I said, Haruto is far from bad, he's just bland. Everything about him is typical first-step-to-a-character. Subdued characters may be unique, but they're also very boring and difficult to relate to, especially when Haruto's actor barely changes his expressions. The dude is a stiff, and is probably the biggest factor in people saying he's bland because he never freaking emotes. The dude has two faces: smug neutral and slightly wide-eyed smug neutral.

I mean, you know.

Typical day at the office.

I do agree that I wish they had less side characters - or more side characters that actually add to the series so we could focus more on Haruto and the stuff that matters but once again that isn't Haruto's fault it is the shows.

I would love to see Haruto out of soldier mode, where we can see the effect of what all that is going on is doing to him, so we can see his softer emotional side. But the show wastes most of the character moments on the gates and it's a shame.

I meant bold claims as big statements that the Rider has no possibility to live up too but Haruto has proven that he can carry the hopes of everyone sure he fails sometimes like every good hero should but overall he manages to live up to what he says he can do bloody well.

Episode 26 of Kuuga made me realise perhaps why this series isn't clicking for me in much the way W didn't click for me.

It doesn't really...work. It used to work, it used to work very well. But it seems in the last ten or so episodes the shows focus has moved away a lot from the Rider stuff and more to the characters. And minus the bad acting, there is nothing really wrong with that.

But serious drama critiquing the state of the world feels out of place in a show like this and despite the addition of new powers that the show spent time building up most of the action feels utterly tacked on and as throwaway as have many of the fights throughout the series.

I really enjoyed the opening ten episodes where it focused on the mystery of the Kuuga powers, his enemies and detailed their battles but that is such a distant memory it feels like another show entirely.

Episode 27 was a much better episode suggesting that the interference of modern technology gave birth to new Kuuga powers. It raises a lot of questions but is at least an interesting concept. It also does some further exploration of what it is like to live in a world where Monsters are murdering people daily.

Also the UL was actually really hot which confuses me greatly haha. Obviously she wasn't hot in her monster form...

And holy crap is that a new Rider? He looks just like the grasshopper guy tho... Then again it was the Grasshopper guy he defeated with the blue form, and as that should be the form coming next and this show has been repeating old stuff in huge chunks I am not surprised.

Hibiki 05 and 06

I've never had a problem with this series, but during the earlier episodes, I had trouble figuring out what direction it was going. Now, I think I get it and it's pretty cool. Days in the life of musical monster hunters and the kid who wants to be one.

I like how they take a while to prepare what they're fighting. Like: Okay, this is the monster we're about to face. Here's how we're going to go about defeating it.

Also, that fight with the giant crab monster was one of the cheapest things I've ever seen and yet it was fucking awesome.

Oh and for those who know, is Hibiki pretty much the oldest main Rider in his own series or what?

Probably. He was in his early 30s when he played the role. Some quick googling shows that Miyauchi (V3) and Takasugi (Super-1) were around 30, too, but Hosokawa still had a couple years on them. Naturally, he stands out even more when surrounded by all the 20-year-olds that make up the rest of the Heisei Rider roster.

I thought it was cool that Hibiki wasn't a young-gun pretty boy. Nothing against pretty boys at all, I love pretty boys they're the best kinds of boys, but seeing an older dude running around beating up monsters was neat.

It kinda makes more sense too, as much as I like Haruto for example, it's hard to be convinced he is actually the guy in the suit when he looks like an anorexic oriental Justin Bieber.

Yeah, Wizard's kind of got a bit of a noticable build difference than most other riders between human form and rider form.

To be fair it's quite surprising - and poor - how rarely the suit actors and civilian actors match up. Power Rangers has at least some excuse but when the action is made specifically for the show, as it is with the Japanese Originals, it just seems wrong that they can't even match the two halves together.

What is the point if I'm not even convinced that they are in the suit?

Let me explain it for you:

A WIZARD DID IT. :lol

It's a problem for me in PR less because of build differences, but height differences (The blue and pink rangers in civilian form are the same height, but when morphed all of a sudden the pink ranger is a borderline dwarf and the blue ranger just got a growth spurt? What?).

I can tend to look past a character's build if the height stays relatively the same (Which it generally is in Wizard's case).

That's, again, why I like OOO and W so much. They really do a good job of portraying the character in the suit to the point where I have to wonder if that's actually the actor wearing the costume.

How would one go about finding out who plays the riders in the suits, anyway?

You can just google it.

*cough*
http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Suit_actors

Now see, when I searched for that on KRWiki I got nothing.

Argh, fucking look like an idiot, but at least I'm informed! Pretty impressive that the same guy plays basically all the Heisei riders and does such a great job with all of them, despite being so different. Guy's got chops.

I just stated to watch Ryuki in anticipation of the figuarts. Made it to episode seven tonight.

Veneration for the suit actors is actually one of my favorite parts of Akibarangers.

So i watched movie war core

W portion, awesome glad to see Skull and more backstory on Shroud

OOO portion, ...............What. The. Hell? What episode does this take place? Better yet, where the hell was Ankh the whole damn time?

Don't worry about that.
Trying to fit any of that in OOO's continuity is just too difficult.

And Ankh was replaced by a ballerina chick who was never in the show and never appears again. Naturally :p

Yea, im just gonna forget that part of the movie :lol

but the final part, friggin awesome as hell to see my two favorite Kamen Riders at once :lol, and ya know the fact they fought a giant human torch modeled like the first kamen rider was funny :lol

What did we tell you?

The OOO movie was made by people not directly involved with the show, using pretty basic notes on who the characters were and what the show was about. As such, it makes no damn sense when compared with the actual show. It was also written by Toshiki Inoue, which means it's not going to be terribly good regardless of canonicity.

Slightly off topic, but what happened to him anyway? Everything he's done since Agito has being less than stellar (baring the Jetman tribute episode in Gokaiger and the episode of Makai Senki that he did). Did he have a Jeph Loeb style breakdown or is he being given way too much freedom since Agito because of how prevalent he is?

I coundlt help it! My OCD can not and will not let me watch somethin and skip part of it, no matter how bad. (The reason why i had to marathon Samurai and Super Samurai after missin half of it airin :lol)

But it did confuse the hell outta me, i mean, it had G as Birth, Maki was still with Kougami, yet there were Kyoryu Yummies, the hell??

I legitimately don't know.

That may be the case. A personal favorite quote of mine that's mildly relevant here is