I never expected this show to be in my list of tops. But it's most certainly in the top 5 for me. Though I have no way of deciding what I like the most out of any of those 5 it includes in no particular order: Gaim, Den-O, Ryuki, Agito, & OOO.

I'm not coming into this thread to preach the gospel of Gaim so please don't take it that way. But I count it among the best rider shows I've ever seen.

Let's not forget that even Micchy's actor wants Micchy to die and not have salvation.

That's how much people despise Micchy.

Me too man, I just get a little tired of people forcing praise where it isn't needed and viciously lashing out at those who dare attempt to be critical. Gaim is a fantastic show in it's own right, the blind fanboyism only sours the experience, not make the show greater.

Honestly, you keep saying this, but I'm not seeing it. Gaim is good. Really good. But I think everyone here is easily capable of pointing out flaws. If not here, where are you finding this said group of people forcing praise?

You haven't noticed it in every thread? Are you new?

A bit, but that's sort of besides the point. In all the active threads since I started lurking here, I've seen a share of fair praise but nothing too over the top; definitely nothing that could be considered "forced." It seems to me like there's been twice as much complaint about this overpraise than the issue itself as of late. Half of it from you. :p

I guess it's harder to comprehend if you weren't here way back in the days when people were calling Gaim "the greatest Rider series ever made" when they hadn't even seen a trailer, just a photo of Gaim's back.

It was really bad when people went absolutely bananas for the fruit gimmick. Don't get me wrong, it's grown on me, but man were people just going nuts for that. All that combined with the dance theme the show was said to have...I was really freaking worried. I'm glad my fears were for nothing, but I was just seeing people go insane over a really really..not what I was wanting out of Kamen Rider, thankfully the show itself made it all work and the weird motif was held up by episode after fantastic episode. It's wavered a touch here and there, but it's yet to really hit any major drops in quality. Again, as I said, it's not perfect, but still one of the better seasons I've seen at this point.

Basically the hype level at the beginning (with the announcement of the fruit gimmick) was this:
http://oi55.tinypic.com/2yvvuyf.jpg

The gimmick is one of the worst parts for me, mainly because I actually really loved it at the start but then the show forgot about its own gimmick and just gave everyone the same weapon. I want a Arms Change focused Rider series which keeps the focus on it for the whole series.

Agreed, though switch loved it from the start with hated it from the start. I grew to like it and I really enjoyed seeing so many forms get used, but they stopped switching locks between riders, some riders never even using more than their default, and Kouta basically just stuck with using Jinba arms after a while. I can't even really buy it being for power level reasons, since he'd be better off just going straight to Kachidoki/Kiwama from now on if it is just so he can fight at his strongest.

I myself regret that the gimmick isn't utilize as fully as I think it should, although the in-universe reason for Kouta defaulting to Jinba is probably because Kachidoki is slow and bulky, and Jinba is a nice in-between, multi-functional form.

Now that he has Kiwami, I really don't know why he doesn't just default to that. It makes sense if he's doing some scouting and is utilizing the Peach Energy lockseed, but in a fight, it's quite confusing.

How is that different from any other Kamen Rider series though? All of the shows since Den-O have really forced the toy gimmick down the viewers' throats. Sentai has been doing it for 14 years.


I definitely disagree there. THe gimmick is the best since OOO and I love the concept of the Lock Seeds.

And the reason the Energy riders all have the same weapon is because it is all the same electronics. The Genesis drivers are all mass produced. Each Sengoku driver was built around the DNA of the user.


You did listen to what Sagara told him right? And you did see him ask why the food was bland in episode 33, right? It is quite clear that, unlike Wizard God Mode, there is a consequence for using Kiwami arms.

He didn't say the gimmick was bad, he said it was underused. And it is really. Things like Gaim using Banana Arms happened once and then Ichigo, Pine, Mango and Kiwi Arms were all done and then mostly forgotten. Some admittedly more than others, but hell you could write Kiwi out of the show altogether and no one would notice it was gone.

The Hyper Battle Video is about the only time the gimmick has been used to its full potential.

Poke around in some of the Giam threads. You will see some people proclaiming this the best Rider show ever made and that Kamen Rider should just stop after this year because Gaim will never be topped. It's a good show, but comments like that are ridiculously over-the-top.

I can't think of any other Rider show - even Kiva - that was as bad about blatant toy shilling as the DJ Gun. Every time that thing is used we have to see the same close-ups of how the dial and turntable gimmicks work on it. It made sense the first time or two, but we still get it every damn time and it horribly breaks up the flow of the action scenes.

The DJ Gun reminds me of Medagaburyu. Both looked out of place to me, but I still enjoyed seeing them in action.

I think the Gaim is propelled mainly by the story, if you remove that, you get stuff like the crossovers, which are nowhere near as interesting.

We all know there's a consequence to it but that consequence also isn't immediately known to Kouta. Yes, Kouta did notice that the food tasted bland, but he didn't seem to connect that to his use of Kiwami arms and Kouta hasn't really hesitated to use Kiwami Arms either.

DJ Gun? Bitch please.

Wizard had far more blatant marketing attempts then the DJ gun could ever hope to be. Sure focusing on the DJ gun does fuck up the flow of the fight scene, but Wizard had entire episodes dedicated to selling the gimmicky ring of the week.

Yeah, but those were all early on and largely stopped by the 25% mark. And the rings may have been gimmicky, but at least they were usually used in some way to help out either the story or the action. We didn't pause the show every time a ring was used to see a close-up of the belt as Haruto scans the ring over it. The Shabadoobies were annoying, but at least stuff was still happening during them.

Fourze was abig offender of that as well. Every so often the fights just completely stopped so we could see a close up of Fourze using a new switch. Didnt help the show that he had 40 switches so almost every episode had to showcase a new one.

Wait, are you saying people actually liked the fruit gimmick at the start? I've posted regularly and lurked on many tokusatsu forums and there was an almost universal disapproval of the idea. The optimism only came out when it was revealed who the writer of the show was going to be, before then people had given up on the show before it even began.

I own the DJ gun because it is down right awesome. One of the best rider weapons in a long time.