Drive's ultimate problem is that its major plots are resolved too quickly or left lying too long so that they can get back to stupid cartoon hijinks. I think Drive and Ghost had the potential to be new Agitos had they been written better. Or came out a decade earlier.

Drive supposes to be the start of KR series evolution toward more rigid and cohesive series, but it still has the taste of silliness previous series before it has. Also I think this is the time the powers that be in TOEI realizes the potential of adult viewers of the series.

Gaim was succesful story wise, but I don't think it was succesful merchandise wise?

Then we have Ghost, and TOEI being seduced by Amazon. So they pretty much abandon Ghost and focus on Amazons making Ghost utterly soulless right from the get go.

But Ex-Aid shows that TOEI can focus again and pretty much at this point their guidelines are at follows: the story can be more mature and serious, but the toys stay silly. So pretty much at this point, the drivers and weapons are human made like the one we have on GAIM, made by silly people so that the drivers and weapons can be toylike. The story can be serious as long as no one is shown brutally murdered and the funny can balance the seriousness. With Ex-Aid, they finally know the formula of "funny serious." that people love. And they implement that again in Build. But in build, it is amped up by some more serious cinematography and screenwriting.

But I have a feeling taht Build now is in danger of falling into slippery slop of catering too much to the toy sellings. The fast wrap up of the mistery of Katsuragi's death, the inexplicably sweep out of the prime minister, and the sudden start of war, only to introduce the schlush driver users is a bad sign.

I don't know where you got this idea from

Quite the contrary, despite hitting an all time low for ratings, the merchandise has been selling so well they're STILL making stuff for Gaim today, the S.I.C line has been using Gaim a lot

SIC Orange Arms is awesome looking.

I haven't even watched Gaim yet but I have that figure in my bookmarks to be bought. hahaha

I love the badass Samurai vibe of this figure very much.

https://i.imgur.com/Mq9mEme.jpg

Ah, my memory was half right, something is off with Gaim, commercial wise, but it's the low viewer rating, not the merchandising.

i was not a fan of gaim i felt it was weaker. It had less monsters and a lot of the riders are bland. Plus the plot was out of control and used time travel to explain NOTHING because it doesn't make sense even with time travel

Part of the reason for the low ratings for gaim I guess is due to the low birth numbers in Japan, lower core audience available ? Though I have no idea really.

If kamen rider started having proper world wide streams it would probably be quite popular, Ultraman has been doing quite well stream wise.

Can't really be right as toy sales were through the roof. Maybe kids didn't enjoy the dark tone later in the show?

Yeah, mostly darker storyline more appealing to older audience than kids audience.

Btw, Agito has highest ratings in Heisei Era and most of Agito storyline is really dark as well.

I really liked Agito, I'm pleased it has highest ratings.

Agito, Gills, and G3 made a cool team.


"More Beer!"
https://i.imgur.com/BW93veD.jpg

Could be the parents making the decision, it is difficult to really say though with no sales data or consumer data, also was Agito not a "family" ranked show meant for young and old viewers compared with todays more children oriented show ?