So Sougo has been dreaming of becominga king all his childhood up to high school; does that make him a chuunibyou? (Before receiving his Zi-O powers)

No, it makes him an annoyance.

Aaaaaand just like that, I laughed out loud at this LOL
AGREED

To me, Sougo is a less charismatic and understandable version of Gentaro. That is, he is a schoolboy with a fixed idea, which all his friends consider idiocy, but gradually (and in fact quite quickly) are imbued with it. This never irritated me, if only because everyone around reacted to his statement quite realistically.

I think the difference is Gentaro was always the heroic type, and the Fourze gear just boosted and gave him the means to carry out his ideals.
Sougo cements the 'heroic kind' type deal as a result of being faced with Rider things

basically Gentaro is by nature good, Sougo is good as a reaction

Too active kings often did more harm than good :)

:thumb:

I wouldn't trust Sougo to symbolically open a mall, much less make actual policy decrees.

Dunno which part of Sougo or journey do you refer here, but he does want to become a king so that he can protect his people (and I don't think it's a reason he gained midway, but just revealed later albeit predictable, ofc there should be a reason for him to be obsessively chasing after king position.... and Ohma Zi-O claimed he was protecting his people, though obviously his dark traits have consumed him to the point of delusion).

Otherwise, true that powers would be able to boost anyone to carry out their ideals. It applies to villains too, they're mainly dangerous due to the power they hold, not due to how evil they're, as, nobler villains like well-intentioned ones can create more damage if they're more powerful.

Depends on what kind of active. Unfortunately, those positions don't exactly have an obligation to act good, like only doing the best for their people, or even their circle, everyone else be damned.

My interpretation of it all was Sougo saying "I wanna be a king" without any substance behind it, only to get slapped with the possibility he'll become a tyrant, and snapping to "I'll be the good kind of king" as a reaction

against Gentaro naturally being the hero

Come on, as for me, he is far from the most irresponsible rider. For example, how many ZEСTroopers died because Tendou took his time?

What kind of policy decrees would Sougo make anyway?

Probably a lot, but I wasn?t comparing Sougo to anyone else. On his own merits he?s just very much a well-meaning moron.

I honestly don?t know; he very obviously has no idea how monarchies work and I have to assume that ignorance also extends to basic governmental functions. I suspect he would mostly just put people he met when he was a kid in charge of everything while devoting full government resources to finding his one true love: that girl that was nice to him that one time.

That?s TWICE today a comment made me laugh out loud.
Thank yew for that.
In retrospect, Sougo was a complete moron.

Speaking of Sougo becoming king, if he actually does take a throne I can totally see the Grand Zi-O jingle becoming his country's national anthem.

The thought of everyone singing out the Heisei Riders' names in schools and festivals is a hilsrious thought.

I know it's a late response, but thank you for the level headed take. You just described my main gripes with the show, but say that in the KR Reddit, downvoted.
I mean, I love Gaim and Build, but if anybody didn't like them, I wouldn't rake them through the coals over it.

As pathetic as this is gonna sound, I didn't really have anywhere else to turn to TBH.
Over the years on here, I gradually felt I wasn't really welcomed here. I enjoy having interactions with everyone, but I would get ignored and when someone did reply to me, it would always be someone telling me I'm wrong on something or had a bad take. It's not attention seeking, but I just like talking to folk.

I miss the toy gadgets in the franchise, like Hibiki's disc-animals and stuff. Apparently, they sold poorly or simply do not match the tone of the current seasons. I think the live shift-cars in Drive can be considered the last ones, although the more canonical final iteration is Wizard's Plamonsters.

I think they would have fit in just fine with the most recent Rider shows. Geats in fact has one; the phone turns into a spider!

Zi-O had a couple too! There was the little Watermelon robot and the OOO Bird. They just got very very little focus.

Ghost had some, too. Like the lantern spider.

Yeah the Spider, Bat, Condor and Cobra which could all combine with the base two weapons to make additional modes.

I remember them, but I do not take them into account, because I perceive them as references. But they were nice and helpful.

To be honest, I didn?t even think about gadgets in the Ghost. Probably because they spent most of their time in an inanimate form and there were no (or almost no) scenes where they hung out in a crowd in the background, making funny sounds.

Haven't seen Geats, but I am aware of the Desire Grand Prix being some massive grand royale where everyoen competes to get their desires granted.

Makes me wonder what would happen if the Yummies or the Kougami Foundation ever found out about it, considering that their whole M.O. is to harvest Cell Medals born from human desires.

Basically all Kobayashi's series, all centered around human's wishes in some way.

Her rider shows definitely have that theme lingering in some capacity.

I've finally started watching the Genm specials, and to be honest? I'm kind of disappointed that Ex-Aid's legacy will ultimately be Kuroto chewing up the scenery. Over everything that series did so well, Dan's popularity through his over the top nature is what Toei has deemed the most marketable, and the only thing worth bringing back.

I think so too, I think I even wrote about it. In general, I liked the reserved Kuroto from the beginning of the show much more. And later the character, as for me, generally turned into a parody of himself.

I get that he was all eccentric, but yeah, he honestly feels like he's just a parody of the character now.
His character had such a nice arc in Ex-Aid, regardless of whether he ended as a hero or villain, and now he's just a portrayed as a cartoon character. It's disappointing.

Personally, I like both menacing and comedic Kuroto, but yeah I do understand the frustration of seeing a great villain turn into nothing but comic relief. In my opinion, he was at his best in the Another Ending trilogy which blended his menacing genius with his over-the-top shenanigans.

The problem is that Kuroto became so well-known for the memes that they became his whole character.

There was a point where I wasn't exactly keen on Kuroto as a character. That was mostly the Zi-O to Genm's 1 era where he got very touchy feely in his scenes. While I could stand his comedy, it became a bit too creepy if I'm being honest.

Idk, but to me it really felt like they toned him down heavily for the 2nd Genm's Special alongside the first Outsiders.

Also the first Outsiders special! It was alright. It's basically a capstone to Genm's and mostly just reiterates everything we know which is probably why they officially call it Episode 0.

I do find it funny how Smart Queen is like "Behold the peak of Smart Brain" and just transforms into Delta. Like idk if I'm unaware of Faiz lore as I have not watched Faiz, but I do have to raise my eyebrow at like Delta being fairly strong.

That being said I will congratulate Smart Queen in that she made Delta somehow last longer than Ark Thouser I believe.

Though with Genm having Musou and the tease of Ouja getting a Survive form, it makes me wonder if we'll have a team of evil upgrade Riders by the end of this.

My issue with Kuroto is both how he's portrayed nowadays in conjunction with him being the only part of Ex-Aid to get modern representation.
Like, yeah, Poppy was part of Girls Remix, but she was mostly set dressing.

I haven't watched all of Faiz, but I do know that Delta is fairly strong...At first.
The Delta system lacks all the gadgets and gear in exchange for being flat out stronger and faster than Faiz and Kaixa.
It's power crept out by virtue of not being the main or secondary rider, but technically speaking, Delta is strong.
[Also Orga and Psyga aren't canon, but that little bit of info tends to get disregarded :lol]

And I doubt we'll get a team of upgraded evil Riders. These are 10-15 minute TTFC specials. They'll probably drop the money for Ohja Survive, but no way in hell we're gonna be getting something like Scissers Survive :lol

It's definitely a bit of oversaturation, yeah. I like him well enough - aside from, as said, when it gets into creepy territory - but too much of a good thing is a bad thing and all. Everything in moderation, and while I'm no big fan of Ex-Aid it'd be nice to see some of the other aspects of that season people liked sometime; like maybe a special with Nico or Lazer.

(Also, I always liked Cronus more :p )

Oh lol I wasn't thinking anything on the level of Scissors Survive, but given one of the main teasers we have is of Ren and Desast, it makes me wonder if we'll be getting a new Kenzan form out of this.

That being said given ZEIN is still a focus I imagine they've already dropped some money on them already to give them a suit.

I'm wondering, given that Oma Zi-O's face has never been shown on the show, do Toei plan to have the older Okuno So play it in 40 years? Maybe I'm looking too far into the future though.

Isn't Ohma Zi-O erased from history now?

Probably, but when did it prevent someone from returning?