So the Genesis Driver gave us those two episodes of Wizard.

Onore Shin-Zangetsu!!!!

That's actually pretty dissapointing.

He compares Gaim's fruit gimmick to Fourze and Wizard's being an astronaut and wizard being easy to make into heroes, while "fruit" isn't. But, well, that's not true. Their gimmicks are switches and rings, their motifs are an astronaut and wizard. Gaim's gimmick is fruit, but the motif is different warriors from different eras.

He seems... incredibly short-sighted to the gimmick, acting like it's some great barrier to storytelling. A good writer would see this as a challenge to make an orange something heroic, not scoff at it. Bugs are pretty unheroic, but Kamen Rider consistenly makes those heroic. Besides, Gaim isn't an orange, he's a person. Dressed as a Samurai coloured orange.

It actually really hurts my opinion of him. It just makes him seem so narrow-minded and unmotivated. Some people complain that people in interviews are too optimistic, but Gen here almost sounds like he's complaining. Rather than say something uplifting like "It's a challenge I look forward to tackling" or some such, he's basically saying "I don't like it an I'm trying to ignore it/work around it." That's like a Transformers writer thinking the idea of them transforming into cars in stupid.

He also complains about toys dominatng the direction of the narrative. Well, what did he expect? That's kind of the name of the game.

It seems more like life gave him an orange, and he just sort of left it on the table.

I couldn't disagree more.

The part where he says he realized he needed to view the fruit as toys makes me think he came to the exact same conclusion you mentioned above. That it's the gimmick, not the heroic element.

That said, he absolutely has woven the fruit gimmick into the theme of the story -- in fact, it seems to have greatly informed the direction of the story as well.

Gaim is about how kids romanticize adulthood, but when they confront the reality of adulthood they are horrified by the sacrifices they must make. The fruit gimmick, in this case, actually has a thematic purpose (unlike switches, rings, and medals which don't represent anything more than a Bandai toy line mandate). The kids naively play with these fruit-toys just as they play with the notion of adulthood, and just as they discover that adulthood is more horrifying than they excepted, they discover that the fruit-toys have similarly insidious implications.

This adds more fuel to the fire that Urobuchi has a more sophisticated storytelling style than almost anyone who's worked on KR since its Heisei revival. Unlike other writers, he didn't just thoughtlessly thrust the idea of the collectible gimmick out there. Instead, he took the time and effort to imbue the gimmick with meaning -- and make it reflect the most important themes of the story.

Oh yeah, don't think that I don't think he's handled the gimmick incredibly well. Gaim is just great.

It's just depressing to know how... unexcited he seemed. You'd think a show with so much care and attention to detail was brought about by an intense passion for the subject matter, not a half-dismissive mindset.

The final product is awesome, don't get me wrong.

I think he will be more happy if it is a late night show.

I don't know why so many people see this as just Urobotchi complaining, when he was just answering the questions the interviewer gave him :confused:

He was asked what troubles he might have had and he replies that it was hard at first to make fruits into a heroic concept(and lets face it, a lot of Kamen Rider fans were dismissive of it themselves because of the fruit motif) but he worked around it. He was then asked what troubles he had in the begining and he mentioned the fact that the show was delayed because of toys.

If he brought these up on his own I could understand but I read it as him being more neutral than actively hatting the gimmick.

Because rather than merely say they're a challenge, he points out out he doesn't care for them, and makes inaccurate comparrisons.

Ah, I gotcha.

It's kind of hard for me to gauge his tone from these snippets. There's so much formality in Japanese interviews, so it could be that his enthusiasm wasn't accurately conveyed because of those stoic cultural strictures. Not to mention, the translation is subject to the translator's interpretation, which may not be 100% in line with Urobuchi's intent.

Basically -- there are so many filters on his statements, it's kind of difficult for me to determine how he really feels. The passion and enthusiasm is clear in the work -- and at the end of the day, a writer generally wants the work to speak for him.

I don't think we have to worry about disinterest on his part -- Urobuchi is a great writer, but no writer is good enough to make something this fresh and compelling and heartfelt if he doesn't really care about the material.

So Black is his favorite series, huh? That is awesome. Sure, he did not say that out right, but since he said it was the only series he made sure to watch every episode to, it must be his favorite.

Anyway, good interview, but I know next to nothing of the guy's past credits, so I only have this series to base off his work, which has been quite good thus far.

I don't know, from the interview I found him kind of neutral on the fruit gimmick. He merely said he didn't understand it. He even said it was his mistake for seeing it as just fruit.