Derp. Of course. I'm an idiot. :o

He wrote 14 episodes and the Alternate Ending movie, but you're right, he wasn't the head writer. I think I give him more credit because his eps are the most memorable, IMO. (No shade on Kobayashi, she's still one of my faves, especially later on in her career.)

My larger point still stands, though. He should know the world and characters well enough. It may not be any good given Inoue's recent toku work (although his anime stuff is still pretty well done, so who knows), but familiarity with the material shouldn't be an issue.

Inoue struggles with overarching storylines, is prone to repetitive character types and re-used episode plots across the various series he's worked on, seemingly struggles to write female characters, is far too often 'edgy' for the sake of it - I just don't really rate him as a writer at all....

.....I've enjoyed various series he's written for (Changerion was often a lot of fun; Faiz looked cool as hell despite being a hot mess; Jetman had some truly epic moments), but not for his writing, and I definitely wouldn't mention him in the same breath as Bowie.

I'm a sucker for some Kobayashi, though - definitely agree with Fish sandwich and would prefer if she were penning this.

This is all very fair, and I mostly agree. I love Inoue, but I recognize he's not to everyone's taste.

As for the Bowie comparison, if you look at the whole of the tokusatsu, Inoue is very much a weirdo 80s outsider who shook up the classic elements of the genre and twisted them into something new and shocking that old-timers didn't initially accept. Obviously, they're not artists of the same caliber, but I don't know that the comparison to Bowie is that far off, at least within the milieu of the genre.

Oh yeah, there's a much greater chance that the movie would be good if Kobayashi were steering the ship. No arguments there.

Ryuki getting a special yes. It good to see one of my favorites again. I hope it clear up the ending that was confusing for me.

Would love to see a new Survive form rider out of this maybe Zolda, Gai, or Odin.

The Bowie comparison just didn't follow for me because he was such a master of self-reinvention whilst Inoue has more of a particular style. In the context of the above, I see what you mean.

He's also unquestionably a big part of Heisei Kamen Rider, and it follows for him to be involved with the end-of-an-era celebration.

I have high hopes for this. He did fantastic on Ryuki and The First and Next were perfect to the stories they were telling. Far more coherent than they get credit for if you watch it from the right perspective and see where the focus is and what it was building to if it had gotten the third movie it was supposed to get.

Which then ended up becoming Amazons instead as something else entirely.

With RyuSoulger coming, it was kind of obvious if you stopped to think about it for a second.

Dragon Knight and Dragon Knight. Toei doesn't drag on their feet when it comes to good promo and timing. They know how to build on hype too.

Hopefully there might be a reason for that. But we'll see. One can only hope.