It also says Rider but in hiragana.

Agreed. It's as though wearing a costume and fighting bad guys is the only way a character can be worth anything.

It's a very effeminate pink on his/her wrists. I think it's a female lead. With Toku being less of a priority for Bandai (and it isn't, let's be real) they can take more risks. Especially if it's only for 24 episodes.

Exactly, Rider has had a ton of great female characters and representation, is the fact that they haven't been the big lead hero such a negative?

Like I said, not opposed to the idea, but don't do it just to do it.

Apparently the other guy is called Jikuu
EDIT: Probably written as Zi-Q

There are also rumors that:
- Zi-O uses a kunai/sword
- Jikuu uses a axe/bow
- the finisher involves words/sentences popping up
- there are 25 forms.

wait. ZI-Q ?
Zi-O is Time King
Zi-Q ? Q as Queen ? so Time Queen ? xD

Someone was mentioning that the secondary Rider's name is rumored to be Jikuu (space-time, iirc), and joked that it could be romanized as "Zi-Q".

The secondary being named Q sounds about right. Wouldn't be surprised if there's some reference of having a PhD too, or should have one in rider history.

*blinks.* *Looks at checklist of themes for the past 17 years.*

Forced if it's a checklist huh? Uh, right. Whatever you say. By that definition, all rider series since Faiz/Blade are "forced". As is nearly all sentai since Zyu.

Oh boy are you really in for a surprise then. And you're already assuming bandai is going to lower the toys simply if it's a girl. Why would they? It'll still sell as well as Build or others have. You really think Bandai is going to produce less for toys because it's a woman? When it's literally the 20th series, and the kicking off of the 50th celebrations of the franchise as a whole? They're in toy production overdrive for the next 4-5 years expecting big sales and tons of hype.

And Kamen Riders have always been experimental for merchandising. Every show since Faiz has done something that's been unique for the time it was made in. The only ones not as much likely being Blade and Kabuto which were derived more from Ryuuki and B-Fighter. But even so, Kabuto still had some experimental toy fun in it with the Hyper Sword and Hoppers alongside some other zectors.

If it's not that big of a deal to be background or support, then it's not that big of a deal for males to be this time instead. They can be represented that way if that's "good enough for women" then it should be good enough for "males" too.

Less than 15 have had a hero identity(barely to not even double digits if you don't count shared belts or movie riders). Compared to the 80+ males. Much more have been monsters though, but rarely allowed to use belts to transform. While yes support characters are great, why can't one lead or have a more re-occurring belt usage? It's not a "boys club" and was always intended to be more equal since Stronger's days. It's long overdue, and this year is fitting to do it since it can commemorate the Actress for Tackle's 60th birthday.

It's long overdue, let's not pretend otherwise or act like apologist or downplay it. It is long overdue.

The skirts aren't that. The skirts are so you know it's a girl by sight alone when it comes to Sentai. Which wasn't that often parroted by Riders except for comedic effect instances(Poppy) or needing to showcase femininity like Swan/Fem and her Femme Fatale nature. There are other more subdued clothing protections to avoid that issue (Boxers for one, but also other methods to avoid suit lines too). Same as Male toku suit actors wear cups and you don't get a full outline of their genetalia through tights or leather. AV Toku doesn't use that(and rarely underwear!) because they do want the outline for the nature of their industry. The skirts do also hide when it's a male suit actor too.

There are a lot of various women toku armors that don't use skirts. It really depends on the work in question. But "anti-camel toe measure" isn't why at all. It's predominately a design choice at the conept level and has nothing to do with that at all.

This suit looks like it's going for a very gender neutral stance. Like they're trying to pull a "Pidge" to keep it as much a surprise as possible by fostering doubts, while also keeping the suit streamlined enough to market to everyone. And it's actually kind of rare for women riders to have skirts anyway. This looks like it's going for more like a Delta kind of thing.

You're exactly right. If a woman is the main Rider, I don't expect the toyline to suffer at all. If anything, marketing to girls in addition to boys will probably increase sales.

BUT, and again this is if the main rider is a girl, I do suspect that the toy line will be more anchored around this "Zi-Q" character, even if the show focuses squarely on a female Zi-O as the main protagonist. Because, while I do think that Toei likes to experiment with content, I also think that Bandai is extremely conservative and married to their formulas.

Obviously, this is all speculation, and I'm still very skeptical (though increasingly hopeful) that we'll get a girl in the lead role. But if we do, it probably wouldn't negatively impact toy sales too much.