Right. Modern monsters are more about making people feel bad and/or property destruction.

Oh, and let's not forget Faiz, which had a major character that was an Orphnoch killing people regularly. Once she (can't remembered the name) offered herself to be raped and then killed them in a back alley.

Kamen Rider is so tamed nowadays. Gaim at least has potential to get some of these dark tones back.

I just hope it never gets to Kuuga levels again, that was just too much.

Well in OOO the purple medal Greeds erased people from existence as I recall.

You say tamed, I say "has some God damn self-control."

What you described isn't dark, it's pointless gratuitous and immature. It reeks of someone trying to be more mature, but failing and becoming an even bigger joke than the so-called "tame" series. "We want this too be DARK and EDGY so let's put in MURDER and RAPE because those automatically make for better stories about silly rubber-suited monsters, right?"

Maybe the creators should spend less time trying, and failing, to make the shows dark and "mature" and focus on making the mouths on the monsters move once in a while?

You've clearly never watched Faiz. What I described is an event used to add to the character drama within the show.

The following contains minor spoilers from the early episodes of Faiz:
Yuka Osada is an Orphnoch. Orphnochs must kill in order to live. Her and the Horse Orphnoch agreed to never kill and live as long as they can. However, Yuka has been killing people she deems "evil," like the rapists (which is only implied), behind the Horse Orphnoch's back.

This character does not like the things she does, but does them to live. That's not dark for sake of being dark. That's dark for sake of adding character. I repeat, today's Kamen Rider is tamed compared to early Heisei.

PS I'm not including Gaim in that statement yet.

Back on topic.

The DJ has the Orange Lock Seed. Guess that means there's multiple of every Seed (at least the basic ones). In theory, two people that have the Sengoku Driver can become Kamen Rider Gaim, Baron, etc. at the same time.

...Huh, the "evil" Gaim in Movie Wars sounds logical now.

I liked the first episode more than I expected to. A little early to compare it to Ryuki but I think they've shaped the world rather well in 1 episode explaining as much of the background as possible such as the Ygdrassil Corporation, the Invess Lock Seed game and the...dance groups.

The Suit design is growing on me. Now that I've seen it in motion its not as gaudy or clunky as I thought it'd be. One complaint I have and maybe its not so much a complaint as it is a sign of things to come is that the monster suit design was very...plain. I mean really really plain. Which to me indicates most of this series' storyline will undoubtedly revolve around Rider vs. Rider plots. Maybe this might change in the coming episodes but even the Invess didn't look particularly inspired.

Kiva...
You know, I hadn't realized it.

Oh man, that was a good first episode. I like that the Invess are part of some kind of Pokemon-style game, that added a nice twist if these monsters are more or less part of every day life.

Dunno how I feel about the whole dancing thing yet, but I liked everything else I saw. Watching Kouta getting use to his powers for the first time was pretty hilarious.

They can't. The lock seeds simply determine the armour, the driver itself is unique. If Baron had an orange lock seed, he'd still turn into Baron, just with orange arrmour. That's what the faces on the side of the driver mean.

What struck me most was how many different tones the first episode of Gaim managed to successfully execute.

- The action has all the sugary, wam-bam spectacle of the Modern Heisei riders.
- The relationship drama is soaked in that grounded, low-fi J-Drama style. The camera setups and tone were very reminiscent of Kuuga and Agito in that regard. (Only with modern video quality! Yay!)
- The dancing/Pokemon-battling gangs infuse the bright, youthful, upbeat, pop style that made so Fourze appealing.

If I had to describe the premiere to an existing fan, I'd say it was a solid mix of Agito, Ryuki, and Fourze's first episodes. Which is RAD AS HELL!

If I had to describe the series to a casual fan who wouldn't immediately understand the above references, I'd describe it as "Kamen Rider iOS 7."

Here's hoping they can execute the whole series as well as they executed the premiere. I'm very excited for Gaim!

Definitely Kiva. So many shocking murders in that show! Fangires are all about the killin'.

Those first couple Rook episodes are... just brutal.

If the dancing continues, I hope it gets better. Team Gaim's dancing was kind of lame.

I like the Morris Minor...that's the only good thing I can say so far.

Okay, I really liked the first episode! Kota seems like a pretty good guy so far and I like the kind of world it's set in with Yggdrassil being some kind of oppressive business empire.

The breakdancing...yeah, the dancing itself was kinda lame. I dunno if it could even be called breakdancing seeing as they just kinda boringly swayed back and forth.

I do REALLY like the concept of rival breakdancing gangs fighting over territory, though. And man, Baron seems to take this whole thing WAY too seriously.

I found the Invess pretty creepy. I mean, they still looked cheap, but there was something unnerving about them the whole time.

Gaim's first fight was pretty fun, too. Definitely reminded me of Ryuki and Den-O's first eps where they had no idea what was going on after they first put on their belts, but Kota seemed to get the hang of it pretty quick.

Judging by the quality of dancing demonstrated by Japan's elite, professional J-Pop choreographers... I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I also remember a few dopants killing people in W, but they were few and far between. Remember Terui's family anyone?

Cough....Hibiki.....cough. Most of the scaryness of Kajins somehow ended when parents starts to complain about spit-vomiting Makamou and Hibiki's mouth. Well, you know who to blame.

Makes me kinda sad. Ryuki was just incredible. It had such a fantastic tone, it was dark, it was depressing, yet it still managed some great humor when appropriate. The monsters and other riders were able to actually feel like genuine threats, and because of the nature of the season you could actually worry that someone may die, whereas nowadays you never really feel that the lead rider might be killed off.

That said, and as I said before, I don't really want another Ryuki. That season was special. But I do want a return to some of those feelings.

Even if Gaim doesn't quite go that direction, it is off to the right start. It seems like it really wants to be the next Ryuki, what with an equivalent to the mirror world and monsters.

Anyone know if an obscure YouTube link is up for it yet or not?

Go to unkamenwriter the password is "unlock". :)

What's that? A channel? Youtube says it doesn't exist.

Yeah Ryutaro would dance circles around them.

Ryoutaro or Ryuutaros?

Also yeah, Ryuutaros' dancing was slick.

A webpage actually. unkamenwriter.

The guy uploads the episodes (OT sub) fast and both for Stream and Download.

The posts are password protected, just type "unlock".

I like how both this, and Kyoryuger, forced dancing into their show and in both cases it's shit. Just stop Japan, no matter how hard you try, this isn't going to become a thing. Sometimes you have to know when to let things go.

Both. Apparently, Ryotaro's actor actually knows how to break dance IRL.

He'd have to, wouldn't he?

Is that site safe?

The guy simply reuploads the Over-Time subs, he is one of the guys that posts DLLs in the comments.
And I've been using it for quite a while without any problems.

I think I saw one dailymotion link somewhere else if you guys are interested, but I don't know if it's still up...

It's a shame that Team Gaim's dancing isn't at the same rank as Ryutaros, lets hope that Kota could do some better dancing in the next episode.

Just rewatched the episode with subs. I think DJ Sagara is my favorite minor character ever now.

He was rather meh imo.

Loved how he was loaded with Carrefour logos, classy advertisement. :lol

stream.jefusion.com has it up.

Loved it. Absolutely loved every single part of it. Cannot wait to see where this goes.

Had to watch it somewhere else (that video didn't work...)
But it was pretty funny. :lol

It would be nice to see the DJ with diferent sponsors every week. :lol

Who needs card games on motorcycles when you got lock games with fruit.

So thanks to Algos link, caught 01. Great start! I really get a W vibe from this as the Invess and Yggsdrail Corp. seem like the Sonozaki family. Also, the fact Kouta had no clue what the hell to do was great. I loved this episode! :lol

That bit kind of reminded me of when you start playing a new video game and you're trying to figure out the controls.