Hey the Rider Wiki is filled to brim with dumb stuff. Especially the stuff in thier trivia section

This is why I only use it for checking toylines, suit stuff and sometimes song lyrics.

A large amount of people treat the wiki like some sort of authoritative book of laws and I it really bothers me sometimes.

I've definitely found errors in song lyrics and sometimes when there's no clear translation to something, it feels like it just came down to the author's preference.

RiderWiki is an incredibly cursed website.

The only wiki I check regularly was Ultraman, as it seems like it's an effort to make it into a decent encyclopedia.

Anyways I was wondering if Rintaro/Kamen Rider Blades is the first secondary Rider who completely gets along with the main Rider from the start without any sort of friendly rivalry or clash with each other at some point.............. and then I realized that Ibuki is the actual first. I could be wrong though, let's see......

G3 and Agito - Makoto gets along well with Shoichi but G3 considered Agito an enemy first.
Ryuki and Knight - Lol
Faiz and Kaixa - Double Lol
Blade and I really don't want to bring this debate back again - nope
Hibiki and Ibuki - Yup
Kabuto and Gatack - Friendly rivalries
Den-O and Zeronos - Yuto is a tsundere
Kiva and IXA - Similar to Agito and G3
Decade and Diend - Kaito literally attempted to destroy the planet because Tsukasa lied to him
W and Accel - Ryu is a tsundere
OOO and Birth - This is interesting. Date gets along well with Eiji but they did clash during the betrayal, and Gotou is friendly rival to Eiji
Fourze and Meteor - super tsundere
Wizard and Beast - They get along well, but Nitou self proclaimed himself to be Haruto's rival so maybe or maybe not?
Gaim and Baron - Lol. Even though they spend a lot of time in the show working together
Drive and Mach - They get along but Mach did betray them briefly
Ghost and Specter - Typical secondary Rider rivalry
Ex-Aid and Brave - Typical secondary Rider tsundere
Build and Cross-Z - They get along like married couple but often clashes with each other like a married couple
Zi-O and Geiz - lol
Zero-One and Vulcan - Friendly rivalry

So yeah, after Ibuki, probably Beast and Cross-Z, Blades is not the first secondary Rider that gets along well with the main. But man it feels so refreshing to see main and secondary gets along immeidately, however there is a chance that Blades might clash with Saber in the future so who knows?

So I was thinking a bit about the whole “who cares about the new power up, it’ll just get replaced or beaten soon.” I feel like this kind of attitude misses that the journey is important in and of itself.

Kamen Rider still has an episodic nature to it, and individual episodes and arcs can have emotional impact in and of themselves away from the overarching plot.

I was wondering...Am I the only one to think that the essence of what was Kamen Rider during the Showa Period has been lost during the Hesei/Neo Hesei period?

I mean, when you watch Kuuga and Agito, it's kind of a small departure toward the Showa period but it still feels like it's close to what we got with the Showa Riders.

I agree that some of the riders have that "built by the enemy" trope but I don't know...I wonder, how did we come from Kamen Rider - Black to what we have with Saber.

I'm not too fond of huge teams of Riders...

So...yeah...what's your thoughts on this?

Am I the only one feeling like perhaps, Toei Animation has lost what made Kamen Rider interesting?

This is probably the most wrong thing you can say about the franchise. I'm GLAD that they're constantly trying new things, but at the same time, keeping a few key features to remind us that it's Kamen Rider.

I know it's very subjective, but I genuinely do not feel this franchise could carry itself if it stuck to traditions just for the sake of sticking to them.

Well while I'm sadly lacking in knowledge of Showa although I did love Black when I finally finished it, I don't know how common an opinion this is but I actually miss Kamen Rider from Kuuga-Kiva. For me some of those 2000s shows like Kuuga-Ryuki and Kabuto and Kiva just seemed more like what got me into the franchise years ago whereas more of the 2010s ones have just seemed a bit average to me, it may just be my personal bias or age though.

As long as they make stuff like W and Zero-One to kinda do a soft back-to-basics approach once in a while it's fine by me.

I guess it helps Touma is relatively grounded like Juuru/Kiramai Red despite his spontaneity. He may have his moments when it comes to his love for books much like how Juuru has his with his KIRAMEKIIIINNNN moments, but it's not overdone so there is a good balance going on.