I don't think people who aren't into dark shows like it tbh; particularly the type that deviates so much from Rider formula (well just like something such as Ryuki or Gaim). I mean for other stuff obviously Build also has that reputation of "greatest Rider show ever of all time" even if it didn't work with you. I mean dunno if you've watched Kabuto or Decade, but if you find Sento insufferable, then brace yourself. IIRC you aren't into Ex-Aid much either but yes Geats can be summed up as Gaim + Ex-Aid.

I absolutely don't blame anyone for not finishing Black Sun.

I have indeed seen Decade. And if we're not counting Black Sun, it's currently my least liked Rider show.

And yeah, I've been warned about Ace. I just personally don't see the appeal of main characters who are unpleasant for the sake of it. It annoys me to no end more often than not.

If we talk about the most fan-favorite show, at least on this site, it is without a doubt Faiz. Simply because it most often comes up in topics unrelated to it. Gaim and Bild share second place. Ex-Aid, with the help of Genm, who is not disappearing from the screens, claims to be third.
But to be fair, the greatest riders on the show are Ichigo and Kuuga because they left the most tangible legacy.
As for Geats, I have a feeling that his popularity waned after the end and even towards the end. The opposite is the case with Saber, who was met with a sharply negative reception and became more loved with each subsequent episode. In any case, it's worth checking out. At a minimum, I can say from myself that even when I stopped liking the show, it still remained interesting. Although I watched the 40th episode on sheer stubbornness.
As for Ace, he took the place of my least favorite rider, displacing Tendo, which I thought would never happen.

Faiz really stung for me, because it was a show that I was actually rather liking up until its last act hit, and then it took a rather drastic nosedive. To the point that most of the time when I think back on the show, all I remember is said third act and it sours the experience I had.

I was considering rewatching the show now that it has subs that are actually good, but then Paradise Regained came along and ruined any notion I had of doing so.

Typical Inoue. Or, now it's probably correct to write, Inoue Sr. I think one should expect a weak ending from his works in advance and then the disappointment will not be so strong. For me personally, watching Faiz was an interesting and mostly enjoyable experience. But at the same time, in my personal top, it is eclipsed by the one that came out after Blade. In general, my favorite shows are W and Saber.

I've definitely noticed that Geats's popularity fell off really hard after the show ended. It was already somewhat contentious before it was over, but now it feels like one of those shows people only ever bring up if they are actively watching it.

Personally, my issue with Geats wasn?t the tone. I necessarily don?t mind a dark show unless it goes full edgelord like Amazons. My problem with Geats was that I didn?t like any of the characters. At best I found them kind of bland, at worst (Keiwa and Micchy 2), they were completely insufferable.

Be careful. You're in for the most insane amount of asspulls, illogicality, irrationality, lack of common sense, and other forms of atrocious writing.

(God forbid) Geats popularity fell of really really really hard because it was only popular among the cultists. Outside the circles of cultists, it was actually the least popular. That's why, as far as I know, no one in this forum has reviewed nor even talked about the Buffa V-Cinema or Gazer TTFC spin-off, barring several generic "it was great" or "it was awesome" comments. The story virtually made no sense that people didn't think it was worth it to even talk about it.

I reviewed it. You even replied to me.

Citation needed. Personally, I the normal, regular amounts of Geats fanart as we moved through Gotchard as discussion naturally pivoted to the current show. It must be popular enough for Figuarts to still be announced for it like still occurs. But I am sure this is a good faith discussion when you are labelling people "cultists" for.. enjoying a Rider series. Am I part of the Gotchard cult, then?

https://www.tokunation.com/forums/sh...ostcount=17791, but go off about how we must all hate it and it was stupid or whatever.

Haha, you're right. It completely slipped my mind. I tend to forget texts blocked by spoiler tags. All I remember about it was someone (Mesnick) mentioning the fact that no one had reviewed the last 2 side contents. It was talked about in less than 10 posts in the general thread that I completely forgot about it.

About being good faith or not, honestly, people do can think they're in the right for expressing a take they deem to be problematic/bad. Not talking about here, but even worse cases; this is why harassment in fandom is so frequent, they don't see it as "harassment" but as "heroics"; something like eath threats are just them blowing off steam and not something that could send somebody struggling over the edge. They deem these non-good faith approaches and actions as "okay" or at the very least a necessary evil that they "must" carry out. They can exaggerate a creator's behavior online or their art in order to paint them as in the right for "standing up to the big, bad showrunner."

But at the same time, is this so wrong in our time of Internet development, when dirt comes out much earlier than before? That is, Kotetsu Toys Japan Secret Base has a video where he talks about how disappointed he was after learning about the machinations of the Super-1 actor. But this is already an adult, formed person. How hard would something like this hit a child? Or is it really necessary to condone all the chaos that happens during the filming of Revice? The creation of tokusatsu, and superheroics in general, provides many bonuses for those working in these genres.
Cliche, invented technical techniques, not particularly demanding requirements for acting (there was a complaint recently, but, as time has shown, it was over), easy popularity, the possibility of long-term cooperation. At a minimum, good moral character is the minimum price to pay for such advantages.
The same applies to the ideas embedded in the show. If a hero does evil, it should be condemned or have a good reason. When most of the positive characters refuse to save an innocent girl, there must be a good reason for this. And this should not be confused with the character's flaws, which are necessary to make him alive and the plot exciting. Gentaro is the dumbest rider, but no one has a problem with it because the show doesn't make a virtue out of it. In Geats, even those moments where the hero can be scolded and his actions are really harmful may be justified by one of the viewers. And such ambiguity might be suitable for adult projects (although, ironically, those that exist are quite straightforward), but it would clearly be harmful to the target audience.

I think I actually stopped on watching the second half of Hibiki ending on episode 34 and never really went back. :lol

Currently, I decided to start watching Kamen Rider Decade instead.

You made the right call.

I watched "We are class 3-G". An excellent special, perhaps not my favorite, but clearly one of them. Compared to the similar “Murder Case” from Faiz’s, "Class 3-G" looks much more advantageous. This is mainly due to the fact that the humor is based on the characters and their interactions, and not on astronomy and puns that you have to pause the video to understand. Also, the idea of ​​an alternative reality and new images brings its own charm. Sabimaru and his dolls made me laugh every second. And romance lovers will be pleased. At the end they left a hint of the possibility of a continuation and I will be very happy if it happens. Overall, I recommend it to all fans of school detective stories and comedies.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/...2Mzc1._V1_.jpg

I am now 10 or 11 episodes into Decade in which this series's own secondary Rider makes his first official appearance.

As of yesterday, I inexplicably started rewatching Kamen Rider Kuuga via my copy of Shout Factory’s Blu-Ray release. The day before that, I watched Kamen Rider Hibiki & The Seven Senki movie and right now, I started to watch Saraba Kamen Rider Den-O: Final Countdown in preparation for having to eventually watch the sort of crossover movie between Den-O and Decade that takes place after the latter show's World of Den-O two-parter.

Did you know that there was a Live Show that served as a crossover between Ghost and Blade?

Because I sure as heck didn't until Bereke Scrubs dropped subs for it today!

And I was pleasantly surprised by it! I found the writing to actually be really good. The way the settings of both shows get tied into eachother is actually pretty clever, and the character writing and interactions were on point the entire time.

I actually found this half hour show to be a much better tribute/epilogue to Blade than what the Zi-O episodes were. Watching this was a ton of fun to the point that I wish it were treated as canon. If you like Blade and/or Ghost, I highly recommend checking it out.

Thanks, I'm off to download. In general, I have a feeling that in the last quarter of Heisei, the franchise was overcome with strong nostalgia for the first quarter. Most likely because those who grew up watching these shows grew up enough to act in them themselves.

https://i.imgur.com/1jsy3xF.jpg

I wanted to get around to talking about this faster than half a year after they put it out, but Earthly Subs took another stab at translating Faiz, and seeing as I've made a habit out of complaining about Faiz's available English translations on this forum in the past, I feel some level of obligation to give my opinion on it. (The rest of post comes with the disclaimer that I'm doing this all from my usual proverbial armchair, by the way.)

Faiz is really actively dialogue-driven to a level I'm not sure any other Rider show is, so for a long time, it's bothered me to no end that all the available fansubs of it are either A)the ancient work of TV-Nihon, back when they deserved basically every bit of criticism you'll see of them, or B)using that work as the starting point, and generally inheriting all the less obvious but more important problems.

As such, it was extremely exciting to see Earthly saying they did the proper full-on retranslation of this series I've wanted to see for years now. So the big question then, is whether or not much has actually changed.

https://i.imgur.com/MXl4fSX.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/mS3IyTQ.jpg

Just to be clear about the level of scrutiny I gave to this, I admittedly wasn't doing a lot of side-by-side comparison. I'm relying on memory mostly, so I couldn't always recall what mistakes started with TV-N, or were made by Agony, or by Earthly with their earlier scrub... but like, this stuff haunts me enough that I still remember *somebody's* wrong version of tons of lines, many of which I never even directly called attention to on here, let alone all the ones I have called out in the past, which I at least checked against those old posts.

On the other hand, the reason this took so long in spite of that is because my initial intention to quickly skim back through certain scenes to get an overall feel for things rapidly turned into me "skimming" back through literally the entire show, skipping over openings and what silent chunks of scenes I could. Which basically means I just watched Faiz again.

All of that happened because I was, honestly, quite impressed by the work I was seeing. I have some caveats I'll get to in a second, but without any doubt in my mind, this is a massive upgrade over anything else I've seen for this series.

You've gotta understand, I went in just hoping for all the very glaringly Just Plain Incorrect lines to be cleaned up, and not only were a huge amount of those finally sorted out, this is also a translation that understands translating a work of fiction is not the same thing as translating like, a road sign.

There's character voice in these subs! Kaido actually reads like he sounds! And so do most of the other characters! I didn't at all expect that level of consideration to be made, but that's by far the most consistent and commendable thing about Earthly's work here. Stuff like that, or matching the rhythm of dramatic... pauses, and all those little things that really bring out the flavor of the drama, somebody was actually paying attention to. You even get the option to have insert themes subtitled, and those translations are themselves working on the same level of quality.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, even now, unfortunately. A lot of the wrong lines that were less important are still just as wrong as always, and some of the attempts at localization -- while they at least seem like the translator understood the original line -- don't always meet the higher standards I suddenly feel okay holding these subs to, but honestly? It's not the biggest deal in the world. Pretty much all the errors that would seriously impact a viewer's understanding of the characters ARE cleaned up, and while I occasionally felt it didn't always work out as well as it could, the dialogue sure as heck reads way better than it ever has.

To put it in the terms of my favorite corporate president in Kamen Rider, if TV-Nihon's original subs were the lowest of the low, and something like what Shout Factory occasionally blesses us with is the best of the best, then Earthly's new Faiz translation comfortably sits at the absolute best of average. But that evaluation is being strict on it simply because the areas that are still sloppy stand in such stark contrast to how much was done with such obvious immense care. It'd really only take cleaning up the remaining errors to push it into the lowest end of the best, if not higher.

So like, if you even slightly like Faiz having watched it with earlier subs, I feel pretty strongly you'll like the show way more going back to it with Earthly. It's a competent translation that's well worth your time, even if I can't help but still wish for absolute perfection anyway. Guess I just like this show too much!

https://i.imgur.com/83p29uR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dIXlaX0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YqxvEy6.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/9uvbCE4.jpg

And here I was hoping that you were the mysteriously uncredited second translator for the recent Earthly subs, Fish. Dang.

Late reply..

He'd be a control freak like Kekera who also feels Keiwa is entitled to act like what Kekera wants/expects of him, lashing out at him when Keiwa saves Michinaga. Sagara was also Kouta's "supporter", though he doesn't meddle as much in his life as Kekera does. Or obviously villains commonly have low view of humanity or virtue and expect them to act on their worst, basic impulses.

Fish also made a point about this. This can be considered a good lesson too for a good amount of people, that they have to realize that there are people who are lost causes, those who are more trouble than they are worth to be lenient with, who won't ever change no matter how hard others try; the people who should be cut off and not given second chances. You'd be annoyed if one doesn't give a chance to someone problematic like Ikki to Orteca, but maybe Kaito being given a long time to not be persuaded is to emphasize the lost cause aspect. It's what many people want to see, for those who want to save everyone or have a no-kill approach, what if they're put in a situation where there isn’t any easy way out that leads to the best case scenario they strive for.

If someone has victim aspects it just seems that all their blame is deflected on someone else that are worse, like Ryoma and his circle for Takatora. As already said, Takatora'd murder 6 billion people to 'save' the world. It's lesser evil to Helheim, but still just have people mostly perish in different ways. If you're only taking intentions into account, then Kaito is also wanting to improve things, by destroying the current world so he can create another one where the weak isn't oppressed, as he thinks the current world is beyond repair. Mai is a non-fighter female supporting character, so everything about her like her actions or views would be just dismissed, just an useless load (useless would mean opposite of hope or even getting blamed for making things worse like slapping Micchy thus making him 'insane').

Like what I said above, it's common for people to just blame the people around him and paint Takatora as the victim/innocent among them. The Project Ark only happens because they dismiss Takatora as naive and convince that saving everyone is impossible due to the imminent invasion and limited resources. Thus Takatora is depicted as someone who wants to save everyone just like the main Riders, but just have his plan hindered and manipulated by his circle who only wants to save 1 billion people, forcing Takatora go along with their plan. Condemning Takatora (as anti-villain), which I obviously will do, is seen as insensitive to his situation and context, but how'd you explain that he's still guilty here, particularly if they seem to have full knowledge of Helheim and that it's an impossible situation Takatora just tries best to improve as much as he can?

The context that the anti-Takatora crowd loves to leave out is that Takatora is doing everything he possibly can. If he had the time and resources, he would've made a Rider Belt for literally everyone. And the moment a possibility of saving the planet as a whole comes about? He guns for it. It's the reason Ryoma tries to have him murdered to begin with.

If one wants to say that Takatora still isn't "good" despite that, sure, whatever. But flat out evil? No, he's more complex than that.

Except that it's made clear that Micchy was crazy long before that event. Infact, his actions are what results in Mai slapping him to begin with.

I started watching, or rather listening to, the audio drama Three Dark Sisters Presents: Kamen Rider Gotchard Unfinished Plan. And a question immediately popped up in my mind. In Heisei, such comedy specials were acted out by actors; at the beginning of Reiwa, chibi animation was used, and now they are limited to only voices. Is it a disdain for Gotchard as not the most successful show, or typical Toei stinginess and laziness?
However, despite this remark of mine, the three episodes I listened to were very funny. The characters of the Sisters are very bright and listening to their interaction, not limited by villainous plans and mutual claims, is a pleasure. There are also some good jokes and a lot of behind-the-scenes information, especially from actress Clotho. I also recommend paying attention to this additional content.
https://i.ibb.co/0XyyP6B/Any-Conv-co...-Sisters-1.jpg

Feel like we need to be careful to not go into conspiracy theory mode with these kinds of things. It's just a fun little TTFC exclusive audio drama, and audio dramas are things Japan loves to do. We should be lucky that these were just gags and behind the scenes stuff lol cause Japan loves putting important stuff inside audio dramas at times.

Anyway, these were filmed consistently during the show and put out throughout multiple instances. It's likely a budget/time issue because I can only imagine how long it'd take to put them in their costumes for each and every one of these, and also they have to film the actual show alongside whatever events are going on at the time. So instead having them get pictures taken of different portrait shots and the three likely just sitting in a room and voice recording together is probably the easiest way for this to be a consistent thing.

This explains the abandonment of the game's execution, but not the animation that was used in Zero-One and Saber. Although, considering that their comedy specials have half as many episodes, I`m not even against this decision.

I'm assuming you're referring to the chibi anime that Zero-One, Saber, Revice, & Geats have all had.

Because they have been doing chibi anime episodes for Gotchard as well. This is just another additional minor project.

Ok, I see.

I mean, seems that other well-intentioned extremist type of characters would also be generally like that too, they also think they're stuck in a shitty situation and would prefer to save everyone, they already tried anything they possibly can, but they feel they have to take extreme measures to save the world and that their method is the only choice, including looking down on the ones who oppose them (e.g. the heroes) as naive.

No one says he's flat out evil, but indeed well-intentioned extremist characters who believe in ends justifies the means and do bad things for the greater good are common in media. And yes people often justify them as being right because their intention is good, as if anything they do would be righteous by default for that.

Like, if Ryubee learns about a way to effectively prevent humanity's extinction without robbing their individuality by melding them with Earth, without harming anyone, it's possible he'd have chosen that too?

I agree with this, I'm just expressing frustration over people's low view on certain type of characters. I do want to have these kind of people seen as heroic more, for their morals and caring nature, not only about if they contribute the most in saving the world like being the strongest one to beat up bad guys.

Yes, but you also need to understand that popular culture is designed to maintain the current status quo and convince people that a shitty situation isn't so shitty. That is, the overwhelming majority of works contain this thought, sometimes even unconsciously, because it is natural. Also, since the Cold War, two approaches to such propaganda have emerged. Communist in the form of praising one?s own current and future successes. And capitalist, focused on the negative portrayal of one?s ideological opponents. The latter turned out to be more successful because it is easier to believe that others are terrible than to believe that everything is fine with us when reality convinces us otherwise. But this does not change the fact that this is also a lie or, at least, an exaggeration.
And here comes a similar portrayal of extremists in popular culture. For no matter the motive, the radical always threatens the status quo. But, if you try to approach the issue with a cool head, it turns out that without extremists, humanity would not have progressed further than the invention of fire. Any progress (or, more correctly, change, because it is also wrong to deny negative consequences) in history, science and art happened thanks to the extremists of their time. And the fact that the current situation is clearly better than the Stone Age proves that in most cases their contribution is still positive.
Returning from the general to the specific, Kota is essentially also an extremist, because:
a) His approach involves a risk in which no one would survive;
b) Because of his actions (not only, but also) those who most likely would have survived Takatora's plan, like Ryoma, died.

"History is written by the winners". Yeah, this is also something you need to understand, as someone who thinks a bad reputation for heroes is "deserved". Reputation and politics are also something that can be weaponized by bad guys, not just raw power or weapons.

There can be some positive outcomes coming out from horrific situations (from anything, really), but doesn't mean that it's the only way to reach that progression or it should be encouraged/normalized to 'reach progress', like allowing people to open fire towards civilians in hopes to 'reach progress'. And that if someone involved in a progression happened to have done terrible things, doesn't mean that said terrible things need to be emulated, particularly if unrelated to said progression. Don't blindly emulate everything in something that produces something good. Like convenience, harmless things (such as wanting to take less time to reach something) can be a drive to want progression too.

While one failing would possibly have no one surviving, I don't understand the thinking that the extremist's plan will always guarantee better results or fulfill their or the fanbase's expectations. If Takatora actually gave a billion Driver to a billion humans and exterminated the rest to prevent them becoming Inves, what's the guarantee of the surviving billion to live normally or prosper? Like them failing to adjust to the world's changes (reminder Helheim would still took over), turning into warring species until last man standing (like Roshuo's case in Femushinmu), or still getting blindsided/foiled by other worse villains' plans.

Perhaps, but even for the sake of this idea you need to allow yourself to at least mentally go beyond the boundaries. As for terrible actions for the sake of good goals, violence is almost always preceded by first attempts at a peaceful solution, then a little bloodshed, and only then comes the time of massacre. Another thing is that these most unsuccessful peaceful attempts can be kept silent if the party plays the role of a villain in history. The exception is marginalized people with mental disabilities, for whom the idea is just a reason, and the primary desire is violence.

I think it's not so much a matter of finding an acceptable outcome for the future, but rather justifying Takatora?s motives. It is obvious that he looked into the coming future after the rescue, concentrating all his efforts precisely on the production of the maximum number of drivers. And in general, Gaim is a show where at the beginning the hero unknowingly kills a friend to save people, and in the end he does the same thing, but consciously.So within this story, the need to sacrifice lives for others is justified and it makes Takatoru closer to the good guys. And so, yes, I agree that it would be very difficult for the remaining humanity to implement his plan.

That'd be just a case of bad guys winning but the good ones would be the ones kept silent.

I'm bringing that up due to you criticizing Kouta for risking everyone that none would survive, which sounds like saying if no one opposes Takatora, things will be better in a billion surviving rather than none. I don't know why it's completely believed that those extremists' plans will go smoothly or achieve the expected outcome.

And about Yuya's death, not everything a hero does or the result of what they did should be celebrated. Yuya's death is a tragic loss for the heroes, a bad outcome or a failure for them. Doesn't mean they should never move on from said failure, but doesn't mean that what happened to Yuya should be perpetuated or encouraged. They'd be trying to make sure that what happened to Yuya won't happen again, not continuing the 'sacrificing friend for others' that happened there. The end solution is looking for ways to drive away Helheim from Earth.

Ryuki also had the ending of letting people die (e.g. the Kanzaki siblings), but the practice of sacrificing innocent people against their will is still opposed, like Shinji opposing Kagawa wanting to sacrifice Yui or his own family.

It's a tragic outcome, but the show makes it clear that Kouta had no other choice. Again, the franchise previously had examples of Blade and OOO, where the conflict between the hero and his friend was resolved relatively safely. But Gaim chose exactly this way to end the story. And in the same way, Takatorа has no choice. More precisely, he does not see him until Kouta convinces him. And if this doesn?t happen right away, then what?s strange about the fact that Takatora puts the opinion of Ryoma?s genius above the statements of a boy who gets by with unprestigious part-time jobs?
And it seems to me that Takatoru is given too much responsibility. Yes, he is a leader, organizer, sponsor and even the first test subject, but at the same time he only brings Ryoma?s idea to life. It is Ryoma who created the driver. He also clearly has little value for human lives. And, although this is speculation, perhaps if Ryoma had focused more attention on accelerating the production of drivers, instead of inventing new types of locks, weapons and recording jingles, then the number of those able to survive would have been noticeably greater. Although then it would no longer be tokusatsu.

In general, KR had the kaijins being detonated, like the MOTWs, Kaito was also a kaijin at that point, but those'd also oppose sacrificing innocents against their will. Ryoma's a genius, but Takatora has a poor judgment of people's character. He didn't recognize that his circle and supposed allies are quite obviously flat-out evil, nowhere near dedicated to execute his plan, have no interest in saving humanity, and are actually conspiring against him. Micchy says Takatora has a habit of trusting people he shouldn't in ep. 23. It's not only his Yggdrasill 'allies', but Takatora also at first was in denial about the truth behind Micchy that he's not simply a stoic diligent student Takatora sees him as.

Outside of the jingles, locks are needed for people to eat, using the Sengoku Driver so that people absorb the nutrition without the need to de-henshin in a Helheim filled world. Stronger locks and weapons are needed for self-defense, likely if there'd be still some Inves left when the Project Ark is done. The extermination of 6 billion people is done to prevent the ones without Sengoku Driver turning into Inves, and the remaining 1 billion has to live as Armored Riders (without de-henshin) for the rest of their lives with self-defense equipments.

I was feeling pretty down today, so after work I ended up rewatching some Kamen Rider Fourze with a friend who had never seen it before. Cheered both of us right up! I always love getting swept up in its overflowing energy and sense of fun.

For those who want more sports riders with a little detail from the life of stuntmen, there are all four episodes Kamen Rider: Reiwa’s Gorgeous Sports Day:https://tokuzilla.net/watch/kamen-ri...ports-day.html

It’s worth watching at least for the dance in the finale, which hints that the riders absolutely do not have enough dancing and have to copy Sentai from memory.

Kamen Rider Geats is incredible.

In how absolutely boring it is.

It was a bold choice to make Ace a side character at the start of the show and focus more on Keiwa and Neon instead. I don't think it really worked, though, as I never got much of a sense of who Ace was as a character, Neon got sidelined in a way that looks really sad sandwiched between Sakura and Rinne, and Keiwa just plain sucks.