By the way (sorry for the flood, but I want to share) I have a theory why Sofia rarely uses Kurayami and is not a full-fledged Rider of the North Base. If you remember Beyond Generations, she joined the battle at the very end, after the return of the Riders from the future. I think it has to do with how the Sword of Darkness and the visions it causes affect its wielders. That is, all the Caliburs we know before Sophia went over to the dark side. So it's no surprise that she tries to use the sword as little as possible. Here we can speculate and say that Jao Dragon is available only to villains and that is why we will not get it from good Sophia.


As for me, expectations were initially too high for her (which, however, the plot contributed to). In a sense, Vulcan was also leaked, depriving him of motivation. Another thing is that resentment for the Valkyrie united with hostility towards the character, whose puppet they made her. Personally, I would remove Gai from the plot altogether, making Yaiba the head of ZAIA sponsoring A.I.M.S. for the sake of her goals..
I don't think female Riders are any worse than males. There are simply fewer of them, and none were even the secondary Rider of the season. Still, the progress in Reiwa is huge. As I already wrote, it is enough to remember that there were also female Riders in the Ghost.

I feel bad for the female riders of 01 & Saber. If there was an all-female rider movie/web series, it could help develop them more like Jeanne & Aguilera.

Anyway, wonder about the gimmicks for Geats? I'm worried about it, if it'll connect to something gothic & with vikings. Amulets? Pendants? Anything that's Nordic & cultic? Gotta get something out of the Vikings show.

I believe it will be. I think in the season of the first female main Rider or in the previous one to introduce her. Only it is necessary to call Femme to increase the significance.

Forgot about Reika she was fine at first but then Ryoga got introduced and she is there to tell everyone how great he is (doesn't help that Ryoga just stands there the whole time also BOTH of them turning good kinda just happens because why not)

I actually really liked their transition to the light side:
"- We will protect you, Master of the Logos.
- Thank you, but I'm no longer the Master of the Logos, I'm a new god.
- Then we will destroy you."
In the style of such characters, it fits very well into the specific concept of duty.
The Shindai in the second episode of Sword of Logos Saga had a great tea party scene, which explains well why they act like that. Another thing is that in a good way she has a place in the main series, and not in a spin-off.

Should Geats have a connection to music due to the name "Beats" as well? I don't know. Geats should connect to something Norse with Beowulf.

Yeah, it's definitely consistent with their loyalty to SOL. I may not be a big fan of the Shindais, but Ryouga's probably underrated due to his proximity to Reika. It's not his fault she acts that way around him, when literally all he did was show up. Reika's problems are her own. Actually, I think Ryouga is just someone who's trying his best for what he believes in, which is why he tested Rintarou to see if he was worthy of leading the Swordsmen.

A seafaring naval-combat Kamen Rider could be very cool.

Basically, there were X and Aqua, but the first one was a long time ago, and the second one is just Ryder for the movie, so why not?

I'm a little confused. I don't really have any sources to look into rumors like this, but a friend mentioned a rumor surfacing last week that suggested Geats was a Ninja themed Rider, with mentions of keywords "Makura" and "Kaijuu." I did ask where they got this information, to which they mentioned a random blurb around the time the Beowulf theme was being speculated.

Now frankly, I don't believe it, since it feels like whoever brought up this "rumor" really wanted Shinobi to be a thing, and my friend also said he was unable to find the blurb in question, which lead them to think it's either a hoax, or someone took it down. I looked through the rumors section here and found nobody mention this (as I believe you all have better sources for these things), so we're both in agreeance that it's likely a fake. But I am curious if anyone else heard of this, since I don't have any knowledge of leaks or rumors, and my friend said this might be the same source that said the Ryusoulgers would look like Kamen Riders.

I prefer to wait for the official reveal before diving into these.

It most definitely sounds like someone desperately wants Shinobi to be a real series.

At this point, if KR Shinobi shows up, it'd be in a miniseries that functions as a sequel to the miniseries he already got.

also ngl I AM WORRIED this show's going to copypaste Gaim while Gaim's my favorite tokusatsu show but with the way Daiji from Revice's arc is trending I'm OFFICIALLY SICK OF RIDER SHOWS BLATANTLY COPYPASTING TROPES FROM GAIM WHEN THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO(LOOKING RIGHT AT BUILD), if Sentai can live down Kyroyuger tropes Ride can live down Gaim (I'm told Don Brothers does a good job of balancing comedy and drama while avoiding Innoue's usual tendancies he's developed over the years)

Well, to be fair, Gaim also copied a lot from previous shows, especially Ryuki and Blade. As for me, now they copypaste Build much more (which, however, also copied Gaim). I personally really liked Gaim at first, but then I realized that Sagara actually made Kouta the winner, which slightly spoiled the impression. So personally, I don't mind when other seasons take ideas from Gaim and implement them better.

wait what did Build steal from Gaim

Now that I think about it, there are a lot of similarities between DJ Sagara and Evolt, except that the DJ never becomes a monster that needs to be fought.

The concept of developing the season through arcs instead of a monster for two weeks and a group of final bosses was first laid by Gaim. Another thing is that Build copied much more (but rather corrected errors, because the scriptwriter is the same) from Ex-Aid. Which, however, acted according to the same rules. But, again, as long as the series is good, I don?t see anything wrong with borrowing, because:
- it can always turn out better;
- fans rarely like something radically new, Hibiki will not let you lie.
And since we're talking about Gaim, I'll talk about another problem I have with this season. For me, Mai is the worst main lady of the show in the entire franchise. She had the ability to stop the fight simply by granting Kouta the power of the golden fruit, but instead, she effectively forced him to kill his unlucky but friend. But if she had not been afraid to make a choice, then with the power of a god, Gaim could have defeated the Baron, saving his life. I remember this really pissed me off.

As for me, he was supposed to be the final enemy (well, or at least the last before the Baron). I mean, the dude is literally a biblical serpent.

That's not ripping off Gaim, that's doing what every other story focused show for children does including at least 1 Rider show before Gaim. I was also under the impression that Build's writer was new to tokusatsu as a whole, maybe you mixed up writers with Zero One? It feels dishonest to say stories not focused on monsters of the week were specifically made by Gaim considering the decades of action focused children's media beforehand

All this talk of shows taking from shows does remind me.

Remember Urobuchi saw Ryuki and said "I wanna do that" and then created Madoka Magica. Then he finally got a chance to do Rider and decided "I wanna do Madoka again but with Rider" and we got Gaim out of that.

It's a very layered thing and honestly I'd be interested in doing a potential Watch Ryuki then Watch Madoka then Rewatch Gaim sorta thing one of these days.

that and the hazard trigger is literally a copy paste of Kachidoki's debut

- Monsters were once human (TBF MC And audience is aware by this point)
- MC Kills a human turned mosnter
- MC is depressed
- MC is given power ups after a talk with an older person(albeit they were just more forms in Build's case and the talk was for different reasons Sargasa wanted Kouta to destroy Ygasadril to make his goals easier, Evolto wanted to break Sento)
- MC EVENTUALLY gets his resolve back
- Main villain at this point is a KAmen Rider(ok technically Nanba's CEO(Forgot his name) was the villain of Build at this point, and YES Evolto was there all along but Rogue had a more active roll in the story by this point)
MC uses mid season upgrade

I honestly feel like the first half of Gaim is more like Ryuki while the second half of Gaim is more like Blade but better paced in BOTH cases my issue is shows like Build and Revice when they don't know what to do/need to pad to get to the toy release schedule just look at a plot from Giam and say "I'm going to do that" Ex-Aid steals a lot from Gaim too but since Ex-Aid's an aniversary show so I see it as them kinda just homaging it (Actually I just debunked my own arguement)

I didn't know Madoka was inspired by Ryuki

at tihs point I'd NOT MIND something new after a s--tload of seasons that take qeueus from Gaim (it's ok to have elements from other shows every now and then as long as it's different shows IMO when you spend an entire decade copypasting the same show it becomes facepalm worthy)

Excuse me? Kachidoki and Hazard are literally nothing alike, one is given by a mysterious deity and is used to fight and save the day, literally having a battle cry as the toy sound used to show Kouta's resolve to fight. Hazard is explicitly said to be a bad thing in every context of the show, Sento doesn't do a cool pose or say his catchphrase but has to focus on finishong fights before he goes on a mindless killing spree, something Kachidoki doesn't have at all, especially as Hazard's sound ends with "OH NO!". These are the total opposites.

Monsters once being human has been a Kamen Rider staple since 1971. If you strictly mean Heisei then what about the Grongi? The Orphonochs? Worms? Phantoms? This isn't even counting ones who turn back human when defeated.

One of these is about killing your best friend. The other is killing in general. One is used as a pep talk to motivate the protagonist in to action. The other is taunting the protgonist, reminding him that if he stays inactive, his replacement would inevitably fail and it would have all been his fault.

You admit to stretching this out so I don't even need to get in to this

It's a show meant to sell toys. This happens all the damn time, if anything, you should praise Build as Build made all his gear whereas Kouta was just given his upgrades by someone else

The shows are painfully the same on a number of beats, here's how I usually describe it tho it does simplify both shows a bit:

Red/Pink colour-coded protagonist wants to fight monster-of-the-week-enemies and protect people and makes a contract with a monster to gain superhuman powers to fight motw-enemies. However it is revealed they've unknowingly joined a battle royale of others who have contracted to gain power. The winner of the fight will get a wish but the protagonist has no clear wish.

Bonus: Blue colour-coded secondary character who's signature item is a sword joins the fight because they want to make a wish to heal their hospital ridden love interest

EDIT: Made a correction due to a mistake pointed out by Pineapple924

Minor nitpick; Sayaka, the blue secondary, actually uses a sword. Which admittedly isn't much of a distinct difference when Knight's card-reader is also sword. However yes, their motivations are the same.

ok true I'm Talking about HOW THEY Get the things in the show and the arc overall not that Hazzard is a copy of Kachidoki

I NEVER EVEN LOOKED AT IT THIS WAY (I've seen Madoka)

I kinda wish Geats was steampunk themed but it's probably going to be Viking themed(which could be cool I guess but I LOVE how some of the Build villains had the steampunk theme going on I liked Build until the Hazzard arc and even then I'd be lying if I said the entire show form that point on is bad)

Isn't Knight in black?

Yes, I got it wrong. The seasons are very similar. But I disagree about the arсs. Previous seasons like Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade, Kabuto, Kiva had a plot but no story arcs. Plus, there's a difference between bringing something in and making it mainstream. For example, in the MCU, the preponderance of jokes was already in the first Avengers, but they turned into action-comedy only after the success of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

I agree about Ryuki (however, it was the first show of its kind, no wonder it stumbled a lot), but Blade... Kenzaki saves his friend in an almost hopeless situation and dooms himself to eternal damnation and loneliness. Kouta kills his friend (which could easily have been avoided if Mai knew how to make decisions) and becomes a god living with the beauty girl in paradise. I would not call it the best development of the idea.
But who really, in my opinion, developed the Blade idea better, is OOO. Because in the series finale, it is Ankh who returns Agee to the light side and sacrifices himself. Which makes their friendship not as one-sided as in Blade and clearly demonstrates Ankh's character development under Eiji's positive influence.

I get your point but I still feel it's dishonest to tribute this decadelong style of storytelling to Gaim.
One was made by the protagonist and is given build up for a few episodes before it actually gets used to emphasize the dangers of using it, the other is just "Lol here you go". You might as well say Gaim is a Den-O rip off for being fruit themed sword wielders in their base forms

Oh damn you're right lol, been too long since I watched the show apparently. Thanks for the catch, I'll give my post a small edit

His suit under his armour is (navy?) blue, in the same way the suit under Ryuki's armour is red. His cape is black however.

lol yea it's a funny level of similarity once you see it but it's not like painfully obvious

I do find it neat that Madoka is very clearly like Ryuki, and Gaim is a very clearly like Madoka, but Gaim and Ryuki aren't as directly connected outside of basic elements, almost feels like a a game of telephone honestly lol
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Anyways, just for fun, Unpopular Opinion(?) Time: Honestly I like Ryuki more than Gaim, gaim has a lot of great moments but personally I feel like I came out of Ryuki feeling like I got a better message and overall experience than I did with Gaim. I do have some personal bias for Ryuki tho lol (oh tho I didn't like most of Inoue's episodes, especially later on, I felt like he had trouble keeping the cast in character? The Imperor arc was mostly okay tho i guess, maybe bc it focused on an Inoue origonal chatacter). For whatever its worth I watched Gaim before Ryuki, not the other way around.

Wow this become a larger chunk of this post than I meant it to be... oops.

Except Evolt was a talented manipulator who only lost due to arrogance. While Sagara was a moron who expected Kouta to use his new godlike power to destroy the world and acted surprised when Kouta told him he obviously wasn't going to do that.

Exactly! Knight is mostly navy with black armor parts, which is inverted for his Survive Form. The true black Rider of the 13 is Ryuga.

Is that really an unpopular opinion though? I often hear great things about Ryuki, just like pretty much any Kobayashi show ever. But yeah, while Ryuki and Gaim both deal with the concept of how power is used, I agree that Ryuki handled it better. There are times when Gaim feels like it's just trying too hard to be edgy, like how Zack was originally supposed to be killed off for no reason. What I appreciate about Ryuki is that, Shinji is the underdog, trying to do what's right in a situation where everybody is trying to kill each other for their own goals. And yet, while he falters sometimes, he never loses that heroism and even manages to turn Ren in to a better person. He's a statement that the right thing is always worth fighting for, even if you might lose.

I guess maybe it's more of a "potentially divisive opinion"?

While Ryuki has a lot of big fans (me included) I often see a weird ammount of hate thrown at it. Maybe this is just in the circles I run in. I often see it sort of presented as a show "with good ideas, but bad execution", which doesn't make much sense to me. Without giving too specific spoilers I also know a lot of people who hate the ending of the show. Personally i think the ending is very poignant, and creates a situation where the audience is able to feel the same sense of loss that certain characters in the show are experiencing themselves

I've also come across the opinion that "Gaim is just better Ryuki" a number of times, which personally I'd disagree with, also at a very base level Gaim and Ryuki have very different intents with their messages so I don't think Gaim serves as a replacement to Ryuki in really any significant way despite their similar premise

I also hate Ryuki's ending, since it feels like a cheap way around Kanzaki having to face the consequences of his actions by diminishing the tragedy of the Rider War. However, I hate Gaim's ending most of all, cause I can't take Kougane seriously as a villain, I can't take Mitsuzane seriously as a hero and I can't take Haganeya seriously as a writer. The whole premise of that final episode was absurd from start to finish.

I think one of the main things that distinguishes Ryuki and Gaim is how the characters' motivations are tied to the conflict.

In Ryuki, Kanzaki gave the Decks exclusively to people who were willing to kill other people, except for Shinji and Tezuka who became Riders on their own. The Rider War was rigged so that Odin would win, but ironically Shinji's interference, while it seemed futile on the surface, always delayed the fight too long, leaving Kanzaki nothing to gain but the wish he can't even use anymore. Pretty much the only one who gets any benefit from the Rider War is Asakura.

In Gaim, the Beat Rider game is open to everyone and people don't really have any dying loved ones they desperately need to save or anything like that. But the allure of power typically attracts people who will try and abuse it, which would explain why all the Riders, including Kouta and Zack to a lesser extent, are willing to do bad things. It's a very cynical world, without much of a counterpoint to that.

See I often feel like I watched a totally different show from everyone else because in my mind this point is very at odds with Ryuki's overall themes and messages in my mind... Like I can not imagine a scenario where Kanzaki Shiro was more punished that wouldn't feel strange to me? This is a show about reframing your perspective on the world and humanity as a whole. About seeing the world as a place full of monsters, feeling pressured to become a monster yourself because it seems like the only way to "survive", and then learning to overcome that, and to be a good person because it's the right thing to do

(I'm about to spoil a whole lot of Ryuki's ending)
I'd also say that in a way Kanzaki Shiro is punished? He certainly isn't rewarded in his conclusion of having to accept his sister's death and dying himself... He had a horrible life, and while that doesn't justify his actions he's clearly presented as a victim of trauma trying desperately to undo an event that can't be undone. His "punishment" is failing to save his sister over and over, and having her make him stop and finally let her die. Shiro does horrible things but he is a victim not only of his abusive parents, but of his own actions as well. He is able to find peace and acceptance in the fact that not everyone on Earth is a monster, there were other people willing to fight to protect others and his sister, and that for a moment he and his sister can be together again, but while it's not really a punishment I still wouldn't say this is a reward, more so it's simply closure for these two

For me overall though what makes Ryuki's ending work is that, for me at least, I always perceived the ending from Kanzaki Yui's perspective. And I think this is intentional (especially as a song sung by her actor is played over the final scenes). Yui loses her connections to the cast of the entire show, they're whole history, as we the audience experience the same, we lose the ties and bonds we've made to these people over the course of 50 episodes, we lose everything we've experienced so the fighting can stop, as Yui loses everything she's experienced so the fighting can stop.

Personally I found it to be a very beautiful but tragic exploration of trauma, loss, growth, and acceptance.

But I also DO understand why other people don't like it! Especially if you aren't invested in Yui or Shiro then the ending must feel really weird and jarring, and I see how a "reset" ending can feel inherently cheap to people, even if for me it felt like it pushed the themes of the show to their extreme and past their breaking point in a mesmerizing way

But idk, it's a weird show, I do understand why there's distaste for it. I mentioned before I have a bias for this show, and it's true... As silly as this might sounds to say about a goofy superhero show, Ryuki was a show that I watched at a time in my life when I felt like I was becoming a worse person because I felt like I had to, and to have a show that not only reflected that idea, but that also really hammered home the message that it's more important to be a good person, and to do the right thing. It genuinely had a big effect on my life, and the ending for me just kind of amplified that.

Also just generally, I tend to like shows where the themes resonate with me more so than show's that have a really clean narrative but don't hit me emotionally. (Not that Ryuki's narrative isn't pretty clean, but I do definitely think it bends itself a bit to get to where it wants to go)

I've gone fully off subject from Geats tho so I'm gonna stop talking about Ryuki now lol, I do respect everyone else's opinion on it, it's a very weird ending that is sure to hit different people differently, but I only have my own experience with the show to base my opinions of it on... Anyways, I have a tendency to ramble, and I've been thinking about the show all day so this message kinda got away from me sorry lol

It's OK. We are all just chatting and reminiscing about other shows right now. Until at least the logo appears, there is not much to say about Geats. It was at least with Saber that one could already make assumptions by the name. But now the case is clearly different.