There's a old car it was a inspiration for Ridron.

Not really. As formulaic it may seem these days they seemed to have found a good foundation to work on unlike the early 2000s where a good number of the shows felt like hit or miss in certain aspects of production. Not everything was bad but they were still rough around the edges I felt. The 2nd phase Heisei era also does not involve Yonemura or Inoue save for the movies so there is also that.

The old Kamen Rider shows are made to sell merchandise too, but I feel like they are not super gimmicky about it. Kuuga's forms was handle pretty well in my opinion similar how Ultraman did with Tiga in the mid 90's. Ryuki had a card gimmick, but it didn't feel super force in about it if you ask me.

I have nothing against the newer Kamen Rider shows at all, but sometimes I do cringe at some of the toy gimmicks in the shows (Like the Foodroids or Yurusen in my opinion).

I think a lot of it is that the toys looked less obviously like toys. You look at the Faiz gear or Oni weaponry and they could legitimately pass as real weapons. Nowadays you get stuff like all the Build weapons or Spectre and Necrom’s fucking hand thing that are very obviously plastic toys.

I know one of the things that annoyed me with Ginga was him actually staring right at the camera and holding out the toy like, "buy this!"

https://i.imgur.com/Y78FNwu.jpg

and all the close ups of the toys..

https://i.imgur.com/6gO0EOu.png

https://i.imgur.com/cuprHnB.jpg

If the show is cool and the characters are cool I will want to buy the action figure. I don't need the 4th wall being broken so that they're pushed in my face.

I guess I'm getting used to it though. Either that or I'm getting better about just tuning it out.


I never feel like the Showa Rider era is pushing toys in my face. Though I do think Hongo is really cool. And for that reason I have multiple Kamen Rider v1 stuff, and plan on getting more.

It has its moments. There's one episode of V3 that devotes a lot of time to a plastic tube that makes noise.

yikes.

I guess it's just par for the course. These shows want you to buy toys.

Just remembered, in the case of Kamen Rider Black the belt motivates you to watch the show since it reacts to rider punch and kick scenes.

As does epilepsy.

when I see it happening I just yell, "RIDE-UHHHHHH KEEEEEKKK!" in my best Hongo impersonation.

...I'm kind of a dork though.