Well, a little later, Toei in Metalder touched on the Japanese role in World War II. Albeit indirectly, gently, and in some ways, comprehensively. Although this show failed at the time, so who knows.
In any case, I think the hypocrisy began when Emperor Hirohito was not recognized as a war criminal and remained on the throne. So, in some sense, the victors allowed the Japanese to turn a blind eye to their own sins.

In the 90s Solbrain would also have an episode that featured some explicit references to Japan's ties to Nazi Germany in WWII. I suppose you could argue that the Metal Hero series was more interested in explicitly exploring the topic, or that the passage of time simply meant Toei was more comfortable confronting that part of Japan's history.

If the next KR season after Zeztz goes a half & half rider like Double and Build, how would you envision it being a music genre themed rider due to the next season being 55th anniversary?

What music genres can fit these riders?

• Zeztz: Dreamwave
• Gavv: Pop Rock
• Gotchard: ?
• Geats: ?
• Revice: ?
• Saber: ?
• 01: ?
• Zi-O: ?
• Build: Hyperpop
• Ex-Aid: Chiptune
• Ghost: ?
• Drive: ?
• Gaim: Hip-Hop
• Wizard: ?
• Fourze: ?
• OOO: Reggae
• Double: Jazz
• Decade: ?
• Kiva: Gothic Rock
• Den-O: ?
• Kabuto: ?
• Hibiki: ?
• Blade: ?
• Faiz: ?
• Ryuki: ?
• Agito: ?
• Kuuga: ?
• Ichigo: ?

[nevermind]

Hibiki would definitely be traditional Japanese music.

It might introduce other problems, but I wonder if Toei could get around the road laws that limit bike action by giving a Kamen Rider a horse instead of a motorcycle?

I think it will only increase restrictions. Bicycles and other similar types of transport, on the other hand, could be a good alternative.
On the other hand, given the numerous examples of the possibility of filming spectacular scenes on motorcycles, it seems to me that the main reason for their reduction is not the rules, but banal laziness and/or stinginess. Directors simply don't want to bother with their filming and do the bare minimum as a tribute to the franchise's history.

Not a bad idea, but I'm not so sure about actual horses all the time, though. That alone is probably gonna be a whole other heap of fees and things to worry about during production, such as extra training sessions for those acting, feeding and taking care of the horses, and we don't know if the novelty is worth it for multiple seasons.
TL;DR: I'm down with having a horseback riding Kamen Rider every once in a while as long as it is doable for Toei.

Ah yes I would love to one day buy S.H. Figuarts Horse.

In the meantime, figma is still available. Not joking, they have actual generic action figures of horses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S0ZsFT4lk8

Which is such a figma thing to do, considering they don't just dabble in the realm of fiction, but sometimes make articulate action figures of real-life things or people from Michaelangelo's David to Japanese celebrities like Masahiro Chono aka the guy who always slapped Hosei Tsukitei in Gaki no Tsukai when they had their do not laugh specials .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gmjYirPp_8

In the ongoing interest of uncovering deep Kuuga lore, I watched this video for the promotional piece that aired on Toei Channel back in late 2000 to promote its home release, but it ended up being more interesting just as a time capsule of what Toei was up to in general in that moment. I'm sharing it here anyway for the sake of anybody who wants to experience the concentrated vibes this thing radiates. Props to whatever random person decided to upload this.

Man, Battle Royale is such a blast from the past. That movie adaptation was, dare I say, the Squid Game of the year 2000. Fun fact, Toei Channel is a satellite broadcasting channel that appears to still be operational these days, and plays all of their anime, tv dramas, and movies, from the widely known to the super obscure.

That all seems very cool but uh, I don't speak Japanese.

Well you probably don't speak Grongi, either, but did you let that stop you from bathing in the atmosphere of their scenes in Kuuga? :p

By the way, YouTube videos are pretty easy to download and translate with subtitles. I watched the Chinese Balala the Fairies that way.

Can a gavv burp? Can't help but wonder about that.

stahp 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You ever feel like you watch a series and can't help but to compare it to another? Back when Gotchard released, I was watching until around the 30ish mark and then I sort of peetered off of it.

For a lot of it's run I kept comparing to Fourze. Partially, it's because Gotchard in the beginning felt like it was focused a lot more on the whole schooling aspect and how their world interacts with monsters.

This is kind of a run on post and maybe the original idea here is already lost, but the more I think about Gotchard and Fourze the more I wonder what kind of budget Fourze had to have been on.

There are so many interior shots that you don't see often in Reiwa and it's very interesting how they managed to use so much of their school setting over the course of a year. The pools, the forests, the gymnasiums, boxing rings, and the Rabbit Hutch's inclusion and how I missed a dear lab like that made me realize while I was watching Gotchard that there's a lack of interior settings in the more recent years.

When I put Gotchard and Fourze together it makes me think a lot more deeply about the series. It's not an exact comparison of, "X does Z better than Y." but these two shows are the ones that have me pondering most about the production side of this franchise.

Does anyone else have this sort of phenomenon with a pair of Rider shows? Entries you can't help but compare and it forces you to consider things on another level.

I've already mentioned that the pipe location, used since the late 70s, disappeared from KR and SS. On the other hand, Showa Toei could afford to film in other parts of Japan besides Tokyo and Kyoto. So this is a consistent trend, not a failure. It's still a shame, though.
But, to add a positive note, the CGI nowadays has improved significantly even compared to Zero-One.

Oh, yeah, for sure the CGI is a lot better. I was pretty impressed watching some of the fight scenes of Geats and how seamless a lot of the CGI tends to be. It's still cheesy looking, but that's a great charm of the series I hope doesn't disappear.

Vibrant visuals that clearly aren't real look a lot better than greyer visuals attempting to seem identical to real life.

Style > realism for sure.

Kamen Rider's commitment to that philosophy has made the visuals age pretty great in regards to their uniqueness. If the franchise never reaches movie level CGI that is totally okay with me, so long as it still appears fun.

Some people will cite series like Ryuki as having visuals that have aged a bit poorly, but I find them pretty appealing even in a modern context. Another early Heisei series like Faiz has probably some of the best effects because they reflect the idea of the story.

On the topic of budget, I tend to wonder why it seems like Toei cannot afford as much as they used to. Granted, I'm aware that the economic situation in Japan has caused a lot of people trouble. Things in general cost more nowadays, but with toy sales skyrocketing well beyond early Heisei, I'm curious about how their budgets are allocated these days.

While I would rather Kamen Rider have one movie per series instead of a winter/summer dual release, part of me thinks that the reason they stopped releasing two annual movies has to do with budget constraints too.

For me, the effects in Ryuki will always be amazing. Because it's a huge leap forward compared to Agito and Kuuga. Honestly, if there's one thing in KR's CGI that upsets me, it's the first two Heisei shows.

I prefer to think that Toei was deliberately saved money on several years to launch Project Red. Especially since the question of Super Sentai's demise remained unanswered just a year ago. But we'll see what time will tell.

While Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue (not the Anno-directed one, the 1992 body horror movie, for those not familiar) will remain unfinished, I kinda wish they gave it a proper conclusion for the heck of it. I'd be down for an Old Man Logan-ish story where an aged Shin is beaten and battered and he finally becomes a Kamen Rider during his final days, or an early 30-ish Shin Jr. carry on the torch. I dunno, just a random thought I have these days.

I would also like to see something similar.

I hope that's the case in regards to their budget. While I was watching Gotchard and Gavv's beginning, it really dawned on me how... non-versatile the interior/exterior locations were. Makes me hope the Reiwa era changes that up a little bit.

Outside of Fourze, I tend to think about Blade a lot - especially the early stretch of episodes. I was pleasantly surprised by how many different locations I saw. There's this one time Tachibana is standing in front of a boutique, or how in episode (2? 3?) they're up on a mountain pretty briefly in the snow.

Sometimes for the newer series it feels like their shooting locations are trying to be "as out of the way as possible", but I like how something such as Blade makes the world feel lived in if that makes sense. Kuuga was like this too, but Kuuga is the first Heisei series so it has a lot to prove and it's an outlier in a very good way.

I wish we had more night scenes too.

Either way, these series always impress me in some kind of way.