Shunpei is lame.

And here we are with the debut of the official Big Bad… and Kai. Here’s his VA’s other credits.

Kazuhiro Yamaji

Notable Anime roles: various roles in Detctive Conan, Bel in DokiDoki Pretty Cure, the Narrator in Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V

Notable Tokusatsu roles: Kei Karasuma in Kamen Rider Blade (Live role), Emperor Yodon in Mashin Sentai Kiramager.

Notable video game roles: Makoto Date in Yakuza.

Notable dubbing roles: Various roles played by Jason Statham, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, Willem Dafoe, Al Pacino, Christoph Waltz, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Nicolas Cage, Benicio del Toro and Viggo Mortenson, Ron Burgundy in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Red Skull In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Kendall Duncan in Bedtime Stories, The BFG in The BFG, Mister Tinkles in Cats and Dogs, Bane in the Dark Knight Rises, the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who, Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, General Thade in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, Ray Charles in Ray, Danger D’Amo, Tick Tock, the Timekeeper and the henchmen in Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, Darth Maul in Star Wars, King Fergus in Brave, Gill in Finding Nemo, General Monger in Monsters vs Aliens, Nico in Rio, Lord Voldemort in The Lego Batman Movie.

(No seriously, Toei uses the Leo Imagin if they want Den-O representation in a group shot of Big Bads. Likely because it’s much cheaper, likely because Kai is not that popular)

So what I'm hearing, Die, is that you're going to have to go back and do Showa and dig deep for those character arcs.

This is the most confusing statement I've ever read on these boards. Did you mistype Miura?

That Shin Kamen Rider announcement (eliciting an early-morning WHAT from me) may get me watching a Showa series in 2023. On the one hand, I, like, viscerally don't enjoy watching 70s-era sci-fi from any country. On the other hand, Hideaki Anno.

Do I really want that sort of final arc for Kamen Rider Die, though? Iffy. Definitely more of a possibility than yesterday, however.

Third Doctor disrespect? On this, the day of Rider's 50th? You're far too cruel

No Miura’s great. He’s one of the best mentors ever with some seriously great - oh wait, we’re not talking about Ohranger are we?

Jokes aside, I’ve seen a few people on TokuTwitter (as that community calls itself) call Kai the weakest part of the show. He’s basically an evil Ryotaro, but without any Rider or Monster form to make the comparison work beyond “is a Singularity Point”. Plus there’s also the fact his plans are vague as hell and I’ve seen someone wonder why the show felt it needed a big bad after functioning without one well enough for so long (I personally think Toei mandates every show has to put a big bad character in there somewhere for a final battle).

"Third Doctor"? Who, Matt Smith? I wouldn't say I don't respect him. I liked his first season okay, but I did bail after that. Still, I don't begrudge anyone enjoying that era of Doctor Who.

Weird to bring him up now!

I haven't seen nearly enough of Kai to figure out how he works into the show's series-long themes and motifs (that Singularity Point reference is new information), but Evil Ryotaro is a perfectly acceptable villain for a show like Den-O; if anything, the show's emphasis on Ryotaro as the core of the narrative makes Evil Ryotaro the ideal type of big bad?

Next you'll be telling me you don't think this is a masterpiece of science-fiction storytelling, smh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRUqJSCOyZ4

my least-favorite episode of skyrider

And with how Ryotaro deals with Yuuo by getting the aggression like just forcefully taking away the Zeronos card, and Ryotaro snarking the most at him, like Yuuto at first did to him.

Yeah, Ryutaros is childish and selfish, and this is a real lesson to the audience to remind that just because someone fights against evil, doesn't mean they're exempt from negative traits, or that those can be overlooked. Other Imagins also didn't really change from their initial state, other than their affection to Ryotaro. But yeah, if you want big screw-ups like this, use your existing characters who are the most likely to create this, and don't turn characters who aren't like that as OOC by giving them more sudden dark traits for forced drama like this, which is sorry, something Inoue can do. And for Ryuta's side not being seen for this long, well, if people are put in a fight against evildoers, everyone will look noble because they're all against 1 threat.

Ugh why you just don't use "Shouma Kai" as the nickname for him with Parado reference. Kai is literally the name of Parado's actor! OK like what has said above, S̶h̶o̶u̶m̶a̶ Kai is not that popular, he basically receives the same complaints that you give to the previous main villains of phase 1 (Kai is the main antagonist of Den-O), like being boring, flat, sudden, forced as a main antagonist role, etc. But by watching him I also expect for you to act against the "norm" to receive him well instead (right again), as I also got the Shouma Kai/Parado vibes from him. I've known about how being upbeat can be menacing, both in real life and fiction, where for the former, it's if someone malicious is all smiling and laughing by making fun or mistreating others, and for the latter, it's like kind of villains who engages in evil purely for its own sake. Others said he's an evil Ryotaro, but I also feel that he's Naomi if taken to the real extremes, of the upbeat demeanor is to show a dark trait like thriving over other's misfortune, but this one's pushed/carried over actual evil acts. S̶h̶o̶u̶m̶a̶ Kai is the leader of Imagins, so his interaction with Kai would be something bad boss type.

Well, the issue before was that Ryotaro can't be possessed anymore, but here, Momotaros can possess him to train Ryotaro in swordplay? Also, well, Ryotaro wasn't really a fighter at all, but teaching Ryotaro to properly fight, I think, is good if Ryotaro is against an enemy who is a skillful fighter, and schools someone who just relies on power in fight.

You mean the station lol, that's the term for stopping trains. So what is the criteria for setting introduction that attracts you?