Kamen Rider: Too many skinny jeans?
 

For the longest time, one of the greatest barriers for me and Kamen Rider's successful illusion is the sheer amount of pretty people. We've had good examples, Hibiki and Wizard both present proactive Riders despite appearances and Date looked a little rougher, a little older and a little more built but for every Hibiki is a Daiki Kaito - where badass is skinny jeans and hair braids and for every Date, there is a Kenzaki, who'd look at home in a slightly edgy popband but looks less convincing as a trained soldier.

Does no one else find it problematic that so few Riders look like they'd actually be able to hold themselves in a fight? Or even look like they'd last an hour in a gym? When a Rider is supposed to be a soldier, I believe looking the part is as important as having the story too. American shows have pretty people too, but they also have people who work out for their role and if the age isn't appropriate they create the illusion of that age.

Other than Oren, I can't even think of a single Rider with a military background AND an actual trained physique, despite countless Riders supposedly in military or at least enforcement organisations.

Appearances aren't everything. A person can be strong without being ripped to the trim with muscles or looking like they've been through thousands of battles. People's body shapes and forms are different and grow differently. Somebody can be strong and look like Sylvester Stallone in his heyday, and another can be equally as strong but not be as toned and muscular. It all just comes down to the person's body shape/form.

There is still a hardening that happens to the body when trained to a military standard. Most Riders are impossibly soft and skinny given the kind of training and violence we're supposed to believe they endure.

That's just how their bodies are. They have muscles and a hardened body, it just isn't in the way a lot of media portrays that type of soldier body as. It as I said just comes down to how a person's body frame is. Not everybody will have the quote on quote "look" that you're speaking of.

Well... Kouta...
http://i57.tinypic.com/2z686wx.jpg

Haruto isn't that trained though... At least not much more than any other Heisei-Rider before him.
http://i61.tinypic.com/2yphklv.jpg

Besides, they're casted for looking good. ALL of the Main Rider actors (and also the other riders) in Heisei are models IRL...

Kouta and Haruto are both ordinary people and proactive Riders though, I don't put the same expectations upon them as I might on a Rider from say...ZECT.

(will say though, DAMN Kouta)

How many of these "skinny jeans" Riders turn out aren't even human?

Oh, you mean like TheBee/ Kickhopper?
https://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l...bpyfo1_400.jpg

Here is another pic of him

https://36.media.tumblr.com/3c4c8f04...bpyfo1_500.jpg

He looks hilariously skinny to me :lol But he clearly works out - dunno how obvious that is in the show, my only instance of The Bee involved some dude in an eyepatch.