Do you think we'll ever get a 'dark' series again?
 

Hey guys, so this is the question up for debate. How likely is it Toei will return Kamen Rider to a darker more serious tone? Will it ever happen?

In recent years Kamen Rider has gotten more and more light-hearted, more child friendly and the focus has shifted to collectible gimmicks rather than story/action. This is something that has really disappointed me for the past 4 years every time the new rider has been unveiled. Particularly when Toei staff had made comments that Gaim would be more like an older Heisei series and some made comparisons to Agito and Ryuki...and well, that is really not the case. I like all Kamen Rider series and appreciate them for what they are and the wide spectrum of tones and different stories they cover but I can't help longing for a return to it's older form.

For me, Kuuga really stands out the most as that kind of series. I loved every second of it. Agito, Faiz, Blade, Kabuto are also personal favourites. They have a completely to different feel to newer series and I miss that

What do you all think?

Kamen Rider Gaim is that return, though.

I really hope that's sarcasm...Gaim is what it is and I enjoy it for that but fruit powers are not dark or serious. It is the polar opposite to Kuuga if anything

Because you're just seeing giant fruit dropping from the sky and not looking to the story beyond the gimmick.

I hope we never get another season like Kuuga ever again.

THIS. Gaim may look funny and light-hearted, but the story behind is is freaking dark.

I think we might surpass Faiz in darkness.

Faiz wasnt dark Faiz was a bunch of immature crap that thought it was dark and deep :lol

How is a theme comparable to the story at hand?
Death makes a story darker, but it doesn't make it good.

As I said, I like Gaim for what it is but it's just not dark or serious and thats fine. The collectible gimmicks and suit design are an integral part of the series and are reflections of it. My question is if we will ever see a series like Black, RX, Kuuga, Agito, Faiz, Blade, Kabuto etc. again. To me, Gaim really is not that return but fair enough if it is to you

https://31.media.tumblr.com/3312c55c...zybco1_500.jpg

But it is serious. So what if it has some light-hearted moments sprinkled in? Shouldn't a show be able to do both?

Isn't that unfair?
That's like posting a screen cap of Shinji doing something stupid (Which he did quite often) and saying Ryuki is as childish as Den-O...
And while I've never seen it, I've never seen people call RX "Serious."

Just because something funny happens, that doesn't mean the show is not "serious". W and OOO also had lots of comedy, but both of them were serious. Shinkenger was serious, despite having funny moments.

Just because the costumes are colorful, it doesn't mean the show itself isn't dark...

Agreed.

Every "dark" series would've been ten times better if it wasn't dark simply because it's head was up it's own ass so far no light reached it's eyes. Kamen Rider doesn't work when it's that "dark." When you try and be that serious, the inherent ridiculousness of the concept shows through, and the rubber monsters seem even more rubbery, and the zippers on the backs seem even more prominent, and the CGI even worse, etc. I couldn't take Agito seriously because it was so pretentous, and so deadpan.

If your goal is to be dark, then you have a misguided goal. Dark is, by itself, a bad idea. When a show tries to be dark with no humour or likability, it goes down. Ryuki, a "dark" series I quite liked, was easily at it's worst when it tried to be dark and "edgy' and "serious" because it tried too hard. You need humour and light-hearted bits to offset the dark and serious, or it becomes a drolling monotone.

That's because "having humour" isn't the same as "not being dark."

Or do I need to remind you about Agito holding a frying pan as a tennis racket? Even the old series weren't as serious as you're making them out. I seem to recall Faiz even being widely disliked for being too dark, and I personally find Kabuto to be utter tripe. The less like Kabuto ANY series is, the better.

I agree completely, I think it's always good to have comedy or light-hearted moments in there to mix it up. But with Gaim, they're not 'sprinkled' in, it's very dense so far and it does affect the story or at least my perception of it. I'm still watching it but I really don't get any serious vibe from it

You guys seem to have misunderstood, I never said Gaim is bad and I never said 'dark' equals good. Simply pondering the return of a 'dark', 'gritty' 'serious' series.

Kuuga wasn't just arrogant, it was juvenile. In sickeningly gratuitous fashion the show would rub your face in the body count, making sure to purr words like 'dead children' and 'suicide'. BECAUSE MY GOD ISN'T THIS MATURE AND EDGY (if you're 12 years old, and your favourite author is Kishimoto).

That's absurd. And avoiding death or any kind of actual danger is better?
The dead children and suicide aspects of the porcupine grongi arc you're referring to never felt forced to be mature and edgy. They were there to progress the story. The always optimistic and happy hero was affected by those horrible events and he raged with power when he finally was able to get his hands on the killer. The rage and power gave us a foreshadowing of Ultimate form, presenting the plot point of wether Kuuga's power was good or evil.

Every advanced Invess Gaim kills, he kills a person. He's killed at least a innocent sewer worker, and likely his team leader, if not just another unfortunate soul.

That's pitch God damn black, man. But it works, because the show is very real and doesn't needlessly place gravitas on events, so when this revelation comes to light, it will be all the more impactful.

You say that as if those words shouldn't be taboo.

Allow me to share a minor revelation I have come to about 'dark' rider shows and the seemingly unwarranted hype behind them. Based on Agito, Kabuto and parts of Ryuki, I find fans generally don't get that "darkness" and "sensibility" aren't automatically synonymous. I find that actual storytelling, characters, plot and logic are backseat to dramatic imagery and pretty words. Agito is praised as a masterpiece, yet it is entirely hollow. It's paper-thin, yet bizzarely vague and convoluted plot revolves around God. This is not because the concept of God is worth exploring, or his teachings worth telling. You know, all the reasons any sane person would introduce God into somethign as trivial as rubber-suited bugmen. Instead, it's simply because the imagery of a devine figure in white and the idea of God in something like Kamen Rider is "cool" because more sophisticated works include these aspects. But verses including those aspects secondary to the point of the show, they are instead what I can only reasonably conclude to be an attempt at hollow symbolism. Nothing in the show has anything to do with God, in fact (and I'm tryign to avoid discussing religion outright) the entire show and meaning behind Agito seems counter to the entire point of God.

Likewise, Kabuto. What does his real name translate to? "Walking the path to heaven." Does this have anything actually to do with heaven, or symbolism or morals around it? Nope, it just sounds cool.

Oh, and let's not forget characters standing ramrod-still dramatically for long periods of time, rather than in any greta meaningful way. Because it's cool to see people standing still, looking important, but of course not actually DOING anything.

Something easily acheivable without dead kids and suicide.

Except that is the only time in fifty episodes Godai reacts, and after that, they never bring it up again. Maybe MAYBE the gratuitous grimness of it all could have worked, but with an avatar into the world like Godai, a character with no arc or growth, it felt as stomach churning pessimistic as it did utterly soulless.

Agito had a similar problem. Gratuitous death, shock imagery and "grim" cicumstances harmlessly pinged off of Agito, almost insultingly so. Despite MINIMUM one dead civilian per episode, Agito never knew or gave a shit. ONE death, of some manipulating girl, got to him... for eight seconds.

Every episode someone would die in a horrifyign way... and our greta hero never even saw them. Or even heard about them. He undoubtably knew, but he never mentioned it, or alluded to it. He just flew off on automatic to fight, then went home without ever mentioning the fact he turns into a karate insect guy until almost a quarter into the show.

You know how Kouta was all excited and transforming for stupid shit after finding his belt? That may be comedic, but it's also realistic. A normal person would totally do that, explore this magnificent gift and get the most out of it. Agito doesn't. In fact, it's not even clear if he knows he can. Until later.

But it does, that's the problem. They were added in solely to boost the body count. The death of those people weren't handled maturely, they were solely used as motivational means for Kuuga to kill the monster.

Compare the deaths of multiple people in Kuuga to Sayoko's death in Blade. Both deaths were used as motivation for a character to defeat a monster, but Sayoko's death rang throughout Garren's entire character for the series, the death of the kids played no factor once the Grongi was killed.

One of my favourite aspects of Ryuki is how concerned with life Sinji was. He was absolutely a hero, wanted to help anyone and everyone, and refused to kill another human, or let them be killed without a fight.

And he is utterly unique in this regard among some of the older, darker riders.

Well it did as it was a turning point for Godai because from that point he knew he had to become the Black Warrior he saw. He knew he had to become more powerful, evil or not to end it. He also seemed to accept his own death being an inevitability to stop the grongi after this point

Any way, as I've said previously, it seems you guys have either misunderstood or misread.

I never said dark = good or light-hearted =bad.

The question: Will we see a return to a darker KR series

This includes overall story, characters, suit design, mythos etc. etc.

My answer:

No, and I hope we never do.

And due to Godai's go lucky attitude, it almost become unintentionally insulting as he would continue to smile and goof around playing hero, while under his watch, thousands of people were dying as the show rubbed our faces in the count. And even though the show seemed to have a hard on for suffering, the show constantly tried to suggest Godai was this God like figure of heroism, despite constantly revelling in his consistent failure to make a difference.

I think you're missing the point. Godai was shown to be optimistic in the face of these horrible events to be strong for others, he put on a smile and thumbs up for other people to smile. Multiple ancient powerful barbaric beings bent on killing humans for game wouldn't be able to kill lots of people and one inexperienced hero should be able to stop anyone from dying? hmmm

Being consistently optimistic to the point of having zero character growth over an entire show takes away the shows right to have a point. We never see Godai's internal turmoil, and there is never a hint he even has any.

He can't save everyone, sure, but if you want to make a plot like that, at least include a protagonist with emotional range and don't take such great pleasure in it.

Other than suit design, doesn't Gaim technically have the other aspects of the 'darker' series?

I think you're just kinda hung up about the fruit armor thing, really. And as for the humor...well, the only 'dark' series I've watched, Ryuki (so far) and Blade still have tons of incredibly goofy stuff in 'em.

Eh, I wouldn't' mind another series like Blade if it counts. The monsters in it killed people, but I never found that it rubbed it in your face, unless it was someone important that died. And when that did happen the characters seem to care about it.

Gaim and Ryuki (and I guess some Showa series, if they count?), is the only other 'dark' series I have a real interest in watchign though.

Everything I've heard about stuff like Faiz and Kabuto sound awful.

I understand, but that's not quite my point. I'm just saying that death isn't supposed to be a number.
Death should be handled with maturity. It shouldn't be a statistic to make the monster seem more threatening.

Kuuga suffered the same issue anime and American comics from that same time period did. It wanted to set itself apart from past history by filling the series with dread. It wanted to be mature, so monsters had a body count, it wanted to be edgy, so the body count came from children and suicides. It succeeded at being darker, but in doing so, it lost a sense of morality. A person dying should be dealt with appropriately.

It's why I prefer Ryuki and Blade. Both dark and mature. People died, but the deaths weren't just
Police chief: "9 dead from the initial attack. 15 dead from the aftermath and debris. Confirmed 5 suicides from family members of the deceased."

I'm also not saying that Dark is necessarily bad, as my favorite series, Blade, had an incredibly bittersweet ending and wasn't exactly a walk through candyland like Fourze. I'm just saying that Kuuga didn't handle it's tone well, is all.

Gaim is actually very dark, as it seems as pointed out in the last Episode of Kamen Rider Wizard, that each rider's power is gained from the misfortune of others, or monsters.

In this situation, Gaim and company draw their power from forbidden fruit that on the outside is marketed as a gaming competition, but is really an experiment of the fruits themselves and the effects they have on humanity in both forms of gaming device, and forbidden form.

Ontop of this, this game is slowly building to the all out war between dramatic factions.

If you feel to see the dark, and drama involved in this series, I don't think you really understand the term "Dark". Hell, i'm pretty sure you thought Ryuki was just a family picnic in the park.

Blah.

His deffinition of "dark' seems to be the "fluff" kind. Not true darkness, just hollow theatrics. To him, if it's not visually dark, it's not narratively dark.

Afterall, he said the gimmick and suit reflect the tone of the show. Which is absolutely not always the case.

No. Gaim is awfully dressed dance crews, pokemon-esque monster game battles, Kamen Riders falling off cliffs like looney tunes. The fruit thing is just the icing on the cringe cake.

Ok then, you all enjoy Gaim and forget that Kamen Rider's best series are in the past I guess. 'Discussion' over

You are entirely entitled to your own opinion, Gatack, and don't think we are attacking you in anyway. However, I don't think you are properly expressing your opinons so that we can understand exactly how you are feeling.

Well, at least we can hear your real opinion now.

So you clearly are just not paying attention to the show.

The entire point of Gaim is that all this happy kids-stuff is hiding sinister happenings. The "pokemon-esque" battles are propaganda, a facade to get children to, essentially, test weapons and gain data. They're intentionally targetting young, impressionable children for their experiments, they say as much outrigth TWICE in these last two episodes.

Are you kidding me?

That was Kouta's imagination. He didn't actually fall like that, that's how he imagined it happening. If you wanted to point out "Looney Toons" anything, you'd think you'd mention Bravo, who has goofy effects follow in his wake because of how fucking bizzare he is.

And this is why nobody takes you seriously.

You make a blanket, irrantional statement, pout, and call "discussion over" when the flaws in your reasoning are pointed out. Much easier to give up then actually consider you might be mistaken.

You, uh, haven't actually paid attention to much of Gaim, eh? Like the characters motivations, the ACTUAL plot points, which as explained before were pretty cool an-

Oh. OH. Oh shit. Lemme just pack my bags then...

I don't think you know my definition of dark, as i havent really discussed it. I simply asked whether the show would return to a similar tone as that of it's older series which are considered darker in the spectrum of Kamen Rider.

If the suits, powers, gimmicks etc. do not reflect the tone of the show then what is their purpose? Now, it's to sell toys of those numerous little trinkets, which would seem is right up your alley?

Do not put words in my mouth or speak for me, you clearly have not read what I've been saying. Obviously, attempting a debate on said question was a poor choice on my part, apologies!

I am not bothered if you take me seriously or not dude. I'm not pouting or whatever, i said 'discussion' over as clearly this isn't much of a discussion at all. From the get go, you in particular, have tried turning this into some kind of "defend gaim because its so complex and not at all silly" argument, instead of discussing the question I put forward. I had no interest in talking about Gaim in my original post. So yeah, forget it

NARRATIVE. The very thign you claim it doesn't support, it does. The point of the colourful riders is to support the idea that these games are for kids, but they're not.

And also visual interest. Colour and detail are good things, not just for kids, for EVERYONE. That's the same kind of flawed mindset that believes Superman should be all dark colours instead of bright red, blue and yellow. Faiz may be dark, but he's also super boring and generic looking. (no offense Faiz suit fans)

Did... did you just pull the "you play with toys" card on this site?

You know, the site DEVOTED to that, which you are also a part off?

EVERY rider series is designed to sell toys. Certainly the entire Heisei era. Faiz sold toys.

So you say.

Luckily you do not decide was discussion is and is not.

The discussion you put forward is "when will rider series be dark again."

They already are. People are mentioning Gaim because it clearly demolishes the very title of this thread.

Okay guys, please keep this thread on topic. Things are starting to get a little too personal, please resolve your problems with other members via PM and if the issue keeps up, let us know. Don't just use this thread to point fingers.

I think Gaim is as "dark" of a series as we're going to get now. Toei's current approach seems to be to move away from gory deaths and high body counts like we got around 2000/01. I'm not going to pretend for one second that I don't kind of miss that (Kuuga and Agito are two of my favorite Rider shows, after all), but recently Toei's been more into monsters that try to make people feel bad rather than kill them. We seem to be getting a bit more mindless rampaging in Gaim, but we're not going to see a bunch of dudes get stabbed and then dissolve into sand anymore.

Storywise, Gaim is shaking up to be pretty dark, but it's more of a psychological darkness than a violent one. We're dealing with a show where a big corporation is handing out powerful weapons to teenagers to see what will happen. There's no monsters eating people, but that's still pretty fucked up. I think that's what we're going to see from "dark" Rider shows - stories with more mature plot twists and creepy motives rather than mountains of corpses.

Personally, I'm largely fine with that. I do miss the days when monsters seemed like a legitimate threat to everyone. It gave the show a bit more edge and made the monsters more terrifying. I will always maintain that Ryuki had the scariest set-up of any Rider series - behind any reflective surface there could be a horrifying creature that could suddenly reach out, grab you, and then drag you off to be lunch. Stuff like that always felt like the stakes were higher than "we have to stop that Phantom from smashing that little boy's model airplane or else he'll be sad!" But we're not going to get that anymore. I think Gaim is a good compromise, though; the beasts rampage, but aren't going on killing sprees, and the real horror is what the people behind the monsters are up to.