The Executive Meddling in Toku
 

As we all know Executive Meddling is a stench. In Toku, it's no exception.

These are the mandates from their producers, sponsors (Bandai), or their TV stations.

The examples are:

In Power Rangers SPD, the budget went to the final episodes, meaning that Disney couldn't hire a Omega Ranger's human actor, and the latter half started using Sentai plots.

Nickelodeon had the 20 episodes per season for their shows. This is why we had the 2 seasons of PR.

Judd Lynn and his crew wanted to make Ninja Steel serious, akin to In Space, but the execs wanted to them to put more comedy.

Kamen Rider Hibiki had the latter half to be replaced with Shinichirou Shirakura (白倉伸一郎) as a producer, and Toshiki Inoue (井上敏樹) as a writer, replacing Shigenori Takadera (高寺成紀) as a producer, and Tsuyoshi Kida, and Shinji Ooishi (大石真司) as a writer. This is due to them going over budget. And it being not Ridery.

Post your examples of Executive Meddling.

The most famous example I can think of is returning Fujimya/Ultraman Agul back into the Ultraman Gaia show. He died midmay through and the show plumeted as a result. He was a very popular character with the kids. So the show needed to bring him back. Fortunatly this is one of the few times where executive meddling actually was good. As the cast and crew were honestly happy to bring the character back. And Fujimiya story epecially Agul V2 debut is easily one of the best things to come out of Ultraman Gaia.

In all honesty this was a win-win for everybody the kids were happy bringing back their favaorite character back. The cast and crew eere happy getting to continue a beloved character story. And even Bandai was happy getting a new Agul form as a result and those sold like hotcakes.

Reminds me of Time Force where Eric was going to die like his Sentai counterpart, which was even filmed. Fox Kids shot it down and instead gets injured, which was the best move they made.

Adding to what you shared, those two reasons and also the toys weren't selling and Takatera is an auteur. Let's not forget this is the man whose usual schtick is coming up with stuff like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP-b7Nxpug4
That chapel set was scratch-built, not cheap at all. Even the outdoor location spots for Hibiki cost money probably as well from scouting to setting up stuff, etc.

That's not really executive meddling that's just how modern TV schedules work.

The first three that leap to mind are Power Rangers RPM, Ultraman Nexus, and Ultraman Leo.

RPM's lead producer was fired about halfway through the series due to the show going over its budget. Former writer Judd Lynn was brought in as a replacement and the show's original ending - wherein Dillon was taken over by Venjix and became the final villain - was scrapped. Instead we got an almost note-for-note retread of In Space for the show's final act.

Ultraman Nexus was straight up cancelled due to low ratings. The show's entire final arc was shoved into the last two episodes.

Ultraman Leo struggled in its ratings due to the darker tone turning off the audience. This first lead to the character using more conventional Ultraman beam attacks instead of his martial arts and then, when that didn't work, the show killed off almost the entire supporting cast to set up a new status quo with Gen and his one surviving friend moving in with a new family.

There's alot of unproven rumors in those details, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was some truth to them. Here's what both Eddie Guzelian and Judd Lynn had to say about the second half of RPM recently:

https://i.imgur.com/2Jbkpit.jpg

Well Godzilla's Toku, and the first example I could think of was this:

Godzilla X Varan, Anguirus, and Baragon: Giant Monsters All Out Attack.

Sound familiar? It was the original draft for Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack, which Shusuke Kaneko (the Heisei Gamera Trilogy) proposed to Toho. As you can imagine from the title, Toho switched out Varan and Anguirus for Mothra and King Ghidorah in hopes of making the movie more marketable after Godzilla X Megagiurus underperformed. It turned out to be a success as it was the highest grossing Millennium Godzilla Film (and one of my favorite Godzilla movies of all time).

Fun Fact: The suit designer, who was disappointed that his all-time favorite monster, Varan, didn't make the cut, added his head fins onto King Ghidorah's design for the film.

Isnt there a thing with Kamen Rider getting hit by parent complaints and getting changed at the midway point? Hence why build became less about war, and OOO didnt have the big bad be the corp/have Date die?

Parental meddling combined with executive meddling.

More of a speculative thing. But I mentioned in some threads, that the reason Fukuda wasn't able to write most of Saber's episode (leading to Hasegawa picking p the slack) was more so producer meddling than it is solely being him. Like Figu-oh(?) magazine that said Takahashi had Fukuda focus on the V-Cinema and let Hasegawa write the finale because he liked Hasegawa's direction to the finale.

There was also Calibur and Storious being requests from Bandai as opposed to being thought of by the staff.

Date was brought back, due to his character popularity. Before that , he was supposed to be brought back as a Homunculi. Same thing with Lazer and Ultraman Agul. This is called fan pandering.

About the latter, it was a request from people.

One of the most most 'visible' examples I've ever seen was in the latter parts of Lupin Vs Pat, where all the very clearly Patranger-themed merchandise was given to the Lupinrangers on top of their continued Lupin-themed stuff.

Surely every person regardless of age, took one look at Super Lupin-X with his big Patranger symbol on his chest, and was like 'huh??'. And if you thought maybe it was playing on his dual form gimmick, well then the introduction of Super Lupin Red in the next episode would confirm it definitely isn't that...

Kamen Rider Ghost also went through issues with show's budget going to Amazons and shuffling writers making an inconstant script.

That did not happen.

Well, the script could be kinda wonky, but not much more than any other show with more than one writer.

Kobayashi Yasuko was originally planning to give a bittersweet ending to Kamen Rider Ryuki, where all the Riders were killed but the Mirror World was sealed. Unfortunately, the executives overruled her decision, which resulted in the reset ending undoing all the character development and leaving Inoue Toshiki to do it himself in Rider Time Ryuki.

Takahashi Yuuya was originally planning to advance the story of Kamen Rider Zero One more naturally after the Metsuboujinrai arc. Unfortunately, Ohmori Takahito decided to do the workplace competition arc instead, which was admittedly profitable but critically panned.

I'm kind of surprised Fujimiya was that popular with kids, but maybe his anti-hero attitude contrasted with Gamu really appealed to people.

Reminds me of that scene in a later episode where a kid does a drawing of Gaia and Agul working together and asking Gamu if it'll ever happen and Gamu hoping it does.

The one thing I am unsure about is if some instances of meddling are true, or just a rumor that got spread so far around the English speaking community that people started treating it as common knowledge. Like, Hibiki’s meddling is pretty much undeniable fact, but there are a lot of other shows I am unsure of because I can’t find a proper source!

I actually side with the execs on this one, because the result was not only a much happier ending that didn't make the entire struggle feel like a waste, but it also resulted in some great character growth and a wonderful ending for Kanzaki. I found it very emotionally powerful.

Similarly, I also side with the change in OOO, where originally Ankh was gonna be the big bad. Making him be the final boss would've totally gone against the entire arc he'd been undergoing throughout the entire show, IMO.