[Kamen Rider Lucha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Nope. You've barely scratched the surface of the plot, yet. The first half of the show is pretty much just a long piece of introduction, with the show really starting in the fourth episode. Your idea of what the show is, is wrong, because you won't know what the show is until the second half of the show.

The character focus is pretty weak, and the cast is much too large, especially when the truth behind the plot is revealed and you learn that it was never really about them.

I thought I was clear that I wasn't criticizing the whole series, just the first 1.5 hours of it. I think I've said elsewhere that I could believe it gets better. Apologies if I gave off the impression that my criticism applied to the series as a whole. I took for granted that it did not.

When you asked, "when???" in response to my assertion that the show aims to be more sophisticated than other Toku, I gave what I thought were pretty good reasons (which you think are shitty, and that's fair). I still think those reasons are good (esp the religious/psychedelic/violence ones -- at least as far as episode one is concerned. Those are certainly signifiers of a sophisticated story). And I'm not saying that everyone does or should respond to these signifiers by applying a more strenuous level of criticism -- just that I do. And because that's how I react, this show is subject to criticisms I wouldn't levy against other, perhaps worse, shows in the same genre.

I'd just like to clarify an earlier comment. For the sake of my argument, complexity and sophistication aren't the same thing. A thing can be needlessly complex and still lack sophistication. A thing can be elegantly simple and ooze sophistication. I believe that people who create complex plots often think that a complex plot, on it's own, is an indication of sophistication. So the existence of a complex plot often suggests that the creator's intent is sophistication. I hope that makes sense.

To address one point you've made:
Regarding not judging something based on a creator's past work, I think that's an admirable ideal to strive for. But I'm not sure that's actually possible because no work exists in a vacuum, especially not in our hyperconnect world. A creator's attachment, whether rightly or wrongly, breeds expectations. Those expectations color one's interpretation of the work. We can strive to limit the extent to which they do, but if a creator is known for sophisticated, adult-oriented work, I think it's a natural tendency to engage all work by that creator in a similar way.