[ShyGuy]

Finished up Fourze. I know I just posted my thoughts on OOO very recently, but I didn’t actually get through the entirety of Fourze in only one week…I’m just behind on writing up my thoughts due to a lot going on, I actually finished Fourze a while back (In fact I’m almost finished with Wizard right now). But anyway, Fourze was one I was pretty interested to start because I’ve heard a lot of good things about it over the years, I’ve seen a lot of people list it among their favorites. Having now watched it myself, my feelings on it are kind of mixed. It sounds weird, but although I think it was good, I didn’t really care for it all that much. Basically, I think it was good at what it was trying to accomplish, but it just didn’t appeal to my particular preferences.

The general tone of the show is very silly and lighthearted, it kind of reminded me of Den-O in that regard. Sometimes I enjoy that kind of thing, (As I did with Den-O) but with Fourze I think there were a number of issues that hindered my ability to enjoy it the same way I enjoyed Den-O. The main thing with that is the overall cast and characterization. Most of the cast just really didn’t feel all that relevant to the story, outside of the four main leads. Each of the members of the Kamen Rider Club got their little episode arcs, but beyond that they barely contributed anything and what development many of them did get was fairly superficial. They almost felt like glorified accessories in that they existed just to fill out the cast and facilitate the whole friendship theme going on. It was frustrating because the show clearly wanted the audience to care about these characters, and I wanted to like them more than I did, but it barely ever gave me any good reason to. They just felt kind of like shallow archetypes more than characters in their own right.

I think the core problem causing these issues is that the cast is simply too big. With W, there was just Shotaro, Phillip, Akiko, and Ryu. For OOO there was Eiji, Ankh, Hina, Goto, and Date. Then Fourze has a cast twice as big as either of those, and it simply can’t give equal time or development to all of them so it ends up spread too thin with minimal characterization across too many characters. This extends to the villains as well, who are without a doubt among my least favorite villains from any season. I found them very boring and generic with no compelling personalities or motivations, other than Virgo after their identity is revealed (Who I did think was a genuinely interesting character).

These issues I have were compounded by the strict 2-episode arc format that characterizes early Neo-Heisei. While it existed in W and OOO, those shows also had ongoing larger stories that carried out across the whole season for both of them, along with an emphasis on character relationship development. Fourze I thought stuck far too strictly to the 2-episode arcs without having any kind of larger story being told, it lacked the kind of propulsive narrative that keeps things interesting and fresh. It didn’t really go anywhere until the very end, and by that point it felt like it was just trying to cram everything in while it still had time.

I know this all sounds pretty harsh towards Fourze, but I honestly don’t think it’s a bad show. I feel kind of bad with a lot of my criticisms because my problems are with the things it didn’t do, but it wasn’t really trying to do those things in the first place. Fourze is clearly just aiming to provide a light, fun atmosphere without a lot of the more dramatic focus some other seasons go with, and that’s perfectly fine. Fourze really is good at what it wanted to do, unfortunately it just wasn’t a good match for my specific tastes and preferences.