[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Hibiki's Super Hero Time partner also had someone turn from purple to red and even Akibaranger Season 2 pointed out how lame that was. Hibiki's upgrade path just seems boring to me and poorly justifies its existence, which I'll talk about more when his final form debuts. Kurenai is awesome in action but yeah, there's less to look at compared to his default, I feel the same way about Cross-Z Magma which loses all of his iconic navy color. Even Faiz Blaster which is very similar to the default moves the black to the Photon Streams, adds orange as an accent and has the Bloody Cannons. Kurenai has the silver mouthguard, but that just means he can't breathe fire anymore and that's a disappointment!

He doesn't need to breathe fire... he's on fire!

I can't speak to where Hibiki's form changes go in the future, but (my criticisms about its placement in the overall story aside) I actually really liked how Crimson came about? I like that it's just Hibiki Trained Real Hard, and It's Summertime. I love that his upgrade is seasonal? It fits in with how relatively mundane and predictable the show treats all of the Takeshi stuff, how bizarrely data-driven it all is. It also fits with Hibiki's whole goddamn gimmick of being a guy who just works really hard on his skills. There's no MacGuffin or whatever that makes him more powerful. He just worked hard, and it was time for it.