[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kurona

wh. what

Yeah, no kidding! But look at what's conspicuously de-emphasized in the average ad for Kabuto merch:

The real question is why, which I wish I could say for sure.

The way Wikipedia tells it, the whole genesis of Kabuto's two form concept was that Shirakura wanted to emphasize the fact the insects exist in big groups, and thus thought of what would become the generic Worms and ZECTroopers that the main players on either side would be a part of. To make sure the Riders would stand out from the group as much as possible, he then pulled inspiration from the fact that insects molt and pitched the idea of the Riders shedding their armor to fight the monsters at high speed, which also had the Mirror World style appeal of letting kids imagine that Kamen Rider could be fighting right in front of you without you knowing.

The interesting thing there is that going by that story, it's not like Bandai was planning the armor purging thing before the show's staff thought up the high speed part.

Presumably in that case, the assumption was that the Riders would be moving at super speed by default after Casting Off, and the show's staff changed that concept to something more visually satisfying and narratively flexible too late in the game for Bandai to change course. That is ENTIRELY speculation on my part, but it's about the only thing that makes sense to me. And obviously Bandai wouldn't want to "correct" the oversight on the Zecters made after, because it would just make their flagship item for the year look that much more incomplete.