[VagueDoctor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

I've already mentioned that the pipe location, used since the late 70s, disappeared from KR and SS. On the other hand, Showa Toei could afford to film in other parts of Japan besides Tokyo and Kyoto. So this is a consistent trend, not a failure. It's still a shame, though.
But, to add a positive note, the CGI nowadays has improved significantly even compared to Zero-One.

Oh, yeah, for sure the CGI is a lot better. I was pretty impressed watching some of the fight scenes of Geats and how seamless a lot of the CGI tends to be. It's still cheesy looking, but that's a great charm of the series I hope doesn't disappear.

Vibrant visuals that clearly aren't real look a lot better than greyer visuals attempting to seem identical to real life.

Style > realism for sure.

Kamen Rider's commitment to that philosophy has made the visuals age pretty great in regards to their uniqueness. If the franchise never reaches movie level CGI that is totally okay with me, so long as it still appears fun.

Some people will cite series like Ryuki as having visuals that have aged a bit poorly, but I find them pretty appealing even in a modern context. Another early Heisei series like Faiz has probably some of the best effects because they reflect the idea of the story.

On the topic of budget, I tend to wonder why it seems like Toei cannot afford as much as they used to. Granted, I'm aware that the economic situation in Japan has caused a lot of people trouble. Things in general cost more nowadays, but with toy sales skyrocketing well beyond early Heisei, I'm curious about how their budgets are allocated these days.

While I would rather Kamen Rider have one movie per series instead of a winter/summer dual release, part of me thinks that the reason they stopped releasing two annual movies has to do with budget constraints too.