[Aoi Kurenai]

I've always felt Kabuto was the worst offender as series that wasted amazing Rider designs. Some of my favorite designs come out of that show, but the show itself is just so...underwhelming that everything feels wasted in there. There's a sense that the head writer didn't care for anyone who wasn't TheBee, Kabuto, or Gattack, leaving the other Riders to get tossed around sporadically. It's such a shame when you have great designs like Sasword and Drake and just never do anything meaningful with them.

Kabuto was one of those shows that had everything going for it and then completely drops the ball. The head writer is a guy who doesn't care too much for toys, and it's good that he prioritizes his story over the toys, but at some point you need to realize what you're working with. He should have known from the start that Bandai would be giving him all of these Riders and should have begun finding better ways to use them in his stories. Instead we get this revolving door of great Rider designs and interesting characters who never really do anything interesting when they're around or matter to the plot at hand.

This is one of the reasons I'm so glad we have such a talented writer on Gaim. In the hands of someone who didn't care as much, we would have a show with a slew of inconsequential Riders.