[Den-O]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shin Densetsu

I didn't know that the series didn't do so well in Japan. Just how well was it received? I do like how Tamashii Nations is giving it some love with SH Figuarts. DEFINITELY a god send for a guy like me who only started watching Ryuki relatively recently. When Kickback told me about what he was starting(which was this place), I had picked Ryuki as one of the 1st Rider series I would watch. I am glad I did. Prior to this I had only watched ZX, a few dubbed episodes in Tagalog of the original Kamen Rider, and a few episodes of Masked Rider when it was localized with that one dude back when MMPR was already popular.

I think it's downfall was the fights in particular, being predictable. For the 1st half of the series either the monster died or ran away, and if it did die, it was usually Ren or Shinji using Final Vent and if it ran away, it was running away from the Final Vent. Basically the fights became predictable.

This does change later aside from the Survive Card being somewhat of a deus ex machina. By the last episodes the fights are a lot less predictable. In this respect, I think the movie, Episode Final, excelled.

Simply put, the fights in the majority of the series, due to predictability, did not seem on par with the mature storytelling. The storytelling and characterizations is where this series excelled. To see the way Akiyama ended up in the end was a surprise. Even for Kitaoka, even Shinji said something to the matter of "well if he's fighting just to live then I can't really blame him anymore!". I loved how we got to know the characters just as Shinji did; his experience mirrored ours.

Speaking of dark..finding out that Yui was technically somewhat dead...nuts! The whole story was due to Shiro not being able to take loss.



I think Asakura's characterization was done on purpose by the writers. There have been some characters in Sentai/Rider series where they start bad, then turn good eventually, these tend to be bad asses sometimes. Being that Ren, Tezuka, Toujo(to an extent), and Kitaoka can all be seen as primarily good if not netural(like Kitaoka until the end when it's realized that he's not so much trying to live out a life of various wealth as much as he is just trying to live to begin with), I think the writers made Asakura THEE main bad guy. Simply because if not him, there would be no one else but Odin, and Odin just stands in place for Kanzaki Shiro since Kanzaki lacks a physical form.

Asakura is the bad guy to end up liking, like Magneto and others. For me, seeing him take out all those Riders left me wanting to see someone kick his ass. Asakura was entertaining because he was deadly and unpredictable. I remember when he pulled out his extra contract cards and was like "WTF?! He has more than Jun!". Then when he pulled out Unite Vent I was like "Alright WTF x 10 that's not even fair!".

Asakura managed to kill the biggest dick in the series(Gai), and the most peaceful(Tezuka). By way of karma he was going to bite it one way or another.

I did like how the moments where it seemed like Asakura had a heart, he shoves a nail right through it. THAT is excellent storytelling by way of the writers.

Definitely. Asakura is a prime badass and evil SOB. He's by far my favorite evil rider ever. He killed Gai and Imperor which makes me love him more and if he could've taken out Tiger that would have been icing on the cake. Ouja essentially became the device by which Kanzaki eliminated the weakest links. He managed to be so purely evil and yet so rediculously likable that he came out on top as my favorite character in the series. Now that's damn good writing when you wind up liking the villain more so than the heroes.