[Shin Henshin]

I have a feeling this thread may cause arguments, and if it does then by all means lock it, but it's something about watching shows like Kamen Rider that's been grating to me as of late and I need to hear input on this.

Obviously tokusatsu shows run serialized over the course of a year, 49 to 52 episodes depending on the series. There have been some really great shows lately. Rider-wise, we've gotten the fantastic Gaim, the equally great Drive and Ghost has been very entertaining as well. That said, a lot of shows like these don't really get their ball rolling as quickly as shows that only get 12 to 24 episodes to tell their story. The first handful of episodes tend to be a slow burn, establishing characters, powers and abilities and having the audience getting to know the characters they'll be following for the next year.

So why do so many people literally jump ship by the fifth episode and never look back? Drive had a slow burn before hitting its peak and was a great ride. Ghost also started slowly and has escalated fairly well, too. Yet I've seen a lot of people say that these series have terrible pacing and characters when those of us who stuck with it saw these things evolve and improve over time. For example, so many people who complain about Ghost's supporting cast probably never watched past the single digits, where characters like Akari and Onari get their moments, their characters level out and have become some of the most active and useful supporting cast members we've gotten in a while.

And I've seen the argument that we don't have the time to spend waiting for pay-offs. I honestly think that's a bad excuse. Especially when people turn around and claim that Blade is one of the better Rider installments even though it apparently has a 15 episode slow burn. People nowadays have time to marathon netflix shows, so how much valuable time is someone wasting watching a 23 minute episode a week compared to that?

I can't help but feel like a lot of Rider fans write off recent installments since the "almighty" Kamen Rider Gaim (which even though I adored, I think gets way too much praise by people and is held way too high as a standard for Rider shows) as terrible seasons when they're probably going off of the first 5 or so episodes alone. Am I the only one who thinks that here?