[Tokumonkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matrixbeast

I wanted to comment on the suits, but this thread makes me want to kill myself.

Heh! I feel you, but you kinda knew what you were going to find here, though, right?

I wasn't around when the first catalog images for Kamen Rider Gaim were leaked, but I assume the conversation was pretty similar. "It's the end of the world! It's gonna be awful! I'm done with Kamen Rider!" Actually, I kinda wonder what my reactions would've been. I remember my first reaction to hearing about a fruit theme was "I'm out," so that informs how I'm reacting to Ex-Aid.

To be clear, the color combinations remind me of the Nerf aisle at Target exploding in the most horrible way possible. "Garish" is putting it lightly. The driver looks even less practical than usual. As a Figuarts enthusiast, I'm wincing over how that's going to limit head articulation, or how to the Level 1 face on the back will mess with head articulation.

With that said...

I'm excited that this is going to be a multi-Rider show from the outset. The preview image suggests yet another Rider. Although I don't care for the design of most of the unique weapons, I'm very pleased that there are unique weapons, and I'm hoping this will continue through the series as we uncover (I suspect) additional Riders. The structure of a multi-Rider show grants it lots and lots of narrative options. The multiple forms/modes shown here aren't all focused on the main Rider, but are spread across them. This makes me hopeful because one of the things I didn't enjoy about the early episodes of Drive and Ghost was the plots centering around new power-ups for the main hero. (Colorful Commercial and Robin Hood, I'm looking at you.)

I'm hoping that Kamen Rider Racer will be a proper character. I'm also curious about Genmu, since on its face, it looks more like an inevitable color-swapped movie Rider, but the images suggest Genmu's role is different, and more in line with a main character.

A wide cast of Riders could indicate that we're going to have fewer non-Rider supporting characters, which is not necessarily a bad thing. (Drive and Ghost seemed to struggle a bit over what to do with some of their supporting characters.)

The series could be good or bad... or both, given Ghost's odd trajectory. I'm curious as to whether they'll manage the chibi forms in a way that strikes me as cool/awesome rather than unfortunate. I'd have said it was impossible, but I'd probably have said that about the giant, descending fruit, too.