[barnstenchfartface]

When I finished Skyrider on Thrusday I said I'd post my thoughts on it "later, when I have more time." I guess by that I meant the following Tuesday at 2 am.

So, Skyrider.

I think that the most remarkable thing about Skyrider is how very unremarkable it really is. It's a super bland show. It doesn't have anything other Showa Riders don't do better or more interestingly. It doesn't have an interesting premise.* It has no interesting characters. It has no compelling stories. It had the chance to tell one in its last three or four episodes, but chickened out halfway through. I guess Kamen Rider just wasn't ready for moral complexity until Black came along. Oh well.

*I say it didn't have an interesting premise, but it's more like Skyrider had no premise at all. That's the other notable thing about it. This show never really had any idea what it wanted to be. Befitting its initial premise as a reboot of the franchise, it pretty much started off as "the original show, except with paragliders instead of bikes. he still has a bike though." But that apparently didn't pan out, so it then started to transition, dropped off everything from that early part, and just became, like...a really nondescript Showa series. Even more so than it already was anyway. There was just...nothing notable about it. No cool villain generals. No interesting protagonists. Like, one fun supporting character. I'll get to him later. There just wasn't much at all to make it stand out. And then...

And then old Riders started to show up. Which is like, not a negative, exactly. This sort of thing was not uncommon in the Showa era. Stronger famously had all the Riders up to that point show up in its final arc, and I loved that shit. But Stronger was a fine show on its own, and since they managed to get all the actors back it felt like a really big, cool event for what looked to be the end of Rider at the time.

With Skyrider it felt like they brought in all these old Riders to make up for the series' own lack of character. And they only got a couple of returning actors, so it wasn't that notable even when they all got together. The climax of the series has all eight Riders, but most of them just show up out of nowhere for no reason. Hayato and Shigeru were the only ones to appear out of suit for the last good chunk of the series.

And again, I mean, not a negative. Hell, I enjoyed seeing Shigeru again, I like Stronger. It's just...Skyrider. If only you could have been more interesting on your own.

Speaking of not knowing what it wanted to be, at some point the series pulled out something about Skyrider having "99 Techniques" right out of their rectums. So like, I actually watched the first 34 episodes of it last Spring-ish, and then the last 20 over the past however-long-it's-been since the rest of it got subs (four months? my word). He pulled the 99 Technique thing a bunch in those 20 episodes. Have literally no recollection of it being a thing in the first 34. I assume it's something they started doing after his upgrade, but again. Completely out of god damn nowhere.

Didn't stop them from completely dropping it for the last half dozen episodes or so though. 99 my foot.

Oh, and you know how his name is Skyrider? How he can fly? How that's the only thing that makes him distinct from other Riders? I mean, it's pretty obvious where I'm going with this, but, you wanna guess how much flying he did in the back end of the show? Because it's not a lot. Seriously, just lowball it. You'll probably get it pretty close. There was even one episode where a kappa monster was literally just flying around in his magic shell, and instead of chasing him with his own flight powers, he just...used his bike. Hey, he's Skyrider, not LivesUpToHisNamerider.

There was also this thing he used to do a lot in the early parts of the show, the Rider Break, where he rams his bike through walls and shit. It was more or less his Thing, and it was pretty cool. He also never does it again after a certain point. Until KyoryuGreen mentioned it in another thread the other day, I'd actually completely forgotten that was a thing he ever did. He actually did it one last time in episode 52, 53? Around there. It must have been the first time he did it in like 20 episodes. I was super flabbergasted.

Skyrider at its start was a completely different show from what it was at its end. But at neither time was it that interesting.

...and I say that, but I guess it's not necessarily true. For two reasons. One being that even if they failed to commit to the one twist that would have made the show actually interesting, the last three episodes were still pretty good.

And the other, well...what else but the great GanGan G? I actually rather grew to like this big ol' goofball. Not as much as I did Mogura or my beloved General Shadow, but he's a fun character. He definitely made an otherwise bland show more entertaining, at least for the duration of his brief appearances. He joins the list of Showa characters I wish would (but know never will) get figuarts or something.

Anyway....Skyrider. I'd give rate it with like 45/99 Techniques or thereabouts. Probably way more than he used in the show, come to think of it...

....ended up writing a lot more than I thought , but eh. What the hell.