[MaskedRiderAsakura]

I think the thing for me with Amazons is that they're allowed to do A LOT more than they can with the main show, and I don't just mean "showing more gore".


Although I would say Kamen Rider aims for an older audience than Sentai (typically), it's still very much for kids. That means, to an extent, Toei has to play it "safe". The hero is almost always an all-loving hero who is by far the most morally sound character in the entire cast. No matter what trials and tribulations the hero faces, there's always the guarantee that they'll come out on top and save the day. It's a zone where kids can feel safe and comfortable.

Then you take Amazons, which is pretty much allowed to go balls to the wall. I mean, you had Chihiro, the guy who seems to fit the mold of a standard Rider protagonist, until he goes apeshit, kills a bunch of people and you find out he's literally too dangerous to be left alive, yet you still feel sympathy for him because it's not really his fault. You had Haruka, who fights on behalf of humanity at first, except he willingly turns his back on them so that the monsters of the series can live in peace away from them. Let's not even get started on Jin, who couldn't give a damn about "justice" and "peace" and really only cares about rectifying his past mistakes. Even the most outwardly villainous characters in the series are fighting against the monsters. Yeah, the Amazons aren't even really evil, they're just hungry. It's the human characters that are trying to hunt them that you really need to be scared about.

The fact that it's aimed at adults allows it to have so much more complexity that it wouldn't have if it were shoehorned into a mainstream Rider formula (not that there's anything wrong with it, I just welcome the change).