[Librarian]

Decade was supposed to be short. The TV ending was the true intended ending from the start too. Everything after was retreading and trying to write out of that ending when it was supposed to do something else with that ending.

Kivara was planned right though and everything from there was about right. It's mainly the change of the tv ending to the beginning of the after specials that was sidestepping the original plan. Everything else is about what it was supposed to be though.

Not the first time this has happened though. Hibiki diverged in the middle away from the full theme closure it was supposed to have with last minute changes, but then went right back to the ending it was supposed to have focusing on Asumu's choice like how the show started. There were some other things that should have been explored. But the beginning and ending still lined up to as intended. It's the middle that got messed by the writer shifts and corporate interference. Hibiki would have rebounded if they stuck with the build it was getting instead of the confusing turn it took. Though some elements did need to be added for the better poignancy of Asumu's growth. Though more should have been done with Ibuki's apprentice. That was one of the sub builds that was going on that Zanki foreshadowed. So Hibiki's intended full ending does kind of feel like it's missing a piece because of that.

Sometimes that's the main issue with corporate series. You have one vision in mind and build to that, where turns can cause merchandise upswings, but then the corporate heads get nervous and start forcing changes too fast, which ruins the planned story beats and upswings built in, which then causes a bigger mess, and you end up with only the beginning and endings making sense while the middle is all over the place from interference.

Something they've seemingly learned to be careful of since roughly OOOs. Everything after that one has been more cohesive visions of letting the stories play out as planned. OOOs was the last one that got interfered with. Kiva and Decade ran okay too from how they were intended. Decade wasn't interfered with until post-series where they tried to rewrite the intended ending. Which is why the shift from new TV end to him leading Shocker made no sense.

Den-O had other issues due to actors/actresses, but it mostly still played out as intended including spin-offs/side stories.