[MaskedRiderAsakura]

And I when I say 'conventional', I'm mostly referring to shonen-esque protagonists. Naive and/or idiot hero who's a wide-eyed idealist as opposed to his more aggressive/cynical/aloof rival.

Don't me wrong, I've enjoyed many of these protagonists over the years. Kouta and Emu are among my favorite characters in the franchise.

But looking back at the pre-Decade era, there was a bit more variety with the heroes. You still had the "I want to make everybody smile!" type heroes like Godai or Shinji, but you also had the more aloof leads like Takumi and Tendou, who had a major god complex and was perfectly balanced out by the more humble 'everyman' Kagami. You had the hilariously arrogant Tsukasa. You had the seasoned veteran in Hibiki. Even Shouichi was a idealist goofball out of suit, but in suit, he became this fierce, badass warrior who rarely spoke a single word.

One thing I liked about Sento is that even though he still fits that mold of "I want to make everybody smile!" that's become typical of many modern Riders, he was also....kind of the biggest asshole among our four main Riders once they all got together, not accounting for Grease and Rogue's stints as villains, of course. He still believed in love and peace, but he also wasn't above showboating, actively trolling his teammates and just shutting down people's comments when they got too stupid, and that made him far more enjoyable that Naruto in a Rider suit, which is sorta what Takeru is and we know how people feel about him. I also liked the Amazons leads. Haruka still leans more on the heroic side, but he's also a blood knight and there's at least one occasion where his pursuit of justice wasn't limited to just hunting down monsters. Jin doesn't really give a crap about justice so much as he cares about fixing his own mistakes and he's also a major jerkass. Chihiro is about as heroic as it gets, but he's also a walking death machine and eventually needs to be put down despite his heroics (and yes, I know Chihiro gets a bad rap from most people, but I like him, or at least I like the concept of him).

I feel Sougo is sorta fitting into that Takeru mold, but fortunately Zi-O hasn't been annoying about it so far since the other characters tend to call him out on his stupidity.

Do you guys feel the same? What are your thoughts?