[Kamen Rider Die]

Sorry in advance for this list! It's only Kamen Rider, since that's all I watch, and I haven't done Zi-O or Zero-One yet.

10. AMAZONS: As a full series, I thought it was pretty bad. The first season was enjoyable, largely down to the cheerful, charismatic face Jin put to genocide, but the second season confused shock value for compelling stories, and the movie was a total waste of time. At the end, it felt like a series that mistook gore for profundity.

9. GHOST: I talk a lot about it here. (Maybe too much!) I thought it wasn't as bad as some folks say, and not as great as other folks say. It made a ton of mistakes for me in the first rush of episodes, but righted the ship as the series progressed. Thematically, it picked something incredibly difficult to dramatize (emotional connections, spiritual wellness, empathy at all costs) but stuck to those themes so thoroughly that good stories grew from it. A deeply flawed series that rallied enough to keep me watching.

8. WIZARD: I didn't enjoy much of the experience of watching it, but I'm really glad I finished it. Over-reliant on two-episode monster-of-the-week plots to the detriment of incremental enjoyment, but a terrific series-long plot with a breathtaking final run of episodes. Too bad the middle section is soul-crushing in its averageness. The villain spotlights are an If You Only Watch One Thing From This Show delight, and the Net Movies kill. I never cared much for Haruto as a Rider, but there's some solid storytelling going on under the hood.

7. GAIM: A weird one, for me. One of the things I like in Kamen Rider shows is how it subverts Western superhero concepts, how it's for an audience with different cultural expectations. Like, most Kamen Rider heroes have a "with great responsibility comes great power" origin, where their innate heroism and selflessness sees them become the recipient of special powers. Kouta isn't that at all? He gets powers by accident, uses them for his own benefit, and eventually learns to use them for the good of others. It's a very Spider-Man origin, which I wonder if that's maybe why some Western fans really dial into Gaim as a series. It was kind-of the opposite for me, where it seemed too familiar. Still, the overall plot was well-done, with a steady progression to the finale. Some of the Woman of the Beginning stuff felt badly conceived, and Peko just sucks hilariously bad, but Baron's one of the greatest secondary Riders of all time, and the ending battle is epic. A really fun series that maybe didn't work for me as well as I was expecting it to.

6. FOURZE: Best opening string of episodes in any Kamen Rider series I've seen yet. Best ensemble of any Kamen Rider series I've seen yet. I would maybe die for Miu. Grafting the sci-fi monster fighting of a Kamen Rider show to a high school dramedy is probably one of the smartest decisions this franchise ever made. The plots generate from every angle, the stakes feel personal and also universal (no pun intended), the mixture of action and empathy never feels out of balance... it's a smart, funny, fast-paced show. I don't love the suits, and there's a point in the last dozen episodes where the producers realize they are a few stars short of a constellation and just start burning through developments, but that beginning is perfect and the ending nails its themes. "The Breakfast Club, but they fight space monsters" is a Hall Of Fame idea, and this show proved it.

5. W: I'm not sure there'll ever be as strong a Rider team as Philip and Shotaro. The booksmart/streetsmart thing, it's a timeless concept, but this show makes it seem fresh. The mysteries are fun, the theme song is fantastic, and the suit designs are gorgeous. I never really loved Accel, Akiko is occasionally too broad to tolerate, and the stuff with Wakana in the ending makes my blood boil when I think about it even now (I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT CHARACTER CHOICE AT ALL), but all of the main Double stuff makes those complaints feel minor. A terrific show that nails the fundamental week-to-week storytelling.

4. BUILD: I talk a lot about it here. (Definitely too much!) Okay, there is a stronger Rider team, it's Banjou and Sento. That relationship, the friction-giving-way-to-respect-giving-way-to-friendship-giving-way-to-brotherhood, it's worth a hundred other shows. Add in Evol(t), Grease, Rogue, Misora, Sawa, the Hokuto War arc, this goddamn scene...



...it's a superlative series, blessed with outstanding performers. So why isn't it #1? Well, the war framework gets a little repetitive (it definitely needed a break between the Hokuto arc and the Seito arc), and there's a weird amount of retconning/expositing for the pre-show developments. Also, Buildad is just not a good idea. Overall, it's a show I love, and I couldn't blame anyone for calling it the best Kamen Rider of the decade.

3. DRIVE: THIS THEME SONG!

(Okay, also how great the main actor is, how sympathetic the "monsters" become, the Chase/Go love story, all of the great suits, the exciting season-long story, the always entertaining week-to-week plots, it's a nearly perfect show. My few quibbles are that the stuff with Shinnosuke's dad in the middle of the season doesn't work that great, and that Kiriko is distractingly beautiful. It's a brilliant show!)

2. OOO: I frequently describe OOO as a show that isn't the best at anything, but it's good at everything. There are shows with better suits, better villains, better relationships, better plots and reveals and songs and conclusions and all of it. There's not one thing I'd point to OOO for and say they did it best. But they screwed up nothing. They dropped the ball never. It's literally a flawless show. It's my favorite Kamen Rider show, without question.

1. EX-AID: But I have to put Ex-Aid at the top of this list. (Or, uh, bottom of this list.) Ex-Aid was my first ever Kamen Rider show. If it wasn't for the suit aesthetics of Ex-Aid that I saw on TokuNation figure reviews, I'd've never started watching the show. If it wasn't for how addictively fun and surprisingly emotional Ex-Aid was, I'd've never watched other Kamen Rider shows. Emu, Poppy, and the alpha male assholes of the Cyber Rescue team, it's like I can't ever be mad at them for anything. It would be churlish to nitpick a show that ignited an obsession in me. If it wasn't your first show, I can't imagine why you'd call it the best Kamen Rider of the decade. But it was mine, so it's always going to be number one. Thank you, Kamen Rider Ex-Aid.