[Kurona]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It... this isn't something I'd put in the overview, since it references another series, but it's similar to how the amount of Zodiarts in Fourze wasn't paced super great. They gave themselves a hard number, plot-wise, in-show, and then they forgot how many episodes it would take to establish that number of characters onscreen. So you get, in Fourze, this rush of new lieutenants late in the run because there's only so many episodes left until the end of the series. You can almost feel the tension of the writing team to cram in some predetermined amount of characters.

Ryuki has a similar thing, where there's a middle section of real character-driven storytelling, an interest in doing more with the superb cast they've got, and then it's like Why Did You Keep Saying Thirteen If You Didn't Have Ideas For Thirteen.

Pacing out these season-long stories... it's got to be the hardest part of writing these shows. It's usually the most visible problem on less-good iterations.

I think it's especially weird to me because... while I just joked about it, the nature of the Rider Battle is such that you could easily say some other Riders died before Scissors, or maybe even by Asakura off-screen. It might come off as a little odd, especially when part of the excitement in the moment is seeing a lot of new Riders turn up... but you've made specials and movies for these guys! It's okay!

Though, like, admittedly; while Verde and Femme are isolated enough for that idea, it'd definitely stick out as pretty weird for "by the way, uh, Mirror World Evil Shinji is something that existed, and he's dead now". Frankly it's what made it especially weird for me when he turned up in the 13 Riders Special; he's treated as just another random Rider when like-- no! He's so clearly visually linked to Ryuki, that's- weird! You can't just not comment on it!


I do want to say though, just while it's on my mind and while I remember that I said earlier I wanted to talk about it later: Alternative not being classed officially as a Rider is fine to me because, well, in the context of his own series, that is very explicitly the case. In terms of other definitions including franchise-wide ones, scientist who creates his own system based on evil to fight for justice and the sake of the world? That's... uh... the plot of Build, actually, and I think Sento'd be pretty happy to talk things out with Kamen Rider Alternative. But by Ryuki's definition of what a Kamen Rider is, it makes sense to me that he's not considered one. ... even if he is one of three masked heroes that gets their own bike.