[Kamen Rider Die]

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

And Hitomi outgrowing the drama club also isn't an insight or learning anything? And well, dunno, you say the Asumu one isn't worth spending time here, but if it doesn't exist and it's about monster hunting, well, it's not your cup of tea?

The Hitomi thing is nice, but it's not something that's going to carry an episode. It's, what, three lines of dialogue? In one scene? And it's her quitting one club we've never seen her attend for another club we've never seen her attend? And we already had her talking about this with Asumu a ways back? It's a cute moment, but that's it.

For Asumu, I don't think the choice is between a go-nowhere plot or nothing? We've had plenty of plots with Asumu that work great. This just wasn't one of them.

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Originally Posted by DreadBringer

Otherwise, probably to suit your needs, the show can put on the 'drama' (dunno which kind you refer here though) on Akira learning stuff from Ibuki like Asumu from Hibiki? As Akira is also Ibuki's apprentice.

I think what I meant by 'drama' was that there really isn't any conflict to the Hibiki/Ibuki/Akira team, which is heart-warming, but also leaves their scenes without much to talk about. A little drama is necessary. The Oni getting along and doing their jobs well with no disagreement or conflict is great for Takeshi, but it doesn't really fill out a TV show.

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Originally Posted by Sunred

In retrospect from a merchandise perspective, Hibiki was lacking. The henshin belt that is meant to be the flagship merch was replaced with tuning forks, whistles, and a wristband, what came close to a belt was a loincloth with a drum for a buckle and two drumsticks, though the roleplay weapons department I will give credit. And the disk animals were heavily underutilized as gimmick items. Meanwhile, we got a 5 sibling sentai team that was Harry Potter-ing it up with a feature phone that doubles as a wand, kickass robots, and let us not forget a magic lamp with a cat genie inside that doubles as a gun and is voiced by the dude who is Trunks and MMPR Japanese dub's Billy/Blue Ranger. And the studio behind Godzilla was doing their own thing with a show about a trio of heroes who also ride giant robots, etc. TL;DR the show under Takatera was gorgeous but merch was lacking except for the roleplay weapon toys.

Yeah, I suppose you're right. I don't really have a great insight into what a 7 to 10-year old Japanese child in 2005 would've made of all of this stuff. The drumsticks and guitars and CDs don't strike me as being any worse than Ryuki or Blade's weaponry. It seems just as cool?

I will say that the lack of a Henshin belt (and someone saying Henshin) will never not bother me. I can understand every reason why it's not in this show, but it still bothers me.