[TheRaizin]

Ep 1 commentary

One of the earlier concepts was doing an angels and devils kind of thing.

Another idea was that the THREE riders are not siblings, but are from different organizations.

The earlier ideas for Sakura is she is an assassin.

Producer asked Eitoku and Kimura Subaru to do however they want in their performance of Vice. Of course there's still limits to it, like considering Vice's overall character and how he affects the rest of the events. Producer is glad the two of them have a professional approach to "do however you want."

They wanted to really have a scene where the family eats together. While scenes with food/eating is not uncommon to Rider (specifically in works of Inoue Toshiki and ShirakuraP, they said usually would have scenes involving food), it is rare to have a scene where the whole family eats together, in this kind of setting.

The idea of bathhouse is from Kinoshita. He's just a fan of bathhouses lol
He also wanted it to be something that teaches kids about bathhouses, especially those young ones who have probably never been into one.

Kinoshita said as the writer, of course he can't just let the characters run loose, but he's excited to where the characters could go after seeing episode 1

They were really happy with the cast that they had. Even in the audition they really stood out.

Other than the Igarashi sibs, they're also looking at George Karizaki and Kadota Hiromi to possibly transform later.

Karizaki and Hiromi's characters became more clear to Kinoshita after seeing Hamao Noritaka (George) and Komatsu Junya (Hiromi) on the audition.

Komatsu took audition for Saber actually, and got until the later parts of the process, but was eventually dropped.

He worked on stage stuff throughout the year, producer thought he was already active on stage, so he was a little surprised to see him back for Rider auditions. Producer said he saw a good improvement on Komatsu (from the last audition).

Komatsu and Hamao are big Rider fans

Kinoshita is writing the Deadmans with hopes that they'll be popular lol

Aguilera was originally a lady enemy boss that's a little bit more proper and orderly, but they changed after Asakura Yui took the audition.

Sakura is the heroine of the series, but for episode 1, the mother also plays a heroine position. It is with seeing how their mother was hurt that the three sibs rise up to fight.

The producer wanted to show Vice as one of the monsters so they had that scene Ikki materialized him first using the stamp on himself, before using the driver and getting to control Vice.

They wanted to portray that Vice is an akuma and that the human hero will be controlling him.

Kinoshita was surprised with the Rider design when he first saw it, especially with the color.

Producer wanted to have some black. Vice got to have the black.

Producer also wanted to do a light blue for the main, but eventually gave up on it

Producer said it's usually the heroine handing items to the hero, but this time it's George and will probably stay that way, alternating with Daiji, apparently, on the first parts of the show.

They also mentioned there will be some good stuff set for Daiji later

Kinoshita wanted to have that sibling dynamic. It's partly taken from his family, where he has a younger brother and younger sister.

Producer said he relates because he also has an older sister.

They wanted to portray the mystery of siblings, that even though they share the same blood, personalities can differ greatly, and that family is, whether one likes it or not, is a bond that cannot be cut.

Producer be like "If you see Vice talking to you (through he 4th wall) please respond to him"

Producer said audience better not be too fixed on what they see as the “front” of the character.
Producer: Ikki is a bright, sunny eldest son...but...!
Producer: Is Vice really an akuma...
Writer: He is!
Producer: Yes he is