[Fish Sandwich]

Guys, we have to be rational about this -- any problems with the story of Gavv are *clearly* a result of them using the budget to make Amazons instead.

Anyway, I could throw my own two cents about Gavv in the ring, but since this has come up, I'd just like to give a VERY basic outline of how the creative process behind these shows works, as I understand it?

Basically, for any given Kamen Rider show, going back at least all the way to Kuuga (and most of this info is also true for Super Sentai), there's a trio of people who we would probably consider something along the lines of "showrunners", who have a larger direct influence on the series than most other people involved.

- the chief producer (for Gavv, that's Naomi Takebe)
- the main writer (for Gavv, Junko Koumura)
- the pilot director (for Gavv, Teruaki Sugihara)

With the occasional exception, pairs of episodes in Rider are treated as single "blocks" on a production level. A director and a writer are appointed to handle each one, and the actual physical scripts even contain both episodes. (This is likely the biggest factor in the prevalence of two-part stories across the franchise.) Most shows generally have a "rotation" of a few directors who more-or-less take turns in the same order. Main writers are generally able to handle writing many more scripts than any one director will handle, to the point you'll occasionally see shows like Faiz or Ex-Aid where someone like Toshiki Inoue or Yuuya Takahashi will literally write the entire thing.

The chief producer then, as the one of that trio who has the least active involvement in the making of the specific individual episodes, is the one who focuses the most on overseeing the series as a whole, deciding a lot that's very important on the broader scale while generally being less visible in any singular element. Part of that job is having lots of meetings with the staff, and the main writer and pilot director are the people who naturally get brought in earlier than most to start shaping the production. But of course, once other directors and writers come onboard, they're also involved in those discussions too, since they're going to be working on their own episodes.

I can't speak to exactly how flexible the hierarchy of those meetings is, in terms of how much "guest" writers and directors are able to influence the overall story of a series. It likely depends on the specific production, but most of what I've ever read suggests everyone gets their say while still ultimately deferring to that core trio. (Or, god help you, to the executives even higher up, but that's a different discussion entirely.) The key thing to note is while episodic stories will absolutely be colored by those individual voices, it's highly unlikely a situation ever happens where a "guest" writer will make a decision for the overarching plot against the wishes or intent of the main writer, because they're supposed to be agreeing on those things before they even start writing. (In the specific case of Gavv, Koumura is even explicitly credited with supervision on every episode she didn't write, which is pretty uncommon for Rider.)

Similarly, even though the pilot director can only directly handle so many episodes in a year, their influence actually does extend well beyond even simply establishing the overall blueprint with those first few episodes. I recall reading around the time of Rakia's proper introduction in Gavv that they have a direct hand in deciding stuff like the casting and wardrobe for new recurring characters, and the design of new recurring sets, even when they don't debut in episodes helmed by them. Likewise, they also generally handle the visuals in the opening, even when new shots are first used in episodes they don't direct.

If anyone who's even more deep into this stuff than me has anything to correct me on, or even just thinks I could've worded something better, by all means, tell me where I went wrong, but as I've come to understand it after years and years of caring ~probably~ a bit more than the average Rider fan, this is the way these things go, and I'd hope people keep the facts in mind whenever they're trying to delineate blame/credit for the perceived failures/successes of a given Rider series.