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How do you like Toku to handle toys?
As we all know, these toku shows are basically glorified toy commercials with storylines, but each season does toys differently. How do you prefer toys to be handled?
(For the sake of discussion, let's shy away from saying that you prefer toys to have as minimal of an impact as possible) Personally, I like Kamen Rider's tendency to have collectible gimmicks modify the suits. That way, there's the things you collect (eyecons, gashats) as well as the various rider forms that they create. In terms of mechs, I'd rather have multiple core mech designs over one or two main mechs that have swappable limbs. Like...Kiramager over Gaoranger or Kyoryuger. How about you? |
I feel toys in Rider fiction peaked in Decade through Fourze and never truly recovered since. Simple yet creative gimmicks that naturally weaved into the story and there was never so many as to be overwhelming. It's downright refreshing going back to this era, where the toylines do bring a fun toyetic flavour but don't outstay their welcome as they start doing in Gaim onwards.
I also really really wouldn't mind what New Gen Ultraman's been doing -- it's got a lot of items thrown about recently, sure, but a lot of them have ended up being used for attacks rather than forms. There's some other great things there too, like Taiga having alternate Ultras as the 'form changes' and Z outright replacing the mid-season super form with King Joe. One more thing here that's key to both things I'm talking about -- unless it's super simple and inventive like W? Screw electronic gimmick items. It's fine for the super forms but, man, every single item costing between £7-£10 gets a bit ridiculous very very quickly and I cannot overstate how refreshing it was to see Ultraman Z offer like, 9 new gen hero medals for the price of less than two progrise keys. This also keeps things much simpler in the show. |
I like how Blade did it, and Zero-One somewhat. OOO is a contender too.
The whole deal of Blade mixing n matching his cards to perform different attacks and what not, and also making use of the Mach and Thunder cards to perform a rider kick was cool. It didn't a change in suit, just a special attack. I kinda dislike when a show dumps as much suits as they can. It irritates me when a super form gets outdated by the form after it. See: Shining Hopper/Dragonic Knight. Saber, I feel, highlighted how much I disliked it, but funnily enough, Saber is one of the few shows that still finds a way to balance Saber's forms. Something also like how OOO does it is very good. The medals are used to make combos. Each medals, except I guess Super, Putotyra, and Burokawani, are interchangeable from one another. One medal/combo doesn't make the other obsolete. Honestly, with Saber's three-book gimmick, I thought this was what they were going to do, but then we had the bigger book gimmicks. |
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Honestly, I'd just like it if we could go back to non-electronic gimmicks for at least a season.
We were doing it off and on until Zi-O and have been doing it straight ever since. I prefer non electronic gimmick items if only because it means when they're butchered for the Gashapon and Candy Toy releases, they aren't butchered as badly. |
I can imagine it's a bit difficult for the kids/parents, too. I don't know much aside from after the season some parents would sell the toys to places like Mandarake or give them to daycares, imagine, if you will, your kid requests you something like "I want Zero-One strongest form!" So, you go to somewhere like Yodobashi or Akihabara and you're confronted with three choices.
Shining Assault, Metal Cluster, or Zero-Two. If you don't watch the show, how would one know which is the strongest form? |
Faiz did such a good job with the toys. All the different optional weapons and accessories, and the central Faiz phone that interacted with them. Collecting all the Faiz toys felt like building a suit of armor with an arsenal.
Once phase 2 of Heisei started, I really enjoyed secondary rider belts because of how much easier it was to "complete" them. Going for a secondary rider belt and accessories felt like the main rider collectibles from phase 1 in terms of amount and completionism. For example, the Mach Driver Honoh and all the signal bikes was equivalent to Double and all the memories. |
I'm not really a fan of front loading the first third of the season with form changes only to replace everything by the midseason upgrade. Sales wise, I understand, but it removes the fun novelty of the new week to week suits (Build, Zi-O, Zero-One). OOO did this wonderfully by keeping all the medals relevant throughout the series even when they introduced more of the combos
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I like how Ultraman does it. A few actual form changes, and the rest are just for attacks. I'm fine with having lots of form changes if they have a story purpose (e.g. Gaim) and don't just get thrown aside the next week.
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Hey now, Arms Changes were an awesome gimmick because it was interchangeable with almost every rider (Totally not being bias or anything haha)
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It was! But like other series it got dropped very quickly in favour of upgrades.
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So I don't typically think a lot about kamen rider toys in the show, but I do feel like some handle it better then others.
Kamen Rider Ghost did an oddly good job keeping toys relevant for the whole series. The ghost roleplay items (the clock, phones, and lantern) were all still used in the last act of the show, the coats got repurposed for grateful, and the eyecons were still being used for plot stuff later on. Ex-aid did alright by spreading the upgrades out between all the riders, and having the roleplay weapons be the default weapons for some riders (also by giving Kuruto the gashacon breaker) Saber seems to be kind of all over the place, the larger upgrades are fine, but the random wonderride books are kind of just there. I can't tell if they were just rushing through cause they didn't care or like out of spite. |
As long as the figures have good articulation I'm all good. Head and waist joints are particularly important for me. I don't need them to be Figuarts level of articulation, I just want to pick up and pose them.
Gimmicks are a bonus for me. |
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One thing that made OOO really unique to me was that he lost toys/forms as well as gaining them. It allowed for some really crushing defeats and costly victories because having medals stolen meant he'd have fewer options for the next battle. And it meant that instead of just always going for the "best" form, the show could actually make use of the mix-and-match gimmick and show off the random combos from time to time, because Eiji didn't always have the right medals for a full combo. And I guess from a marketing perspective, it also let them draw attention to the same toy multiple times.
I know several seasons since then have had villains or rival riders try to take the main rider's collectables, but they so rarely actually succeed that it doesn't feel like a serious threat like it did in OOO, except maybe when Jin took Flying Falcon. What I'd really like to see is a season where the collectables change hands often like in OOO and are used by multiple riders like in Gaim, so that when a rival rider steals the hero's collectable it's a problem not just because the hero loses access to that form, but because the rival can now use that form themself. |
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I feel smaller, cheaper toy lines that are a step up from gacha would win me over too, not as a replacement for the big toys for kids, but I absolutely feel that if there was a smaller supplementary toy line—again in the supermarket, because I'm a boring adult—then I would pick it up. This is broadly my problem with merchandise for Transformers and MLP too; I'm old enough to be nostalgic here, and if you put a tiny pony in the same aisle as the soya milk or whatever, I will buy this stuff, but I won't make the effort to go out of my way to hunt things down, and I won't buy absurdly expensive, absurdly huge things, because what use have I for that? *she said, glancing down at the stack of reissue ponies by her bed* |
About the mecha and robots, I really like when the individual robots do stuff and don't just immediately merge into the combined form for every fight.
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TL;DR This is mostly about Rider, as well as a commentary on what I'd like to see the franchise do. I do bring up other franchises in passing comparison. I like a mix of both insane gimmickry and complete all-in-one toys. And its hard to pick which one I like more.
I love the toyeticness of most modern shows. If the toys are so commonplace, it helps sell the reality of the world. At the same time, I feel that back when the toys weren't so out-the-wazoo, it made the transformation systems feel more special. Having said that, I'd like more to my toys than just the all-in-one transformation device, figures, mechs/vehicles, and that's it for 26-50 episodes. Its hard to describe. Early Heisei Rider shows did a pretty solid job with very few toys, but the franchise can't exist without a trillion gimmicks. Similarly, shows like Legend Heroes The Three Kingdoms and the BIMA franchise can get away with fewer toys. But then Ultraman comes in with a bazillion gimmicks and its doing amazing, short episode count and in-between shows notwithstanding. I kinda like a bit of both. While I enjoy all the collectible gimmicks of more modern shows, I will admit that it can get tiring after a while. On the other end of the spectrum, I love how unique most Phase 1 (and early Phase 2) rider belts were, but dislike how little they have in terms of gimmickry. An example of this would be Den-O and Deneb, or Fourze and Meteor. So I like the more modern stuff because I like lots of shiny plastic that makes noises, but I do miss the unique belts, limited gimmicks, and more "complete" suits. I'd like if it Rider did something like Sentai in recent years, where every other year there's a ton of merch, and elsewise is very little (e.g. LuPat to Ryusoulger to Kiramager to Zenkaiger). Sentai is otherwise pretty good on the toy department, I think. Same with Ultraman. And maybe Rider and Sentai could do a shortened episode count. I know Ultra fills that half a year with a side show, so maybe we could get a couple of movies here and there for Rider/Sentai. I also like how Ultraman has been doing a lot with RFID chips lately, as well as most of their transformation devices being hand-held. I feel Rider could do a lot with that. To echo Kurona from page 1, I also dislike the gimmicks being super-expensive and would like some gimmicks to be split between transformation-only and finisher-only. I know it all comes down to execution, among other factors. Sentai alternates, Ultraman has a legacy, some shows have good writers, cable TV is on the way out, some shows have less episodes than others. But I'd just like to see some other franchises (mainly Rider) execute gimmicks as well as Ultraman (and to an extent Sentai) does. Have a ton of cheap gimmicks with unique transformation devices, but have some gimmicks only used for certain things. |
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I tend to like it better when the merchandise is used as a tool/creation of the people in the show.
Like Lockseeds, Zyudenchi & other trinkets like that are fun in their own right & definitely serve their purpose in their respective stories. But it always feels awkward when some kinda supernatural force or source of magic creates something as blatantly man-made as a Ranger Key, ya know? But Shift Cars, SPD Licenses, Buddyroids & things of that nature feel better to see on screen because they are crafted by characters in the show, making the toy-look that these pieces of "technology" have less egregious. |
I would rather keep the toys be keep to a limit. My biggest problem with later Kamen Rider, Sentai, and Ultraman shows when they shove the toys in your face. It can be a turn off for people who want to become a fan, but feel like it's too gimmicky. You can sell toys without it being so obnoxious.
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Something I'm liking about Zenkaiger right now is how, probably as a result of Sentai's waning sales; they've toned the toys they're selling WAYYYY down.
For the Zenkaigers themselves the totality of their toys are two mecha, which this time around flow very naturally from the rangers and there's absolutely zero auxiliary mechs; the changer, which y'know, is a changer; the holder... which has no function beyond literally holding gears; and the gears themselves, which are easily justifiable for an anniversary season, are very fun and in the toyline are in fact not DX releases. You come to our upcoming sixth ranger and he as well only has his changer, his holder and one mech. There's also Stacey's changer but that's premium bandai and also feels like a natural part of the story. Usually we'd be getting a bunch of weapons to shill, a new auxiliary mecha every episode, just all sorts of stuff. But this season things have been scaled back so that they're actually selling and advertising less toys than they were over 10 years ago, and it allows the show room to breathe and do whatever it wants without feeling like the toys are being too intrusive, because aside from arguably the gears it's literally just the bare essentials this time around without introducing stuff that'll become pointless or redundant or excessive later on. It's a very nice change of pace. |
I wonder if anniversary seasons rekindle desires for older toys or new toys of older toys.
For example, the Gaoking Minipla coming out this year, convenient that it is one of the Legacy robots featured in Zenkaiger. So I wonder if Zenkaiger can push less toys directly. Also can't wait to see the sales figures and if kids really took to a non-red leader. |
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