Everything the show did well:
-The two main riders, Haruto and Nitou are constantly charismatic and pretty funny.
-Gremlin is a really memorable villain.
-Phoenix was a pretty entertaining villain.
-Action is consistently amazing.
-Some episodes can be really funny and endearing.
-Final arc cam be kind of interesting due to the reasoning behind the antagonist actions and the arc of the mages.
-The rings add very varied moveset of abilities for Wizard.
-Pretty good finale.
-The crossover epilogue is entertaining.
-The acting is overall pretty good.

Everything the show did bad:
-Nobody in the hero sidecast is compelling. Rinko and Shunpei while initially likeable, they barely get to actually do anything and their character arcs stay at a stalemate. Shigeru is never given enough of character or barely any semblance of a backstory. The 3 mages are an interesting concept, particularly Mayu backstory but all of this happens so late in the show that it feels really rushed and poorly executed. The donut shop are just gags characters. The only character that was given something was Koyomi, and even then she's mostly a plot device than an actual character.
-The Phantom are among the most boring villains in the franchise. They barely have anything interesting going on which makes the episodes feel pretty boring. This wouldn't be much of an issue if the sidecast had strong personalities to compensate but they really don't. And since most of the show is filler, them being boring monsters make the show generally feel like a drag.
-When the show finally moves the plot forward in the final arc, it's extremely rushed and tries to do too much at once making it feel really messy.
-Wiseman plan to achieve his goal is too conveluted.
-Medusa's reasoning for following Wiseman is kind of dumb.
-Despite Haruto and Nitou being likeable they barely get any proper backstory or character arc. They are just interesting enough to bring life into the show and have a great dynamic but they aren't a particularly amazing set of characters.
-Comedy can be very hit or miss.

Reasons for the show strenghts:
Director Nakazawa wanted to go all out in order cheer people up due to the earthquake and make you want to watch the show continously. The characters that secondary writer Komura focused were really entertaining.

Reasons for the show flaws:
Main writer Tsuyoshi Kida had scheduling issues which resulted in him barely writing or supervising the script. Producer Utsunomiya had secondary writer Junko Komura run the show on automatic without actually progressing the plot since he expected Kida to be back on time. On top of this Komura without supervision tends to only focus on a few characters, thus she only really focused on Haruto, Nitou and Gremlin. While this caused Gremlin to be a fantastic villain, everyone else got sidelined (It's unclear how many of Gremlin's ideas were made by Komura or were part of Kida's story draft but seemingly it was the latter?). Ultimately Komura ended up writing so much of the show that she's occasionally credited as Wizard main writer. Ultimately since Kido wasn't supervising we couldn't get that supposed "lovecraftian nature" he wanted to portray in the phantoms. The show would ultimately get extended but this happened so late the already rushed final arc was already in motion, which is why the finale ended up being a crossover.

Overall:
This is the most consistently boring show in the Kamen Rider franchise. And one cannot give it the benefit of being average due to even the story being rushed and conveluted in the final arc. I can only recommend this show if you REALLY like Haruto and Nitou, and if you REALLY like the action. If you like both enough, you can probably tank through the show while having a good time, but otherwise it will be an average watch at best and a bad one at worst for most people.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did good:
-Extremely likeable cast of characters from both the hero and villain side. Even side characters.
-Pretty great action.
-Consistently hilarious from start to finish. Managse to make the jokes funny by themselves in spite of being filled with references from past Sentai, but also rewards one for having knowledge of past Sentai shows.
-Great finale.
-Excellent acting in both the comical and dramatic scenes.
-Manage to make the monster of the week feel like a world-level threat in spite of being extremely goofy.
-Hakaizer and Stacy storyline are really entertaining and emotional.
-Aside from Zenryoku Zenkai Gattai Zenryoku ZenkaiOh, the mecha fights are more entertaining than usual.
-The world being fused with Kikaitopia makes the setting feel unique.
-The team doing an unique roll call every episode is fun.

Everything the show did bad:
-The kikanoids rangers feel heavily shafted compared to Kaito, Zox and Stacy. Makes them feel more like the sidekicks of Zenkaizer rather than a proper Sentai team.
-Gaon specifically feels even more shafted because he doesn't get a proper backstory to give weight to his hate of kikanoids.
-The true main antagonist kind off came out of nowhere.
-As funny and likeable the villains are, aside from Stacy and Hakaizer they still feel kinda shafted, especially Boccowaus which felt that he couldn't use most of his powers.
-Zox's storyline feels pretty detached from the overall plot.
-The final mech Zenryoku Zenkai Gattai Zenryoku ZenkaiOh pretty much never looks well on screen.
-Stacy loses too many battles to be taken as seriously.
-Stacy storyline gets dragged. Personally didn't mind it because the show continued to be entertaining but it's still an issue.
-One could argue that Zenkaiger powers don't have much identity since it's just powers based on past rangers. As opposed to the previous show that had power like these where their pirate abilities and stylish fighting was more prominent than their legend powers.
-Having the powers of all previous Sentai from the beginning without having to earn them may feel cheap for some viewers. Especially considering that the previous crossover anniversary show Gokaiger had to earn all the mech powers.

Reasons for the show strenghts:
Producer Shirakura wanted to make the show stand out and came up with a crazy setting. Junko Komura is really good at choosing cast members. Kaito and Stacy actors especially are really good.

Reasons for the show flaws:
Producer Shirakura wanted to emphasize dimension travellings but Covid made it so that they had limited sets available, thus only being able to do that for a few episodes. Main writer Junko Komura was brought over after almost every single core idea of the plot had been decided so she had less freedom. While I understand why Shirakura chose Komura due to the setting being similar to Zyuohger and Akibaranger where she was heavily involved in both, she's bad at handling multiple characters, so she only really focused on Kaito, Stacy and Zox while leaving the other characters behind. The true main antagonist coming out of nowhere happened due to a controversy with one of the villains' voice actor, forcing a retcon as to why it had multiple manners of speech.

Overall:
The show is objectively a 7/10 due to the underdeveloped cast. But the comedy is on point, it's not the funniest Sentai as Carranger had it beat on that regard, but the show never had any big issues to drag it lower. However comedy is subjective, I recommend to watch the first 3 episodes and if you liked the comedy stay watching, just don't go up excepting a particularly complex plot.

Leia Mais

Everything the show did well:
-Really cool action overall that feels very 'raw'.
-Prior the final episode, the majority of the cast is entertaining.
-Pretty good plot and setting overall.
-The rivalry between Kotaro and Nobuhiko is entertaining overall.
-Really cool world-building.
-With the exclusion of the final episode, the show manages to be consistently entertaining.

Everything the show did bad:
-One of the worst finales this franchise has ever had. The last 10 minutes of the show somehow manages to ruin most of the cast, especially Aoi and ruins most of the set-up the show had done up to that point. The finale comes off as the characters just being really dumb and out of character suddenly to make the finally unnecessarily bleak. This personally made the show feel like a waste of time in spite of me really enjoying the show prior those last 10 minutes or so.
-The character played by the ex-rapper of ALI Jua feels really out place despite being a kinda likeable character overall. His overall personality feels like it doesn't fit with the show's tone and his actions don't really make much sense considering his backstory.
-Some of the political elements of the show feel kind of out of place at times and kind of disconnected from the show's messages.
-Some characters feel unnecessarily scummy at times due to their lack of backstory.
-While the cast is indeed likeable overall prior to the finale, they really aren't anything that amazing or stand-out.

There isn't enough info on the production to know why the show ended this way. There's rumors that Amazon Prime, the platform on which this show was released, requested the political elements in the show and that the weird ending was done as a sequel hook. But all of this info is unconfirmed and currently there's no way to know.

Overall:
I could see people giving this show a 6 or even a 7 due to the show being enjoyable for the most part but I just don't feel right recommending this show due its horrible finale, especially when there are far better tokusatsu and action horror shows out there. I can only recommend this if you're really starving for an action horror show since that aspect is done particularly well in this show or if you're a Kamen Rider completionist, just be prepared for an awful finale.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-The show first half is really great overall. Most characters are likable during that period, and the general tone and atmosphere feels great.
-Episode 42 was amazing.
-Pretty good finale.
-Daiji's actor is great and has excellent delivery for his scenes.
-Lovekov is a pretty loveable mascot.
-The action in the first half, excluding the CGI forms, is really well done and different from other shows as it feels like controlled chaos.
-The music in the first half is among the franchise's most unique.
-The first quarter of the show has more budget than usual.

Everything the show did bad:
-The mysteries and character arcs setup in the show's first half get resolved either boringly or just straight up bad.
-By the end of the show barely any character remains likeable and the ones that do aren't really anything impressive, just 'good'.
-The main protagonist Ikki is a very boring character overall, and his partner Vice doesn't really feel like a co-protagonist and just feels like a mascot. Their character arc is only interesting in the finale. Ikki in the beginning is busybody type character and has good detective skills but by the second half he stops doing any of this for the most part, while letting his siblings resolve their own problems is unique it barely gives him a chance to develop character.
-Daiji is the worst part of the first arc because his rivalry with Ikki feels repetitive, that isn't much of an issue and he remains pretty likeable during the first half but after he obtains his upgrade Holy Live his character just keeps getting worse. Most of his actions in the second half stem from fear of the main antagonist but said antagonist doesn't come off powerful enough which makes most of his decisions feel nonsensical. Also the rest of the cast are jerks to him for seemingly no reason.
-Sakura is really likeable before becoming a rider, but once she does she becomes a brat. This would be fine since they're clearly setting up her developming maturity after being smug and in the first arc they manage to make some interesting things with this. However the show despite her barely winning any battles and being a smug brat who has yet to know her place, almost every character sucks her off as if she's somehow amazing. When it's time to resolve her arc it happens mostly off-screen which feels like a cop-out.
-The main antagonist Giff is only likeable when he was a statue. Once he becomes a proper monster he loses all of his personality and his actual plan is really dumb.
-Julio and Aguilera become joke characters with barely any direction after episode 18.
-Most of George character arc in the second half feels forced and contradictory to his personality in the first half.
-Hiromi, Genta, Bu-san, Kagero and Olteca remain the most likeable characters because they remain mostly absent in the second half where the show went bad and you bet that when they appear later in the second half the show tries its best to ruin them.
-The action degrades heavily in the second half for several reasons. There's barely any new enemies and they mostly spend fighting Veil and Giffdemos, the new riders introduced barely have any character at all so they don't have an interesting moveset and the powers the main cast get from their upgrades feel detached from the initial themes.
-For the second half of the show they mostly use more generic sounding action music or old tracks from the first half. All new tracks that are actually unique get barely used.
-The eviction plot-line gets forgotten.
-The shot in the opening of the main protagonist in a flaming school never happens in the show, it's the only time that I can think of in the franchise were the show opening seeminly hinting at a plot point goes nowhere.
-One of the worst final arcs in the franchise.
-The show is worse on a re-watch since now you know that the mysteries and set up aren't actually building up to anything.
-Weird anti-vaccine message episode.
-The show does a poor job at making the main antagonist Giff feel powerful or even menacing.

Reasons for the show strenghts:
Producer Mochizuki has ton of interesting ideas, good set of directors.

Reasons for the show flaws:
Producer Mochizuki puts all of his good ideas in the first quarter which makes it feel kinda cluttered and also makes him go overbudget. After the first quarter he pretty much gives the main writer complete freedom. Keep in mind this is the same strategy he used in his previous show Kyuranger which resulted in him being demoted, he was promoted again and given a second chance since it have been a long time since that show, but this shows he pretty much didn't learn anything, which resulted in him getting demoted again inmediately after the show ended.
The writer who gave complete freedom, Hanta Kinoshita, didn't really care for any of Mochizuki's ideas nor actually likes Kamen Rider, he's more of marvel comic fans. After the first quarter he pretty much retconned everything Mochizuki and director Shibasaki had set up without any actual planning. He publicly admitted that he didn't have anything planned for the main protagonist duo nor the deadmans past episode 18 and had nothing planned for Daiji past episode 27. His only focus pretty much was Sakura and Weekend. All of these decisions made him ruin the show's second half with the exception of episode 42. It legimetely seems that he was angry that his idea of a female protagonist was rejected and that Hiromi, a character that was supposed to die in the first episode before the script being changed because the staff liked the actor, ended up being more popular than Sakura and Vice. Kinoshita also inserted his own political views into the show. The writer just generally comes off as petty.
Besides that, the character Hikaru who had barely done anything suddenly changing and becoming prominent in the second half despite having no personality, is heavily speculated to have happened due to him being from a profilic agency and that the staff was forced to give him more screen time.
Due to Sakura being so poorly written and her arc being resolved off-screen despite the writer's insistance that she's his favorite character one has to assume that something that we're not aware of happened in production.

Overall:
If you care about consistency this will most likely be an average show due to the first half being really great and the second being really bad. If you care about writing quality this is easily one of the franchise's worst. One cannot really get a feel for the characters and story by watching the first 3 episodes due to how much the show changes. I honestly cannot really recommend this show when the tokusatsu genre has other much better titles.
Personally since my biggest draw to shows are characters, this is the worst Rider show I've seen so far. In Wizard Haruto, Nitou and Gremlin at least were really likeable. In Ghost Alain was amazing, only the 2 dudes from the temple were boring, and Chikara and Adel were really bad, but otherwise the cast was enjoyable. Zi-O had Woz being really fun, and while the character writing was heavily inconsistent they at least were entertaining and had some interesting concepts done well. Revice really has none of that going for it.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead.

Everything the show did well:
-The 6 Main Rangers are all very likeable characters.
-Battle choreography is consistently amazing.
-Very good cast of actors, the 7 rangers have ton of charisma.
-Pretty great soundtrack.
-The conflict between the Lupinrangers and Zamigo help their stakes feel real and make them more endearing.
-Some episodes can be pretty funny.
-The dynamic of having a kinda morally ambiguous team alongside a good-two shoes team is interesting.
-The show has lots of style that makes it stands out aestheticly from other Tokusatsu.

Everything the show did bad:
-While the overall cast is likeable, the show has favoritism towards the Lupinrangers. The Patrangers get shafted most of the show and barely get any upgrades. It ultimately ends up mostly wasting the dual team dynamic.
-The rivalry between the 2 teams feels very forced since it mostly stems from the Patrangers killing every monster they encounter rather than arresting them or even interrogate them which they only did twice in the show. This is especially grating if you've seen the other 2 cop Super Sentai where they actually arrest their monsters and only kill them if they've been properly judged. This overall makes the story feel very draggy.
-While the 7th ranger Lupin X has ton of charisma and it's pretty likeable initially, he fractures the already flawed team dynamic even further.
-Lupin X whole character arc and the truth behind Lupin comes off as kinda uninteresting since it feels very detached from the goal of the other rangers and the villains, plus it really never felt like something the other rangers would be opposed to him after the reveal. All of this ultimately makes him a pretty unlikeable character by the end.
-The villains are pretty boring for the most part because their actions feel very detached from their goal of world conquer as most monsters just do whacky low-scales crimes which makes the fact that the Patrangers don't arrest them feel even weirder. Again, this feels more unacceptable if you've seen other Sentai shows since a lot of them manage to make goofy monsters while also making them feel like a world-level threat. At least the writer got it right with her later show Zenkaiger.
-The villain generals barely get any backstory or even a chance to do something interesting after the first quarter.
-The main antagonist Dogranio despite having an entertaining personality, feels boring overall because he barely does anything on the show and we're only given his backstory at the very end and only via dialogue.
-While Kogure manages to do some interesting stuff with his disguises, him and the rest of the sidecast from both teams are mostly not relevant nor interesting.
-Despite LupinBlue being a likeable character overall, he isn't as likeable as the other five because the writer kind off sucks at writing a straight man character, but granted this is mostly a nitpick.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Producer Utsunomiya wanted to make an even more different team dynamic than the one from Kyuranger. Action Director Hirofumi Fukuzawa wanted to make the show even more stylish than the previous cop Sentai Dekaranger, so he went more all out than usual. Main writer Junko Komura is really good at choosing lead actors for her script. The pilot made by Sugihara had a very cinematic feel, so the following directors had to keep the momentum of the first 2 episodes to make the show feel consistent.

Reasons for the show's flaws:
Main producer Utsunomiya was afraid that 2 teams would be alienating, so requested that the villains were closer to standard Sentai. There's nothing particularly wrong with this approach but main writer Komura did a really generic execution of this idea, which ultimately resulted in the monster of the week format being worse than usual. Also she has the issue of focusing on only a few characters which doesn't make that good of a fit for Sentai since it's a team-based series. On top of all that she probably focused more on the Lupinrangers because in an interview she said she was scared that the Patrangers would feel too similar to the other 2 previews Cop Sentai shows. Other possible reason for the show focusing more on the Lupinrangers was that according to Utsunomiya the reason why he chose Junko Komura again so soon was because prior the animal theme for Zyuohger he considered doing thieves (That's how he phrased in the interview but I assume more that he means that there was going to be a thief plot point in Zyohger since other interviews indicate that Komura was chosen after the animal theme which is usually the standard for writers in Toei Tokusatsu), so he wanted her to use some of the ideas she couldn't do. So maybe she had a lot of plans for the Lupinrangers due to this but not as much for the Patrangers.
Ultimately this show would result in Utsunomiya being demoted due to releasing two consecutive financial failures, while the show's quality was definitely a factor, most of the fault is on the toy designers making pretty bad toys rather than the show's staff which makes this feel kinda unfair.

Overall:
For everything this show did right, it felt like it did something wrong. The overall storyline comes off as boring past the first arc, and the cast focus is kind of muffled. However, the actual direction of the show is great and the main 6 cast members are really likeable which keeps the episodes from being straight up bad in spite of being dragged down by the villains. Overall, the show felt average to me, but if you like the characters enough I could see it being a good time for other people, just don't go in expecting the Patrangers to get the same level of treatment as the Lupinrangers nor a particularly deep plot.

Leia Mais

Everything the show did well:
-The hero cast while inconsistent is pretty likeable overall, especially Woz.
-Some really cool concepts that are done really well like the whole Demon King aspect or some elements in the second quarter.
-The show's second quarter manages to be really great for the most part.
-Pretty good main antagonist.
-Amazing final fight.
-Great action for the most part.
-Really great soundtrack that stands out from other seasons.
-Consistently entertaining show for the most part if you don't take it too seriously.
-Some of this show's tributes can be pretty good. The Agito, Ryuki, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Kiva, OOO and Wizard come to mind.
-Good utilization of Kamen Rider Decade's characters.

Everything the show did bad:
-This show has some of, if not the most inconsistent writing in the franchise. A lot of stuff gets retconed and the main trio personalities flip-flop from time to time, especially with Geiz.
-Woz backstory and the Dai Mazine plot points are left to this show's summer movie. But even then the show barely uses Woz's background for the show nor does explore how was he during Geiz's time.
-The time-travel stuff is really wonky and inconsistent. Like when Riders are finally able to coexist with the Another Riders is something that happens on a whim and the show doesn't explain how it works (it's only explained in the show's official blog, not even in a spin-off).
-The show never explains Uru's and Ora's backstories which makes near impossible to care for them (their backstory is only told in an interview with the producer for some reason, not even in a spin-off).
-How Geiz gets over the negative effects of Geiz Revive is never explained (It gets explained on the show's official blog). Even though other toku also do this, in those you can see the gradual tolerance of the effects, in this show he just suddenly gets over it relatively quickly.
-The Kamen Rider introduced in the last 2 episodes of the show feels pointless.
-When Kamen Rider Aqua from the OOO movie crossovers is introduced into the show he's used poorly.
-Some tributes, especially the first two really suck and the Build one makes zero sense. Even some of the good ones like Kabuto feel like they miss the point of the characters' development from that show. The Kiva one starts good but gets interrupted by the Ginga plot-point that comes out of nowhere. The Wizard, Gaim and Ghost ones while not bad feel like they barely do anything interesting with the characters from previous shows. And one might argue that the Blade's tribute ruins that show's ending but that last one is mostly subjective.
-The show's finale might feel like a copout to some people.
-The show requires you to have passing knowledge of the past 18 Kamen Rider seasons, which isn't really a flaw but felt like it should be point out.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Shin-ichiro Shirakura originally intended for the show to stop focusing on the 'crossover' aspect after the first arc, so from episode 15 to episode 27 the writing quality improved drastically.
Main writer Kento Shimoyama can be really good at writing comedy at times.
Kamen Rider Decade was originally planned to only appear for a few episodes, but due to the popularity of his appearance and the convinience from a writing standpoint since he was the only Heisei protagonist that could work as both a rival and a mentor simultaneously.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Shin-ichiro Shirakura had been promoted from a normal producer after he finished Decade. This means that he wasn't supposed to produce normal shows anymore and focused either on producing shows for a different audience or for bigger projects and management decisions in Toei. The original plan was for Build to be the last Heisei season, but due to the coronation to change the era from Heisei to Reiwa was delayed, there would be another Heisei season. Toei insisted that Shirakura should produce this season and for it to have tribute elements to past seasons due to Shirakura having had produced the majority of Heisei seasons. However Shirakura was occupied with management during the show pre-production so unlike his other shows he started more passive in the pre-production and came up with fewer ideas than usual. He came up with the clock motif since this was a celebration to the era, and for the protagonist to be prophesied to be a Demon King in the future, but didn't come up with much else.
Assistant producer Naomi Takebe insisted that the show should have a crossover aspect due to Decade having had a 40% increase on sales back when it aired and that the main protagonist Sougo should meet previous riders in order to differentiate from Decade. She recommended Kento Shimoyama who she had previously worked on for Ninninger as the main writer, due to him being 'adaptable' (some people speculate that this means that the writer was chosen because he was a yesman that could use as a puppet writer, but there's no confirmation for that), having had seen most Kamen Rider and Super Sentai seasons and for his experience as an episode writer for Gokaiger.
Despite this, Shirakura didn't want the legendary aspect to overshadow the characters so he decided that the ridewatches for all Heisei protagonists should release on the first quarter despite not all of them appearing in the show, so that the staff wouldn't be bound to promote them throughout the whole show which is why the show temporarily focuses on hypothetical future riders and more on the rivalry of Sougo and Geiz. However due the first quarter being way more popular than expected, actors from old Kamen Rider shows where showing interest in reappearing in the show and made request to do so to Shirakura which led to the show again focusing on previous riders and for them to be able to transform unlike the beginning in which Shirakura requested that they shouldn't be able to transform so that they don't overtake the previous riders in focus. He also originally wanted the riders to ride Robots based on previous riders but due to budget constraints the show shifted into having armors based on previous riders instead. Ultimately Zi-O ended up becoming the best selling season of Kamen Rider which led to Shirakura using legendary motifs for his next 2 shows.
Shirakura originally did not want to have time travel as a focus due to him feeling such plot points make the show feel more complicated and usually make less sense. Back in Den-O he said the same thing and the staff went through something called the 'Week of Hell' in which they had to come up on how to make the show and ultimately concluded that the first half shouldn't have a focus on plot and for Yuto Sakurai who the plot revolved around to be introduced far later. However, main director Ryuta Tasaki said that it would be a crime for a Rider with a clock motif to not time travel.
Ultimately due to them not being able to know which actors would be available for the tribute episodes the staff had to often rewrite or come up with stuff on the spot depending on which actor they were able to get back. The reason why this idea worked with Gokaiger besides Arakawa being a talented writer was that the 2011 earthquake opened up most actors schedule, they simply weren't able to replicate the way Gokaiger treated its previous rangers due to how tight the writing schedules were.
The staff was very liberal on what scenes should be cut for pacing. They ultimately ended up partially removing the scene where they explained how riders were able to transform from the Blade tribute onward. While not officially stated some people speculate that the explanation of Geiz being able to endure the Revive transformation and the backstory of the Ora and Uru being that Ohma Zi-O erased their timelines when they were young and Schwartz saved them due to them having the potential of becoming time jackets were ultimately cut in a similar matter.
The original plan for Woz ended up changing due to the character's popularity which largely affected his backstory.
The Kamen Rider that gets introduced in episode 48 was originally supposed to appear around episode 32, however the suit/toy designers PLEX were having issues designing the suit and ultimately the appearance of said rider ended up being delayed until it was ready for the last 2 episodes where the character was barely able to accomplish anything.

Overall:
The extremely inconsistent writing easily makes this one of the worst, if not the worst stories in the franchise. While outside of the story the show does some good it's still not enough to redeem the show. That said if you watch this show as a "dumb fun show that doesn't need to be taken seriously", you'll probably end up enjoying it overall but even then it's not a great show and there's far better tokusatsu out there. While I enjoyed the show overall, the show's objectively bad and I can only recommend this show if you're a Kamen Rider completionist or really enjoys tokusatsu that don't take themselves too seriously.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-One of the best hero cast in the Kamen Rider franchise, personally my favorite.
-Really charismatic main villains.
-Really great world-building, some of the franchise best.
-None of the episodes feel pointless to the story and most monsters and characters of the week end mattering on some way.
-Cool action overall.
-Really good story for the most part.
-The show has a natural progression of stakes.
-Cool plot revelations/plot-twists.
-Really great directing for most of the show.
-The riders in this show have great dynamics.
-Amazing final battle (aside from some awkward CGI).

Everything the show did bad:
-The Shinobu Katsuragi mini-arc that last from episode 40 to 45 is kinda bad at times and is the only considerable drop in writing quality in the show, but even then it's not that bad because the main cast and antagonist continue to be likeable and there's some really great plot revelations during this arc.
-The main protagonist plan to defeat the main antagonist is really extreme, it doesn't help that it's similar to the plan of main villain of the winter Build's crossover with Ex-aid. It isn't that big of an issue since it's properly foreshadowed, the main antagonist does feel powerful enough to warrant such a plan and it leads to a great bittersweet ending.
-Kamen Rider Rogue's origin and backstory is left to a Blu-ray mini-series rather than happening in the show.
-Kyoka not reappearing feels weird once Katsuragi starts being more important.
-Vernage temporally disappearing from the show makes it almost impossible to care for her character and also negatively affects Misora's character' arc.
-The Hokuto Crows and especially the Hell Brothers feel shafted compared to other characters which removes a lot of the emotional weight of their scenes.
-Sawa at times feel like a plot device that conviniently has or knows where to get what the heroes need.
-Some of the plot developments related to Utsumi are hit or miss.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
This season was originally going to be the last Heisei Kamen Rider show prior to the enthronement for the Reiwa era getting delayed. Due to this main producer Omori wanted this show to be more mature so that older fans that hadn't been keeping with the franchise would be interested. Also due to this, the show had many inspirations of the original season such as focusing on darker topics like war and the rapid economic growth, having a bigger focus on mystery, human experimentation and main rider duo.
The original plan that main writer Shogo Muto had was for Banjo to be the protagonist and for him to take over as Kamen Rider Build after the previous Build entrusted him with the powers prior dissappearing as an homage to the original season where Ichimonji takes over the Kamen Rider title in order to protect Japan while the first rider Hongo leaves to fight another branch of the evil organization Shocker in another country. However Omori wanted the main protagonist to be a physicist which led to the creation of Sento and for Banjo to become the secondary rider instead, but due to wanted to implement both ideas, Sento and Banjo ended up being deuteragonists. Muto is also really great at writing characters which is why the cast is so likeable.
It originally being planned as the last Heisei show allowed the show to have slightly more budget than usual in its first quarter which allowed the show to realize its ambitious setting.
Due to Omori aiming to also reach an older audience with this show, he got slightly older actor than an usual rider show, which allowed the show to have better actors than usual.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Vernage's voice actress Sora Amamiya was with chorditis during the show's run which resulted in her appearing less in the show, which also affected Misora's character due to how connected they are.
Kyoka Katsuragi's actress Hiro Komura had been fighting cancer since 2012. She wasn't able to reappear in the show because in January of 2018 she had to take treatment because the cancer had spread to her lungs and lymph nodes.
Zi-O wasn't originally supposed to exist since Build was going to be the last Heisei show. Due to this Muto had decided the show's ending from the very beginning in order to make crossovers easier (which didn't matter in the end since Zi-O didn't care for this and just straight up contradicts Build's ending).
Some people speculate that the Shinobu Katsuragi plot line was inserted into the show by producer Omori late into the show due to him liking the tropes of evil dads, but this pure speculation and doesnt have enough evidence.

Overall:
Despite the show's quality dropping in the second half, it doesn't drop hard enough to be considered bad and still manages to have a really cool plot and introduces a bunch of interesting plot points throughout the show's entire run. The majority of the cast and this show's world-building is consistently amazing too. So while whether you love the show or not will depend on how lenient you're with the show's problems in the latter half, it still manages to be a great show overall in spite of them. Highly recommend this show to any Tokusatsu fan or if you're into modern shounen anime/manga.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-Really likeable cast of characters overall, both in the hero and villain side.
-Really great action throughout the whole show.
-The fast pacing makes every episode feel important. It never feels like there's a filler episode or an episode that feels like a waste. Manages to properly develop the cast and expand the world in spite of said fast pacing.
-Cool world-building.
-Consistently great mysteries and reveals, almost every episode leaves you wanting more and see what happens next.
-Good story overall.
-Really unique soundtrack that stands out from other tokusatsu.
-Entertaining monsters of the week in the first quarter.

Everything the show did bad:
-The secondary rider Hiiro is pretty unlikeable from episodes 34 to 38 (and arguably ruins his character) and is the only time in the show where there's a considerable drop in writing quality, but even then it's really just the Hiiro stuff that's bad during this period, everything else is still great.
-Nico can feel like "too much of a brat" at times.
-Due to the show's fast pacing there's barely any downtime for the characters to interact and have slice of life moments.
-Taiga's backstory isn't properly shown and it's left to a Blu-ray spin-off which cheapens some of the emotional weight of his scenes.
-Despite Poppy being a really likeable character overall and arguably one of the best main girls in the franchise, she sucks as a rider as the show barely gives any reason for her to not transform. Her not transforming feels especially weird since she's canonically one of the strongest riders in the show for a while.
-The show revives too many characters to take the stakes seriously and this can make the writing feel cheap. However it's not that bad of an issue since the revived character actually serve a purpose in the show and doesn't feel like they're reviving them for the sake of it, these characters manage to be properly developed after their revival. So it's a more a divisive aspect rather than a straight up problem.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Omori wanted to have video games as a main motif for Kamen Rider since Drive but was rejected back then. However this time he was able to convince Toei that the video game motif would do well due to the popularity of Yokai Watch at the time with children. In order to bring more realistic stakes he came up with the idea of the show having a medical motif too, due to the irony that the portrayal of life in video games was the exact opposite of a medical setting which would make for an interesting story.
Main writer Yuya Takahashi excels at making fast-paced stories and Omori created a perfect constantly changing setting to exploit his writing style as much as possible. Both of them and main director Shojiro Nakazawa were inspired by wrestling and thought making the riders lose and seem pathetic initially in order to build them up getting stronger and becoming more likeable.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Main writer Takahashi didn't know on what direction to Take Hiiro's character which led to his actions in the final arc.
Both Omori and Takahashi wanted to write the specials and movies in away that coordinated with their release so that they could relate them to the episodes of the show, and also to improve the pacing of the show. But due to this stuff like Taiga's backstory ended up being relegated to the Blu-ray special.
The popularity of certain characters led to their revivals, however these were at least made with enough anticipation that these characters were written with enough purpose.

Overall:
This show's is a great time overall but whether you love the show or not will hugely depend on how lenient you are on character revivals and how much you enjoy the cast. I still would recommend this show to any Kamen Rider fan or if you're into modern shounen anime/manga.

Leia Mais

Everything the show did well:
-Really likeable cast from the heroes, to the villains and the sidecharacters.
-Consistently hilarious show from start to finish, easily the funniest Super Sentai show.
-Cool and funny action from start to finish both in mech and outside.
-Despite the show hardly ever taking itself seriously it manages to give every member of the team and even the mentors proper focus, give the villains development and make them feel like a proper threat and even manages to have a pretty endearing romance.
-Really great soundtrack.

Everything the show did bad:
-The final main antagonist Exhaus somehow manages to be kinda boring and forgettable in spite of his ridiculous goal.
-Radietta gets recasted with a worse actress later on in the show.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Due to comedy anime generating more ratings than the previous Sentai season Ohranger, main producer Shigenori Takatera wanted to make a comedy focused Sentai unlike any before. He got Yoshio Urasawa to be the main writer because his experience on writing comedy anime and his work on the Toei Fushigi no Comedy series, in spite of him not having worked on Sentai before nor having seen any Sentai season prior getting involved in production. All of this led to the show being extremely unique plus also serving as an official parody to Super Sentai, Urasawa's experience with comedy really payed off and allowed the show to be consistently hilarious.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Despite the attempts of Exhaus to parody previous Sentai antagonists, the previous villains just were way funnier and original.
Due to Megumi Hamamatsu's poor health she couldn't continue her role as Radietta. The actress later alleged that reason she left was due to her being bullied by the co-stars Yuka Motohashi and Atsuko Kurusu, but it was later evidenced that Megumi was lying about this and ended up being sued for defamation. Considering this, maybe her 'illness' at the time was a lie too, since that case wasn't the only time she was caught for being a compulsive liar, and her leaving just mostly devolves on that actress just being a legitimately bad person.

Overall:
This show is extremely hilarious and manages to be a good Super Sentai show in all the aspects that matter. Highly recommend this show to anyone who's into comedic tokusatsu or absurdist comedy.

Leia Mais

Everything the show did well:
-Really great cast overall from both the heroes and villains side.
-The Roidmudes generals are among the best villains in the franchise.
-Everyone in the hero side is useful, specially this show's main girl Kiriko who is one of, if not the best main girl in the franchise.
-Pretty great action.
-Great final arc.
-Good plot overall.

Everything the show did bad:
-The show has a really slow start, this is mostly due the monsters of the week being amongst the franchise's worst, almost Wizard-tier and doesn't help how easy it's to predict the outcome of the cases if you've seen other tokusatsu. Since the main villains are barely involved in the first quarter aside of Machine Chaser who doesn't have a personality due to plot reasons, these make the beginning feel really draggy. However it's more stomachable due to how likeable the main hero cast is and by the second half they drop the monster of the week aspect.
-Mach/Go drops his lighthearted personality fairly early on and comes of as a jerk during most of the show's middle but at least he manages to be a really likeable character by the end.
-The Sigma Circular fight in the finale feels forced.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
The show's producer Omori is good at coming of with cool motifs and executed the car motif in a very different way from other tokusatsu.
The main writer Riku Sanjo is really great at writing characters and at world-building.
The popularity of Baron from Gaim lead to the creation of Chase but Sanjo and Omori didn't want to repeat concepts of previous shows and managed to make a pretty unique execution of the rival concept and it was done really well.

Reasons for the show's problems:
I honestly am at a complete loss a to what caused the first half's monster of the week so repetitive. Main producer Omori seemingly didn't request this idea in fact it seems that he was the one who requested for the show to become more serialized in the second half. Main writer Riku Sanjou is really great at writing episodic monsters of the week, even when they're 2-parters. Heck, his previous rider show W was good at having mystery-focused monster of the week. I guess he can be inconsistent since he made Ziga which was a pretty mediocre manga but I honestly felt that it could have been an issue of the manga's editor. He also was the main writer of Digimon XROSS which sucked but in that show the problem was that he barely actually wrote in the show and that the show shifted producers 3 times. The problem also cannot be this show having multiple side writers since he wrote most of the episodic stuff, W was made in the same conditions and the most recurring secondary writer was Keiichi Hasegawa who mostly wrote for the second half.
The only reasoning that comes to mind is that he already had a story draft prior to TV Asahi requesting the show to have detectives (which is honestly weird since this is the only time that comes to mind where TV Asahi had a major creative decision in a Toei's Tokusatsu since the early 90s) so he head to impromptuly scrap it resulting in the first arc being more sloppily written but even that feels far-fetched since that seemingly happened way too early in the pre-production to be a real issue.

Overall:
Really great show overall, its start drags it down but not by much and still manages to be a great time overall. Highly recommend to tokusatsu fans or to fans of lighthearted cop dramas.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-Really interesting setting that the show uses the its upmost potential for the most part.
-The majority of the cast is really likeable.
-The rivalries between Kouta and Kaito is entertaining and both develop in interesting ways.
-The show manages to create really interesting thing with the fruit theme and connect it to the world-building in a significant manner.
-Cool action overall.
-The story develops in really interesting ways.
-Natural progression of stakes, which makes the threats in the second half feel legitimate.
-The final fight in episode 46 is amazing.
-Great finale.

Everything the show did bad:
-The show doesn't tell us Kaito's backstory despite him being the second most important character in the show. It's instead left to the Kamen Rider Baron Gaiden. This really hurts some of the show's emotional weight.
-The crossover specials hurt the show's pacing, but this is barely an issue if you're binge watching the show.
-While overall likeable, it felt that the show could have done more interesting things with Sid, Yoko and the side characters from the dance teams.
-Takatora is unable to fight for a big chunk of the show.
-I don't know how true this is since I've haven't seen the anime in question, but I've seen a lot of people say that this show's main writer is ripping his previous work Madoka Magica off, which makes the show feels less original. But I've seen the same people say that Gaim's better due to having 40+ episodes to develop its characters rather than 12 episodes + a movie.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Naomi Takebe wanted to make a show that felt more similar to the dark atmosphere of early Heisei seasons of Kamen Rider. She chose Gen Urobochi as main writer after being recommend by voice actor Tomokazu Sugita who she had previously worked with during Kiva. It had been decided that the show would take the Kuuga approach of making the threat something that kids at time were scared of, during Kuuga it was serial killers, during Gaim it was the 2011 earthquake, due to the threat being decided to be a force of nature since the beginning, Bandai came up with the fruit motif to make it standout.
Takebe gave mostly complete creative freedom to Urobochi which lead to the story being planned out from the very beginning rather than just having a roadmap and build the story as the show goes on. This allowed the show to have better foreshadowing and barely change anything during its run.

Reasons for the show's problems:
There were very few changes to the script and not all of these were bad. Among the "good/neutral" changes are: Sigurd and Knuckle as both characters were originally not planned to transform, Baron obtaining lemon energy as originally wasn't supposed to have any other forms past mango, the teams were originally supposed to be delinquents but was changed into dance teams in order to contrast the dark tone. Among the "negative" chnages were: the removal of Kaito's backstory so that the show has better pacing which resulted into it being moved to the V-Cinema, the filler crossover episodes and the epilogue finale which wasn't planned as the staff wasn't sure of the show would have 46 or 47 episodes so Urobochi ended up only planning for 46 which resulted in the last episode feeling weirder. There's also some unspecified changes to Kaito's and Mitsuzane's characters but its unknown what these were and if they were for the better or for worse.
The reason why Ryugen, Zangetsu and Gridon appear in the beginning narration of the fight of Baron and Gaim despite not making that much sense is because the scene was added by the director Ryuta Tasaki despite not being in the script.

Overall:
The show's amazing overall, outside of not properly explaining Kaito's backstory, the show doesn't have any big notable issues and manages to be one of the most entertaining and interesting seasons in the franchise. Highly recommend to any tokusatsu fan, if you're into other works by Gen Urobochi or into survival shows.

Leia Mais

Everything the show did well:
-Big One/Banba is a really likeable character.
-Some cool spy action here and there.
-A few cool monster of the week.
-Really cool aesthetics.

Everything the show did bad:
-The team just comes off as generic most of the time, the initial commander too.
-The lack of proper main villain generals is disappointing due to the main antagonist duo being pretty boring.
-The majority of monsters of the week are pretty forgettable.
-As likeable Banba is, he is not likeable enough to make the show enjoyable and alongside him comes Tamasaburou who I never was able to find funny, but this might be a personal issue.
-The show overexploits the "film-reversal" technique of the original Kamen Rider show, which removes most of the impacts from the fights.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Due to the show's low rating they brought veteran actor Hiroshi Miyauchi who had played previously played Aoranger Kamen Rider V3 to increase the ratings, and ultimately ended up being the best character of the show.

Reasons for the show's problems:
In order to differentiate as much as possible from the previous work Goranger, they tried to make the show have a much darker tone, however the staff didn't know how to properly do that and ultimately ended up with both the heroes and villains feeling boring and hardly ever entertaining. There was supposed to be a time travel plotline but ended up being scrapped due to feeling too detached from the setting, this resulted in the villains not having any direction. The show then was cancelled due to bad reception and had a whole quarter removed.

Overall:
This show just doesn't have enough going for it. Having one likeable character doesn't really fix all the other issues or suddenly makes the rest of the cast suddenly entertaining. The show's just very bland overall and I can only recommend it if you REALLY like Big One and even then he gets introduced on episode 23. This is the worst Super Sentai out of the ones I've seen so far.

Leia Mais

Everything the movie did well:
-Likeable cast overall.
-Really great practical effects thoughout the whole movie.
-Doras feels properly menacing throughout the whole movie.
-Really cool action.
-Some pretty cool stop-motion.
-The villains feel properly creepy.
-Pretty good plot.

Everything the movie did bad:
-Not really that unique of a story.

Reasons for the movie's strengths:
Despite the movie having ton of production issues, like it originally being made with an adult audience in mind, being a sequel to Shin Kamen Rider Prologue that also crossovered with other seasons. Then became a kid's movie due to Toei having a poor fiscal year, it was still going to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the franchise, even becoming the movie's namesake, but it ended up not releasing on the 20 year anniversary removing its crossover aspects. Then the original draft by producer Shotaro Ishinomori was rejected due to budget since it was too ambitious. Then the movie was triple-billed with both Gosei Sentai Dairanger: The Movie and
Tokusou Robo Janperson: The Movie, reducing the movie's length was originally planned to be 90 minutes.
But in spite the poor odds, the producers managed to amass an amazing staff due to collaborating with other groups from Toei. The directing of Keita Amemiya and the creativity from the staff allowed them to do more with less, resulting in a overall really great movie.

Reasons for the movie's problems:
Them not being able to follow Ishinomori's original draft affected the movie not being that original. But the movie doesn't do anything particularly bad, it just doesn't do anything to be considered a top-tier movie.

Overall:
Really great movie with good pacing, action and characters. This also feels like a perfect entry-point for anyone that wants to get into the franchise since it's not a 40+ episode show and it's a fun time overall. Overall high recommend to anyone who wants to get into the franchise, anyone who's into action movies and to Kamen Rider fans.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-Really cool semi-fantasy setting.
-Really great practical effects that look really well for the time.
-Consistently amazing action in both inside the mech and outside stunts.
-The red ranger Geki and the extra hero DragonRanger are entertaining and memorable overall.
-For the most part really entertaining monsters of the week.
-Some cool world-building here and there.
-Lami and Bandora are really entertaining villains, the latter basically hardcarries the show. (Her theme song is also really catchy.)
-Decent team overall.
-Interesting dynamic with the mecha being a God, the show does a proper job at making him feel as a larger than life entity.

Everything the show did bad:
-The show is too red-centric, it gives way too much focus on the red ranger Geki at the cost of the other rangers' screen time. The one from the core team to get the second most screen time, the yellow ranger Boi, gets the worst episodes and pretty much the few times the monsters of the week aren't entertaining. The rest become pretty likeable by the end but really don't have enough screen time.
-Prior to Lami's introduction, Bandora is the only great villain. But at least after Lami's introduction the other main villains become more active.
-The true main antagonist despite being kinda menacing and having done some horrible stuff to the cast, still manages to be kinda generic overall.
-Barza and Gnome trying to seemingly kill Ryota feels really weird, but it's only 2 episodes so it doesn't matter that much.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main writer Noboru Sugimura wanted to create a fantasy setting partially inspired by the Dragon Quest series to make the show stand out from other tokusatsu. Burai and Bandora backstories were also inspired from Dragon Quest. While dinosaurs are a pretty overdone theme now, it wasn't back then. The staff took inspiration of the original Jusrassic Park novel and decided on the theme, this gave path for future shows to have more concrete motifs in the future. The main producer Takeyuki Suzuki wanted to give more characterization to the main mecha which resulted in it being more interesting. This show introduced the concept of extra ranger, it was supposed to be a one-off inspired by Mad Gallant from Juspion but due to high popularity the concept stayed in future seasons.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Due to being inspired by Dragon Quest and other fantasy RPGs, Sugimura decided to make the red ranger Geki the main protagonist and more focal than other red rangers from previous seasons in order to emulate how in those RPGs the protagonist serves as the POV and takes the main decisions. But one cannot really adopt this style of writing with Sentai resulting in the rest of the cast being shafted.

Overall:
It's a great show overall, but it's really dragged down by the cast taking too long to become proper characters due to the show focusing too much on Geki, Burai and Bandora. But still by the end most of the cast while not impressive manage to be likeable at least and this show has some amazing practical effects that makes it stand out from other Sentai seasons. So would recommend to Sentai fans that are interested in a more fantasy-themed entry in the franchise.

Leia Mais

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the movie did well:
-Really great practical effects, especially for its transformations.
-Pretty good acting.
-Pretty great soundtrack.
-The action scenes are really cool.
-Some cool concepts here and there.

Everything the movie did bad:
-Took the Prologue in its title too seriously and barely moved the plot forward.
-There's only 2 fights scenes so the movie isn't able to get much use of its cool effects.
-Not a single character is particularly memorable or engaging.

Reasons for the movie's strengths:
It being an adult film allowed them to realize the more monstrous concept Shotaro Ishinomori wanted to do in one of his original drafts for the first season of Kamen Rider.

Reasons for the movie's problems:
The ideas of Jo Onodera, who was part of the main writer duo, didn't mesh well with the ideas creator Shotaro Ishinomori gave in the first draft according to the cowriter Junichi Miyashita which resulted in the whole project being pretty unorganized. Some people speculate that Junichi Miyashita was brought into the project in the first place by main producer Shirakura to give more polish to writing due to their ideas not meshing well but there's no confirmation.
Also the original idea for the protagonist that Shotaro Ishinomori gave for the project was rejected by producer Shirakura (also said idea was a rejected idea for Black's protagonist), so it's possible that beside Shotaro's and Junichi's ideas were clashing, they were also clashing with Shirakura's, making the project more directionless.
The original plan was for this movie to serve as prologue to a mini-series dubbed Kamen Rider Gaia but it wasn't canceled for unspecified reasons, the only thing known is that producer Shirakura comfirmed that the reason wasn't sales as the movie sold well and that at some point the project shifted into being a crossover movie with previous riders and a new protagonist in spite of Shin originally being planned to be a stand-alone blank state, but the latter project ended up becoming Kamen Rider ZO which was a completely standalone movie. The draft of Kamen Rider Gaia ended up being reworked into a novel that had nothing to do with the film in 2004, called "Kamen Rider Eve -Masked Rider Gaia-"

Overall:
I cannot really recommend this movie, there's barely any plot in the movie and it just feels like setup, and said setup went nowhere since its sequels got canceled. None of the characters are particularly likeable which really make the movie feel like a snorefest. The biggest draw to the film are the fight scenes but they're very few and one can probably find them on the internet either way. Overall, there's really no reason to watch the movie unless you're a Kamen Rider completionist.

Leia Mais