Cegarth

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.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-Great hero cast that gets progressively more smug the more the show goes on.
-The main villain duo is extremely likeable and have really fun hijinks.
-The villain generals are all entertaining.
-Really great final battle.
-Great battle choreography on the ground fights.
-Lots of mecha variety keeps the giant battles consistently fresh.
-Amazing soundtrack.
-Really funny show overall.
-Manages to have a pretty natural progression of stakes.
-Cool world-building here and there.

Everything the show did bad:
-GaoYellow becomes more of a joke character once GaoSilver joins the team.
-GaoBlue gets less focus episodes than everyone else which considerably hurts his character in spite of being likeable overall.
-GaoBlack is often weirdly cut out from fights when he's not the focus of an episode.
-First Super Sentai show to go hard on CGI, so it's used more often than usual.
-Pretty safe show overall.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Jun Hikasa wanted the show to have more mechas than ever due to this being the franchise's anniversary and because he wanted to have multiple cheaper mechas instead of having few more expensive than normal mechas like the previous season Timeranger in order to make up for the poor toy sales.
Main writer Junki Takegami is really good at making the characters fun.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Main writer Junki Takegami likes to take the plot in a safe direction.
Main producer Jun Hikasa wanted to experiment with CGI due to this show being a big project as it was the franchise anniversary.
Otherwise I couldn't find much about the show's production outside prototype designs of rangers and mechas that were never used.

Overall:
While it isn't the most unique Sentai, it's still a really great show overall with really good hijinks between the 6 rangers, Tetomu, Yabaiba and TsueTsue. Highly recommend if you're a Super Sentai fan or are into Saturday Morning cartoons from the same era.

Read More

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.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-Really likeable cast overall in both the heroes and villains.
-The twist with the main villains is pretty good.
-The high-school setting is done differently from the previous 2 attempts, this and the nasacore elements that the show has makes it stand out form other Sentai.
-Most monsters of the week are entertaining.
-Consistently good action, especially on the mecha. The team also has a pretty unique powerset for the on ground fights.

Everything the show did bad:
-Not the most unique plot.
-After the extra ranger MegaSilver is able to overcome his time-limit issue there's barely any reason for him to not appear to help the rangers, luckily this happens so late that it only feels off for a few episodes.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
With the rise of the internet and digital devices in 1995, main producer Shigenori Takatera wanted to push this theme as the center piece of the show in order to teach kids about these technogical advancements. However this theme was a bit too abstract and the staff struggled a bit during the pre-production.
Due to Super Sentai now being adapted into Power Rangers, Takatera decided to add space elements into the show which helped with the mecha production, although they had to make the first mecha a 3-piece combiner in order to release a cheaper toy due to problems with the economy.
TV Asahi producer Taro Iwamoto came up with the show having a high-school setting in order to increase viewership. This help the show to have a concrete setting. Main producer Shigenori Takatera decided to make this the main focus of the show in order deferentiate from the previous high-school Sentai Turboranger, who were heroic highschoolers but said show didn't emphasize the highschool as the main setting.
Due to insistance of assistant producer Naomi Takebe and side writer Yasuko Kobayashi, the show emphasized on giving proper focus and character arcs on all members of the team, and decided on the team having a different dynamic where the black ranger Kouichirou is the leader and yellow ranger Chisato serves as the second in command in spite of the red ranger Kenta being the main protagonist.

Reasons for the show's problems:
While main writer Junki Takegami is really great at writing characters, he tends to take a safe direction for the plot of his stories.
At the time the Super Sentai franchise had this quota where the extra ranger couldn't have that much screen time in order to not disrupt the team dynamic of the main team. While this show handled it in a more organic way than Dairanger and Ohranger, it still wasn't optimal.

Overall:
While a safe show overall, it's still a really great show and would highly recommend to any Super Sentai fan or if you're into highschool settings in dramas.

Read More

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.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-Everyone in the hero side, from the rangers to the side characters are really likeable.
-One of the best team dynamics in the franchise, the show manages to make the most use of the team members being family members and stand out from the other 2 family Sentai shows.
-The rescue gimmick makes the monsters/cases of the week be constantly entertaining and heavily stand-out from other Sentai seasons. The show has enough budget to make proper use of this gimmick throughout the whole show for the most part.
-Really cool action from beginning to end, regardless if it's outside or inside the mechas.
-Better acting than usual Sentai shows make the emotional scenes in the show really hit.

Everything the show did bad:
-The show isn't the most unique due to following a lot of Sentai tropes and the villains while overall enjoyable not really stand out.
-The main antagonist is really generic and boring overall.
-Some elements of the plot points with team's mother feel contrived.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Due to Japan enacting the Emergency Life-Saving Technician Law in 1991, the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 and the year this show was going to be airing, 1999, as 9 is pronounced the same as rescue, the core motif of this show being rescue was decided really early on and this show had more planning than usual. This allowed the show to have way more budget for its first 2 episodes and for them to try way more different approaches to action and setting throughout the show.
Main director Hajime Konaka wanted the team to show their face more often in order to make the rescue scenes more organic which is why the team has close up shot where you can see their faces through their helmets.
Main producer Jun Hikasa wanted the team to be family members taking inspiration from a show he previously worked on Yugen Jikko Sisters Shushutorian and another Toei produced show that was popular at the time Hitotsu Yane no Shita.

Reasons for the show's problems:
While main writer Junki Takegami is really great at character writing he tends to go pretty safe on the plot structure of his shows.

Overall:
While I feel that a lot of people would give this show an 8 due to not being that unique in its story department and being pretty safe overall. However the show's style, characters and dynamics are done so well and the rescue gimmick make the show stand out from other Sentai and easily makes it one of the best safe Sentai. Recommend this show to any Super Sentai fan or if you're into rescue/firefighting dramas or other rescue tokusatsu.

Read More

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.

Read More

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-Alain is an amazing character. Other than him the majority of the hero cast or redeemed villains in this show range from fine to likeable overall.
-Some cool world-building concepts here and there.
-Adonis is and his motivations make sense.
-The monster of the week in the first half are pretty entertaining.
-Fantastic soundtrack.
-Cool action for the most part.
-The show does the human drama/slice of life scenes really well.

Everything the show did bad:
-The villains Chikara and Adonis get removed from the show in the dumbest way possible.
-The main antagonist Adel is among the worst antagonists that this franchise ever had.
-The other 2 dudes form the temple, Narita and Shibuya could be removed from the show and it would hardly affect the plot.
-Most of the cool world-building elements that help explain what's going on in the Ganma world happen in movies, novels and specials, not in the actual show which makes it near impossible to care for the show's main conflict.
-After the first quarter the show's writing quality takes a nosedive outside the Alain focused episodes and the eyecon collecting episodes, the latter of which are very few since they collect most in the first quarter. Basically the show introduces the Deep Connect organization which ends up making the story unnecessarily conveluted and then the show's quality drops even harder when the show starts focusing on Adel.
-After the first quarter Makoto's character feels aimless. For a while his character goes nowhere and when they finally put focus on him his backstory and development become unnecessarily conveluted.
-Ghost's main form, Ore Damashii has a pretty boring fighting style initially and it's only later that it improves as it starts having a monk-like fighting style.
-Most of the stuff with the Great Eye is poorly explained, since again, it's explained properly in content outside the show.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Kazuhiro Takahashi wanted to return to the bizarre editing and direction of the Showa seasons so he came up with the unconventional and unheroic motif of ghosts. He wanted to portray the importance of life which led to the creation of characters Adonis and Grandma Fumi.
Main writer Takuro Fukuda excels at writing slice of life and human aspects to his stories, so the Alain episodes and his slice of life scenes are really greatly done.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Main writer Takuro Fukuda had scheduling issues which led to him being absent during the show's pre-production which resulted in some poor planning when it came to the show's setting and him being absent during the show's middle with the exclusion of the Alain focused episodes. Due to not being able to write the episodes in time he dedicated himself to write the movies and specials of the show since he wouldn't have such restrictions which is why the spin-offs of this show have so many important plot-points when in comes to the setting and better character writing for the most part.
Due to the response of parents and kids who watched Kamen Rider Ghost's cameo in Kamen Rider Drive's summer movie being that he was 'too scary', main producer Kazuhiro Takahashi decided to reshoot the first 2 episodes of the show in order to edit some of the scary scenes and ended up changing the show's directing style for the rest of the show. This resulted in the show not being able to adopt the Showa/creepy directing style the staff wanted for the show and for the directors to not know what of fighting style to give to Ghost's main form 'Ore Damashii' for a while since he wasn't able to use the spectral fighting style they had planned for him. This reshoot of episodes also resulted in the show having more budged constraints and scheduling issues, these combined with Fukuda's affected the show's pacing. Takahashi also ended up changing the show's setting 3 times during the show's run, which led to the writing feeling more conveluted and caused most of the problems with the show's writing as spite of the Fukuda being absent the show still had competent side writer Keiichi Hasegawa but with Takahashi making so many changes midway to the show and the time constraints with the scripts, there just wasn't much him and even Fukuda could do once he returned for the final arc.

Overall:
Despite the majority of the characters being likeable, this show has so many things dragging it down that the show ends up being bad overall. I can only see people enjoying this show if they consume all of the outside the show's content, but even then that only elevates it to a 6 since those specials don't fix Adel who's a prominent aspect of the show. I can only recommend this show if you're a Kamen Rider completionist or if the setting and motif seem cool enough to you to watch its movies and specials alongside it even knowing that the main antagonist in this show is disappointing.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-Fine team and villains overall.
-Cool backdrop setting.
-Some monsters of the week are enjoyable.
-Really cool action both outside and inside the mechs.
-Pretty likeable side cast.
-Biznella is a pretty fun villain.

Everything the show did bad:
-Really generic show overall, besides the action and a handful of episodes the show really doesn't do anything that particularly interesting and mostly take a REALLY safe approach.
-The team, while it doesn't have anything particularly bad about them, they just barely have anything interesting going for them. The pink ranger Saya and the second Black Knight in particular are pretty mediocre. This is due to Saya having less focus episodes than the rest of the team and the second Black Knight's personality overlapping a lot with the red ranger Ryouma, not only that but he leaves the team up until the final arc in order to train, but his training pretty much barely mattered in the end which made his absence in the team feel pretty unnecessary.
-The main villains don't have much interesting in them, especially the main villain Zahab and one of the villain generals Battobas. Despite the attempts to give Bucrates and Iliess character they still manage to be uninteresting due to inherently being connected to the Nothing-character main antagonist. Only Biznella manages to be interesting and he goes out in a pretty disappointing way.
-The quest-like plot progression that show adopts makes the story feel really draggy at times and makes so that the show cannot make proper use of its villains.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
The staff was inspired by Kamen no Ninja Akakage and decided to make every general have their own army.
Main writer Yasuko Kobayashi was allowed to have more freedom in the final quarter which allowed the show to improve which allowed to the show to have better villains like Biznella and also allowed for the standout great episode 40.
The staff went to great lengths to have horse scenes in the show.
Producer Shigenori Takatera is good at coming up with interesting settings.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Main producer Shigenori Takatera wanted this season to be a more traditional return to form due to the every season since Jetman being outside of the norm (I honestly don't know how he thinks that considering that Megaranger, which he produced, is a fairly normal Sentai outside the High-School setting, and this was the 3rd Sentai to have said setting). This lead to him restricting most of the creative freedom of the show's main writer Yasuko Kobayashi. This lead to the show feeling really generic from start to finish and never really committing to any of its original concepts.

Overall:
The show takes things way too safe for my liking, it doesn't feel like one is missing much for not watching this show and if you've seen other Sentai you can predict most of what's to happen. e for my liking, if you have seen just about any tokusatsu show prior this one you can easily predict most of the story. I cannot really recommend this show when there are far better 'safe' Sentai shows out there like Dynaman, Gaoranger and specially Kiramager, these shows manage to be safe by following the usual sentai formula and common tropes while still doing interesting enough things to make them stand out from the rest, Gingaman on the other hand just doesn't have much going besides its action and a few side characters. It doesn't do anything offensive enough to be considered bad or even mediocre, but it's a painfully average show overall and I can only recommend it if you are a Super Sentai completionist or if you want to watch crossovers where Gingaman is prominent, its tribute in Gokaiger in particular is really great and won't make that much sense unless you've seen Gingaman prior.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-The core 5 members of the team are really likeable overall, especially the green ranger Daigo.
-Excellent battle choreography on the ground fights.
-Besides the cool martial arts, the team has really unique abilities for the most part.
-Mostly serialized plot structure that makes it stand out from other Super Sentai seasons.
-The main villains trio of the Gorma Tribe are heavily involved in the plot and fights.
-With the exception of the yellow ranger Kazu, all the team members have a constant rival throughout the show.
-Cool world-building for the most part.
-Good balance between lighthearted and dark tones for the most part.
-Consistently really cool monsters of the week.

Everything the show did bad:
-The yellow ranger Kazu gets considerably shafted for the most part, as he has less fights than the other 4 main members of the team, it's the only ranger that doesn't have a rival and has a whole arc that while entertaining mostly consist on him not transforming. However he still manages to be a likeable character overall in spite of this.
-The first 2 episodes of the show really suck compared to the rest of the show.
-One of, personally the worst finale in the franchise. As it cheapens most of the world-building that the show had done up to that point and pretty much ruins Kujaku's character arc. I could see some people enjoy the ending due to its philosophical implications but it just comes off as needlessly depressing and kinda dumb from the main villains' standpoint.
-The extra hero KibaRanger dissapears from the show from time to time arbitrarily without any explanation, which makes him feel like a glorified mech. While he's a likeable character overall, he's the least enjoyable since his lack of screentime hinders his development and some of the emotional weight of his scenes.
-Most mecha battles with Gosei Gattai Dairen'Oh, which is the most used mech in the show, suck due to being really short and usually just consisting of a slash and not much of a battle.
-Zydos is heavily shafted compared to the other villains/rivals in the show despite being part of the main villain trio, he's also the only one from the trio to not have a rival.
-Gorma the XV is just an OK villain.
-Daijinryuu's mini-arc feels shoe-horned in and disconnect led from the main conflict.
-While this is mostly a personal issue, I felt that the main trio of the Gorma Tribe didn't have enough charisma which was a detriment for my enjoyment of the show.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Main producer Takeyuki Suzuki wanted the show to stand-out from previous seasons since it was the franchise 15th anniversary (at the time the first 2 seasons weren't consideres Super Sentai), taking inspiration from fighting games that were popular and because chinese culture was spreading in Japan at the time in particular Oolong tea becoming popular resulted in the show having a martial arts theme as a focus. The staff put a lot of effort on making the action great and stand-out, they also made the actors fight out of suit more often than the past few seasons. Due to the fighting game inspiration the staff wanted the team to not have a ranger leader and for every ranger to stand-out from each other resulting in every ranger getting an arc and rival dedicated to them (with the exception of Kazu who got an arc but not a rival). Main writer Noboru Sugimura wanted to surpass Jetman in uniqueness which lead to the show taking a more serialized approach.

Reasons for the show's problems:
The yellow ranger's fighting style, "the drunken fist" was too difficult to perform consistently and film which resulted in him getting shafted compared to the rest of the cast and having his arc dedicated to him obtaining a mecha so that he didn't have a proper rival to fight and they wouldn't have to film his fights as much.
Due to the whole 'surpassing Jetman' ideology the writer came up with an even more controversial ending which backfired.
Kibaranger was the second extra ranger (third, if you count Liveman) to be made. The previous one, DragonRanger was supposed to be an one-off idea inspired by Mad Gallant from Juspion and Silva from Bioman. However due to his intense popularity it was decided to try it again this season. At the time Toei wanted the extra ranger to not properly join the team as to not overshadow the core members, the DragonRanger from Zyuranger was made with this intent but KibaRanger wasn't. This resulted in the character being weirdly written out from episodes despite not making much sense unlike the DragonRanger who had a proper lore reason to not appear consistently.

Overall:
I feel that most people would give this show a 7/10 since my issues with the villains are mostly a 'me' issue rather than the show's fault. And I could see people give this show an 8 due to how cool the action is in this show. The show's biggest issue is the ending as it's really bad and honestly kind of ruined the show for me, but I feel that most people would be able to look past that and still find the show great in spite of it, and admittedly the ending is really different from anything any Sentai season has done before or since so I could even see people giving this show a 9 for its uniqueness.
Overall I would recommend this show to any Super Sentai fan or martial arts fan. Just be sure to give the show at least a 4 episode chance before deciding to go through with it since the first 2 episodes are notoriously bad and not at all representative of the quality of rest of the show and be prepared for a divisive ending.

Read More

Everything the movie did well:
-Pretty good plot and protagonist.
-Really cool action and sets.
-Really good cast of actors.

Everything the movie did bad:
-Lots of pacing issues, it feels like this movie's plot would bave worked far better as a show rather than a movie.
-Not the most unique plot.

Reasons for the movie's strengths:
The cast was selected very carefully. The special effects director Nobuo Yajima had experience in Super Sentai and Ultraman allowing to do the giant scenes in J properly.

Reasons for the movie's problems:
The movie's production was temporally halted because it the staff weren't allowed to release a movie in January like they originally intended and was only allowed to resume production when they secured being able to do released in April of next year. This resulted in the movie being filmed in just 20 days.
Creator Shotaro Ishinomori and director Keita Amemiya didn't want to have a Giant rider, and the idea was implemented alongside the movie's name in the very last draft of the script.

Overall:
Pretty good film overall but not particularly great, the pacing drags it down significantly and feels like the movie isn't able to make the most use of its concepts. It's not a must-see movie by any means but if you're really into Kamen Rider I would recommend it still since it doesn't do anything offensively bad and it's still a good time overall.

Read More

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-Overall likeable cast of characters from both the rangers and side characters by the end of the show.
-One of the most interesting final main antagonist in the franchise.
-The show switching evil factions with each arc helps the setting feel more variate and it's a good change of pace from other seasons.
-Great finale.
-With the exception of the Warstar villains from the first arc, the villains in this show are pretty enjoyable.
-Pretty enjoyable mecha fights overall.

Everything the show did bad:
-Some of the worst battle choreography in the franchise. The rangers don't have anything interesting going on in terms of fighting styles, their unique powers devolve mostly to CGI elemental abilities, swapping headers from their guns which sounds like an interesting concepts is wasted since they devolve to a stock finisher, the extra hero Gosei Knight has the best fighting style out of the rangers and he's just a worse version of the usual robocop-esque fighting style that a lot of metal heroes had, the rangers floaty fighting style is done pretty boringly throughout most of the show and the show kept some mistakes in the fighting choreography which makes the fights feel cheaper in quality. The fights in this show are hard carried by the monsters from the second arc onward, since the villains in the first arc also have really generic fighting styles and rely pretty hard on CGI abilities. Also the mecha fights while not amazing are pretty decent which helps.
-Easily on of the worst first arcs in the franchise for several reasons. The red ranger Alata and the pink ranger Eri personalities overlap too much, the black ranger Agri has a really boring personality, it feels like the staff doesn't know what to do with the yellow ranger Moune which results in her character being really inconsistent and the blue ranger Hyde who's the best one during this period is not that entertaining and also very melodramatic at times. The first villain organization, the Warstars are really generic for the most part. Aside from Datas, the show's sidecast is basically non-existent for this arc. Episode 7 is the only good episode in this arc because it was really funny and memorable. But the majority of this problems get fixed from the second arc onward.
-The black ranger Agri has a considerable worse actor than every else which can be distracting at times. Also even after the second arc starts he still remains the least interesting member of the team and he only really starts to improve as a character from episode 27 onward.
-Datas is underutilized in the second arc, but he at least gets to of screen time in the third arc to compensate.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Producers Jun Hikasa and Go Wakamatsu came up with the idea of having multiple villain factions since angels aren't suppose to only fight demons but to protect earth from all evil, which allowed for are more interesting way of storytelling.
Main writer Michiko Yokote is good writing characters.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Main writer Michiko Yokote and producer Jun Hisaka had conflicting ideas. She wanted for the team to have infighting due to their different tribes and learn how to overcome said rivalries to become a proper team but the producer opposed. This resulted in the tribe concept being underutilized and the team getting over their disagreements feel rushed.
The main producer Jun Hisaka was occupied with a management shift within Toei, this resulted in him not being able to supervise properly at times and having to leave the show on Go Wakamatsu's and Takahito Omori's hands after episode 32.
Some rumors state that main director Takao Nagaishi was beginning to have health issues which affected the show's action.

Overall:
I feel that most people would give the show a 6 due to the first 16 episodes of the show are pretty bad. While the show improves a lot after that it's still hard to sell a show with a weak start since aside the amazing antagonist, it's not like the show suddenly becomes top-tier after the first arc. But still the show is enjoyable overall despite its flaws and would recommend it to a Super Sentai fan if they don't mind having to sit to a pretty bad first arc.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-Really unique team dynamic where the whole team are jerks, which makes the build up to them becoming a proper team feel great and natural.
-All team members stand out and are constantly entertaining, the commander is also really fun.
-Extremely entertaining and likeable villains.
-Really entertaining and memorable monsters of the week.
-Cool and creative fights both in mecha and outside of mecha.
-Great final arc.
-Cool rivalries with the villains.
-Unique atmosphere mixing romance J-dramas with military kodomo shows and a dash of insanity.
-Some of the most memorable episodes in the entire franchise.

Everything the show did bad:
-The team tends to get their upgrades in really convoluted asspulls (but I found them entertaining so I didn't mind it as much). This makes the writing feel cheap at times.
-The Neo Jetman two-parter sucks for the most part despite the cool concept.
-Blue ranger Ako, yellow ranger Raita and Commander Aya get considerably less screen time than the other 3 members. But they still manage to be extremely likeable so it's not that big of a problem.
-The main antagonists being extremely powerful but not fully using their powers to compete with themselves is not a premise for everybody and can make the writing feel cheap. Personally the villains' charisma made them super likeable throughout and never minded this but felt like pointing it out.
-The ending is controversial and not for everybody, personally I didn't mind it.
-At times it feels like the white ranger Kaori doesn't get reprimanded enough for her actions, but this is mostly a nitpick.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
After having 9 shows in a row done mostly by the same staff Super Sentai was struggling to stay afloat and considerations for the franchise to be canceled were rising. Due to this chief producer Takeyuki Suzuki chose a young staff that didn't have much experience because he wanted this season to be fresh and also a team that understood that this could be the very last Sentai after promising the sponsors that the sales would go up this season. He got Keita Amemiya to direct who at the time had only directed a non-toku movie and few episodes of previous Sentai and Toshiki Inoue to write who was the son of veteran writer Masaru Igami but had only served as an episode writer for Sentai up to this point.
Despite the decision of choosing this staff was deemed controversial at the time, they made the most unique Sentai that had been made up to that point, one that's considered to be one of the best still today and it's also considered to be one of the most influential Tokusatsu of all time.
The production team tried a bunch of experimental tactics and didn't care much for the sponsors' suggestions since they thought this could be the last one and wanted to do unique stuff just in case.
The producer chose to have a female commander and introduced the concept of "Boy" mechas that served as helpers to the team.
The director came up with ideas for cool props to use in the earlier episodes and for more creative ways of doing the mecha battles.
The main writer came up with the idea for the show to adopt tropes from trendy dramas, which the producer supported him due to having previously worked on Toushou Daimos which also had romance tropes. He also wanted episodes where te team didn't transform and while Toei and the sponsors didn't allow them to realize this idea, the director supported Inoue and made it so that not every ranger had to transform every episode with the exclusion of Yellow Owl and for the cool Black Condor broken helmet scene. So this back and forth arguably gave even better results.
Other experiments by the staff was the villains not having a proper leader, the team calling themselves by their real names after transformation and the team not getting along for the first half of the show which lead to really interesting dynamics.

Reasons for the show's problems:
The main writer Toshiki Inoue didn't really for promoting toys so Jetman's upgrades would often either come out of nowhere or be obtained in a really conveluted manner. He also was really interested in the romance subplot of the show so Raita and Ako got slightly shafted. His writing is pretty insane so the story at times feels not that concise.

Overall:
Amazing show that redefined tokusatsu when it released. The writing is not the most concise but the show manages to be extremely entertaining from beginning to end (with the exception of the Neo-Jetman 2-parter). This was the show that got me into the Super Sentai franchise and highly recommend it to tokusatsu fans or people that are searching for a weirder romance drama.

Read More

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the show did well:
-The Teacher-student dynamics in this show are really fun.
-Easily one of the most unique tokusatsu ever made.
-Fantastic action that feels really different from other toku, pretty good CGI for the time too.
-Cases of the week feel really unique and experimental throuout the show.
-Really interesting monster dynamics. For the first half the fights consists in a duo monsters protecting a giant one. In the second half the fights revolve around fending off multiple monsters, at times swarms, simultaneously while they were also defended by the main viain duo.
-Really cool world-building throughout the show.
-All of the characters dynamics in the first half are great.
-The first half has a really comfy atmosphere around it.
-Really experimental way of directing, it might not be for everybody but makes the show stand out and ooze with style.
-Extremely cool fighting style where Riders fight with instruments.

Everything the show did bad:
-The second half introduces the single most hateable character in this franchise to date, Kyosuke Kiriya. He pretty much gives anti-character development to most of the cast and treats them like crap for pretty much no reason. Even though he seemingly gets character development and gets puts in his place a lot, he ultimately backpedals in the end and gets away with being a massive jerk. This just make the show's quality drop hard in the second half.
-The show has the worst final episode in the franchise so far.
-The main villain duo despite starting interesting, the second half ruins them by having a really dumb plot-twist at the end and never explaining their goals. The latter leads to some really cheap writing and plot convinience.
-The titular Rider Hibiki feels a bit more rude in the second half.
-The 3 main apprentices get done really dirty in the second half, specially Akira.
-Tsutomu Tsumura gets written out due to the introduction of Kiriya, so the rivalry that was being set up with him and Asumu goes nowhere.
-The introduction of the Hibiki's final form is really dumb.
-The whole conflict plotline with Ibuki near the end feels really forced.
-The opening shows a bunch of riders who don't actually appear in the show.
-Despite the show having a really unique world by the end, the world-building starts pretty cheap. Most of its detailed are kept vague but then the show decides to info-dump them on episode 11 which feels pretty cheap. After that the world-building is much better for the most part.
-The show doesn't really feel like a Kamen Rider show, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I feel it should be point out.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
The producer was dead-set at creating something unlike any tokusatsu that preceded it.

Reasons for the show's problems:
This show is the Kamen Rider show with the most problems in its productions so far.
First it wasn't even supposed to be a Kamen Rider show. While Kamen Rider Blade is universally beloved nowadays it had done worse than expected back when it aired. During the Showa era the franchise used to enter hiatuses all the time so Toei originally wanted to take a break from rider after Blade and revive another Ishinomori franchise, in this case, Henshin Ninja Arashi (although this decision was mostly made because the staff wanted to reboot Henshin Ninja Arashi and the fear that Kamen Rider was doing too much Rider VS Rider rather than Blade's ratings). Blade's Jack Form was inspired by said franchise and was seen as at test run to see if this idea would do well. However during pre-production, news about the next Chouseishin season started circulating (a Tokusatsu made by a rival company Toho) that it would have ninjas as a focus so they had to drop rebooting the Henshin Ninja Arashi. Ultimately the show became a new IP, known as Ongeki Rider Hibiki and the show would enter proper production under this title. However the show ultimately rebranded into a Kamen Rider show at the last minute since it was considered that it would produce more money this way and it feared releasing a new IP due to Chouseishin still being a new franchise so they felt they would overlap, that combined with rumors of rival toy company Takara launching a Tokusatsu and GARO coming out (although the latter didnt overlap due to being for an adult demographic). So the show ended up not feeling like Kamen Rider at all initially and starts becoming slightly closer to the franchise from the second quarter onward but it stills feels really different.
The show's producer, Shigenori Takatera went really overbudget with the show since he expected this to be the start of a new franchise. The show's toys sold really poorly so he was adviced to reduce the budget significantly, however he felt this wouldn't allow to achieve the main writer duo's vision so kept going. This ultimately led to him being removed from the show after episode 29 and alongside him left the writer duo, consequently he would be fired after the show ended.
Producer Shirakura was ultimately chosen to continue due to being available at the time as the other producers were occupied with other projects. He would ultimately choose Toshiki Inoue as the main writer due to his experience with weird shows since Hibiki was really experimental, also he was the only main writer out of the ones he had worked on the past to be available at the time.
It's unknown why they didn't use the original script done by the previous staff, but either way Inoue tends to be bad at writing characters that weren't initially conceived by him so he ultimately did a really poor job. Due to the sudden change, there were ton of scheduling issues with the script. Due to rewrites and and issues with meeting deadlines on the finale, the riders that were shown in the opening didn't actually appear in the final battle like they were initially planned.

Overall:
The show's definitely among the most unique tokusatsu out ther, but the second is just such a massive disappointment that I cannot recommended this show. I feel that for most people this show is an overall mediocre 4/10 show, it does enough cool stuff to keep it from being bad but that's it. Personally the cool concepts behind some episodes and the cool fights made me come out overall positive out of the show, but that won't be most people. If you think this show's concepts look really cool, then I recommend watching this show up till episode 29 which feels climatic enough after that it really isn't worth it to keep going unless you're really REALLY curious for what happens next. But it really pains me that the production staff saying this was the "Kamen Rider Amazon of the Heisei era" back at the press conference ended up being a bit TOO accurate and the show ended up changing course halfway through just like Amazon.

Read More

Everything the show did well:
-Kotaro is a really likeable protagonist.
-This show is the closest thing to a Kamen Rider show actually retaining the atmosphere/tone of the first arc of the 1971 show for the entire season.
-Shadow Moon is a great villain.
-One of the best final arcs in the franchise.
-Consistently great action and direction.
-The show does a great job at making Gorgom feel like menacing villains with its cases of the week.
-Great villains and characters of the week for the most part.

Everything the show did bad:
-Other than Shadow Moon the main villains are pretty generic most part. The High Priests aren't really interesting until the final arc. Bilgenia is slightly more interesting than them but he isn't that remarkable of a rival.
-The show's sidecast: Katsumi and Kyoko, take too much of backseat throughout most of the show and mostly serve to take care of the characters of the week rather than actually developing as characters. This alongside the villain problem really drag the show down prior the final arc.

Reasons for the show's strengths:
Despite the show changing producers during its pre-production, the rest of the show's production went really smoothly for the most part. The show trying to be a soft reboot that returns to form but also tries thing a really different way, and having learned from the other time they tried to reboot the franchise with Skyrider, resulted in a show with a darker tone a really unique aesthetics. The staff went all out on the show's first episode taking a whole month to film, which really set the show's atmosphere and how it would be from that point onward.

Reasons for the show's problems:
Due to the staff wanting to keep Kotaro's identity secret + having the characters of the week be the main focus of the episodes in order to show how much a menace Gorgom was resulted in the sidecast getting shafted. Also main writer Shozo Uehara not writing that many episodes resulted in the villains not being as interesting.

Overall:
I feel most people would give this show an 8 due to the show's atmosphere and action being amazing. But the issue with everyone in the cast not being that interesting besides the protagonist Kotaro until the final arc made me lower it down. Still this is a great show and has one of the best final arcs in the franchise so I recommend this show of you're a Tokusatsu fan.

Read More