-Likeable cast for both heroes and villains.
-Dyna Black in particular is a really likeable character and also has an extremely cool fighting style.
-The direction in this show feels like the natural evolution of the directing style of the original Kamen Rider show. Looks consistently great from beginning to end.
-The show is pretty funny consistently.
-The overly ridiculous premise mixed with the usual Showa darkness makes for a pretty fun experience.
-Fun monsters of the week.
-Prince Megiddo's arc is really great.
-The cast interactions with the science center are entertaining.
-A sizeable amount of out of suit action, more than an usual toku show.
-First Sentai show to use wire action and it was used really well.
Everything the show did bad:
-With the exception of the black ranger Ryu, the other 4 rangers while likeable feel pretty generic.
-Dark Knight's fighting style kinda sucks.
-While Emperor Aton manages to do a lot of cool stuff in the final arc, he's still mostly a 'sit in the chair doing nothing' type villain, and prior to said final arc he didn't have much personality.
-Aside from Megiddo and Zenobia, the other villains are kind of generic.
-The premise isn't that unique.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
Despite the show's runtime being shortened half-way through and the team being changed from a baseball-themed into a science/dynamite-themed team fairly late into pre-production, the show's team did a fantastic job and didn't really let any of this issues affect them significantly. Producer Takeyuki Suzuki attempting to make the show more anime-esque due to his experience working in the medium worked in the show's favor.
Dynablack's actor Junichi Haruta being an ex-suit actor allowed for way more out of suit fights than usual and for said character do to of cool stuff.
This was Hirohisa Soda's second Sentai show, so they hasn't started to overlap yet.
Reasons for the show's problems:
At the time Toei listened to sponsors more than they do now so that made their shows feel troppier than they do now. But honestly Toei was great at doing ton of fun stuff despite this, Amazon, Skyrider and Black RX are the only shows that were really affected that come to mind. But I assume this is the likeliest factor for the show not being that unique.
Overall:
While it doesn't have a story that original, the show has ton of polish for the time and its monsters brong ton of life to the show. If you don't mind the show going on a pretty safe direction, this is a great time.
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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.
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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.
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-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.
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-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.
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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.
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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.
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-Cool premise where the rangers were abducted as babies and are trying to find their families now that they're on earth.
-The Tokimura family is continuously entertaining and likeable throughout the show's run.
-Meg is a pretty good robot helper.
-The episodes written by Toshiki Inoue are pretty good (which is weird since I usually don't like him as an episode writer), as these are the episodes were the team get more personality.
-Some cool world-building here and there.
-Really great final arc.
-The team being able to use their powers outside of their suits is interesting.
-The dynamic of them trying to get used to earth is pretty entertaining.
Everything the show did bad:
-Despite their interesting background, the team is just really generic and their personalities overlap way too much with the exception of the Inoue episodes.
-None of the villains are interesting with exception of the main antagonist who's just kind of allright.
-The plot twist behind Doctor Lie Köpflen is decent but not that interesting.
-The special effects for the on-ground fights in this show are really bad for the most part and end up making some of the franchise's worst. The mecha fights are also pretty boring.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
The staff tried its best to make an unique premise.
Reasons for the show's problems:
This was Hirohisa Soda 5th sci-fi Sentai show in a row without breaks, this was just when was getting out of ideas and the shows started overlapping a lot. The experiments for the show's action backfired.
Overall:
While the show's doesn't do anything offensively bad it doesn't do anything that particularly amazing besides the finale. It just ends up as a really average show with not much going for it. Despite not being bad I have hard time recommending this show when this franchise offers far better seasons.
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-Really unique and entertaining cast for the most part.
-Zolda/Kitaoka in particular is super entertaining.
-Some of the most emotional writing in the franchise.
-The mirror monsters feel menacing and Ouja even more, easily one of the most psychotic characters in the franchise and it is done really well.
-The dynamic between the riders feel really entertaining and pretty different from other shows in the franchise.
-The big twist in this show is really good.
-The power system in the show revolving in making contracts with monsters and making them eat others to become more powerful is entertaining.
-The contract beast dynamic and having to feed them in order to survive is interesting.
-The majority of the sidecast from the Ore Journal are fun.
-Pretty great monsters of the week for the most part.
-One of the most emotional and intense finales in the franchise.
-Interesting main antagonist.
Everything the show did bad:
-Despite the antagonist goal making sense and his backstory being really good. The show never explains how any of what he's doing remotely helps him reach said goal nor does it explain what the mirror monsters are. That is answered in the movie "Kamen Rider Ryuki: Episode Final", which is an alternate ending for the show story. Since the movie is an alternate ending that happened during the show's run before its actual ending it ends up having heavy spoilers if you watch the movie in accordance to its release. So you either see the show's big plot-twist but worse executed in the movie to have the full context of the story or finish the show without properly understanding the antagonist's intentions but not get spoiled. Personally I prefer the latter choice.
-The members of the Ore Journal get kidnapped so often it's ridiculous.
-Megumi Asano feels like an "episode of the week character" that kept appearing for some reason. She feels really out of place after her 2-part introduction and a lot of the stuff she does feels like it could have easily been done by other characters.
-Some slight pacing issues in the final arc.
-While the main girl Yui is likeable overall, her character isn't really anything to write home about.
-The show promotes having 13 riders yet only 10 actually appear on the show. The remaining 3 are left to specials and movies.
-I've seen a lot of people hating the main protagonist Shinji due to being an idiot idealist but I personally never found issue with this and really enjoyed him as a protagonist. I feel these problems are blown out of proportion but since so many people complain about him felt like pointing it out.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
Due to the death of the franchise original creator Shotaro Ishinomori back in 1998 it was originally planned out for Agito to be the last rider show. At the start of Ryuki's pre-production the show had started as a different IP officially, but internally the staff was following the "Crossfire" rule of Kamen Rider either way so due to the franchise getting momentum due to the massive success of Kuuga and Agito. This allowed the show to try very different aesthetics and have really different powers from previous seasons.
Due to the terrorist attack 9/11, the sponsors and Toei's higher-ups wanted a show where justice and evil could easily be determined, since I the previous season Agito both the hero side and villain side had good points behind the perspectives. However this show's producer decided to be cheeky about it and made a show where the Kamen Riders were the villains and argued that showing the kids true justice was beyond a person who transforms being good, so having a truly heroic protagonist duo fending off some legimetely psychopaths that use the power of Kamen Riders would make them easy to understand who as in each side despite using the same powers.
Despite numerous complaints from media, sponsors and parents, producer Shirakura was deadset making this show unique and allowed the main writer Yasuko Kobayashi to have freedom for the most part and only appeased to the complaints in the most superficial way possible or didn't at all in order to not harm the show's script.
Reasons for the show's problems:
Originally Ryuki's ending was going to be planned by voting via phone calls and release alternate endings on the DVD release, but the idea was scrapped due to fear that this would negatively affect the script and instead the concept was used in the 13 riders special. Secondary writer Toshiki Inoue didn't like the direction of the main protagonist Shinji of him being a pacifist and wanted him to kill at least one rider, however main writer Yasuko Kobayashi heavily opposed this idea. So producer Shirakura decided to revisit the multiple endings idea and gave Inoue an alternate ending movie to work on, as that way both writers would be free to achieve their visions. But in order to give an incentive to watch the movie the producer removed key plot-points of the show and inserted it into the movie + also 2 riders that had yet to be written from the 13 riders that were supposed to be in the show (the latter arguably was for the best since allowed for the show to have less bloat), although theoretically they wouldn't have appeared in the show either way, as according the Shirakura the whole '13 riders' concepts was more for world-building and he didn't plan to force them all to appear in the show.
Overall:
Fantastic show from beginning to end that leaves you feeling a bunch of different emotions by the end. The biggest issue is the show feeling incomplete due to not explaining the antagonist's plan so one should watch this show's summer movie to understand it but I personally recommend to watch said film after finishing the show or at least after episode 47 due to the nature of its plot reveals despite this show's producer wanting you to watch episodes 28 and 29. Highly recommend this series to tokusatsu fans or people that like action dror even people that enjoy normal j-dramas if they like the first 3 episodes of the show.
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-The team members have likeable personalities overall.
-The main villains being a monarchy where the generals are in-fighting for control is unique and pretty entertaining.
-Maskman fighting styles are really unique with their combination of emphasizing martial arts, more varied weapons and their occasional use of power-construct abilities.
-Whenever the show has budget, the monsters of the week have the gimmick of being divided in two, the body and the mask. This creates an interesting and very different dynamic to fights both inside and outside of mechas.
-Great acting overall.
-Cool soundtrack.
-The stakes feel more personal for the red ranger Takeru due to revolving around saving his girlfriend.
-Cool world-building for the most part.
-The Light Squadron is really cool and manage to be really useful for the most part.
Everything the show did bad:
-The show is too red-centric. The majority of the first quarter focuses too much on the red ranger Takeru. Most of the villains rivalries also revolve around him. What's worst is that despite of this we don't get a proper look at his backstory until really late in the show. We don't even know what's the pink ranger Momoko's deal until episode 15. As good as the rest of the team are, they just are way too heavily shafted throughout the whole show.
-The show has too many villains simultaneously which makes it really hard to care for them. It also feels like the show doesn't get to properly use its ideas for the villains because of it.
-It felt like the Unas arc could have been longer.
-It felt like commander Sugata's backstory could have been explored more.
-The plot twist behind the Main Antagonist is pretty dumb and barely changes the status quo.
-When the show doesn't have enough budget (which is the majority of the show) the monsters of the week tend to be really generic and forgettable nor do they use the mask gimmick which feels out of place since the show doesn't explain why. And even when the gimmickless monsters are actually interesting, their mecha fights sucks since they barely retain anything of what made them interesting once the become giant.
-The main antagonist Zeba, Anagmas and Okelampa are really boring villains.
-The show's finale feels needlessly depressing and honestly kinda sucks.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
The staff wanting to slightly move away from science fiction definetly gave the show more originality and allowed to try new things.
Reasons for the show's problems:
This was the 6th show that main writer Hirohisa Soda had done in a row without breaks. By this point there was starting to be a lot of overlap, specially considering the nature of these type of shows and how Toei during this period was more comfortable to listening to sponsors. The next show Liveman was able to try more original things due to being the franchise anniversary but after that the franchise would go back to being too samey. But even when this show tried doing original stuff, it tried to do too much at the same time making it so that it couldn't properly develop their good ideas and leaving them feeling half-baked.
Overall:
It's not a bad show overall and definitely has ton of interesting concepts. But it's just so heavily flawed to be considered a great a show. I feel that even if you really like the concepts it will only bring it up to a 7. It's a pretty good show but I only really recommend it if you're really into Sentai or if the setting sounds really interesting to you.
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-Amazing use of props + great set variety.
-Juspion and Anri interactions are really entertaining in the first half.
-Consistently amazing action from start to finish, weather it's inside of mecha or not.
-Mad Gallant is a really entertaining rival.
-Decent story.
-Aside from the tree episode, ton of entertaining cases of the week in the first half that made the show's world feel alive.
-Boomerang's mini-arc is really fun.
Everything the show did bad:
-The giant sentient tree episode.
-The characters and tone change drastically in the second half for the worse. After Juspion gets a haircut he goes from a flawed hero inspired by Han Solo to a generic Showa hero. This would have been fine if he got a proper character arc but this change in personality felt unnatural. Juspion modifies Anri against her will to make her a generic Showa main girl yet he never gets reprimanded for it nor does she ever go back to her original personality.
-The cool heroic companion Boomerang from the first half only comes back to lose in the second half barely accomplishing anything.
-The second half introduces the Nambara family. While their story is good, they aren't compelling characters and lot of episodes are two siblings causing trouble by jumping the gun. Which results in various episodes in this half feel draggy and repetitive.
There really isn't enough info on the show production that I could find to know what resulted in the final product. All I know is that there was a schedule change half-way trough due to the show not being popular in Japan at the time. So I have to assume that the show had a really talented staff but due to not being popular they tried to make the show more generic after the schedule change to improve its popularity resulting in the second half being way worse than the amazing first half. But this is just speculation.
Overall:
The show is enjoyable overall but most if its great moments happen in its first half. Once the second half starts, the show loses most of its identity and what made it original and just becomes really generic with nothing going for it besides its cool action. It's a heavily flawed show and hard to recommend unless you're really into showa tokusatsu or if you love the action enough to watch it all the way through.
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This review may contain spoilers
Mild spoilers ahead:
Everything the show did well:-Extremely likeable characters from the most part, one of the most unique teams in the franchise.
-Every member in the team has a really distinct personality that makes them really stand out. And that includes the main Nouto trio.
-Consistently really funny.
-Not a single boring episode, every episode manages to have something interesting and be pretty funny.
-The dynamic between the team and their rival sentai Nouto is done really well.
-Momoi and Jiro's fighting style is consistently really well done.
-Most of the characters/monsters of the week are really memorable.
-Most of the show's emotional moments are really well executed.
-Great soundtrack.
-The show has ton of style, it visually stands out from any Sentai.
-Most of the mecha fights are really great, the change in background makes it so that the show can do really cool stuff aestheticly.
-Great finale for the most part.
-Despite being kinda messy, they show has pretty great and interesting world-building.
-Having a a mix between a J-Drama and absurdist comedy approach to the main characters makes the cast stand out.
-Better acting than your usual Sentai.
-First arc feels really unique due having the yellow ranger Haruka be the protagonist.
Everything the show did bad:
-Most of the fights don't look that great. During the first arc only Momoi knows how to fight which affects the choreography of early episodes. The pink ranger Kijino and the black ranger Tsubasa just pretty much never look great on screen or when they fight. They manage to make some pretty fun scenes with this but for the most part they barely actually fight on the show and when they do it doesn't look good. Some fights in the show go by very fast.
-Dispite having quite a few serious moments and the premise being 'kinda' dark, the show just doesn't take itself seriously at all and some of the answers to this show's biggest mysteries can be extremely goofy. Personally I didn't mind this due to how entertaining the show was but I understand why it would be a complaint.
-Murasame could be just reduced to a non-sentient weapon and have his character arc removed from the show and it would barely affect the show, he's easily this show's most wasted character and you can tell the writer didn't particularly care for him.
-The show not having a proper main antagonist makes the finale slightly less endearing.
-The show's main mentor is named exactly the same as Zenkaiger's protagonist, is played by the same actor and has mostly the same powers yet the show never properly explains who he is which might feel like a cop-out answer for some, personally I didn't mind it.
-The show can be pretty messy at times trying to balance focusing on the Zyuto, Nouto, the other Nouto, Jiro, Murasame, the team's inner conflict and the whole 'They Live' situation with the anoni.
-Black Onitaijin Murasame pretty much never looks well on screen.
-The pink ranger Kijino gets anti-character development in the final arc.
-The deal with Naoki Shiina can feel pretty disconnected from the overall plot.
-Some upgrades feel like the come out of nowhere.
-Jin, while an overall likeable character, spends most of the show prison without being able to do anything.
Reasons for the show strenghts:
Producer Shirakura is the best person at getting the most out of Toshiki Inoue's writing.
Reasons for the show flaws:
Shirakura wanted the team to have distinct silhouettes so he opted for CGI rangers. Toshiki Inoue's writing is insane for better or for worse. He really doesn't care much about shilling toys so some upgrades are asspulls and he didn't bother writing a proper character arc for Murasame.
Overall:
The show doesn't have a concise story and one could argue that the answer to a lot of the show's mysteries are copouts. However, the solid cast both in writing and acting, the show having ton of cool concepts mostly done well, the really good comedy and the really entertaining monsters of the week just makes this show an overall great time and arguably one of Sentai's best just because of how well executed all of these are. If you're searching for a deep plot or expect the show to answer all of its mysteries then this show will probably not be for you, but otherwise this show is a high recommend.
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-The main trio have the best team balance I've seen in Sentai so far, it never feels like one overshadows the other and all 3 feel like protagonists.
-Colon gives great support to the team and is a really likeable character.
-Has a great trio of rivals, the team desiring revenge because of the rivals killing their friends make the stakes in the show feel more personal.
-The villains introduced later are also really likeable and don't disrupt the rivalry between the two trios. Only Butchy and Guildos are initially kinda bad since they come out of nowhere, but by the end they're also really likeable and their sudden appearance is explained.
-The team has an unique fighting style with the way they implement sports into how they fight plus the show having slightly more budget.
-The majority of the monsters of the week manage to be entertaining.
-Really great final arc.
-The plot twist of the main antagonist's true objective is great.
Everything the show did bad:
-The black and green rangers come out of nowhere. Their very existence feels like an asspull considering the plot of one of the earlier episodes and they're introduced so late that they barely manage to be proper characters. Green at least get a few episodes but Black could be removed from the show and the story wouldn't change. They ultimately make the second half of the show feel kinda draggy.
-The majority of the mecha fights feel boring due to being short and the monsters hardly ever retaining their powers once they go giant.
-Too many characters of the week die to take the show seriously. Like they visit graves of dead characters at the end of the episodes too often, definitely more often than any other tokusatsu I've seen. I ultimately would laugh whenever they visited a grave by the second quarter.
-Despite the good choreography, the flow of fights is kinda repetitive. This one is kinda hard to explain but essentially in almost every episode the Liveman lose the same way in the first half. It's one of those thing that one has to watch to understand, just take my word that it isn't like other showa Sentai but still it isn't that big of an issue.
-Personally didn't like Yusuke during the first half of the show. It felt like he was too much of a jerk, which wouldn't be an issue of the rest of the team properly called him out on it. They would acknowledge it but not properly reprimand him. This stops being an issue when Green and Black get introduced weirdly enough but this might be a personal issue.
Reasons for the show strenghts:
Due to Goranger and JAKQ not being acknowledged as super sentai shows, this show served as Sentai's 10th anniversary which resulted in the show getting slightly more budget than usual Sentai seasons and being able to try more unique ideas. Yusuke and Megumi being played by idols resulted in a more different approach in characters compared to other showa shows.
Reasons for the show flaws:
This was main writer Hirohisa Soda's 7th Sentai show in a row. By this point he was struggling at writing interesting premises behind the fights.
Overall:
The show is overall pretty great and I feel it would be an 8 for most people since my problems with the red ranger feel more of a personal thing. The main trio all feel like main protagonists and the rivalry gimmick is really well done. It isn't a super unique show but it's still unique enough. Definitely recommend if you're into tragic heroes.
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This review may contain spoilers
Mild spoilers ahead:
Everything the show did well:-Really entertaining cast all around.
-One of the most interesting main antagonists in the franchise.
-The main trio of riders all feel like they're the main protagonists respectively. Shifting perspectives between the three helps keep the show interesting from beginning to end + explore different philosophies as to what would happen if humanity was given superpowers.
-Each Rider has a really distinct fighting style + looks very visually distinct of each other while feeling that they are from the same show.
-One of the most unique stories in the franchise
-Lots of cool stunts.
-The majority of the non-transformable characters feel really useful, especially the main girl Mana and Ozawa.
-The show's mysteries are legitimately intriguing.
-The concept behind the Akatsuki passangers are legimetely interesting.
-This show's villains 'The Lords' feel really menacing.
Everything the show did bad:
-It feels like the only purpose of Taichi (the kid that lives with the main cast) is to stall the answers to the mysteries by being a brat, which feels like cheap writing.
-The mini-arc focused on Aki Sakaki (15-21, 25). She might be the biggest harlot/slut in the franchise. She just comes off as generally unlikeable, the show expects to believe she's in love with Ryo which is almost impossible to believe considering her actions. Her arc introduces the only seemingly dropped plot-point in the show, as it seemed like it was setting up an explanation as to why Taichi doesn't have a mom which is never explained by the end. It just feels like to whole reason she existed was to be a cheap way to create conflict between Shoichi and Ryo.
-The 5-parter finale of the show is kind of bad. It introduces a new side character for each of the main trio, introducing 3 new characters in the last 5 episodes of the show makes it almost impossible to care for them. During these 5 episodes the Agito side is the only good perspective, as it's the only that actually closes a remaining plot-point/mystery and manages to make you care for Kana Okamura. The Gills side is just more suffering for him which felt unnecessary by this point. The G3 side was the worst of the 3, the new character from that perspective, Naozumi Shirakawa sucks even if he's played by the fantastic actor Yutaka Hirose, this 5-parter also ruins Hojo's and Omuro's characters. On top of that, the main antagonist final plan is unnecessarily conveluted and feels out of character when compared to his past actions.
-The titular rider Agito has one of the most boring powersets that a protagonist has had in this franchise.
-If you've watched Kuuga, do NOT expect the cops in this show to be anything similar.
Reasons for the show's strengths:
Producer Shirakura knows how to make the most use of Toshiki Inoue's writing style, they compliment each other extremely well. Shirakura wanted to allow Inoue creative freedom for the most part, so he allowed Inoue to not properly make a sequel to Kuuga. While this might be disappointing to some, this allowed the show to be an original story that allows Kuuga's great ending go untouched and ultimately allowed future entries in the franchise to be completely standalone like Super Sentai which allowed for the franchise to be really experimental and create some of the most unique and best Tokusatsu.
Reasons for the show's problems:
The show got extended for 5 more episodes, however Toshiki Inoue had already written the finale, this resulted in the script of episode 46 to be slightly reworked to not close all the plot-points but ultimately being the best fight in the show and feeling more like a final fight than the actual final one. Inoue had to impromptuly write theseast 5 episodes which resulted in them not having the same polish that the rest of the show did.
Inoue is also a really weird writer and likes telenovela-like plotlines which resulted in the Aki Sakaki plotline.
Overall:
The show is definitely weirder than most Rider shows which might not make it for everybody. But this season has the best mystery that I've seen in this franchise, plus the protagonist trio is really great and the shift between their perspectives help make the show feel fresh. This is also among the franchise's most unique. The biggest issue is the 5-part finale, and even then the actual ending of the show is good so it's not that big of a deal outside the character assassinations of Hojo and Omuro. Also don't go into the show excepting it to be like Kuuga because of the designs as it's very different. Overall I would definitely recommend this show if you're into mystery or want to see a really weird tokusatsu but not recommend it if you're really into continuity between other seasons.
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