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Kamen Rider Gaim is this year's new Kamen Rider series. This one's about Riders with a fruit/samurai theme with Pokemon and street dancing thrown into the mix. It's also being written by Gen Urobuchi, which means I have to make a thread for it. Story In the city of Zawame everything is controlled by the Yggdrasill Corporation, from commerce, to the media, schools, clothing, hospitals, construction, and even garbage collection. This has led to feelings of being suffocated as if they were living in a castle town among some of the city's populace. In order to alleviate these feelings, the youth of the city have formed dance crews and compete against each other. In addition to this, a new kind of game has started where people summon creatures called Invess using devices called Lockseeds, and have their summoned creatures fight each other. Kouta Kazuraba is a former member of a dance team called Gaim, who recently quit in order to find work to support himself and his older sister. One day he receives a message on his cell phone from his former team leader, Yuuya Sumii, with a picture of a belt attached. Going out to meet with Yuuya, Kouta instead finds a portal left open to the Invess' dimension. Investigating on the other side of the portal, Kouta finds a belt and two Lockseeds. By using the belt and combining it with one of the lockseeds, Kouta transforms into Kamen Rider Gaim. However, Kouta is not the only person who will obtain the power to transform. He will fight not only against wild Invess, but also against other Kamen Riders, turning the setting into a warring states period with Kamen Riders. Characters Kouta Kazuraba The former second in command of Team Gaim, Kouta quit the team in order to find work to support himself and his older sister as their parents are dead. A kind hearted youth who wants to become an adult quickly. As Kamen Rider Gaim he initially has the "Orange" and "Strawberry" Lockseeds. Mai Takatsukasa Another member of Team Gaim. An abrasive young woman who is mad at Kouta for quitting Team Gaim. Yuuya Sumii The leader of Team Gaim. After obtaining one of the belts he disappears and the belt falls into Kouta's possession. Kaito Kumon The leader of Team Baron, Team Gaim's rivals. He has a strong "survival of the fittest" mentality. Sid A mysterious man who peddles Lockseeds. Woman in the white dress A woman with some connection to the dimension the Invess are from, and who appears to play some sort of role in the battle between Kamen Riders. Staff Directors: Ryuta Tasaki (Kamen Rider Ryuki, Kamen Rider W, Akibaranger) and Takayuki Shibasaki (various recent Kamen Rider shows) Head Writer: Gen Urobuchi (Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero) Producer: Naomi Takebe (Kamen Rider Ryuki, OOO, Kabuto, some others) Production Company: Toei Where do I watch it? You can get fansubs from Aesir Subs. Trailer (Spoils some future characters, lots of Rider forms) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT9-vNOgP_0 Personal Opinions On Things I am pretty new to Kamen Rider, all I've watched of the franchise so far is about 30 episodes of Black and a few episodes of Kuuga. I do know that Urobuchi is a pretty big fan of Kamen Rider though and his style and preferences seem to lend themselves quite well to a Kamen Rider series (bombastic characters, motorcycles, slightly corny dialogue, interesting villains, cool setting design, etc). I liked what I saw in the first episode a whole lot. Kouta looks like he'll be a good main character, there were a lot of potential future plot points set up, and the setting is well constructed. I'm looking forward to how the plot will develop as other Kamen Riders are introduced. jonjonaug fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Nov 12, 2013 |
# ? Oct 8, 2013 07:58 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 10:19 |
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So far this seems like pretty standard Kamen Rider fare, what with belt buckle transformation gadgets/multiple forms/special attacks and rubber suit monsters of the week. I haven't been able to stick all the way through one of these shows before, but with the Urobutcher on board I'm interested to see where it goes.
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 09:36 |
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What I like about Gaim so far is how much more it's given us to chew on in this one episode than a lot of series do early on. There's a lot of mysteries presented and it's all intriguing.
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 22:01 |
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This is a show about a dude who transforms when a giant orange lands on his head and also street-dancing and Pokemon. I feel it is a strong contender for Anime of the Year.
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 22:03 |
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So what you're saying is I might have to watch one of these Kamen Rider things people go on and on about.
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 22:53 |
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Is this actually good or is it mainly a joke? (or both?)
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 23:11 |
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There's been one episode it was pretty cool, you should try it and see how you like it.
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 23:13 |
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So there was a quick look at the fifth Rider, one that hasn't already been spoiled, right behind Banana Man in the opening scene. I like that guy. Show him more.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 01:33 |
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That guy? He's Griton. His Lockseeds are Acorn, Pinecone and Durian.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 01:42 |
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Chas McGill posted:Is this actually good or is it mainly a joke? (or both?) It was pretty bad, not even good as a joke. Probably the worst first episode of a Rider show I've seen. Too much stuff thrown at the viewer without a lot of coherence. Basically an info dump on what makes the Gaim world different than the real world, with no interesting hooks on what's going to happen in the series. And Kouta is less interesting than Ryotaro from Den-O, who at least had the imagin-possessions (The actor was amazing with these) to give him personality and to interact with. So far none of the supporting cast is anywhere near as entertaining either to help Kouta out with being so bland. Things I did like were Yggdrasil Tower giving the city a unique identity, (like Fuuto in W) and the DJ/announcer's scenes. (Professor K!) And the only thing I'm really interested in seeing how much it does deviate from the usual Rider formula. Wizard was a very "safe" show in how it was structured, so if Gaim is going to do things differently, at least that sounds interesting.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 01:45 |
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yeah you all better watch this
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 01:57 |
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Rei_ posted:That guy? He's Griton. His Lockseeds are Acorn, Pinecone and Durian. HELL YEAH ACORN RIDER
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 02:32 |
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Potsticker posted:It was pretty bad, not even good as a joke. Probably the worst first episode of a Rider show I've seen. Too much stuff thrown at the viewer without a lot of coherence. Basically an info dump on what makes the Gaim world different than the real world, with no interesting hooks on what's going to happen in the series. And Kouta is less interesting than Ryotaro from Den-O, who at least had the imagin-possessions (The actor was amazing with these) to give him personality and to interact with. So far none of the supporting cast is anywhere near as entertaining either to help Kouta out with being so bland. Wizard wasn't a safe Rider show at all, it took a huge risk that in telling a story that it didn't have the actors or writers to pay off. Tsuyoshi Kida took on a majority of the script, but forbid writers like Junko Komura from advancing the story without his presence. Unfortunately Tsuyoshi Kida is kind of a lovely writer (okay, this is unfair, a bit? He wrote a lot of what people consider to be the good half of Hibiki, but again that was also a really risky show), all of Wizard really stand-out episodes were written by Komura. Like the episode with Beasts Grandmother or the Manju arc. These are actually really good filler episodes that make fantastic use of the characters in them, and actually fufill some of the concepts of the show. Monsters in Wizard tended to just oogba-booga instead of actually like, trying to do that whole despair thing? That was mostly Kida's writing. In the Komura episodes, you actually have the monsters doing really hosed up poo poo to people. When Kida sort of gets the stars to align, he can pull off a fantastic SETPIECE (like, for instance, Phoenix being kicked into the loving sun.) but he also had to contend with Koyomi, who was kind of the focal point of much of the story, being played by a teen idol whose own schedule conflicted with Wizard's shooting. Rei_ fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Oct 9, 2013 |
# ? Oct 9, 2013 02:44 |
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Rei_ posted:Wizard wasn't a safe Rider show at all, it took a huge risk that in telling a story that it didn't have the actors or writers to pay off. Tsuyoshi Kida took on a majority of the script, but forbid writers like Junko Komura from advancing the story without his presence. Unfortunately Tsuyoshi Kida is kind of a lovely writer (okay, this is unfair, a bit? He wrote a lot of what people consider to be the good half of Hibiki, but again that was also a really risky show), all of Wizard really stand-out episodes were written by Komura. Like the episode with Beasts Grandmother or the Manju arc. These are actually really good filler episodes that make fantastic use of the characters in them, and actually fufill some of the concepts of the show. I meant safe as in the fact that it was very formulaic as far as Rider shows go, and . Otherwise I totally agree with most everything you've said. Wizard is a show where I enjoyed the ride overall, but it certainly had a lot of rough bits. And there seems to be a lot of positivity towards Gaim, so perhaps there's something people are seeing in it that I just don't get yet. I'm certainly not dropping it just on the basis of the first episode, but so far it's not doing it for me.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 03:18 |
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Supposedly Urobochi's master plan for the show will be revealed by episode 3, and episodes 1 and 2 are supposed to be a slow burn. I'm not sure where that information came from, but Lynxara from Aesir/OT/LowVisibility was talking about it and she's never been wrong. By front-loading the twist, you can let the consequences play out for the series, instead of letting everyone sit around for 38 episodes before they reveal everyone's a robot and the mysterious padlocks made from magic fruit in a haunted forest full of monsters distributed by seedy guys in trenchcoats might be evil. Also as far as Wizard goes, I think it points more to Bandai/Toei in the post-Hibiki Rider series being harder to write under than before. Wizard had a LOT of problems establishing any kind of consistent threat upon Haruto, because he just seemed to get his rear end kicked until the next powerup fell into his lap. So the pacing was basically at the whim of toy assembly lines. Really strong writers have been able to adapt to this, OOOs and Double stand out as shows that actually thrived under this condition, Fourze stumbled a bit and it absolutely kicked Wizard's rear end. I'm hoping Gaim's return to a more streamlined gimmick reduces this. Rei_ fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Oct 9, 2013 |
# ? Oct 9, 2013 03:35 |
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Potsticker posted:It was pretty bad, not even good as a joke. Probably the worst first episode of a Rider show I've seen. Too much stuff thrown at the viewer without a lot of coherence. Basically an info dump on what makes the Gaim world different than the real world, with no interesting hooks on what's going to happen in the series. And Kouta is less interesting than Ryotaro from Den-O, who at least had the imagin-possessions (The actor was amazing with these) to give him personality and to interact with. So far none of the supporting cast is anywhere near as entertaining either to help Kouta out with being so bland. I can see some of your points as valid, but no hooks on what's going to happen? did you miss the part where the weird doppelganger girl made the comment that he would have to "Fight to the bitter end 'till the world is dyed in your image." That seems like a pretty big hook along with the three way fight at the beginning of the show.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 03:40 |
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I really liked how the fight at the end had him slowly learning what the belt let him do, it was a nice change of pace from either someone telling the lead or them knowing instantly when the story begins. The monster being more feral after four seasons where they were either humans or close enough to it was nice as well. The lead bleeding in the first episode lets me sort of buy it being more serious later, as well.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 03:50 |
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Elfgames posted:I can see some of your points as valid, but no hooks on what's going to happen? did you miss the part where the weird doppelganger girl made the comment that he would have to "Fight to the bitter end 'till the world is dyed in your image." That seems like a pretty big hook along with the three way fight at the beginning of the show. The three-way battle shown at the beginning gives no context on why we should care about these riders battling. Being shown the war at the beginning of Decade was interesting because it showed us Decade defeating everyone. That's an interesting hook, this guy beats all the previous riders! There's a mystery of when/where it takes place, but-- again-- without context, there's no reason to care. We don't see any outcome. We just know that at some point, these Riders have/will fight. It's sort of the same as when Kouta finally transforms. The Gaim transformation has been teased a bunch, being paused as the orange clobbers his head. Now we get to see the whole thing and-- the orange just folds out. It's exactly what was suspected. There's nothing interesting about it. And then Gaim has orange powers? No, the orange motif isn't shown to add anything. When we see W transform at first, we see how his different sides do different things. OOO's medals, Fourze's switches-- we get shown why we should care about the different parts. But for Gaim we don't get to see even just what makes Orange special. So why should we care about what any specific lockseed does? Watch how differently they unfold?
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 03:57 |
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Potsticker posted:The three-way battle shown at the beginning gives no context on why we should care about these riders battling. "Holy poo poo, five Riders going to war with monster armies! What the hell, how does this happen?" - me watching the first scene. Potsticker posted:We don't see any outcome. Yeah I can't imagine them not wanting to give away what is probably a big deal in the plot in the first five minutes. This is unlike the Rider War in Decade because that was all about the prophecy of Decade as the destroyer and poo poo, this is just straight up "what the gently caress is even happening?" BENGHAZI 2 fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Oct 9, 2013 |
# ? Oct 9, 2013 04:02 |
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I can see it both ways: On the one hand, the characters and powers are not as immediately interesting in the first episode as they were in W, Fourze, and even Wizard (Well, the powers at least, for that last one). On the other hand, I love the setting and there is so much stuff being set up for the long game that I can't help but be interested to see how it plays out. EDIT: Theory time! Okay, assuming that they do not do away with the idea that the transformation items being related to the monsters themselves as well as the riders, along with the idea that the monsters are transformed humans, and seeing that Kouta was a hair away from eating the Lockseeds while they were fruit, I am guessing that doing so turns you into an Invess-like monster. Having this in mind, it does beg two questions: 1. Where did Yuuya go? 2. If I am right, who did Kouta just splatter? EDIT2: Transplanting from the Toku thread, the dancing is going to make this show hard to watch, because it is not that good, and it gives me Heaven's Tornado flashbacks. Unlucky7 fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Oct 9, 2013 |
# ? Oct 9, 2013 04:10 |
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Cross posting.Burkion posted:I have watched Gaim and I just do not care.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 04:54 |
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Well, Kuuga and Gaim have over a decade between them, different writing teams, different goals and different stories with different themes and different characters. So no, they're not aimed at the same people. Kuuga was a pet project that took a much longer time to write than any other Rider show. And it's not like we haven't seen shows juggle this many themes before, and am I the only one who noticed that Gaim is a pretty lovely dance team? Like, that's actually pointed out in the first episode, that people think they're a bunch of scrubs.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 05:03 |
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I don't recall any mention of people actually thinking they were supposed to be scrubs. Everyone seemed to like them until Baron cheated them off their stage.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 05:04 |
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They go from like, below-average ranking to second-last on the town leaderboards. The team has been suffering because they can't afford decent lockseeds, and their best dancer left them. edit: Kouta is going to solve this by being an orange and riding a horse, obvs. Rei_ fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Oct 9, 2013 |
# ? Oct 9, 2013 05:07 |
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Burkion posted:I don't recall any mention of people actually thinking they were supposed to be scrubs. Everyone seemed to like them until Baron cheated them off their stage. It wasn't outright stated but it was pretty implied that they're underdogs which would go along with them being less talented. Baron got first place in that little vote thing and that's treated as a normal occurrence, Gaim's hangout looked more humble than Baron's place, Baron has way nicer uniforms. Now, the dancing could still be terrible when we see Baron do it but shrug, I honestly doubt the dancing stuff is gonna come up too much and is more just a pretext for why there's already existing clans in the city for the Seeds and Drivers to shake up once they're more properly introduced to people.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 05:11 |
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Brother Entropy posted:It wasn't outright stated but it was pretty implied that they're underdogs which would go along with them being less talented. Baron got first place in that little vote thing and that's treated as a normal occurrence, Gaim's hangout looked more humble than Baron's place, Baron has way nicer uniforms. They were like Number 8 in the top 10 dance battle gangs in the city on that one chart at Baron HQ. THey're not that small time.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 07:17 |
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:They were like Number 8 in the top 10 dance battle gangs in the city on that one chart at Baron HQ. THey're not that small time. They're small time compared to Baron which is the only real important part of that for now.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 07:24 |
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Potsticker posted:It was pretty bad, not even good as a joke. Probably the worst first episode of a Rider show I've seen. Too much stuff thrown at the viewer without a lot of coherence. Basically an info dump on what makes the Gaim world different than the real world, with no interesting hooks on what's going to happen in the series. And Kouta is less interesting than Ryotaro from Den-O, who at least had the imagin-possessions (The actor was amazing with these) to give him personality and to interact with. So far none of the supporting cast is anywhere near as entertaining either to help Kouta out with being so bland.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 10:20 |
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Seriously judging a whole shows characters and plot from the first episode? I can tell this is going to be one of those seasons where everybody rushes to be first to call it poo poo so they can say We told you so . Thanks Wizard......and Decade.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 11:05 |
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Chas McGill posted:So this probably isn't the best Kamen Rider thing to lose my Kamen Rider virginity to? It's been literally one episode; it's waaaay too early to say either way but at the same time hey, not much of a commitment to give it a shot if you want. vvv Starting with W is definitely good advice if you wanna watch an already finished series. Hell, watch W while waiting for Gaim episodes. Brother Entropy fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Oct 9, 2013 |
# ? Oct 9, 2013 11:26 |
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Chas McGill posted:So this probably isn't the best Kamen Rider thing to lose my Kamen Rider virginity to? I'm not a KR expert or anything, but I personally feel that Double/W is one of the best KRs to watch if you're a beginner. It has a nice cast of characters, a fun gimmick, AND it's also the first in this movie trilogy thing (OOO and Fourze would be the other two shows in this trilogy), overall... I feel it was a blast to watch. I hear Decade thrown around quite a bit, and my knowledge of it is that it does some callbacks to older Kamen Rider series, so you might want to just go ahead and watch Kuuga (The first Heisei rider series. ... AKA The first series to premiere when KR went on a long break), so that way you'd understand some of the returns Decade does. BUT to get on topic, Gaim looks like it's gonna be fun, I wanna see more with the Lock Seed system, since I never did any research about the directing team or build-up to the show itself, only bits and pieces I hear from some buds of mine. (Also being a fruit samurai is still fun to say in my head)
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 11:29 |
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I actually really liked the first episode of Gaim, but maybe it just looks better because of how dull Wizard was. Kouta is already a far more interesting character than Haruto and has an actual personality, instead of "a guy who exists to become Wizard (and also likes donuts)." The monster fight actually wasn't that good in my opinion, but I can forgive that since it'll hopefully get better.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 12:11 |
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I haven't watched a Kamen Rider show before, but I liked this one, and I thought the "You're not going to wake up one day and be a totally different person" scene was really cute considering what kind of show it is. I hope that's an indication of where they're planning on taking the show. It's not super original, but it should be satisfying.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 13:19 |
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The little dance promos at the end of Kyoryuger's last couple of episodes that have Gaim actors doing the Kyoryuger dance are better then the first episode's dance scene. I think the majority of the first episode budget was spent on that helicopter shot.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 13:23 |
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New Belt. The Genesis Driver. It's a loving Juicer, used by Zangetsu at the very least, and probably the other teased riders (Cherry, Lemon, Peach). It's speculated that the latter three are like, mass-production Riders with one-use Lock Seeds. Also teased is Zangetsu's...what is that? Canteloupe form?
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 13:58 |
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LightningKimba posted:I hear Decade thrown around quite a bit, and my knowledge of it is that it does some callbacks to older Kamen Rider series, so you might want to just go ahead and watch Kuuga (The first Heisei rider series. ... AKA The first series to premiere when KR went on a long break), so that way you'd understand some of the returns Decade does. Yeah, don't start with Decade. Not because it relies a lot on callbacks, but mainly because it's not a very good show. Kuuga, Agito and Double are arguably the best modern Kamen Rider shows, and good to start with if you can accept that it's pretty much all downhill from there. I'm kinda glad to see the new thread is getting some people interested in the franchise for the first time. Let's hope Gaim proves itself worthy of that attention. The first episode didn't totally blow my mind, but it does show a lot of promise, and I expect some cool things out of Urobuchi, or at least an interesting trainwreck when it turns out he just can't handle a merchandise-driven kids' show.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 17:39 |
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I'm watching Black right now and I'm having a blast with it. The monster designs and "evil plots of the week" are very entertaining and the whole show just exudes charm. I've never really watched any Kamen Riders before, so I'd say Black is a good place to start from.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 17:46 |
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jonjonaug posted:I'm watching Black right now and I'm having a blast with it. The monster designs and "evil plots of the week" are very entertaining and the whole show just exudes charm. I've never really watched any Kamen Riders before, so I'd say Black is a good place to start from. This a million times. Kamen Rider Black is fantastic and a great way to get into the series. It's like the most basic, streamlined series ever made.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 17:54 |
And to bring it back around full circle, Urobuchi said in an interview that he was going to be drawing a lot from Kamen Rider Black for Gaim, specifically he mentioned tapping into the Black Sun vs. Shadow Moon dynamic, which he's always loved. So really, watch Black, partially because it's really good, and partially because it'll be a primer for what Urobuchi decides to call back to.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 19:50 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 10:19 |
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 20:13 |