Kamen Rider Zi-O Discussion Thread

This is why I am glad that I never bothered to waste my time watching the Rider Time ryuki special when it first came out. I just finished watching the special and I feel insulted simply by sitting through all three episodes. I felt that this reunion special is even more mean-spirited than Kamen Rider Taisen, but what's worse is that this special was written by Toshiki Inoue of all people and he was at his worst when he actually agreed to write the story and script for this special. Like seriously, when I found out that Kamen Rider Femme was not gonna be in this reunion special because of the fact that her original actress was giving birth to her second child in real-life and that she was immediately replaced by Kamen Rider Abyss, a character that was exclusively made for Kamen Rider Decade, I just stopped the first episode halfway through because I had to clear my head for a few minutes. I understand that not all these actors were available to come back, and some of them are retired from acting and they all have lives outside of being actors and musicians, but they still should have at least hired a body-double and a voice actress for Miho Kirishima's character, but only shoot from the back of her head, or at least shoot the camera away so that we won't have to see her face up close and personal. It doesn't have to sound anything like Mio's character, but it would have been nice to acknowledge that Femne does exist and she's a part of the original roster of the Ryuki riders. But NOOOOOO!!! "Let's just replace her with a Ryuki-themed Rider character from Kamen Rider Decade instead and act like she never existed!! Because, we're Toei!! That's why!!" Then there's the scene in episode two where Gai and Raia are having sex. What in God's name was Toshiki Inoue thinking when he wrote that?! When was ever established that either Gai or Raia were gay in the original TV series of Kamen Rider Ryuki?! Because, I don't recall that ever happening in the show!!! This just feals like Inoue pulled this out of ass because he wants everything to be grounded in reality. And nl!! That's not how it works, Inoue!! TRY AGAIN!!!

See, this is what really worries me about today's media wanting more representation in movies and television because they don't know how to write LGBT characters properly, or if they think this is how members of the LGBT community should act because they are being written by straight people and they have never actually met gay people before. If you're gonna have LGBT representation in your shows or movies, you need to have someone who actually is part of that community and have him or her share their personal experiences in real-life so that way you might actually get the character right if you want them to be connected to who you're trying to attract. Or if you're trying to write a story exploring that character's sexual identity and how he or she is struggling with the same problems as any other straight person would go through.

So, the question is...was there anything that was remotely good about the Rider Time Ryuki special?! Actually, there were some good things about it like the fact that we got a really awesome kick-ass fight scene between Ryuga and Knight. Several unmorphed fight scenes in episode three, a new theme song by Rica Matsumoto, herself and she's still awesome. Some of the affects of the Advent monsters look pretty awesome and I do like the fact that Ren sacrificed himself to save Shinji which is drawing parallels to how Shinji sacrificed himself to save Ren in the final episodes. And that's all I have to say about that.

Other than that, this was a painful experience for me to sit through and I am sorry. But, I have no intention of ever revisiting or even thinking about this god-awful reunion special ever again. If you liked it, more power to you. I don't not and I never want to speak of its' very existence ever again. In fact, I want it to be fully erased from my memories, period!! Just like Dragonball Evolution, the Michael Bay Transformers movie sequels, the live-action Last Airbender movie and the live-action Jem and the Holograms movie from 2015.

Tezuka is actually bi since he was in a love triangle with Ren and Eri. Nevertheless, you have a good point. That scene came out of nowhere and Inoue is yet another writer using bi and homosexual characters as tokens. Inoue and Kobayashi are always dropping surprise twists in a story without context or foreshadowing and it hardly ever works. I mean, they may succeed in surprising but who wouldn't be surprised by something so absurd and contrived?

Other than that infamous Tezuka/Jun scene and Shirakura replacing Femme with Takaiwa Seiji for some reason, I appreciate Rider Time Ryuki for finally giving the show an ending since apparently the "ending" of the show was ruined by executives. If only they allowed Kobayashi to end the show her way since she was planning to have Ren win the Rider War or something like that. Basically what happened with Rider Time Ryuki except Ren would have survived and Shinji would have stayed dead. But we had to wait 17 years to actually see such a conclusion. Eri being alive may be a reference to Ren seeing his wish fulfilled in the original Rider War. I don't know why they couldn't just make Femme be some random girl like they did with new guys for Tiger, Imperer, Scissors and Verde. Abyss wasn't even alive for more than a few minutes, he was just filling a gap.

There are movies I would like to purge from my memory as well, namely Gravity, Blade Runner 2049 and Assassin's Creed. They sucked.

Me too. Especially the Kiva Armor. I was screaming at the screen shouting, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, SOUGO?! A GRAND INVITATION?! USE IT!!!! YOU HAVE THE RIDE WATCH, USE THE POWERS OF KAMEN RIDER KIVA, DAMMIT"

That pissed me off after watching episodes 35 and 36.

But yeah, I still wish the show had more time to actual show those armors in action.

Yeah!  It's like how Decade never used Hibiki when he got it during his season!  Or the Gaim Jimber Melon Arms!

Wait, didn't Kouta actually used the Jimber Melon Arms at one point in the show?! Because, I am pretty sure that actually happened in Gaim.

Okay. Oh and by the way, I do seem to recall that Tsukasa actually did used the Kamen Ride Hibiki card only once in the first episode of Decade and again in the movie, "All-Riders VS. Dai-Shocker" during the opening fight scene between him and Kamen Rider Amazon. Not Amazons since none of those assholes existed back in 2009, but the original, "the O.G." Kamen Rider Amazon. So, yeah.You might wanba say that Tsukasa barely even used the Kamen Ride Hibiki card in his own show because of limited fight scenes, or budget cuts, or because the show was only 31 episodes at the time.

Well, this is the price that Toei gets for letting the 10th Heisei-era Kamen Rider TV series be only 31 episodes since it was Toshiki Inoue's idea to make the show that short. But then again, he was probably going bat-shit insane in his writing right after doing Faiz and had to let his apprentice/secondary show-writer, Souji Younemra finish the rest of the show at the time while he tries to recover. But hey, it could be worse. I mean, at least Inoue wasn't literally burning himself out from working multiple projects all at once in 2009, like what Yasuko Kobayashi did when she actually agreed to work on multiple projects back-to-back in 2014. Including Toqger and Garo: Zero Blood.

And Remember!!! Toei actually said, "Yes!" And basically assigned these ideas to the wrong people. And did nothing about it to prevent it from happening.