Rider Warriors (Version Heisei)

Yuusuke Godai/Kamen Rider Kuuga

Godai was a modern, sensitive character that suited the new times that Kuuga -- as a show, as a character -- was meant to present. Selfless, competent, able, he threw himself into the unknown for the sake of other people, risking his body and health, and managed to accomplish what no ancient warrior before him had due to his strength of character and soul. So, again the classic Rider element of "Will this power change him, corrupt him, ruin him," but spun in a new way. You have a dangerous, mysterious power, but it's given to a character who's so genuinely good, could it possibly corrupt him?

I liked early on when they showed the power taking a toll on Godai. He'd put on a smile, but hunch over in pain in private. The power required him to sleep an ungodly amount. He's a genuinely good person, but on the outside, he looks a little irresponsible, acting before thinking, looking like a lazy slacker. But his intentions are so good, he's such a well-meaning guy that nobody could stay mad at him...

But it was nice when they did. Kuuga wanted to be realistic, and I feel it was successful in many ways -- taking a crazy concept like henshin heroes, but applying realism to it in the style and action and consequences and how friends, family, citizens, communities, cities would respond to monster attacks, giving the monsters their own language and code of conduct -- Kuuga accomplished it well. For me, the show gets a little too soft on Godai, though. For all of its attempts at realism, Godai starts to slip and they depict him as being just a bit too perfect. Somebody like Godai would rub a lot of people the wrong way in real life. Sure, some would warm to him, but not EVERYONE. And the show had no problem showing people kind of doubt or distrust or get bothered by Godai's super easygoingness early on, but after a while he wins over everyone with a simple thumbs up.

The moment which perfectly captures this is later on, when Godai's with the cops in a meeting and everyone is all grim and serious and Godai just bursts in with a "daijobu!" and a thumbs-up and a silly face and everyone just laughs and starts to worship Godai. There reaches a point in the show where Godai starts to come off like a kid or a simpleton, and that's not how he's supposed to be, and I always felt like it was basically Odagiri getting a little tired of the role and overcompensating by playing up the goofier aspect of the character more. And what's worse is, when he really lays it on, it makes the character seem insincere. There's a lot of things I like about Godai, but the seemingly dim-witted side isn't one of them. The unrealistic way everyone falls in love with him is another, which is one of the many reasons I say...

Shouichi Tsugami/Kamen Rider Agito

...is Godai done right. He's the peace-loving hippie, he's the guy who's so apparently pure and decent that he's able to control Ozawa's unwieldy G3-X A.I., he's the guy who marches to his own beat, has his own unique outlook on life and is someone seen as being care-free and chill. Only, Shouichi does manage to rub people the wrong way. While his unique take on things does sway some characters over time -- Ashihara initially dislikes him, but takes on his philosophy to the improvement of his life -- most people think he's an oddball. The people he lives with like to mock him. The only person immediately on his side is the quirky Ozawa.

I feel like the characters of Agito react to the Godai/Shouichi type in a realer way. And while Godai certainly wasn't unflappable -- I raved about the Porcupine Grongi episodes before it was cool -- Shouichi is shown more having moments of doubt or fear or anger or pain. There's the added dilemma and pressure over his amnesia. He's struggling with strange powers that are changing him, but he doesn't have the answers to them all the way Godai did with Sakurako's help.

Shinji Kido/Kamen Rider Ryuki

I was super into Ryuki when it aired. Even though I think a lot of the problems the franchise currently faces can be traced back to Ryuki, I thought at the time it was a breath of fresh air. One of the things that made it initially difficult for me to get into a lot of the '70s Rider sequels was how same-y a lot of them were -- that happens with sequels. But Black broke free of that, and I liked that show as an update of the classic Rider setting. Kuuga and Agito proved that you can do something completely different, but still find creative ways to retain Kamen Rider's core concepts and identity.

Ryuki went crazier and farther, but I do think it kept true to Rider, in a way, especially with Shinji. (For the most part.) He was the first outright comedic Kamen Rider lead. He was the first to be a buffoon, after a long line of scientist and student Riders. But Shinji was all heart. The Showa Riders' biggest fight wasn't just against the various forms of Shocker, but a fight within themselves -- to retain their humanity, to not become the monster Shocker turned them into. Ryuki put a new spin on that by having Shinji thrown into this crazy battle with a bunch of anti-social and/or amoral and/or outright criminal people, where his beliefs would be tested, and he had to hold on to his humanity and soul not as literally as Showa Riders, but metaphorically. He was going to take this power, which was created by Shiro Kanzaki for selfish purposes and used for harm, to protect people.

Shinji's the show's big hero, the one who wants to use his ability not for his own gain, but to save people, and to save everyone influenced by one-man Shocker organization Shiro Kanzaki. (The show didn't succeed at getting Kanzaki to work as well as they wanted, but that's another topic. But I do think he was meant to be a timely commentary on the lone agent who causes mass destruction.) So, Shinji being the one true hero of the show, I loved that Ryuki was the only one who had the classic Rider red bug eyes, I thought that was clever.

The problem with Shinji was the show getting too big for its britches and never having the guts to stick to its guns. Other characters got popular and started to take over the show, so Shinji would just flap around his own show like a headless chicken. He zipped and zapped between characters and beliefs and would easily be swayed into bad decisions you know was against the character's beliefs, but...hey, what's it matter, Shinji's so stupid, right? Ugh.

And the show not having the guts to stick to its guns leads to that awful, stupid terrible reset button finale, which FURTHER ruins its characters. Like, Shinji was a dolt, but he was supposed to mature. He became braver. He had a positive impact on some of the people surrounding him, especially Ren. When the events of the entire series are undone, he's back to being the stupid Shinji, who just makes everything miserable for everyone at the ORE Journal.

Takumi Inui/Kamen Rider 555

I like Takumi a lot on paper, but the execution's a little wonky. I'll say I certainly like him in the earlier parts of the show. Around the time he's revealed as Wolf Orphenoch, he seems like someone else. And while Kento Handa's gone up in my estimation -- I still think the guy might have cracked time travel and went and redid his performance -- a better actor would have really hit the character out of Tokyo Dome.

But Takumi's the first Rider who's anti-social because he's a grouchy bastard. That's yet another different spin on the guy who's keeping his distance from loved ones. While he's a genuinely grouchy guy, and fairly cynical, a lot of it is armor -- he admits that he lacks confidence and that he doesn't want to run the risk of hurting or betraying anyone he cares about, so he keeps to himself and is mostly a wanderer, just drifting aimlessly in his life. Despite his demeanor, he does have a heart and cares for others, and you can tell he hates himself in his more jerkier moments. His revelation as an Orphenoch is meant to give this more layers, and bring in the classic Rider dilemma of the monster-trying-to-live-amongst-humanity, but Faiz is so off-the-rails sloppy, chasing its ass in repetition by that point that the show doesn't successfully make that storyline land with the impact they think it does.

Honestly, even though it's pretty much revealed by episode two that only Orphenochs can transform using the Faiz Gear, I don't really feel like the whole Wolf Orphenoch thing -- and certainly the way it was depicted in the show -- was planned. There was obviously going to be a mystery of who Takumi was, but I'm not convinced Takumi was meant to be an Orphenoch. (I think it's a plothole. Mari couldn't transform, despite having the same Orphenoch cells that Kusaka has, and he's able to transform. I think Inoue strayed from what he might have originally been planning.)

Takumi's most important role in the show is as Orphenoch supporter. The show's at its best when it's the three dry-cleaning buddies and their relationships with the three renegade Orphenoch buddies. I like how kind of organically all of their relationships unfold, with Takumi and Kiba initially kind of not getting along, but then they become friends and then Takumi's confronted with the fact that Kiba and Osada are Orphenoch, and he's conflicted. But he sees the good in them, he sees that they're even better people than some of the humans he's met, so he fights for them. Making Takumi an Orphenoch robs this story of its power.

Takumi's a better hero than you realize, though. He puts his ass on the line for his pals. He puts himself in harm's way when he thinks something stinks. Despite how terribly Kusaka treats him, he genuinely feels bad for the guy and sees how damaged he is when he lays out all of his problems to him. He's a guy who'd LIKE to just turn his back and ride away, but even when he tries, he can't. He's a true Inoue character.

Kazuma Kenzaki/Kamen Rider Blade

Blade's a mess. That always comes out when Kamen Rider Blade is brought up around me. If someone's naming the Heisei Riders, and they go "Kuuga, Agito, Ryuki, Faiz, Blade --" I'll just reflexively cut them off with a "Blade's a mess!"

They wanted Kenzaki to be the young, bright optimistic hero, and yet at the same time he was supposed to have baggage and be haunted and paranoid and overwhelmed and a bit untrusting, because BOARD was so incompetently put together that it felt like a new betrayal every day to him. Actor Takayuki Tsubaki's a likable enough guy, but not a great actor, and Kenzaki is (under)written and so inconsistently that he doesn't make enough of an impression. (Even Seiji Takaiwa's stumped on how to play Blade in suit. Seriously, there is nothing to mark his performance. He had just had three back-to-back-to-back memorable in-suit performances, and Blade seems like it could be anybody.)

And that's made even worse by the show becoming Kamen Rider Chalice. So, Kenzaki majorly takes a back seat, and foolishly takes a liking to Hajime/Chalice -- at the risk of himself, his friends, friends of Hajime -- just because the script says to. So his ultimate sacrifice in the finale doesn't land, it doesn't feel genuine. Kenzaki puts so much on the line for a character he or we have absolutely no reason to care about. (Hajime is completely unlikable for most of the series, and actor Ryoji Morimoto's limited ability as an actor makes him even worse.) He ignores good advice of others for the sake of his foolish plan and he just ends up looking dumb in the long run.

Hitoshi "Hibiki-san!" Hidaka/Kamen Rider Hibiki

The Heisei era's first and last time at trying a true Showa-styled larger than life hero. For as unconventional as Hibiki was, Shigeki Hosokawa was perfect casting, and with his age came a maturity that made Hibiki the extremely dependable pro he was meant to be and that you and Asumu were meant to look up to. He's a kind, sage, easygoing dude. (Sadly, in the Inoue-penned second half of the series, Hibiki begins to seem strangely condescending to Asumu. It's like Inoue recognizes what a cool guy Hibiki is supposed to be and tries to start writing him as a stereotypical "cool" guy, in which he gives off a kind of jerkish air.) Hibiki just acts weird in those later episodes, it's sad -- but he's still one of my favorite Heisei Riders.

What's odd about Hibiki is that the set-up has the possibility of being classic Rider; these are ordinary guys who decided to sacrifice their humanity in order to become onis and fight evil. But treating this as their official job, and trying to be sort of Zen and spiritual leads to the characters all seeming so jolly, the show barely explores the meaning that their sacrifice holds. Only once Inoue takes over do they get into that a bit. (The movie makes the most of it with Kabuki's bitterness and what outcasts the others are; it's one of the reasons that movie is so good.)

Souji Tendou/Kamen Rider Kabuto

I think they wanted Tendou to be a modern update on what I just described Hibiki as -- a larger than life hero who's confident and knows what he's doing -- but it really just didn't work with the wackily inconsistent style of the series and Hiro Mizushima's smug performance. Tendou mostly comes off as a self-centered ass who's out to prove how much better he is than everyone at everything and how much more he knows. He's a real pest, he doesn't seem like he cares about anyone who's not Souji and I'm surprised nobody in the show tried to murder him in his sleep.

I always likened Tendou to those nasty dog owners who beat their dog after it shits on the carpet, shoving their face into its mess.

Ryoutarou Nogami/Kamen Rider Den-O

I think there was potential with the Ryoutarou character to hit a couple of classic Rider motifs -- earlier in the series, his letting the Imagin take control over him caused damage to his body, so you could have had a "he's risking his body/humanity" -- but the show gets far, far too wrapped up in the Imagin shenanigans to have any kind of consistent, good, serious Kamen Rider story. The show's a sitcom, Ryoutarou's the straight man mugging in the background at the hijinks of the colorful characters with their stupid catchphrases.

What I can't stand about Ryoutarou, though, is the way Takeru Satou plays him. There's playing a meek guy and then there's whatever the hell Satou's doing, like that Michael Jackson impersonator voice he puts on.

If Ryuki was the beginning of the end in terms of incorporating anime gimmicks into live action, Den-O's certainly the beginning of the end in terms of incorporating anime behavior. Characters go from attempting to seem flesh and blood to 1D characters only capable of repeating catchphrases.

Wataru Kurenai/Kamen Rider Kiva

I like Wataru for the most part. But I always got the impression that Koji Seto was really checked out by the time the show ends, he just seems over the show. Wataru, for me, is at his best when he's a freak to society. That he's conflicted about his Fangire half, but at the same time kind of grossed out and afraid of the human world is yet another twist on the Classic Rider Dilemma. I love how bizarre they make him, wearing masks and gloves in public, not wanting to speak, having to have Shizuka interpret for him. He's just a weird dude in a weird house with the weird job of repairing violins. I love the nickname given to him by his rude-ass neighbors, "Obaketarou."

All of that really just brings to mind the depictions of the more benevolent vampires who keep to themselves and are hermits, and some of the obsessive-compulsive depictions, as well.

Tsukasa Kadoya/Kamen Rider Decade

He's basically the second Tendou. But whereas Kabuto was a show that only cared about the surface, and how cool everything -- especially Tendou -- was supposed to be, Decade wants you to feel for Tsukasa and care about his journey and whether he finds where he belongs. Well, you don't, because Decade was horribly written, Masahiro Inoue is an incredibly bad actor and Tsukasa's a tool. Oh, he was secretly the leader of Shocker? What a shocker.

Shoutarou Hidari & Philip/Kamen Rider W

Shoutarou's one of my favorites. He's a character who could have easily been obnoxious, like Kiva's Otoya, but he's written better and played by a better actor. Ren Kiriyama carries so much of this show, it's insane to me he's not given more attention or doesn't have the career or popularity that the incredibly weaker Masaki Suda does.

Shoutarou could have easily been just a joke character who was all bluster, but Kiriyama brings a strength and honest to the character. No, he might not be the hardboiled bad-ass he wishes he was, but he's as iron-willed, strong and dedicated as the best hardboiled guys. (A LOT of the protagonists in hardboiled cop stories are usually pretty soft, sensitive guys who bury their feelings and pain deep in order to keep functioning and keep at their job.) Shoutarou can get lost in that wannabe hardboiled act, but when the going gets tough, his real personality comes through, and he's a better hero and detective than he gets credit for, and better than the phony persona he wants to conjure. Without Kiriyama, I probably wouldn't like W much at all.

As for Philip, I can take him when he's the quirky guy who can get wrapped up in minutiae. But when they gave Suda anything dramatic to play, when they got too far into the Sonozaki storyline, I lost interest in Philip, and Suda's performance would really waver.

Eiji Hino/Kamen Rider OOO

I can't make it far in OOO. I forget where I left off. But I thought Eiji and his "gimmick" (it's not even detailed enough to qualify as a "gimmick") was some of the stupidest things thought, written, approved, filmed, and put on television. He's an absent-minded bum who doesn't care about anything other than having tomorrow's underwear! Just...what is that shit? Does Kobayashi think that makes her like David Lynch? Let me tell you something, that's too stupid for David Lynch, and he's written some stupid shit.

And then I find out Eiji was some rich whiny Tatsuya Asami kind of guy who got some people killed and this wandering bum thing is some kind of PTSD-caused creation and...I'm laughing really hard right now, I can't convey that with typing. That makes him even worse! Add on to all of that that the dude who plays him, whose name I don't even want to bother looking up, is just obnoxious. Obnoxious when he's not even doing anything. Just standing there, he'll be making a dopey face.

OOO is one show that I don't think I could watch. It's the first Rider series where I really felt like I just couldn't watch the thing, the first Rider series I felt like it was OK to let go of Rider and not watch them all. I don't even know if I could be convinced to watch the whole show and its movies for a million dollars, and I'm a greedy bastard.

Gentaro Kisaragi/Kamen Rider Fourze

He's not a character, he's a walking gimmick. A stupid gimmick. "I want to be friends with everyone at this school that is constantly under mysterious attack yet we don't know where the attack is coming from!" Fourze's the first Rider show that feels put together by committee -- it was Bandai and parents and teachers and nerds. "Let's have a really lame guy who's just happy all the time, plays with robot burgers and is all about making friends!" And they think it's real cute to have him dressed like a hoodlum delinquent, only for him to have such a My Little Pony message. Jesse Katsopolis is more of a Kamen Rider than this guy.

Haruto Souma/Kamen Rider Wizard

Haruto has the personality of a wet sock. He's got a couple of dead parents he has a hang-up about maybe. That's about all we know about him, other than he was able to beat his despair. How? Why? His love of doughnuts? Who knows! Why deal with that when we can have funny scenes of Haruto using his rings to make fart smells and have Kamen Rider Mayo, like, totally grossing everybody out by putting mayo on everything!

That's another thing -- Haruto never feels like a wizard or magician to me. You really don't get the impression he's magical, that he trained with the White Wizard. All of the powers and abilities come from the rings and the belt and the Bandai gimmicks. So he's no different than any other asshole from the Heisei shows. So, he has no powers AND no personality.

Thing is, I don't even hate Wizard like most of the fandom does. It was very, very formulaic, but it had a lot of ideas I liked. I enjoyed watching the show, for the most part, and think back to it with a fondness. The cast was mostly likable and provided some laughs, including Shunya Shiraishi. The problem with Shiraishi was he was likable, yes -- but he didn't have much of a presence. If you're going to have a role as under-written as Haruto, and so much of the show focus on him, you better get somebody who can make magic out of nothing like a Hiroshi Miyauchi or Kenji Ohba or Jun'ichi Haruta or Tetsuo Kurata.

Kouta Kazuraba/Kamen Rider Gaim

Gaim's pretty messy, too. Not as haphazard of a mess like Blade, but really all over the place.

I liked Kouta earlier in the series, when he was returning to his friends and helping them out. He was optimistic, he wanted to be fair, he tried to help everyone he could at his own risk. He was pretty much the only hero of the show for a long while. But he gets kind of Shinji'd where he gets tugged around by the assholes surrounding him and makes stupid decisions and looks bad. I feel like Gaim is basically just Ryuki 2 -- it's like all of the bad episodes of Ryuki after being filtered through Katy Perry's brain.

Gaku Sano's not a great actor, but there reaches a point where he gets very one-note in his performance, where he just shouts everything in a worried panic. I got tired of that. And then I'll think of that ridiculous get-up Kouta gets when he becomes god of M-78 or whatever.

Yeah, Gaim was a big middle finger. It got you kind of interested and invested and took such dumb turns that you felt so stupid for watching it by the end that you could literally hear the showrunners laughing at you.

Shinnosuke Tomari/Kamen Rider Drive

Agent Cody Banks. Not an interesting character. He liked milk candies and was an expert at solving really obvious cases once he straightened his tie. Whoopie! I couldn't stand it once the show reached a point where it was basically Part 1: Shinnosuke gets his ass kicked by monster. Part 2: "I gotta get stronger!" Shinnosuke gets new toy to beat monster. Repeat until you hit an episode that was supposed to be "story driven," but wasn't.

Man, how stupid was the arc of him solving his dad's murder? "I caught the culprit!" "Sorry, Shinnosuke. I was just standing in the back of the bank that day. But I saw who really killed him! It was the bank teller!" Shinnosuke catches the bank teller. "Sorry, Shinnosuke. It looked like I fired the gun, but it was a reflection from the metallic counter. But I saw who shot the gun! It was the third guy in line." Shinnosuke catches the third guy in line. "Sorry, Shinnosuke! I was just there on business and the real culprit bumped into me and dropped the gun into my hands, so...wasn't me! But I know who it was! It was the guy who delivers those sandwiches from that place!" Shinnosuke catches the sandwich guy. "Sorry, Shinnosuke! It wasn't me! I was set up by that one guy. You know that guy who works at the police station, who is really suspicious and played by a really bad actor who couldn't possibly be more out of place? The guy you originally suspected, but we needed to prolong this shit? Yeah, it's not him, but I thought I'd remind you of him!"

Ugh. I enjoyed Drive for a second and then it got real insufferably stupid.

Takeru Tenkuuji/Kamen Rider Ghost

I didn't make it far into Ghost, just several episodes. I like its set-up, I think the cast would be good in a better made show, but it's such a safe, fluffy show, literally about nothing but collecting the toys, like some shitty sub-Pokemon anime. Takeru's actor seemed likable enough, but I thought the character came across not as selfless or courageous as he was supposed to seem.

I haven't watched a single episode of Ex-Aid or Build, so I'll leave them off.