Kamen Rider Rankings.
15. Kamen Rider Faiz
Summary: Yuji Kiba’s life is on the right track; his family’s business is doing well and he is engaged to the girl of his dreams. Then he gets in a car crash, falls into a coma, dies while in that coma, and then awakens. He finds out his relatives have sold off the family business and his fiancée is now with his best friend, who turns out was a total asshole. So, when he transforms into an Orphenoc, a “evolved human” and kills his friend, you can see where he’s coming from. Meanwhile, a young woman named Mari is herself being pursued by other Orphenocs, acting on behest of the Smart Brain corporation, for the briefcase she carries. She opens it, revealing the belt inside, and though she tries to use it, it rejects her. With her life on the line, she has no choice but to put it on nearby loner Takumi Inui and transform him into Kamen Rider Faiz. Will Takumi and Yuji be able to get past misconceptions and realize that Human or Orphenoc, they all want the same thing?
Kamen Riders: The riders of Faiz are the worst I’ve ever seen in the history of the franchise, the secondary riders being either contemptible (Kaixa) or useless (Delta), and Faiz himself is just so tediously annoying with his nigh-on pathological refusal to communicate, even when his friends are giving him every opportunity to present his case, to say nothing of his lack of conviction or drive. It is incredibly frustrating.
Score: 3/10.
Supporting Cast: The supporting cast is a little better than the riders, but not by much; in particular there is the character of Yuka, one of the Orphenoc characters who was horribly abused while alive, and…she’s just basically there to suffer, and late in the series is gratuitously killed off to prompt some man pain. No, this is not a cast I can get behind.
Score: 4/10.
Villains: The Smart Brain corporation is one of the most oxymoronically named corporations in existence, their entire M.O. is just basically throwing darts a wall and seeing what sticks, and their main big name Orhpenocs that they have to enforce their will…okay, let me put it like this; there is a scene in which the Dragon Orphenoc, one of the most powerful in the entire show, is about to kill Yuji, okay? No one’s around, no one’s coming to save him, so how do the writers get Yuji out of that bind? A paper airplane passes by, and the Dragon Orphenoc wanders after it. I am not kidding, this is the caliber of villain we are dealing with here.
Score: 2/10.
Story: The events of the show could have been resolved in about ten episodes if the characters could manage even the simplest feat of communication; there is literally a sequence in which Takumi has one of his friends deliver a short, simple message to Yuji, that friend encounters one of Yuji’s friends, and together both of them completely screw everything up, it is infuriating how padded the show is.
Score: 2/10
World Building: There is no appreciable world-building going on in this show, anything about where the Orphenocs came from, when they started appearing, how they managed to establish a big powerful coroporation that has trouble finding its own ass with both hands and a flashlight…none of it is properly explained.
Score: 2/10
Cinematography: Something had to be good about this show, it may as well be atmosphere and suit acting, Faiz excels in these areas.
Score: 8/10.
Costumes: The Rider suits are great, and the Orphenoc designs are brilliant, all ash-grey or bone-white and lots of detail without being overburdened.
Score: 9/10.
Music: There’s a good soundtrack and some nice songs every now and again.
Score: 7/10
Final Score: 4.625/10
14. Kamen Rider Decade
Summary: Tsukasa Kadoya is an amnesiac staying at the Hikari Photo Studio, the only clue to his past being the magenta camera around his neck, and even then, he’s not a good photographer. However, when monsters from the past 9 Kamen Rider Worlds start invading his, Natsumi Hikari finds the lost Deca Driver and delivers it to Tsukasa, allowing him to transform into Decade, a figure that has haunted her dreams for some time in a nightmarish vision of a Rider War. Now Tsukasa must travel through the myriad Kamen Rider worlds to restore peace, but will his journey ever find his way home again?
Kamen Riders: Tsukasa, and later Kaitou, are both okay, they both suffer from inconsistent characterization, and Yuusuke suffers from the writers not really knowing what to do with him for much of the show’s run.
Score: 7/10
Supporting Cast: Natsumi is a solid female lead, though again like the riders suffers from some inconsistencies in her characterization, while Eijirou…the questions raised about this guy are really weird, and we’ve no idea what the deal with him is.
Score: 7/10
Villains: Who even is the villain? Is it Decade, is it Dai-Shocker, is it Narutaki? I have no idea, they really don’t explain anything very well on this show.
Score: 5/10
Story: A big mess of a story, and a reminder of why it is not only important to have a plan, but to also end the show within the bounds of the show itself and not in some promised movie that may or may not answer all the questions promised, which in this case it didn’t. Individual moments help out here and there, but the story as a whole falls well below the sum of its parts.
Score: 4/10
World Building: A lot of interesting ideas are thrown out, but they fail to cohere into a singular whole.
Score: 6/10
Cinematography: I do like how surreal and trippy things can get, and it is a well-shot show.
Score: 8/10
Costumes: I oddly really kind of like Decade’s suit, though the upgraded Complete form isn’t nearly so good as I’d like, and Diend’s is just awful, I have no idea what the deal with his suit is supposed to be.
Score: 7/10
Music: There’s some good music, most notably the opening, but there are also some pretty weak songs to balance things out.
Score: 7/10
Final Score: 6.375/10
13. Kamen Rider Kabuto
Summary: Seven years ago, a meteorite crashes into the Shibuya district, leveling everything, but this was only the beginning, for with the meteorite came the Worms, alien creatures capable of perfectly imitating humans right down to their deepest memories, and able to achieve speeds too fast for the human eye to follow. The secretive ZECT organization has developed the Zecters to allow its agents to transform into Kamen Riders, but many of the Zecters wind up in the hands of those outside the organization, most notably Tendou Souji, the man with a god complex the size of the sun. As Tendou walks the path of heaven to rule over all, what secrets will he uncover behind the Masked Rider project?
Kamen Riders: I ended up liking Tendou Souji a lot more than I expected to going in, as once the show starts lightening up on its worship of him his qualities of being very proactive and a very good big brother and the fact that he genuinely respects and admires those who are better at cooking than him, something that he really cares about, really shine. Kagami Arata is also a really good rider and counterpoint to Tendou’s practically innate perfection. Unfortunately, the rest of the riders on the show range from disappointing to annoying, and many of them have no particular purpose on the show, so a lot of time gets spent on them and that time goes nowhere.
Score: 7/10
Supporting Cast: The supporting cast is fair, though there were real-life factors that interfered with the availability with the main female lead and so her story and arc got really screwed up; the rest of the cast gets some good screen time and makes solid contributions to the ongoing plot of the show.
Score: 7/10
Villains: The Worms have a lot of potential to them, but that potential goes unrealized as it seems the writers can’t make up their mind just what the Worms are like; are they simple and stupid, are they complex and intelligent, are they like serial killers or do they just want to wipe out all humanity…I’ve no idea, I can’t really say anything about the worms, and it really doesn’t help that every time you think you’ve met the big bad of it all, it turns out its someone else to the point that the final boss gets thrown in out of nowhere four episodes from the end.
Score: 6/10
Story: Kabuto’s story is a goddamned mess, it just falls to pieces after a while and never really recovers, and to this day I really don’t know what the show was about beyond the events that happened in it.
Score: 5/10
World Building: The show raises a lot of questions around its central mysteries, fails to answer a lot of them, and many of the answers it does give are quite unsatisfactory. Plus, ZECT is really annoying and dumb.
Score: 5/10
Cinematography: The show is damn pretty to look at, both in terms of all the delicious food they fix and the fight scenes they perform.
Score: 9/10
Costumes: The Kabuto suit is beautiful, Gattack and TheBee are also great, but the rest of the riders are lackluster to me. The Worms I could never really get into, they’re not bad they just don’t jump out to me as all that unique.
Score: 8/10
Music: There’s definitely some very nice music going on here, but none of it really stands out to me.
Score: 7/10
Final Score: 6.75
12. Kamen Rider Amazon
Summary: Deep in the Amazon jungle, a young man lives isolated from all humanity. Pursued by Gorgos the ten faced demon, a shamen alters the young man and puts the sacred Gigi Armlet on him, and with his dying breath charges the young man to go to his true home in Japan to find the answers to his past. Gorgos pursues, and so the newly dubbed Kamen Rdier Amazon must defend a home he hardly knows; can Amazon discover the truth of his past, and find a place in the concrete jungle?
Kamen Riders: Amazon is a great character, almost all of it owing to the strength of the actor portraying him, he really carries this show on his back all the way through.
Score: 9/10
Supporting Cast: With one shining exception, the supporting cast for Amazon is really bad; they’re not interesting, they’re not useful, and they’re not fun.
Score: 5/10
Villains: There are actually two different villain groups that show up in the show, the first aiming directly at Amazon while the second focuses on trying to take over the world. Both are pretty good, but the latter ends up with a lackluster payoff at the end.
Score: 7/10
Story: While rushed due to being cancelled early, the story of the show does hold up pretty well all told, given the time and tone and attitude and all that jazz.
Score: 7/10
World Building: Ancient-Incan Super Science, it can do whatever the plot damn well likes.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: The first half of the show has a narrator who’s there to explain what Amazon is feeling since Amazon can’t say it himself, but since the actor is really good at emoting and shit, it’s quite necessary and becomes annoying in short order. Otherwise the show has a weird atmosphere that I actually really like.
Score: 7/10
Costumes: The Amazon suit grew on me, but in all honesty, the monster suits from this time just don’t really appeal to me.
Score: 7/10
Music: It’s a nice soundtrack, the opening and ending stick with you long after the show is over.
Score: 7/10
Final Score: 7.125/10
11. Kamen Rider Hibiki
Summary: Asumu Adachi is a young boy who’s at that stage where he’s unsure of what he wants to do with his life, when one day he encounters a strange man named Hibiki. Following this man into the woods, he sees Hibiki transform into an Oni to fight a giant monster called a Makamou. Asumu learns that Hibiki is a member of the Takeshi organization, which since time immemorial has been training its members in the arts of pure sound to defeat the Makamou that spawn in the wilderness. In encountering Hibiki and the other Oni of Takeshi, what conclusion will Asumu reach in his journey to grow up into a fine adult?
Kamen Riders: Hibiki is a great guy, and since he’s more a mentor figure then the lead, it’s okay that he’s not terribly complex or struggling or anything like that. The other Oni are good as well, each interesting characters that present their own viewpoints and struggles in their own journey.
Score: 8/10
Supporting Cast: On average the non-Oni characters are pretty good, with the stunning exception of Kiriya, who is brought in just over halfway through the show to be Asumu’s “rival” and is just so singularly annoying and obnoxious and self-important and just gaaah! Thinking about this kid pisses me off so bad, he drags the show down so much.
Score: 6/10
Villains: In the early stages, the Makamou are presented as something of a natural phenomenon that have always been with us and will always be with us…but then they decide to reveal that there’s a couple that is experimenting on the Makamou, implying that they are counterparts to the Takeshi organization and the Oni…and then they never explain anything about them, thus raising questions and not answering them, which is far worse than never raising questions at all.
Score: 4/10
Story: The first half of the show is really great, awesome stuff…then there’s the second half, where the head-writer is replaced and a lot of stupid changes are imposed, like the introduction of Kiriya, and as such the whole thing ends up being disjointed, it’s a show with a beginning and no end, an end without a beginning, and so the whole ends up being far less than the sum of its parts.
Score: 5/10
World Building: The scope and reach of the Takeshi organization is vast and well explored, and while there are issues what happened with the Makamou, it still paints an interesting picture.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: The first few episodes have scenes that are straight out of a musical, and throughout its run there are Kanji that will periodically take up the screen as though to artistically express a certain concept that frames the scene around it. Plus, lots of wonderful, gorgeous nature shots.
Score: 9/10
Costumes: The Oni suits are very good, while the Makamou designs are satisfactory.
Score: 8/10
Music: Given the emphasis on music as something truly significant in the story itself, it is only fitting that Hibiki has a truly delightful soundtrack.
Score: 10/10
Final Score: 7.25/10
10. Kamen Rider Den-O
Summary: Nogami Ryoutaro is the single unluckiest man alive, subject to pitfalls of staggering statistical improbability multiple times a day; this remains much the same when he is possessed by an incorporeal monster from the future known as an Imagin. One thing leads to another, and before long Ryoutaro is riding on a time-travelling train with four different Imagins who possess him on a regular basis to fight other Imagins trying to change the past to change the future. Will Ryoutaro’s luck ever change?
Kamen Riders: Nogami Ryoutaro is really great due to the acting strength of Takeru Satoh, who not only has to portray Ryoutaro, but also has to represent the different Imagins as they possess him, so in any given scene he can end up portraying five different characters, and he does a great job on all of them. Yuuto is more dependent on his direction and writing, but he’s still a really good secondary rider.
Score: 9/10
Supporting Cast: The supporting cast is large and largely played for laughs, but these are very good and endearing characters, some of whom demonstrate a surprising depth and reality to them that you would not have expected.
Score: 9/10
Villains: The big bad for Den-O is just…I don’t even get him, I don’t even understand what they were trying with this guy, he has this weird gimmick of saying how he feels and then asks if his face is showing that emotion, which I can only process as some sort of meta-commentary on him being the suckiest actor they could get for the part. Whatever the case, Den-O’s villain is its biggest failing.
Score: 3/10
Story: For the most part Den-O is just the characters bouncing off each other, but when it decides to be all plotty and start answering questions and such, it does a good job of that, aside from the failings with the villain as mentioned above.
Score: 7/10
World Building: The world of Den-O is a strange one, and as it nears its end, there are times where it seems like they’re just making things up as they go along; nevertheless, while strange to be sure, the mechanics and logic behind the time-travel do hold together.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: The suit acting on Den-O is of course superb, conveying all the different characters possessing Den-O at any one time really well, and the slapstick that is a cornerstone for Den-O is well done.
Score: 8/10
Costumes: I’ve got to be honest, I’m not really a fan of any of Den-O’s forms with the exception of Wing Form which is hardly ever used at all, there’s just something about them that’s off to me. Zeronos’s forms are good, and the Imagins have really good designs to them.
Score: 7/10.
Music: There’s a lot of really nice music in this show, much of it sung at least in part by Takeru Satoh.
Score: 8/10
Final Score: 7.375/10
9. Kamen Rider Black
Summary: Kotaro Minami and Nobuhiko Akizuki are the best of friends, their families so connected they are like brothers. However, having been born the day of a Solar Eclipse, the sinister underground cult Golgom believes them to be candidates to become their next Creation King and take over the world. Kotaro manages to escape before they can brainwash him, while Nobuhiko remains trapped. Now Minami Kotaro must fight the Mutants of Golgom to protect humanity, but will he be able to rescue his brother before he has awakened as the ultimate evil, Shadow Moon?
Kamen Riders: Minami Kotaro is a strong lead, but is hindered by weak, unfocused material for much of the show’s run; the first few episodes have him being very proactive, seeking out clues about Golgom and finding some way to discover Nobuhiko’s whereabouts, but it’s not long before he settles into a reactionary mode until late in the show.
Score: 8/10
Supporting Cast: Kotaro and Nobuhiko’s sisters spend much of the show playing second-fiddle to random kids-of-the-week, but when the writers finally realize that hey, they’ve got these good characters here that they can use, they do so and to great effect…until the very end where they just kind of screw the sisters over and forget all about them.
Score: 5/10
Villains: The Golgom start off well and finish strong, but the middle period has them coming up with some very bizarre schemes that really damages their credibility.
Score: 7/10
Story: The show starts off very promisingly, but it just meanders for so much of its run it is just unacceptable, you have to skip something on the order of 2/3 of the show to get to the good stuff, and that’s just not good.
Score: 4/10
World Building: The scale and scope of Golgom’s operations does effectively paint a very grim and pervasive picture, creating a strong world in which Black takes place in.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: From filming to fight scenes and the way sets are set up, Black is great on all fronts.
Score: 9/10
Costumes: I freaking love the Kamen Rider Black, it is simple but is so effective, and the joints have this muscle-tissue look that really conveys the idea that this is a mutation. The Golgom Mutants are also wonderful with lots of detail, and the big name villains also get really good designs.
Score: 10/10
Music: There’s a lot of really, really good and effective music in this show, including a battle theme that paradoxically uses the lines “love and peace” without it coming off as weird.
Score: 9/10
Final Score: 7.5/10
8. Kamen Rider Agito
Summary: Shouichi Tsugami is an amnesiac who lives with the Misugi family and spends his days cheerily tending to his garden, cleaning dishes, and other domestic tasks…that is, until strange monsters start appearing and murdering people in ways that defy all known laws of physics; when the monsters strike, he becomes compelled to fight as Kamen Rider Agito. At the same though, Makoto Hikawa of the Metropolitan Police Department dons the G3 suit to fight the Unknown while also having to defend his position against the politicking of other members of the police. And then there’s Ryou Ashihara, who after a near-fatal car accident finds himself undergoing painful transformation into the creature known as Gills, and his only clue is a passenger list for the passenger-liner Akatsuki-go that his father had boarded before committing suicide, the same liner that Makoto Hikawa had been on when it had sent out an SOS, the same liner that it turns out Shouichi was on; what is the mystery that connects these three riders?
Kamen Riders: These are some of the best damn riders the franchise has ever seen, all incredibly important, all very well developed, all capable of carrying an entire show on their own, but together, it is amazing.
Score: 10/10
Supporting Cast: The supporting cast is also really strong, at least in regards to Shouichi and Hikawa’s side of things; Ryou is incredibly unlucky and anyone who gets attached to him has pronounced tendency to die, so he meets up with people but they don’t stick around, so we’ve really only got 2/3 of a potential supporting cast; we are very fortunate to have Sumiko Ozawa on Hikawa who by herself almost makes up for that gap, but there it is.
Score: 9/10
Villains: The Unknowns, alternately referred to as the Lords as more is discovered about them, are very interesting, especially as regards their master, The Overlord of Darkness, who despite such a title is actually a pretty nice guy all told; yes, he’s directing the killing of peoples, but these are very specific people and on the one occasion one of his monsters killed someone they weren’t supposed, he promptly executed that monster. It’s a very interesting setup all in all.
Score: 9/10
Story: For the most part, the story for Agito is very well conceived, told, executed, paced, it’s a very interesting, lots of interesting themes going on…and then the last 5 episodes happen and the show takes this sharp left turn into WTF and new characters are being introduced, and plot-twists are introduced solely for shock value, and it all just ends up being very underwhelming; then again, when the big-bad takes away Shouichi’s power to become Agito, and Shouichi just basically punches him so hard that it releases that power back into him, anything following that is going to by necessity be lackluster. It’s really disappointing, the majority of the show is really good, but that end-game arc…ugh.
Score: 5/10
World Building: There is a lot of interesting and thought-provoking backstory that is presented by Agito, but at the same time there are some niggling details that don’t quite add up.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: The direction on the show is very solid, and the fight scenes are pretty god too.
Score: 7/10
Costumes: For the most part the rider suits are well put together, though Gill’s Exceed form is very bulky and impractically ungainly, and Agito doesn’t feel very different from the Kuuga suit. The Lords/Unknowns are solid and well done.
Score: 7/10
Music: Honestly I can’t recall hardly anything about the music from Agito; it’s got a nice opening, but that’s all I remember.
Score: 7/10
Final Score: 7.625/10
7. Kamen Rider Kiva
Summary: In 2008, Wataru Kurenai struggles to just be able to go outside and communicate with a world that frightens him, the only time he is comfortable being when he is home and playing his father’s hand-crafted Violin…that is, until that violin begins to vibrate, alerting him to the presence of a Fangire, and so his familiar Kivat the Third joins him and transforms him into Kamen Rider Kiva. But, back in 1986, his father Otoya Kurenai stumbles his way into the battles of the Blue Sky Organization, a group of humans developing the means to fight the Fangire threat on their own. Can the two generations of Otoyas bring an end to the Human-Fangire conflict?
Kamen Riders: Wataru is one of my favorite main riders, his character arc is so self-driven, he gets help from those around him but the driving force behind his growth is his desire to do so, and that makes him a character that is really easy to root for. Nago is a very rough character and is a huge asshole for much of the early show, but his growth starts early enough that I can get behind him. Otoya also has a rough start, but he improved much more quickly. Finally, there is Taiga, who is introduced awkwardly in the latter half of the series, but who also grows into a likeable and compelling character.
Score: 9/10
Supporting Cast: The supporting cast is generally very likeable, but not always used to the best effect; in particular Shizuka, Wataru’s caretaker, they never really explain how she came to be Wataru’s caretaker at all. Furthermore, Megumi and Yuri, the leads for their respective generations, are seriously screwed over, they are just way to awesome for this show, though they do manage to get one really, supremely awesome moment in the show, so that’s good.
Score: 7/10
Villains: The Fangires, in all honesty, are okay villains; they’re threatening and dangerous and they have a good set-up, but they make some very questionable choices, particularly the Fangire who ends up being the final bigbad of them all, that leaves one questioning their competence.
Score: 7/10
Story: In all honesty, while I adore many of the narrative choices that Kiva makes, it is an astoundingly sloppy show, it makes shit up as it goes along all over the place, and given the multi-generation setup, that’s just not okay. The ending is the pinnacle of all this, as out of nowhere Wataru’s son from 22 years in the future shows up and begs his daddy to help him against the Neo-Fangires; does this make any sense? Nope. Does this royally screw up where the ending of the show was going at the time? Yep. Could Kiva have ended in any other way? Absolutely not. This show is a guilty pleasure of mine, there’s no two ways about it.
Score: 6/10
World Building: There is pretty much no exposition anywhere in this show, you have to glean what you can from what the characters say and do, and as established above, much of it is being made up as everyone goes along; it’s enjoyable, but it’s being held together with spit and bailing wire.
Score: 7/10
Cinematography: There’s some very nice suit-acting, some strong fight scenes, and some very weird transitions from one generation to the other.
Score: 6/10
Costumes: The Kiva suits, the Ixa Suits, the Fangire suits…all of the suits on this show are freaking beautiful, an absolute delight to look at. Emperor Kiva owns my soul.
Score: 10/10
Music: The music on this show is brilliant, as it should be considering how big a thing music is for everyone.
Score: 10/10.
Final Score: 7.75/10
6. Kamen Rider Fourze
Summary: Amanogawa High School will never be the same when transfer student Gentarou Kisaragi shows up and declares that he’ll become friends with everyone there. But it won’t be easy, as someone is passing out Astro Switches to various students, allowing them to transform into horoscope themed monsters known as Zodiarts. Fortunately, childhood friend Yuki and reluctant loner Kengo are able to provide Gentaro with the Fourze Driver, allowing him to transform into Kamen Rider Fourze! Can Gentaro Kisaragi use the power of the 40 Astro Switches under his command to befriend even his most fearsome enemies?
Kamen Riders: Gentaro is a really fun, energetic and passionate guy, but he’s also pretty dang static, acting more as an agent of change in the other characters than experiencing much himself. Later down the line we get Ryusei as Kamen Rider Meteor, vengeance driven and goes through some good growth, though there is some very off pacing on him.
Score: 8/10
Supporting Cast: The Kamen Rider Club is on the whole a very fun cast, but there are a few members who are either neglected or have their characterization taken in weird and awkward directions.
Score: 7/10
Villains: The Zodiarts make for good Monsters-Of-The-Week, teenagers given access to way more power than they can handle with addictive side effects, and the progression of power between a regular Zodiart and a full-blown Horoscope has many steps, which I find very nice. The Horoscopes themselves are good villains, though not as well explored as I would like in a lot of cases.
Score: 8/10
Story: The early run of the show has very good pacing, nice gradual steps on revealing what the villains are doing and how they’re doing it, good solid stuff…but then for a good long time they just kind of stall for a while, and then they have rush through things such that we only find out just what it is that the Big Bad of it all is trying to achieve in the last four episodes, and it’s something they could have foreshadowed more, it’s something that they could have done so much more build-up towards.
Score: 7/10
World Building: There’s a lot of interesting backstory in Fourze, and the implications and mechanics surrounding Cosmic Energy and the Astro Switches is well explored, and while introduced late, the entire deal with the Presenters is an interesting development.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: A lot of the fight choreography with Fourze is awkward due to the Astro Switch gimmick, whereby each switch corresponds to some piece of equipment that is attached to one of his limbs, while Meteor’s fighting is like something out of a Bruce Lee film, complete with “WHA-CHOW!”.
Score: 8/10
Costumes: The Zodiart suits are delicious for the eyes, the meteor suit is amazing, and the rest of the rider suits are mostly okay.
Score: 9/10
Music: The soundtrack in Fourze is solid, with some good insert songs here and there.
Score: 8/10
Final Score: 7.875/10
5. Kamen Rider OOO
Summary: Wandering hobe Eiji Hino believes that so long as you have your underwear for tomorrow, you’ve got all you need. However, when the monster born of desire known as the Greeed are revived after 800 years, one of them, Ankh the Bird Greeed who has inexplicably only been able to revive his right arm, decides that Eiji would make a good tool to use against his fellow monsters, and so grants Eiji the power to become Kamen Rider OOO. They are aided by the mysterious Kogami foundation, who’s president believes that desire is essential to the survival of the human race, while the cryptic Dr. Maki believes that nothing can truly be measured until it’s ending. In this clash of desires, can Eiji Hino find his own?
Kamen Riders: Eiji Hino is a character of surprising depth and complexity who despite his outwardly saintly demeanor does have his vices that he really does struggle with, and thus makes the last third of the show where he has to realize what his true desire is, what he wants for himself and no one else, all the more compelling. The secondary rider for the series, Date, is a very fun character who ends up having a surprising past connection with Eiji, each of them permanently marked by their shared experiences. Goto is also a great rider, having to work his way into being worthy of being a rider and overcoming his own pride, which makes for a great character arc.
Score: 9/10
Supporting Cast: Ankh is a wonderful contrast to Eiji, and their relationship throughout the show is one of if not the best things about it. Many of the other characters are a lot of fun, but aren’t always used to their best effect; in particular is the main female character Hina, who has inexplicable super-strength, and this facet of her character is never explored or used outside of slap-stick sequences when she’s trying to smack some sense into Ankh.
Score: 8/10
Villains: The Greeed are very interesting villains, but like with the supporting cast, they’re not always used to their best effect; in particular in the first third of the show two of the Greeed are taken out of the picture, and one of the surviving Greeed just generally lies low, leaving only one Greeed really doing much of anything for a goodly chunk of the show. Two more Greeed are added, one who ends up being the final big bad, and the other just…is kind of there for the most part and doesn’t have nearly the impact one would expect of them given their introduction.
Score: 7/10
Story: OOO makes use of a victim-of-the-week structure for its story arcs, but it doesn’t always do a good job of making sure those victims in some way connect back to the main, recurring characters of the show, so time spent on them is time wasted. Otherwise, the story is very interesting and the ending is one that does not pull its punches.
Score: 8/10
World Building: The backstory and origin of the Greeed is fascinating, but the origin of the Kogami is not gone into in similar fashion, which is kind of odd given the president’s obsession with beginnings, you’d think they’d delve into that.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: The action in OOO is nice, and there is the interesting touch that wherever one of the Greeed is standing, there is a curtain matching their dominant color scheme, creating a semi-surreal atmosphere when they’re around.
Score: 8/10
Costumes: The Greeed and the monsters they create, the Yummies, have really nice and sometimes utterly demented designs. The OOOs suits are good too, with a mix-and-match gimmick that leads to some interesting color patterns, and the Birth Suit is solid as well.
Score: 9/10
Music: The soundtrack on OOO is very good, especially when it comes to the various songs for each of OOO’s forms.
Score: 8/10
Final Score: 8.125/10
4. Kamen Rider Kuuga
Summary: Long ago, a mysterious transforming warrior fought terrible monsters called the Grongi to defend humanity. In the present day, his tomb is uncovered, and the seal on the monsters he’d fought is lifted. Itinerant wanderer Godai Yusuke has just returned to Japan to meet up with his friend Sawatari Sakurako, who is analyzing the discoveries sent to her from the tomb. Guided by visions he does not understand, Godai goes to the tomb and meets Police Officer Ichijou, who’s on the ball and refuses to let Godai, a civilian, get involved. However, when one of the Grongi attacks the police station, Godai quickly puts on the warrior’s belt, which is then absorbed into his body and allows him to transform into Kamen Rider Kuuga! Can Godai Yusuke defend humanity without being consumed by the power granted to him?
Kamen Riders: Kuuga has only the one rider, Godai Yusuke, and in all honesty, he is the least interesting character on the show; he acts as a catalyst and a force of change for all the other characters on the show, but he himself doesn’t display all that much complexity or depth to his character; he’s just this…really cool guy. He’s not a bad character, but he’s just such a paragon of humanity that I find it difficult to really engage with him, and when the show tries to rack up tension over the matter of him getting corrupted by the power the belt grants him, it’s difficult for me to be invested because I don’t feel any tension, it is just utterly inconceivable on even a primal gut level that Godai could ever fall from grace.
Score: 6/10.
Supporting Cast: This is where Kuuga really, really shines. Sakaurako and Ichijou were already mentioned above, but both in the police force and outside of it there is just this rich and valuable cast of characters who are well presented, well portrayed, and who go through these wonderful character arcs; my absolute favorite is a Police Scientist named Enokida, a single mother whose work in devising a way for the police to be able fight back against the Grongi , and we see how this forces her to spend time away from her young son, and right near the end of the series when her research is finally complete and she is left fearing that her son hates her now, the resolution she gets is just absolutely beautiful and vindicating, and I just loved it.
Score: 10/10.
Villains: The Grongi are very interesting as villains, the implication being that they were an offshoot of humanity that embraced violence to a degree unheard of in the rest of our species, and now that they’ve been reborn in the modern day, they seek to turn us into them by forcing us to embrace that same violence. The individual Grongi approach their killings like they’re serial killers, following their own strange rules about who they will kill and how, and that aspect keeps them really grounded and thus really scary. Plus, they speak their own language, which admittedly is just a cipher of Japanese, but it’s something that really plays to the idea of their existence. That said, we get very little of the big bad of the Grongi, even to the point that when he shows up, we barely see any of him.
Score: 7/10.
Story: The story is a very slow, gradually paced one that prioritizes character interactions over plot, which is just fine due to the themes of the story concerning humanity and how it can be preserved even in the face of dire threats. It’s also told in a very subdued fashion.
Score: 10/10
World Building: In addition to the unearthing of the history of the Grongi and their battle against the Linto, the tribe that served as the ancestors for modern humanity, there’s also the issue of the police force and how integrated they are in the battles with the Grongi, it does a whole hell of a lot to make everything feel real, like it’s something that is actually happening, which makes everything a lot easier to engage in.
Score: 8/10
Cinematography: The show is shot in a very documenatary fashion, which again plays into the show’s grounded presentation and tone, and the fight scenes are much the same, presented in a very straight-forward fashion without a lot of flash, which makes them very substantive in their own way.
Score: 10/10
Costumes: The Kuuga suits are all really nice, each having a dominant color and small but significant differences in design that really plays to their functions, and Kuuga’s ultimate form is just amazing to look at. The Grongi suits, by contrast, are generally a little too light and cheap for me; there are good ones to be sure, but a lot of them needed a little more substance to them.
Score: 8/10
Music: Kuuga’s a pretty dang good score, but outside the opening theme it’s not the main attraction of the show.
Score: 7/10.
Final Score: 8.25/10.
3. Kamen Rider Ryuki
Summary: Shinji Kido is a reporter working for the ORE journal who in the course of investigating a mysterious disappearance, comes upon a strange deck of cards. Upon picking it up, he becomes able to see the monsters that live in a parallel dimension on the other side of any reflective surface known as the Mirror World, where he also encounters Yui Kanzaki who is searching for her missing brother, and Ren Akiyama, who has his own deck which he uses to transform into Kamen Rider Knight. Shinji, over their objections, makes a contract with a monster of his own and becomes Kamen Rider Ryuki. It’s not long before Shinji encounters the apparition of Yui’s older brother, Shirou; he explains that he created not only their Decks but a great many more, and he tasks Shinji with fighting and killing the other Riders for the chance to receive the power to make any one wish come true. Shinji refuses to be party to this, and swears that he will unite all the Kamen Riders together. Can Shinji Kidou bring everyone together, or are their divided causes insurmountable?
Kamen Riders: There are, as outlined above, a lot of Riders in Ryuki, 11 in the course of the series, an additional female one for the movie, and one last one for a straight-to-DVD special billed specifically as featuring 13 Kamen Riders. Some riders, like Shinji and Ren, are around for the bulk of the series, while others are around just for a couple of episodes, and some fill in a time in between, but all are strongly presented with the desires that they fight for and how that drives them. It makes the whole thing of Shinji’s struggle to get all the Riders all on the same difficult in a believable and dramatically engaging way.
Score: 9/10
Supporting Cast: The supporting cast for once is outnumbered by the sheer number of Riders, but the ones who are there are very strong, especially the female characters; particular notice should be made of Reiko, Shinji’s co-worker at the ORE journal who on her own, independently of everything else, manages to piece together the mysteries of the show, all while Shinji is of course keeping his existence as Kamen Rider Ryuki secret from everyone that he can.
Score 9/10
Villains: The average MOTW is a mindless brute thing and is not all that noteworthy; what is of significance are the various villainous riders; as mentioned above each Rider is fighting for their own reasons, sometimes selfish and sometimes absolutely monstrous; one in particular is absolutely psychotic and if he decides that he wants to kill you, he will eventually do so, even if it takes him a damn long time to do so, he will find a way to get past your defenses. Plus, Shirou Kanzaki as the instigator of it all is explored quite well in regards to the reasoning and the mechanics of what he’s doing and why.
Score: 8/10
Story: Kamen Rider Ryuki is an incredibly meta story; for example, it takes the fact that the Monsters exist for the riders to fight them, and it makes that an explicit feature of the narrative. All throughout the show’s run the story repeatedly the very ideas central to Kamen Rider, of the idea of the masked hero fighting for justice and doing Rider Kicks to make monsters explode, and this is something that I really, really like. And even aside from that, the pacing and presentation on the central mystery and how everything ties together is very well done.
Score: 10/10
World Building: While there is point and meaning behind the largely empty nature of the Mirror World, it is still disappointing that that’s all it is, and similarly the extent to which the Rider fights are isolated from the world at large until near the end of the series also hurts things.
Score: 7/10.
Cinematography: One thing that really stands out in Ryuki is a certain sound-effect that plays every time something from the Mirror World gets involved, which appropriately enough is the sound of two pieces of glass being rubbed together. I really like that. The fight scenes are also very nice, and Shinji has one of the most badass Rider Kicks ever…which is for some reason traded down for something a lot less impressive when he gets his big Survive Mode upgrade.
Score: 8/10.
Costumes: The Mirror Monster designs are really, blah. There is an in-story reason for this, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing memorable or noteworthy about the majority of the monsters on the show. The Rider costumes are by contrast much stronger and more visually interesting to look at.
Score: 7/10
Music: There are some really nice songs in the show, especially the ones that play when Ryuki is about to finish off the Mirror Monster of the week. Plus, the use of music in the final episode…
Score: 9/10
Final Score: 8.375/10
2. Kamen Rider W
Summary: In Fuuto, the Windy City, there are devices known as Gaia Memories, capable of turning a person into a super-powered monster far beyond the capabilities of the cops to be able to handle. That’s where Shotaro Hidari comes in; a self-proclaimed hard-boiled detective who likes to think he’s just walked right off a film-noire set, but reality rarely if ever indulges his fantasies. He is partnered with Phillip, a mysterious young man with the ability access any knowledge in the world if given the right keywords, save anything to do with his own past. They are joined Akiko Narumi, daughter of Shotaro’s mentor and Phillip’s rescuer Sokichi, who promptly appoints herself their chief on the grounds that she owns the lease on their joint. Can the Narumi detective agency get to the bottom of the case, or will they wind up like so many discarded Fedoras?
Kamen Riders: The main conceit of W is that the titular rider is the combination of Shotaro and Phillip, the latter transferring his consciousness into Shotaro’s body when he transforms. This two-in-one gimmick is pulled off really well, and the dynamic between Shotaro and Phillip elevates them to far more than the sum of their parts. About a third of the way into the series Ryu Terui shows up as Kamen Rider Accel, with the gimmick that he can also transform from rider into motorcycle; the character is actually a lot better than the gimmick suggests, and he makes some very solid contributions to the overall plot.
Score: 9/10
Supporting Cast: Akiko is the shining star of the supporting cast, energetic and always there with a slipper to smack Shotaro upside the head when he gets stuck in his own film-noire fantasies; there’s also a network of informants and policemen who the Narumi detective encounters regularly, and while they’re fun, they’re not dynamic. W makes an extensive use of a victim-of-the-week narrative, and it fits naturally given the whole detective-agency setup.
Score: 8/10
Villains: The Musuem, run by the Sonozaki’s, a mob family, what better opposition could a detective agency ask for? These are just some of the most messed-up and delightfully complex villains ever, with three add-ons throughout the course of the series, each making solid contributions.
Score: 9/10
Story: Structured as it is around individual unrelated criminal cases, the show is nevertheless able to weave in clues regarding the larger plot adeptly, and the individual story-arcs hit all the right beats more often than not.
Score: 9/10
World Building: Futo is a beautifully and wonderfully realized city full of character and life; when the characters start talking about the wind of Futo, you can feel that breeze passing through your hair.
Score: 10/10
Cinematography: The fights in W are really great, and the suit-acting on W is exemplarary.
Score: 9/10
Costumes: The majority of Kamen Rider W’s forms are really nice to look at and smooth in action, but his final form…eh. Accel isn’t too bad when you get used to him, and he does have a good upgrade form. The Dopants vary wildly and are often patterned after abstact concepts rather than animals or objects, which leads to both creative and clunky designs.
Score: 8/10
Music: W has a wonderful Film Noire style soundtrack, with an absolutely awesome opening theme.
Score: 9/10
Final Score: 8.875/10
1. Kamen Rider Blade
Summary: 10,000 years ago, 53 immortal monsters known as the Undead battled to determine what species would become the dominant one on Earth. The Human Undead won, and thus our path to dominance was assured. But now the seal on the Undead has been undone, the battle royale has resumed. Kenzaki Kazuma is hired by the Board Of Archeological Research Department, or BOARD, to fight and reseal the Undead alongside Sakuya Tachibana to maintain humanity’s victory. Then Tachibana seemingly betrays BOARD to the Undead, while the mysterious Hajime Aikawa considers himself an enemy to both the other Undead and to Humanity. Later, a young man named Mutsuki Kamijo is targeted by the Spider Undead and must struggle against its control to take hold of his own power. In the end, can these four riders come together to defend humanity?
Kamen Riders: The one weak point among the riders is Mutsuki, whose character arc is poorly paced and poorly explained, leaving him unsympathetic for much of the show’s run. The other three riders more than make up for this, being strong and well-developed characters with complex relations with each other and the supporting cast.
Score: 9/10.
Supporting Cast: Shiori Hirose is among the best female leads in the Kamen Rider Franchise and gets a really great and important subplot late in the show with plenty to do before hand, Amane is an HBIC in training who is essential to Hajime’s development, and the rest of the supporting cast is very solid and well put together, with complex connections and dynamics.
Score: 10/10
Villains: Each Undead, whether unintelligent and bestial or cunning and capable of long term plans, represents the same fundamental threat level; whichever Undead is the last one standing will have the power to wipe out all humanity. As such, every fight has a great intensity to it. Then, late in the series, the mastermind behind the unsealing of the Undead reveals himself, and his plans and goals act as a dark mirror to Kenzaki’s noble intentions, so while he’s not the greatest villain, he is an incredibly effective one.
Score: 9/10
Story: The first few episodes are incredibly rushed, not slowing down for even a minute to explain what’s happening or let anything sink in. However, once the show does get its bearings together, something very solid forms, and the latter half of the show just keeps getting continuously better and better as it ties everything together for one of the absolutely most brilliantly conceived and executed endings I have ever seen.
Score: 10/10
World Building: There is a lot of background that is revealed in the course of the show, and it explores the implications of its own premises and themes very well.
Score: 9/10
Cinematography: I don’t know what it is, but there’s just something about the way this show is filmed that really stands out to me and draws me in, makes me really invested in everything that is happening.
Score: 9/10
Costumes: The Undead suits are absolutely fantastic and really freaking scary, these things are nasty; the Rider suits are also good, though King form Blade, Chalice, and Leangle are by far the best, and they are really good.
Score: 9/10
Music: The music is fairly good, but isn’t all that special.
Score: 7/10.
Final Score: 9/10