Why Toys Are Ruining Kamen Rider
It's a well-known fact that Kamen Rider is a children's TV show and it is made solely to sell toys. Even though that is the main purpose, many people can forget about that due to a good story and characters. Unfortunately, Toei has gotten gimmick-crazy in the last couple years. It started out simple enough with a "collect them all gimmick" feeling, but now it feels like a "give me all your money" feeling. So I'm going to examine some of the seasons and see just how the gimmick has effected the shows. Also, as a disclaimer and I'm going to look at gimmick mostly just in the show and the toy itself. There will be some mixing,because well both do kind of tie together.
That's right folks as is the usual, Decade is the one to blame for this issue. Granted he isn't the worst offender, but he is the first. For those of you who don't know who Kamen Rider Decade is, let me explain. Decade was the Kamen Rider for the 10th anniversary of Heisei Era Riders. He had the ability to transform into any rider using what are essentially trading cards. See where this is going? Originally the toy only came with a few cards and kids or collectors would have to buy additional items to get all the cards. I would examine how this effects the story, but the story is already a train wreck without the cards. In actuality, the gimmick probably helps as it at least moved whatever story Decade tried to have. Now, to get to a story that actually knew how to work it's gimmick.
Now I'm totally biased on Kamen Rider W because it is my all time favorite season, but I can back up why this season did so well with the gimmick. The gimmick of this season is pretty weird as it is essentially a USB flash drive except it's also a underground drug. The devices known as Gaia Memories helped move the main plot of the show as the villains of the season were the one's behind the distribution of the Gaia memories. It also made the side stories more interesting as each memory had different powers and were used for different reasons by the people who obtained them. Also, at no time did it feel like the show was forcing us to like the gimmick. It just came organically.
Moving onto Kamen Rider OOO, we have another season with another good gimmick that with a similar method that W had. The gimmick worked with the season because again it helped move the plot. This season's gimmick was ancient medals known as OOO medals. It works due to the medals being a massive driving force for the plot. It turned out ending badly (editor's note: debatable), but that is more on the writer's part and less about the gimmick. Now after two good seasons, we are starting to get where the gimmick starts to ruin the show.
Now I'm skipping Kamen Rider Fourze just because I haven't watched enough to make a real good argument for the season.Though Fourze is when we start to hit over-saturation with the gimmick. You had 6 Gaia Memories for Kamen RIder, you had 18 medals for OOO, and now there 40 switches for Fourze! There is only about 50 episodes a season so the season is probably going to waste time introducing so many switches that the plot will suffer. Kamen Rider Wizard also suffers from this as the season gets crazy and lazy with the wizard rings. If somebody told me that the writers hated writing in new toys for Wizard, I would believe them. No longer do you have this feeling of a quest or any actual satisfaction of the power being obtained. To obtain the new power, the object is just handed to Kamen Rider Wizard. Usually if a power is just handed over, there is a specific reason. The story falls flat for Wizard. It's boring without the gimmick because they didn't have anything to back up the side stories. It was also boring with the gimmick because the writers could not be creative with the gimmick.
To wrap this up, I'm combining both Kamen Rider Gaim and Drive together because both are polar opposites when it comes to an over saturated gimmick and how it was used in the show. Kamen Rider Gaim found the perfect way for it to use the gimmick, sell a lot of toys, and still not feel like a 46 episode toy commercial. Kamen Rider Drive is still going on, but it already suffering a similar fate as Wizard. What made the gimmick in Gaim work was the fact that gimmick was divided among many different Riders. While there could be 20 different gimmick items, when it gets split between 9 people it doesn't sound as bad as 40 to one person. This the exact issue with Drive. I have already noticed the best episodes so far are the episodes where nothing new is introduced. The worst thing for Drive right now is there is a ton and even between 2 ,maybe even 3 later on, Riders, there still is just too much.
So the way I see it, Kamen Rider is has 3 options: lower the amount of gimmick items (which could hurt toy sales,) find a way to make the gimmick work without making the show be a glorified toy commercial, keep the saturated gimmick and pray a writer knows to work around. Needless to say, Kamen Rider has some work to do.
This has been a Throwback Thursday Edition Article! Be sure to check out other throwback articles to come!
